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Hosted by the Asian Studies department, as part of the 2010 Virani Lecture Series in Islamic Studies, one of the most important directions in religious studies over recent decades has been an emphasis on the lived experience of those who participate in any given transcendent tradition that includes such domains of life as ritual, worship, and sacred authority. This approach invariably brings home the extraordinary diversity of ways of being part of any sacred tradition. Nonetheless, outsiders often attribute to Islamic sacred texts singular meanings and absolute authority as, indeed, do some Muslim ideologues themselves. In contrast, this talk explores the value of a more contextual approach to understanding engagement with Islamic texts and symbols, and provides examples from three different parts of the Indian subcontinent in three different centuries. The talk introduces an Isma`ili poet who flourished 600 years ago in the northwestern area of the subcontinent; an ex-soldier in colonial central India; and, finally, a young Bengali college girl affiliated with a Jama`at Islamic organization in todays Bangladesh. Webcast Sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

Biography of Speaker

Barbara Metcalf  is the Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History at the University of Michigan and Professor Emeritus History at the University of California, David. She is a specialist in the history of South Asia, especially the colonial period, and the history of the Muslim population of India and Pakistan.

Selected Books Available at UBC Library

Metcalf, B. D., & Metcalf, T. R. (2006). A concise history of modern India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [Link]

Metcalf, B. D. (2004). Islamic contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and Pakistan. New York: Oxford University Press. [Link]

Metcalf, B. D. (1996). Making Muslim space in north America and Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Link]

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