Papers by Jyoti G Balachandran
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Apr 14, 2023
The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2015
Composed by Amīr Khwurd around the middle of the fourteenth century, the Siyar al-Awliyā’ present... more Composed by Amīr Khwurd around the middle of the fourteenth century, the Siyar al-Awliyā’ presents a coherent history of the Chishti spiritual order (silsilah) in the Indian subcontinent from the early thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century. Historians have mined the text for information on Sufis and Sufism while ignoring its special attributes. This article makes a historiographical and methodological intervention by showing how a Sufi biographical compendium (tazkira) can be used to write a history of the Muslim society and an incipient Chishti fraternity.
Author(s): Balachandran, Jyoti Gulati | Advisor(s): Subrahmanyam, Sanjay | Abstract: This dissert... more Author(s): Balachandran, Jyoti Gulati | Advisor(s): Subrahmanyam, Sanjay | Abstract: This dissertation examines the processes through which a regional community of learned Muslim men - religious scholars, teachers, spiritual masters and others involved in the transmission of religious knowledge - emerged in the central plains of eastern Gujarat in the fifteenth century, a period marked by the formation and expansion of the Gujarat sultanate (c. 1407-1572). Many members of this community shared a history of migration into Gujarat from the southern Arabian Peninsula, north Africa, Iran, Central Asia and the neighboring territories of the Indian subcontinent. I analyze two key aspects related to the making of a community of learned Muslim men in the fifteenth century - the production of a variety of texts in Persian and Arabic by learned Muslims and the construction of tomb shrines sponsored by the sultans of Gujarat. The texts memorialized the lives of many of the Muslim spiritual figures (sufi shaykhs) who migrated and settled in Gujarat in the early part of the fifteenth century while the royal interest in and sponsporship of tomb shrines of pious, charismatic Muslim men like Shaykh Ahmad Khattū (d. 1445) in Sarkhej, Sayyid Burhān al-Dīn `Abdullāh (d. 1453) in Vatwa and Sayyid Sirāj al-Dīn Muhammad (d. 1475) in Rasūlābād contributed to the creation of a Muslim sacred geography in eastern Gujarat. Through a re-reading of contemporary and near-contemporary court-chronicles produced in the region and a tapping of hitherto under-investigated sufi literature in Persian and Arabic, I show how textual narratives and tomb shrines were important elements that tied the memory of many fifteenth-century migrant learned Muslims to their specific regional context in Gujarat for posterity. In turn, the region acquired part of its distinctive identity through the memorialization of these learned figures. The dissertation attempts to bring attention to several crucial political, social and cultural processes that shaped the region of Gujarat in the late medieval and early modern period, and seeks to highlight the importance of integrating sufi texts to our understanding of these processes.
Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 74:1, 2020
Despite his familiarity with the well established Indo-Persian history-writing traditions, 'Abdul... more Despite his familiarity with the well established Indo-Persian history-writing traditions, 'Abdullāh Muḥammad al-Makkī al-Āṣafī al-Ulughkhānī 'Ḥājjī al-Dabīr' (b. 1540) chose to write his history of the Gujarat Sultanate and of other Indo-Muslim polities in Arabic. Ulughkhānī consulted several Persian chronicles produced in Delhi and Ahmedabad, including Sikandar Manjhū's Mir'āt-i Sikandarī (composed c. 1611) that has served as the standard history of the Gujarat Sultanate for modern historians. Despite its 'exceptionalism', Ulughkhānī's early seventeenth-century Ẓafar al-wālih bi Muẓaffar wa ālihi has largely been seen as a corroborative text to Persian tawārīkh. This article re-evaluates the importance of Ulughkhānī's Arabic history of Gujarat by situating the text and its author in the social, political and intellectual context of the sixteenth-century western Indian ocean. Specifically, it demonstrates how the several historical digressions in the text are not dispensable aberrations to his narrative but integral to Ulughkhānī's expansive social horizons at the time of robust commercial, pilgrimage, diplomatic and scholarly connections between Gujarat and the Red Sea regions.
