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CO-SPONSORED EVENTS HELD AT THE HUMANITIES CENTER
From Religious Establishment to Reformation: Sufi Islam in South Asia and the World - Nile Green
Thursday November 29, 2012 | 04:00 -07:00 PM | Stanford Humanities Center
Nile Green is Professor of History at UCLA and founding Director of the UCLA Program on Central Asia. He was previously Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the Manchester University and Milburn Research Fellow at Oxford University. A specialist on the Muslim communities of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the Indian Ocean, his research brings Islamic history into conversation with global history. He is the author of five monographs, including Islam and the Army in Colonial India: Sepoy Religion in the Service of Empire (Cambridge, 2009). Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 2011; winner of the Albert Hourani Award for outstanding publishing in Middle East studies) and Sufism: A Global History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). He has lived and researched among Muslim communities from India, Pakistan and Iran to Morocco, Syria and Yemen.
South Asia is often regarded as being especially attached to the saints and shrines of Sufi Islam. But between the medieval and early modern periods, Sufi Islam became embedded in societies and states as far apart as Western Africa and Southeast Asia. Whether through the patronage of the Mughal Empire or the devotion of peasants, Sufi leaders and their families emerged as a powerful and self-replicating elite that in turn survived the nineteenth century through close ties with colonial systems. By taking a social science approach that recognizes the powerful and elitist character of Sufi tradition, this lecture shows how the Muslim reformation of the twentieth century cannot be understood unless placed in relation to the religious establishment it tried to depose.
***Center for South Asia Annual Lecture and Reception***
From Religious Establishment to Reformation: Sufi Islam in South Asia and the World - Nile Green
Thursday November 29, 2012 | 04:00 -07:00 PM | Stanford Humanities Center
Nile Green is Professor of History at UCLA and founding Director of the UCLA Program on Central Asia. He was previously Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the Manchester University and Milburn Research Fellow at Oxford University. A specialist on the Muslim communities of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the Indian Ocean, his research brings Islamic history into conversation with global history. He is the author of five monographs, including Islam and the Army in Colonial India: Sepoy Religion in the Service of Empire (Cambridge, 2009). Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 2011; winner of the Albert Hourani Award for outstanding publishing in Middle East studies) and Sufism: A Global History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). He has lived and researched among Muslim communities from India, Pakistan and Iran to Morocco, Syria and Yemen.
South Asia is often regarded as being especially attached to the saints and shrines of Sufi Islam. But between the medieval and early modern periods, Sufi Islam became embedded in societies and states as far apart as Western Africa and Southeast Asia. Whether through the patronage of the Mughal Empire or the devotion of peasants, Sufi leaders and their families emerged as a powerful and self-replicating elite that in turn survived the nineteenth century through close ties with colonial systems. By taking a social science approach that recognizes the powerful and elitist character of Sufi tradition, this lecture shows how the Muslim reformation of the twentieth century cannot be understood unless placed in relation to the religious establishment it tried to depose.
***Center for South Asia Annual Lecture and Reception***
All events take place at Stanford University, unless otherwise noted.
The Calendar of Events lists events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center. For a more comprehensive listing of university-wide events, see the Stanford Event Calendar.
The Calendar of Events lists events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center. For a more comprehensive listing of university-wide events, see the Stanford Event Calendar.