Akbar's Chamber - Experts Talk Islam

Over its long history, Islam has taken on many distinctive regional forms. With its many languages and countless cultural influences, South Asia – comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – has produced a particularly rich variety of these localized versions of Islam. Taking the example of the Tamil-speaking Muslims of southern India and Sri Lanka, in this podcast we’ll explore how living by the shores of the Indian Ocean shaped the contours of their maritime Islam.  Turning to more recent times, we’ll also see how religious reformists from Pakistan and the Gulf have tried to ‘purify’ or ‘standardize’ the way Tamils practice their faith. Nile Green talks to Torsten Tschacher, the author of Race, Religion, and the ‘Indian Muslim’ Predicament in Singapore (Routledge, 2017).

Situated in northern Afghanistan, the ancient city of Balkh was one of the great cultural crossroads of world history. Following its transformation from a sacred Buddhist center into one of the holy cities of Islam, this podcast delves into the little-known interactions of Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish peoples along the pilgrimage and trade routes of Central Asia. We’ll hear what the recent discovery of medieval manuscripts in arcane languages like Bactrian and Judeo-Arabic tells us about everyday life in this pluralistic society, as well as the gradual process of conversion as Balkh’s Buddhist stupas gave way to a new sacred geography. Nile Green talks to Arezou Azad, the author of Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh (Oxford University Press, 2013).

In terms of geographical breadth no less than population numbers, the British Empire was the largest ‘empire of Muslims’ in history, reaching from West to East Africa via Egypt and Palestine through India (and what is now Pakistan) to the Maldives and Malaysia. Right in the middle – in easy reach of the colonial transport hubs of Aden and Suez – lay the holy cities of Arabia, under Ottoman then Saudi jurisdiction. Taking the hajj as its focus, in this podcast we unravel the policies and compromises of empire that enabled larger numbers of pilgrims than ever to make the journey to Mecca. Nile Green talks to John Slight, the author of The British Empire and the Hajj, 1865-1956 (Harvard University Press, 2015).

When Middle Eastern students were sent to study medicine in Europe, one of the unexpected outcomes was the introduction to Iran of the fashionable occult movements that flourished in the West amid the decline of traditional Christianity. Using the scientific language of laboratory-like seances, Iran’s occult impresarios presented their methods as a modernized route to reliable religious knowledge. As Muslim clerics responded in similar terms, even Ayatollah Khomeini drew on occult ideas in his early writings. Following this imported ‘metafizik’ as it gave shape to new expressions of Iranian spirituality, in this podcast we’ll explore how many Iranian citizens have circumvented the official religiosity of the Islamic Republic. Nile Green talks to Alireza Doostdar, the author of The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny (Princeton University Press, 2018).

The late nineteenth century saw the onset of a great religious transformation that might well be called the Muslim reformation. Among Sunnis at least, arguably the most influential figure was the Egyptian thinker Muhammad Abduh. In this podcast, we’ll follow Abduh from his rural upbringing through his youthful years of political activism and debates with Christian missionaries to his later cooperation with Egypt’s colonial rulers and the rationalist theology of his Treatise on Divine Unity. Turning finally to his legacy, we’ll ask whether his key role in this reformation makes it useful to consider him the ‘Martin Luther of Islam’? Nile Green talks to Oliver Scharbrodt, the author of Islam and the Baha’i Faith: A Comparative Study of Muhammad ‘Abduh and ‘Abdul-Baha ‘Abbas (Routledge, 2008).

Over the past millennium, pilgrimages to the shrines of Sufi saints have played an important part in religious and cultural life for most regions of the Muslim world. But in modern times, these shrines have become the focus of intense criticism by Muslim reformists, who see them as sites of superstitious deviation from true religion. In this podcast, we’ll follow these developments in South Asia, home to the largest Muslim population of any world region. After explaining the general characteristics of shrine-based Islam, we’ll look at how the Pakistani state joined the larger program of Muslim reform by seizing control of most of the country’s major pilgrimage centers. By seeing how this happened, we’ll learn how religious reform plays out ‘on the ground’ through the contest to control specific sacred spaces. Nile Green talks to Umber Bin Ibad, the author of Sufi Shrines and the Pakistani State: The End of Religious Pluralism (IB Tauris, 2019).