{"title":"The Growth of Arabic Biographical Writing in South Asia from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century","authors":"Mohsin Ali","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000478","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This essay surveys the Arabic biographical writing of select South Asian Muslim scholars from the late Mughal to the colonial period to argue that, for scholars participating in transregional networks of hadith scholarship, Arabic biographical writing served purposes distinct from Indo-Persianate biographical writing. South Asian scholars chose to write Arabic histories to access pasts and construct communities that centered the ʿulama’ as a distinct class of Muslims who represented the continuity of Islamicate discursive traditions across time and space. Arabic biographical histories indicate a different sense of temporality and geography than Indo-Persianate histories by both marking the passage of time through the transmission of religious knowledge over generations and mapping transregional scholarly networks.1 However, this did not necessarily entail a disavowal of Indo-Persianate histories that placed greater emphasis on saintly miracles, blessings, and shrines.2 This productive tension between Indo-Arabic and Indo-Persianate writing is missed when only Indo-Persianate texts are examined.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"134 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000478","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This essay surveys the Arabic biographical writing of select South Asian Muslim scholars from the late Mughal to the colonial period to argue that, for scholars participating in transregional networks of hadith scholarship, Arabic biographical writing served purposes distinct from Indo-Persianate biographical writing. South Asian scholars chose to write Arabic histories to access pasts and construct communities that centered the ʿulama’ as a distinct class of Muslims who represented the continuity of Islamicate discursive traditions across time and space. Arabic biographical histories indicate a different sense of temporality and geography than Indo-Persianate histories by both marking the passage of time through the transmission of religious knowledge over generations and mapping transregional scholarly networks.1 However, this did not necessarily entail a disavowal of Indo-Persianate histories that placed greater emphasis on saintly miracles, blessings, and shrines.2 This productive tension between Indo-Arabic and Indo-Persianate writing is missed when only Indo-Persianate texts are examined.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Middle East Studies publishes original research on politics, society and culture in the Middle East from the seventh century to the present day. The journal also covers Spain, south-east Europe, and parts of Africa, South Asia, and the former Soviet Union for subjects of relevance to Middle Eastern civilization. Particular attention is paid to the history, politics, economics, anthropology, sociology, literature, and cultural studies of the area and to comparative religion, theology, law, and philosophy. Each issue contains approximately 50 pages of detailed book reviews. Subscribers to the print version also receive the Review of Middle East Studies free. Published under the auspices of the Middle East Studies Association of North America