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Malagaris (Oxford Univ.) provides a useful study of one of the great, if still understudied, Indian Muslim intellectuals. Situating Biruni in his dynamic cultural and thus larger Eurasian historical context (10th–11th century), Malagaris contributes to the scholarship on the era. While the details are still debated, Malagaris provides an outline of Biruni's life that includes years of travel and cultural and educational collaboration. This text will help students explore some of Biruni’s key moments, experiences in an intellectual life that has few known parallels. Biruni is a unique subject in that he relied on the patronage of some of the most important figures of medieval Eurasia. Reporting on his remarkable range of interests, Malagaris also offers entertaining accounts of how this man engaged his contemporaries through substantive explorations in grammar, the polemics around objective truth, and methods of debate. As they learn about the conditions under which Biruni pursued such conversations, readers will gain insight into the importance of his strong alliances and spirited intellectual rivalries. Along the way, Malagaris unfolds a story of intellectual transmission that links Biruni to Avicenna, and of the long chain of scholarship that followed as future generations engaged this great scholar’s works. Readers can appreciate this legacy thanks especially to the concluding bibliographic essay.

In the seventeenth century, the Mughal Empire in South Asia witnessed a remarkable political experiment of imperial centralization taken to its apogee, similar to global early modern trends elsewhere such as French Absolutism or Habsburg rule. The dissertation examines the Great Timurid emperor, Aurangzeb ʿAlamgir’s (r. 1658–1707) peripatetic statecraft and reconstructs how Hanafi legal canonization and juridical attitudes forged imperial governance and its everyday operations. While contemporary scholarship focuses on cosmopolitan mobility and exchange during the “first globalization” to the neglect of early modern state formations, this study turns our attention towards legal systems of land-based empires that remained resilient well into the eighteenth century. It illustrates how Mughal centralization was molded by layered interactions with local elites, gradations in property regimes, and flexible bureaucracies across the Indian subcontinent. It covers Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west to Kashmir in the north, large swathes of the Indo-Gangetic plains to the east and central India to the Deccan in the empire’s southern fringes.I analyze the configuration of Mughal sovereignty around the Hanafi “law of the land,” showing how the imperial canonization, Al-fatawa al-ʿalamkiriyya (“The Institutions of the World Conqueror”) formed the pivot for reforming the empire’s legal architecture. From a transregional perspective, the study articulates the Central Asian heritage of the Mughals and compares their shared legal affiliation with the Ottomans. Weaving an intellectual history around the effects of canonization, this study evaluates different registers in which Hanafi law proliferated. Starting from the compilation of the fatawa by a team of imperial jurists under Shaikh Nizam’s supervision in 1660s, the dissertation moves to its everyday application across the empire. It demonstrates that a critical appraisal of the place of law in Mughal India must proceed from cano

In the seventeenth century, the Mughal Empire in South Asia witnessed a remarkable political experiment of imperial centralization taken to its apogee, similar to global early modern trends elsewhere such as French Absolutism or Habsburg rule. The dissertation examines the Great Timurid emperor, Aurangzeb ʿAlamgir’s (r. 1658–1707) peripatetic statecraft and reconstructs how Hanafi legal canonization and juridical attitudes forged imperial governance and its everyday operations. While contemporary scholarship focuses on cosmopolitan mobility and exchange during the “first globalization” to the neglect of early modern state formations, this study turns our attention towards legal systems of land-based empires that remained resilient well into the eighteenth century. It illustrates how Mughal centralization was molded by layered interactions with local elites, gradations in property regimes, and flexible bureaucracies across the Indian subcontinent. It covers Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west to Kashmir in the north, large swathes of the Indo-Gangetic plains to the east and central India to the Deccan in the empire’s southern fringes.I analyze the configuration of Mughal sovereignty around the Hanafi “law of the land,” showing how the imperial canonization, Al-fatawa al-ʿalamkiriyya (“The Institutions of the World Conqueror”) formed the pivot for reforming the empire’s legal architecture. From a transregional perspective, the study articulates the Central Asian heritage of the Mughals and compares their shared legal affiliation with the Ottomans. Weaving an intellectual history around the effects of canonization, this study evaluates different registers in which Hanafi law proliferated. Starting from the compilation of the fatawa by a team of imperial jurists under Shaikh Nizam’s supervision in 1660s, the dissertation moves to its everyday application across the empire. It demonstrates that a critical appraisal of the place of law in Mughal India must proceed from cano

The present essay explores three inseparable facets of the BJP’s heritage ideology and practices: the state’s reluctance to fulfil its traditional role of guardian of the nation’s built landscape and the concomitant resort to neoliberal outsourcing strategies to fill in the gap, combined with a strong sectarian bias at work in the shrinking state-sponsored projects of patrimonial management; a strong appetite for building new and exorbitant heritage artefacts; finally, the gradual obliteration of all material traces related to the plurisecular presence of Muslims in the subcontinent through physical elimination or renaming, resulting in the growing Hinduization of India’s public space.

