scholarly journals Introduction: Historicizing Sayyid-ness: Social Status and Muslim Identity in South Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-393
Author(s):  
LAURENCE GAUTIER ◽  
JULIEN LEVESQUE
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Anthropological Literature

AbstractThe introduction to the special issue provides a framework to think about the changing conceptions of Sayyid-ness in various historical contexts in South Asia. First, we review some of the sociological and anthropological literature on caste among South Asian Muslims, to argue for a contextualised and historicised study of Muslim social stratification in Muslims’ own terms. Second, we throw light on the fact that Sayyid-ness, far from being a transhistorical fact, may be conceptualised differently in different socio-political and historical contexts. For instance, Sayyid pedigree was at times downplayed in favour of a more encompassing Ashraf identity in order to project the idea of a single Muslim community. Far from projecting an essentialising image of Sayyid-ness, by focusing on historical change, the articles in this collection de-naturalise Sayyids’ and Ashraf's social superiority as a ‘well-understood and accepted fact’. They further shift attention from the debate on ‘Muslim caste’, often marred by Hindu-centric assumptions, to focus instead on social dynamics among South Asian Muslims ‘in their own terms’. In so doing, these studies highlight the importance of the local, while pointing to possible comparisons with Muslim groups outside South Asia.

The Kashmir Crisis as a Political Platform for Jama'at-i Ahmadiyya's Entrance into South Asian Politics

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1398-1428 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADIL HUSSAIN KHAN
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
International Crisis

AbstractThis paper looks at Jama'at-i Ahmadiyya's political involvement in the Kashmir crisis of the 1930s under its second and most influentialkhalīfat al-masīh, Mirza Bashir al-Din Mahmud Ahmad, who took over the movement in 1914, six years after the death of his father, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Communal tensions springing from the Kashmir riots of 1931 provided Mirza Mahmud Ahmad with an opportunity to display the ability of his Jama'at to manage an international crisis and to lead the Muslim mainstream towards independence from Britain. Mahmud Ahmad's relations with influential Muslim community leaders, such as Iqbal, Fazl-i Husain, Zafrulla Khan, and Sheikh Abdullah (Sher-i Kashmīr), enabled him to further both his religious and political objectives in the subcontinent. This paper examines Jama'at-i Ahmadiyya's role in establishing a major political lobby, the All-India Kashmir Committee. It also shows how the political involvement of Jama'at-i Ahmadiyya in Kashmir during the 1930s left Ahmadis susceptible to criticism from opposition groups, like the Majlis-i Ahrar, amongst others, in later years. Ultimately, this paper will demonstrate how Mahmud Ahmad's skilful use of religion, publicity, and political activism during the Kashmir crisis instantly legitimized a political platform for Jama'at-i Ahmadiyya's entrance into the mainstream political framework of modern South Asia, which thereby has facilitated the development of the Ahmadi controversy since India's partition.

scholarly journals The Dynamics of Islamic Ideology with Regard to Gender and Women’s Education in South Asia

Asian Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Forkan ALI
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Women's Education ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Asian Society ◽  
Historical Practices

The article presents an investigation on certain anthropological-social aspects and the social organization of women with a focus on female education and women’s rights in Islam in South Asia, and especially in the subcontinent. It starts with the Moghul period and then turns to the colonial era and contemporary developments. Through the movement for independence from colonial rule of Britain, the Muslim identity in the South Asian region rose in a state of transformation, reform and development. This occurred due to several factors that encouraged the regeneration and reviewing of Indian society in response to the condemnation, discrimination and chauvinism of their colonial rulers and their deep-seated legacy. Women of the society, who were censured to be subjugated by the native men as entitled by colonial rulers, empowered this transformation by taking direct and indirect participation in it even though patriarchal norms and mind-sets have been a durable feature of South Asian society, cutting across faith communities and social strata, including the Hindu, Buddhist and other non-Islamic traditions on the subcontinent. While religious arguments are generally used in efforts to preserve the asymmetrical status of men and women in economic, political, and social arenas, this investigation attempts to show that religious traditions in South Asia are not monolithic in their perceptions of gender and women’s education. The structure of gender roles in these traditions is a consequence of various historical practices and ideological influences. Today, there is a substantial variability within and between religious communities concerning the social status of women. At different times and in different milieus, religious points of view have been deployed to validate male authority over women and, in opposition, to call for more impartial gender relations. 

scholarly journals Special Issue Isna ‘Ashari and Isma‘ili Shi‘ism: from South Asia to the Indian Ocean

