Category Archives: India

If your name is Khan…

Film and Video, India, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101


Kajol Devgan and Shah Rukh Khan

On Sunday I finally saw the new Bollywood film with Shah Rukh Khan, “My Name is Khan.” It is well worth seeing, although the minimalist dancing and singing in the film make it more Hollywood (not Fred Astaire’s) than Bollywood. Add to this the fact that many parts of the film were made in San Francisco and California and the Bollywood connection is even more estranged. The plot of the film has gaping holes, but it is not meant as a documentary. I walked away feeling good about two aspects of the film. First, it is a stirring educational lesson in Asperger’s Syndrome. One of Bollywood’s most glamorous male stars provides a moving performance of this disability, disabling those critics who dismiss the victims of the syndrome as dumb or retarded (neither of which they are).

Second, given all the Islamophobic films out there, where jihad is the only plot associated with Islam, it is refreshing to see the tables turned. While most Americans did not use 9/11 as an excuse to go out and beat up Muslims (or Sikhs or anyone who was not “white” enough), a number of prejudicial people did. The hate was real and most Muslims have felt it, even if only the cold stare. Finally here is a fantasy that goes the other way, while making Muslims heroes and lovers of peace. Continue reading If your name is Khan… →

My name is Khan

Film and Video, India, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Music and Dance

Anyone who is interested in issues of Islam in America must certainly go see the new Shahrukh Khan film My Name is Khan. Despite all of its Bollywood silliness and melodrama, the film is surprisingly discerning on the experiences of Muslims in American society. Though it is set almost entirely in the U.S. (beginning in San Francisco and ending in Georgia), this film will go down as one of the most important Bollywood movies Shahrukh Khan has ever done.

Most obviously of course, the film reminds audiences all around the world that Bollywood’s biggest star ever is in fact a non-violent Muslim (the film’s most repetitive line is “My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist”). But it also does a number of other absolutely fascinating things, such as performing a reinterpretation of the Qur’anic Abraham-Ishmael story, and in a surprising turn, it spotlights the U.S.’s government abandonment of poor African-American communities. Continue reading My name is Khan →

Following Seward’s Folly: #1 Brits and Hindoos

India, Lithographs, Orientalism, Travel


Portrait of William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, ca. 1865; photo by Matthew Brady

William H. Seward (1801-1872) is remembered primarily, to the extent anyone but a historian would bother to remember him, for his folly. An ardent opponent of slavery, this staunch Yankee republican might well have received the presidential nomination in 1860 instead of Lincoln, but he went on to serve as Secretary of State to both Lincoln and the first President Johnson. It was in 1867 that he pushed through the purchase of Alaska from Russia for 7,200,000 dollars, a sizeable sum for a nation coming out of a costly civil war. Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune wrote in criticism that Alaska “contained nothing of value but furbearing animals, and these had been hunted until they were nearly extinct.” Little did the man who famously said “Go west, young man” know that one day a young woman named Sarah Palin would come to power in this once Russian icebox. In 1870 Seward left politics and went on a trip around the world with his adopted daughter, who kept a record of the trip and published this in 1873. From New York to San Francisco to Japan and China to the straits of Malacca, Ceylon and British India to Egypt and Palestine and Europe and finally returning home to Auburn, New York in October of 1871: this was the folly the old man followed shortly before his death. Continue reading Following Seward’s Folly: #1 Brits and Hindoos →

M F Hussain’s Aesthetic View on Islam

Contemporary Art, India, Pakistan


Hussain’s painting courtesy of Dr. Bruce Lawrence

One of the most famous, and at times infamous, painters in modern India is M.F. Hussain, who was born in 1915 and currently resides in London. He is perhaps best known for the controversy over his nude paintings, especially one that depicted “Mother India” and caused such a major backlash that he removed it from view. Less known, perhaps, are his paintings about Islam. Bruce Lawrence recently sent me several illustrations of paintings by Hussain on Islamic themes. Several of these were commissioned by Sheikha Mouza of Qatar for the Islamic museum in Doha. The picture above portrays the three monotheisms as “People of the Book.” As a painter it is clear that Mr. Hussain is less interested in promoting a particular religion than in celebrating the human spirit through his art.

