Muzaffar Alam

Last updated

Muzaffar Alam
Born (1947-02-03) February 3, 1947 (age 77)
Alma mater
Scientific career
Fields History

Muzaffar Alam (born 3 February 1947) is the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

Contents

Biography

Muzaffar Alam is a historian trained at Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi), Aligarh Muslim University and Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), [1] where he obtained his doctorate in history in 1977. Before joining the SALC at the University of Chicago in 2001, he taught three decades at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and has held visiting positions in the Collège de France (Paris), Leiden University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the EHESS (Paris).

Research

Alam's research focuses on Mughal political and institutional history and the history of Indo-Islamic culture. Alam has taught courses on the history of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. His working languages include English, Persian, French, and Urdu.

Alam also studies the history of religious and literary cultures in pre-colonial northern India, history of Indo-Persian travel accounts, and comparative history of the Islamic world (as seen from an Indian perspective).

Publications

Monographs

Contributions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urdu</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India; and it also has an official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect and in South Africa it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindustani language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and Pakistan

Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Deccan, Northern India and Pakistan, and used as a lingua franca in both countries. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent</span> Era in South Asia characterized by Muslim rule

Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent is conventionally said to have started in 712, after the conquest of Sindh and Multan by the Umayyad Caliphate under the military command of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim. It began in the Indian subcontinent in the course of a gradual conquest. The perfunctory rule by the Ghaznavids in Punjab was followed by Ghurids, and Sultan Muhammad of Ghor is generally credited with laying the foundation of Muslim rule in Northern India.

Literature of Kashmir has a long history, the oldest texts having been composed in the Sanskrit language. Early names include Patanjali, the author of the Mahābhāṣya commentary on Pāṇini's grammar, suggested by some to have been the same to write the Hindu treatise known as the Yogasutra, and Dridhbala, who revised the Charaka Samhita of Ayurveda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bahmani Sultanate</span> Indian metal handicraft

The Bahmani Sultanate was a Muslim empire that ruled the Deccan Plateau in South India. The Bahmani Sultanate came to power in 1347 during the Rebellion of Ismail Mukh after Ismail Mukh abdicated in favour of Zafar Khan, who would establish the Bahmani Sultanate. The Bahmani Sultanate was in perpetual war with its neighbors, including its rival, the Vijayanagara Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qutb Shahi dynasty</span> Rulers of Golconda Fort

The Qutb Shahi dynasty was a Persianate Shia Islamic dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the Sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the collapse of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Qutb Shahi dynasty was established in 1512 AD by Sultan-Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, better known though less correctly referred to in English as "Quli Qutb Shah".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-Persian culture</span> Cultural synthesis of Indian and Persian culture

Indo-Persian culture refers to a cultural synthesis present on the Indian subcontinent. It is characterised by the absorption or integration of Persian aspects into the various cultures of modern-day republics of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. The earliest introduction of Persian influence and culture to the subcontinent was by various Muslim Turko-Persian rulers, such as the 11th-century Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, rapidly pushed for the heavy Persianization of conquered territories in northwestern Indian subcontinent, where Islamic influence was also firmly established. This socio-cultural synthesis arose steadily through the Delhi Sultanate from the 13th to 16th centuries, and the Mughal Empire from then onwards until the 19th century. Various Muslim dynasties of Turkic, local Indian and Afghan origin patronized the Persian language and contributed to the development of a Persian culture in India. The Delhi Sultanate developed their own cultural and political identity which built upon Persian and Indic languages, literature and arts, which formed the basis of an Indo-Muslim civilization.