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-351
Author(s):  
Justin Jones ◽  
Ali Usman Qasmi
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Political Science ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Isna ‘Ashari and Isma‘ili Shi‘ism: from South Asia to the Indian Ocean, edited by Dr Justin Jones of Oxford University and Dr Ali Usman Qasmi of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, is our fifth special issue in recent years. Its articles, by scholars from a range of disciplines - history, religious studies, anthropology, political science - explore the historical and contemporary dynamics of various South Asian Shi’i communities living in, and moving between, places that border the Indian Ocean. Indeed, taken en masse, they demonstrate the enduring vitality of these communities, whose members have responded in a range of ways to the opportunities and challenges of the complex religious, social and political context of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Women’s Collectives and Social Transformations in South Asia: Negotiations, Navigations and Self-making

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-315
Author(s):  
Lipika Kamra ◽  
Debarati Sen
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
International Development ◽  
South Asian ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Development Workers ◽  
Development Discourses

This introduction to the special issue lays out the importance of studying women’s collectives in South Asia. We argue in this issue that it is particularly important to examine collectives in this moment because transformations in South Asian women’s lives are increasingly described in individual terms in state policy and international development discourses. The emphasis on individual empowerment alone, however, effaces the subtle negotiations that women carry out with state actors, development workers, families, the market and their communities through collectives. The articles in the special issue examine how women’s participation in collectives and collective spaces enables them to imagine transformations in their lives. We also discuss the limitations of collectives-led transformation.

Editorial — Environmental Assessment in South Asia: Underrepresented in the International Academic Literature?

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
pp. 1601002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urmila Jha-Thakur
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
The World ◽  
Introductory Paper ◽  
Country Specific

Welcome to this special Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) issue on environmental assessment (EA) research in South Asia, which besides this introductory paper includes seven papers contributing to a wider understanding of EA-related practices in the South Asian Region (SAR). Some of the papers are country-specific while others provide useful overviews of a region and/or parts of a region. The collection of papers is a result of a targeted call to researchers taking a special interest on EA issues within SAR. This special issue is timely considering the challenges and rapid growth this part of the world is currently facing. Furthermore, there is a perception that EA-related research in the region is less reported in the academic literature than others. Although this special issue cannot claim to represent all countries in South Asia, it is a step towards narrowing this perceived gap in the literature and in reporting on the emerging trends of EA within the region. It is hoped that this initiative will encourage further SAR EA-related research and publications in the future.

Preface to Sukatha Adhiveshn 2020

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Regional Development ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Appropriate Technology ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Technology Innovations

Sukatha Adhiveshn; Sukatha meaning happy stories is a special issue Adhiveshn (conference) with the intention to highlight South Asian Appropriate Technology Innovations in different fields of technology. In the post pandemic era we in south Asia need to decouple from reliance on western innovations but foster regionally developed sustainable innovations. Every year a different area of technology specialty will be themed. The flagship publication of the themed conference is Sukatha Adhiveshn with the aim to be the platform of information dissemination on regional appropriate technology innovations, a platform to serve as a hub for regional innovators to tell their stories of innovations serving the rural communities of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The contributions published in Sukatha Adhiveshn will highlight innovations that has the potential to uplift the population of the region and contribute to the regional development of South Asia.

scholarly journals Maintaining Indonesian Muslim Identity through Islamic Study Groups

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Moch Fakhruroji
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social System ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Study Groups ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Muslim Identity

As a minority group in Australia, Indonesian Muslims are potentially experiencing identity crisis as they categorized as outsiders. This article describe how pengajian (Islamic study groups) and other socio-religious events among Indonesian Muslims as a constructive effort to change the perception of insiders over their social status in order to strengthen their identity as a member in a multicultural societies as theoretically, religion is believed to provide not only the meaning for life but also as social system which provides social control, cohesion, and purposes. Using the IMCV (Indonesian Muslim Community of Victoria) as a case, it could be identified that religious events can be a potential means to maintain their identity as Indonesian Muslims in the context of Australia

The economics of environmental change and pollution management – issues and approaches from South Asia

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
PARTHA DASGUPTA ◽  
PRIYA SHYAMSUNDAR ◽  
KARL-GÖRAN MÄLER
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Environmental Economics ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Local Resources ◽  
Economic Analyses ◽  
Management Issues

This special issue focuses on environmental problems related to poverty and economic growth in South Asia and seeks to illustrate the types of economic analyses that can be undertaken to address these problems. The idea for this issue emerged at the inauguration of the South Asian Network of Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). The papers presented at SANDEE's inaugural conference demonstrated the need for a tighter connection between environmental and development economics. The study of environmental change in poor countries benefits a great deal from well-established theoretical and empirical investigations of externalities and valuation of non-market goods, the staple of environmental economics as taught in the West. However, it is also closely tied to questions about institutions and why they succeed or fail. The spatial nature of dependence of the poor on local resources also matters. Further, the study of environmental change and of institutions cannot be divorced from policies and economic reforms in poor countries. These are some of the topics discussed in this collection.

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