![Research paper thumbnail of Ḥājjī l-Dabīr [Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/61256586/thumbnails/1.jpg)
564 words) ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Makkī al-Āṣafī Ulughkhānī, called also Ḥājjī l-Dabīr (b. 946/153... more 564 words) ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Makkī al-Āṣafī Ulughkhānī, called also Ḥājjī l-Dabīr (b. 946/1539-40), wrote an Arabic history of Gujarat titled Ẓafar al-wālih bi-Muẓa far wa-ālihi ("The excellent victories of Muẓa far and his family"). The exact date of his death is unknown, but his text indicates that he was still alive in the third decade of the eleventh century/second decade of the seventeenth century. Most of our biographical information on Ḥājjī l-Dabīr comes only from his text. Ḥājjī l-Dabīr was born in Mecca to Sirāj al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Naharwālī b. Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Farīd al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿOmar b. Isḥāq b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Qāsim. His father, an o cial in the court of the Gujarat sultans, had travelled to Mecca in 942/1535 with Āṣaf Khān (d. 962/1555), wazīr (high-ranking o cial) to Sulṭān Bahādur Shāh (r. 932-43/1526-37). They were in charge of transferring and safeguarding the sultan's family and treasures as relations between Bahādur Shāh and the Mughal emperor Humāyūn (r. 937-47/1530-40 and 962-3/1555-6) became tense.
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 2004
This article reflects upon the manner in which Amir Khwurd assimilated his diverse oral and writt... more This article reflects upon the manner in which Amir Khwurd assimilated his diverse oral and written archive-both acknowledged and anonymous-in the writing of his mid-fourteenth century tazkira, the Siyar al-awliya’. More specifically, it looks at Khwurd’s usage of Amir Hasan Sijzi's Fa'waid al-Fu'ad and Ziya' al-Din Barani's Tarikh-i Firuz Shahi in presenting a coherent history of the Chishti silsilah in the Indian sub-continent.
Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, Volume VII: Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and the New World (1500-1600) edited by D. Thomas and J. Chesworth, 2015
Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2015
Composed by Amīr Khwurd around the middle of the fourteenth century, the Siyar al-Awliyā’ present... more Composed by Amīr Khwurd around the middle of the fourteenth century, the Siyar al-Awliyā’ presents a coherent history of the Chishti spiritual order (silsilah) in the Indian subcontinent from the early thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century. Historians have mined the text for information on Sufis and Sufism while ignoring its special attributes. This article makes a historiographical and methodological intervention by showing how a Sufi biographical compendium (tazkira) can be used to write a history of the Muslim society and an incipient Chishti fraternity.
Book Reviews by Jyoti G Balachandran
Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2016
Journal of Early Modern History, 2020
Books by Jyoti G Balachandran
Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400-1650, 2020
The Introduction establishes the historical and historiographical context for the production of P... more The Introduction establishes the historical and historiographical context for the production of Persian narrative texts in Gujarat in the fifteenth century. It emphasizes the role of Sufi texts as sites where an expanding Muslim community’s past in Gujarat was narrated and negotiated. At the same time, it places this development within a longer history of Muslim settlements and Sufi textual production in the subcontinent. The Introduction further discusses the importance of spatial contexts for the dissemination of texts, primarily Sufi residences and tomb-shrines, and in creating a regional identity and a history of the Muslim community that was unique to Gujarat.
Oxford University Press, 2020
This book explores the narrative power of texts in creating communities. Through an investigation... more This book explores the narrative power of texts in creating communities. Through an investigation of genealogical, historical, and biographical texts, it retrieves the social history of the Muslim community in Gujarat, a region with one of the earliest records of Muslim presence in the Indian subcontinent. By reconstructing the literary, social, and historical world of Sufi preceptors, disciples, and descendants from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, Narrative Pasts highlights the role of learned Muslim men in imparting a prominent regional and historical identity to Gujarat. The book reveals how distinct forms of community and association were created and shaped over time through architecture, shrine veneration, and most importantly, textual redefinition.
Narrative Pasts demonstrates that Gujarat was not only an important hub of maritime Indian Ocean trade, but also an integral part of the historical and narrative processes that shaped medieval and early modern South Asia. Employing new and rarely used literary materials in Persian and Arabic, this book brings new life and vitality to the history of the region by integrating Gujarat’s sultanate and Mughal past with the larger socio-cultural histories of Islamic South Asia.
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Papers by Jyoti G Balachandran
Book Reviews by Jyoti G Balachandran
Books by Jyoti G Balachandran
Narrative Pasts demonstrates that Gujarat was not only an important hub of maritime Indian Ocean trade, but also an integral part of the historical and narrative processes that shaped medieval and early modern South Asia. Employing new and rarely used literary materials in Persian and Arabic, this book brings new life and vitality to the history of the region by integrating Gujarat’s sultanate and Mughal past with the larger socio-cultural histories of Islamic South Asia.
Narrative Pasts demonstrates that Gujarat was not only an important hub of maritime Indian Ocean trade, but also an integral part of the historical and narrative processes that shaped medieval and early modern South Asia. Employing new and rarely used literary materials in Persian and Arabic, this book brings new life and vitality to the history of the region by integrating Gujarat’s sultanate and Mughal past with the larger socio-cultural histories of Islamic South Asia.