SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Dis-Solving the Myth: The West in South Asian Muslims' Travel Narratives 1765-1857

Abstract

This study is aimed at exploring the image of the West as reflected in the travelogues, personal notes, letters, autobiographies and other non fictional writings of the Muslims in South Asia in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. The concept of the West in the literary and scholarly discourse of South Asia during the twentieth century has been so elusive and intangible and human perceptions, deep-rooted fixations, inherent inclinations and socio-political connotations have mystified the idea to the extent that the East and the West are being generally considered as two distinct and opposing entities and studied either from one end of the spectrum or the other. In the literary and academic discourse of the South Asian Muslims, the West and its influence on Muslim culture and politics have been debated greatly after the advent of modernity in South Asia but the early encounter of the South Asian Muslims with the West has not been analyzed in its chronological order. The current study attempts to view the development of the South Asian Muslims' perception of the west until 1857.  

Speaker Biography

Najeeba Arif is an Assistant Professor (Urdu) at International Islamic University, Islamabad. She has authored and edited seven books and 25 articles in various national and international journals. She has been translating widely from English to Urdu and also writes fiction and poetry in Urdu. Her research interests include socio-political study of South Asian literature in Urdu, Classical Punjabi Sufi poetry and contemporary revival of Sufi elements in Urdu literature.