Making a Muslim: Contesting Identities in 19th century North India (S.Akbar Zaidi)

A Transregional Conversation Muslims in colonial north India, in the region known as Hindustan, have been examined and analysed in anachronistic and teleological terms, with the now familiar separatism-to-Partition story dominating. Many scholars have subscribed to this formulation without having examined sources in Urdu and from Muslims themselves. This Book de-emphasises both the colonial archive and its particular narrative, as well as the familiar voices of the dominant discourse—both in terms of great men and in terms of dominant institutions— and allows us to rethink notions of ‘the Muslim’, in its numerous, complex, and often contradictory, forms, which emerged in colonial north India after 1857. Dr. Zaidi will present the main contributions of his latest book and will engage in wider comparative conversations about Muslim identity formations in South Asia and the Middle East in the late nineteeth and early twentieth centuries. S. Akbar Zaidi taught courses on colonial history, Pakistani history and on the political economy of South Asia at Columbia University from 2010-20, where he held a joint position at the School of International and Public Affairs, and the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. He is currently the Executive Director (Vice Chancellor) of the IBA, Karachi.