Sebastian R. Prange - Monsoon Islam (Cambridge Oceanic Histories)

Across the world, historians have taken an oceanic turn. New maritime histories offer fresh approaches to the study of global regions, and to long-distance and long-term connections. Cambridge Oceanic Histories includes studies across whole oceans (the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic) and particular seas (among them, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the North Sea, the Black Sea). The series is global in geography, ecumenical in historical method, and wide in temporal coverage, intended as a key repository for the most innovative transnational and world histories over the longue dure. It brings maritime history into productive conversation with other strands of historical research, including environmental history, legal history, intellectual history, labour history, cultural history, economic history and the history of science and technology. The editors invite studies that analyse the human and natural history of the worlds oceans and seas from anywhere on the globe and from any and all historical periods.

Monsoon Islam

Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast

Sebastian R. Prange

University of British Columbia, Vancouver

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Sebastian R. Prange 2018

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ISBN 978-1-108-42438-7 Hardback

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For

Tara,

my reason why.

The history of Monsoon Islam is about the tension between global impulses and local exigencies. Something similar may be said about the writing of this book, which required me to combine the study of distant places with the need to negotiate frequent changes to my own immediate environs, institutional and otherwise.

The long ontogenesis of this work, spanning well over a decade from conception to completion, has allowed me to reflect on its implications, pursue various tangents, and test its findings in front of diverse audiences. I have found it especially rewarding to situate this work within not just one but several vibrant fields of historical enquiry. These include major ones such as the scholarship on medieval South India, the Indian Ocean, or global Islam, but also more specialized domains such as the study of Indo-Islamic architecture, Rasulid manuscripts, or piracy. The contours of these fields have repeatedly shifted under my feet as I researched, wrote, and revised this book. I am certain that the scholarly landscape will continue to evolve and hopeful that this study itself will help displace a mound or two.

The empirical foundations of this book were laid during my doctoral studies at the University of Londons School of Oriental and African Studies. It is only with the passage of time that I have come to recognize how many of what I thought of as my ideas had been discreetly instilled in me by my advisor, Daud Ali. The other members of my committee, William Gervase Clarence-Smith and Avril Powell, were likewise active participants in (what I thought of as) my work. My studies at SOAS, including multiple stays in Yemen and India for language training and fieldwork, were generously supported by the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Institute of Historical Research, the University of London, and the Leigh Douglas Memorial Fund. I am also grateful to the International Economic History Association for recognizing my doctoral research with its triennial prize for best dissertation on a premodern topic (20082011), an honour all the more gratifying since my work in many ways challenges the primacy of an economic history lens for understanding the nature of premodern trade.

Fieldwork in Yemen and India would not have been possible without help by many individuals. The officers of the British Archaeological Mission in Yemen were instrumental in securing an otherwise elusive research permit. In Sanaa, I was welcomed by Tim Mackintosh-Smith as well as the Centre Franais dArchologie et de Sciences Sociales de Sanaa. In Hadhramawt, I was splendidly hosted by Hassan al-Amr and received magnanimous support from the curators of the Maktabat al-Aqf and Markaz al-Nr (Dr al-Muaf) archives. Amn Bhir provided crucial assistance to my survey of local manuscripts. In Kerala, my requests to examine inscriptions and manuscripts at mosques and shrines were, to the great credit of their custodians and congregations, approved bar only one exception. I particularly benefitted from my extended period of study at the shrine of Zayn al-Dn Makhdm in Kochi, and the information provided by its caretaker, the late Mohammed Abdul Latheef. In Kozhikode, Hamza and Muhsin Bahfaqy and S.M. Jiffri Thangal went to great lengths to facilitate my research, not least by seeking out a number of Arabic genealogies. Although in the end these materials did not speak to the particular concerns of this study, it is hoped that in future they will receive the scholarly attention they merit.