Hindustani is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in the republics of India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu respectively. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers. It developed in north India, principally during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi languages of central India; this contact between the Hindu and Muslim cultures resulted in the core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the Indian dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi, being enriched with Persian loanwords. Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form, was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular form. From the colonial era onwards, Hindustani has also taken in many words from English, with an urban English-influenced variety emerging known as Hinglish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lodi dynasty</span> Rulers of the Delhi Sultanate in India, 1451–1526

The Lodi dynasty was a dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate from 1451 to 1526. It was the fifth and final dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, and was founded by Bahlul Khan Lodi when he replaced the Sayyid dynasty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daud Khan Panni</span>

Daud Khan Panni or simply Daud Khan, was an Pashtun nobleman and military commander of the Mughal Empire. Historians Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam characterise him as an important figure of Mughal history spanning the later years of emperor Aurangzeb, to the early rule of Farrukhsiyar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1761–1799)</span>

The political history of Mysore and Coorg (1761–1799) is the political history of the contiguous historical regions of Mysore State and Coorg province on the Deccan Plateau in west-central peninsular India from the time of the rise of Haidar Ali in 1761 to that of the death of his son Tipu Sultan in 1799.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanjay Subrahmanyam</span> Indian historian (born 1961)

Sanjay Subrahmanyam is a historian of the early modern period. He is the author of several books and publications. He holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA which he joined in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islam in Uttar Pradesh</span>

Islam in Uttar Pradesh is the second largest religion in the state with 38,483,967 adherents in 2011, forming 19.26% of the total population. Muslims of Uttar Pradesh have also been referred to as Hindustani Musalman. They do not form a unified ethnic community, but are differentiated by sectarian and Baradari divisions, as well as by language and geography. Nevertheless, the community shares some unifying cultural factors. Uttar Pradesh has more Muslims than any Muslim-majority country in the world except Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran and Turkey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persian language in the Indian subcontinent</span>

The Persian language in the Indian subcontinent, before British colonisation, was the region's lingua franca and a widely used official language in North India. The language was brought into South Asia by various Turkic and Afghan dynasties from the 11th century onwards, notable of which were the Ghaznavids, Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Dynasty. Persian held official status in the court and the administration within these empires. It largely replaced Sanskrit as the language of politics, literature, education, and social status in the subcontinent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahli Shirazi</span> Persian poet, 1454-1535

Ahli Shirazi, full name Muhammad ibn Yusuf Ahli Shirazi, was a Persian poet who lived in Shiraz, Iran from 858 to 942H. He is buried in Hafezieh.

Muhajir culture is the culture of the various Muslims of different ethnicities who migrated mainly from North India in 1947 generally to Karachi, the federal capital of Pakistan and before 1947 Karachi is the capital of Sindh. They consist of various ethnicities and linguistic groups. The Muhajirs are mainly concentrated in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Ziauddin Abdul Hayy Desai was an Indian epigraphist associated with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). He was also a noted architectural historian and a literary scholar of the Indo-Persianate world as evidenced in his writings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deccanis</span> Ethnoreligious community in India

The Deccanis or Deccani people are an ethnoreligious community of Urdu-speaking Muslims who inhabit or are from the Deccan region of Central and Southern India, and speak the Deccani dialect of Urdu. The community traces its origins to the shifting of the Delhi Sultanate's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Further ancestry can also be traced from immigrant Muslims referred to as Afaqis, also known as Pardesis who came from Central Asia, Iraq and Iran and had settled in the Deccan region during the Bahmani Sultanate (1347). The migration of Muslim Hindavi-speaking people to the Deccan and intermarriage with the local Hindus whom converted to Islam, led to the creation of a new community of Urdu-speaking Muslims, known as the Deccani, who would come to play an important role in the politics of the Deccan. Their language, Deccani Urdu, emerged as a language of linguistic prestige and culture during the Bahmani Sultanate, further evolving in the Deccan Sultanates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syed Ainul Hasan</span>

Syed Ainul Hasan is former professor of Persian & Central Asian Studies School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has had experience with teaching and research for a period of over thirty-two years, and he has designed courses for University of Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Cotton College State University. He played a key role in enhancing Indo Afghan relation by introducing Afghan Resource Centre in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was awarded President of India certificate of honor award in 2017

Seema Alavi is an Indian historian. She is a professor of history at Ashoka University, India and specializes in medieval and early modern South Asia.

References

  1. Muzaffar Alam (1998). "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics" (PDF). Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 21 December 2019.