Over the course of Emperor Akbar’s reign (1556–1605), an exceptionally high volume of illustrated manuscripts was produced. The manuscript workshop was staffed accordingly: between the 1580s and early seventeenth century, over one hundred painters found employ at the Mughal court. Thanks to contemporaneous ascriptions found in the margins of the manuscripts’ illustrated pages, the artists’ names and the capacities (designer or colorist) in which they worked are known. This essay uses digital and sociological methods to examine networks of artistic collaborations across select manuscript projects, arguing that the structure of workshop production teams—in which membership frequently fluctuated—facilitated the formation of a synthetic imperial style.

The book presents a set of primary sources generated during a series of armed confrontations between the English East India Company and the Mughal Empire in the 1680s and 1690s. The central document is the diary of an English soldier who lived through the very destructive Siege of Bombay. It is accompanied by a number of other related sources generated both by South Asians and by Europeans. There is also a lengthy introduction by the co-editors that sets the sources in the context of Mughal politics and warfare, English attempts at expansion into the Indian Ocean world, and the extraordinary ethnic and religious complexity of seventeenth-century South Asia.

The Mughal succession crises occurring between the political downfall of Akbar (c. 1600) and Aurangzeb's death (1707) were portrayed in detail by a considerable number of European observers. This essay intends to study the way those critical moments, that would eventually lead to the disintegration of the Mughal empire, were openly desired both in Goa and Lisbon: they somewhat represented the life insurance of a defenseless Estado da Índia forced to face a giant "the Grão Mogor" that could not be controlled. On the other hand, and for different reasons, the agents of the English East India Company, operating on the ground, as well as the theatergoers that saw John Dryden's plays in London, favored the dynastic stability of Timurid India. This represents an interesting diversity of European images of the Mogor, and asks for a careful analysis of their motives and impact.

The Mughal succession crises occurring between the political downfall of Akbar (c. 1600) and Aurangzeb's death (1707) were portrayed in detail by a considerable number of European observers. This essay intends to study the way those critical moments, that would eventually lead to the disintegration of the Mughal empire, were openly desired both in Goa and Lisbon: they somewhat represented the life insurance of a defenseless Estado da Índia forced to face a giant "the Grão Mogor" that could not be controlled. On the other hand, and for different reasons, the agents of the English East India Company, operating on the ground, as well as the theatergoers that saw John Dryden's plays in London, favored the dynastic stability of Timurid India. This represents an interesting diversity of European images of the Mogor, and asks for a careful analysis of their motives and impact.

Research on the historical geography of South Asian cities in the Mughal period (1526–1857) is hampered by the past two centuries of destructive conquest, colonial public works, and urbanization. This paper turns to a neglected body of legends about tunnels said to link the Mughal gardens, shrines, and forts of Lahore, Pakistan. Although there is no physical evidence of tunnels, the stories parallel surface roadway networks and thereby shed light on the spatial structure of Mughal Lahore as it has been remembered and imagined up to the present day. In addition, the alleged tunnels served a variety of functions, which the paper interprets first as a body of historical evidence and then as an expression of modern cultural interest in Mughal Lahore.

THE relationship between business and politics in preindustrial societies has seldom been clear from historical records. I have argued elsewhere that the major banking firms of Mughal India were central to the imperial system. These 'great firms' were not parasites, passively supportive of the state because it preserved the law and order necessary for trade; they were not self-contained caste communities interacting with the government through the leaders of panchayats or guilds. Their functions were as important to the government as those of its official treasurers, and their desertion of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century helped bring about its collapse.

THE relationship between business and politics in preindustrial societies has seldom been clear from historical records. I have argued elsewhere that the major banking firms of Mughal India were central to the imperial system. These 'great firms' were not parasites, passively supportive of the state because it preserved the law and order necessary for trade; they were not self-contained caste communities interacting with the government through the leaders of panchayats or guilds. Their functions were as important to the government as those of its official treasurers, and their desertion of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century helped bring about its collapse.

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about

This archival material has been provided for educational purposes. Ball State University Libraries recognizes that some historic items may include offensive content. Our statement regarding objectionable content is available at: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/about