Muslim and Christian Identities in the Early Modern World

FAIN: FT-248733-16

Jyotsna G. Singh
Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)

A study of Christian-Muslim encounters in the early modern period.

This is an interdisciplinary study that looks afresh at the expanding early modern European world with an emphasis on Christian-Muslim cross-cultural encounters. Recent scholarship has often focused on Europeans casting their gaze on the Islamic domains, especially on Anglo-Ottoman (Turkish) interactions. Transcultural Islam pluralizes that gaze by identifying distinct yet often overlapping processes of identity formation in both the Muslim and Christian worlds, with a particular emphasis on Mughal India from the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. Developing five case studies on the shifting and diverse constructions of Islam within inter-cultural and intra-cultural contexts, this book draws on varied works, ranging from Anglican travel narratives, Western discourses on the Qur'an, and Mughal biographies and paintings, among others. In doing so, it charts historical struggles over the meaning of "religion" within Christian and Islamic histories and cultures.