2017/06/20 by Elizabeth Lambourn · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #Islamic Studies and History #Education and Islamic Studies #Islam #Civilization #Hinduism #Context (archaeology) #Architecture #South asia #CONQUEST #Islamic studies #Geography #History #Ancient history #Political science #Sociology #Archaeology #Religious studies
paper · doi:10.1002/9781119069218.ch30
openalex publication_date 2017/06/20 · openalex created_date 2017/06/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This chapter discusses the material cultures of Muslims who lived outside Islamic polities, beyond the lands of Islam. The mosques and urban landscapes of South Asia's Muslim trading communities are an important and rich corpus of Islamic architecture badly neglected by disciplinary and regional biases. These material cultures are deserving of a place in the global history of Islamic civilization, but, more than that, the chapter argues that life beyond the lands of Islam created qualitatively different material worlds and material agencies. The chapter focuses on the mosque architecture of Muslim communities settled in South Asia, especially the hypostyle mosque plan. It places particular importance on coastal sites and the broader context of the Indian Ocean. The Ghurid conquest of northern India encountered a rich and diverse Muslim landscape with long established material cultures; the story of Hindu-Muslim encounter in South Asia is also a story of Islam's encounter with its other selves.