Here is Bruce’s description of the painting above (this is an excerpt from a volume on Hussain, edited by Sumathi Ramaswamy and to be published by Routledge in October 2010): Continue reading M F Hussain’s Aesthetic View on Islam →

Re-Writing Muslim Political History

India, Muhammad, Qur'an, Scholars, Terrorism Issue

Based in New Delhi, Maulana Waris Mazhari is a leading Indian Deobandi scholar. He is a graduate of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, and is the editor of Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom, the official organ of the Deoband Madrasa’s Graduates’ Association.

In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, Maulana Mazhari talks about his views on Islam, historiography and politics.

Q: Muslim history has generally been written in the form of a series of battles and a succession of rulers and military generals. This, in turn, has had a deep impact on the way Muslims imagine their past and their identity and on the way they relate to people of other faiths. What do you feel about this way of presenting Muslim history?

A: I have major problems with the traditional approach, including the traditional way of presenting the sirat, the history of the Prophet Muhammad, who Muslims consider as the model for all humankind. Typically, sirat-writing has taken the form of a narration of events that focus mainly on the maghazis or military confrontations and victories of the Prophet. This tradition goes back to early times. In fact, one of the first available sirat texts that we have, by Ibn Ishaq, is also known as Maghazi Ibn Ishaq. This is a reflection of how Ibn Ishaq portrayed the Prophet’s life. Ibn Ishaq was by no means an isolated case. In fact, many other sirat writers followed in that mode, and still continue to do so. Continue reading Re-Writing Muslim Political History →

Islam and Contemporary Issues

Development, Gender and Sexuality, India, Islamic History, Islamic Law, Islamic Sciences, Qur'an, Terrorism Issue, Traditions (hadith literature)

By Asghar Ali Engineer, April, 2009

A few days ago I was invited to speak in a Prophet Day’s function. There were other speakers as well. As usual the speakers before me indulged in rhetoric ‘Islam is the solution’ and also said the world economy has failed and slowed down as it is based on gambling and interest. Another person said Islam declared human rights 14 hundred years ago whereas UNO declared it only sixty years ago. Yet another speaker said Islam has given equal rights to women and made it obligatory for them to seek education. Also it was emphasized that Islam is religion of peace.

All this provoked me to say all this is true and I can add much more to it but have we ever seriously reflected why Islamic world is in such turmoil today. Why Muslims have totally failed to adopt these teachings in practice. I said if one caste a critical glance at Islamic world today one finds exactly opposite of what Qur’an teaches. If Qur’an lays great emphasis on knowledge, Islamic world from Indonesia to Algeria has more illiterates than any other community. Continue reading Islam and Contemporary Issues →

Kama Sutra, Indian Islam and Missionaries

Gender and Sexuality, India, Islamic History

Sex and the country: Islamic rule did not disturb the long Indian tradition of erotic writing
By William Dalrymple, New Age Islam, August, 2008

There is nothing new about India being perceived as a place of great and growing wealth: for much of the pre-colonial period, the west was the eager consumer of the spices, silks, and luxuries of the subcontinent, while India was the prosperous supplier. You can still get a flavour of the intoxicatingly rich and sophisticated classical India that supplied these luxuries at the once-great port of Mamallapuram on the Coromandal coast. Here massive relief sculptures faced onto the port where, according to a seventh-century poet, “ships rode at anchor, bent to the point of breaking, laden as they were with wealth, with big-trunked elephants, and with mountains of gems of nine varieties”. The reliefs cover one side of a hill: at the right are two huge elephants, trunks swinging; nearby, warrior heroes and meditating sages stand below flights of gods and goddesses, godlings, nymphs, and tree spirits. There is a breezy lightness of touch at work: a flute is playing, there is dancing, and the heavenly apsara fertility spirits and goddesses are whispering fondly to their consorts. Continue reading Kama Sutra, Indian Islam and Missionaries →

Excommunicating Dead Terrorists

India, Islamic Rituals, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue


A lithographic painting depicting a Muslim funeral procession in India, circa 1888.

Excommunicating Dead Terrorists
by Leor Halevi, On Faith, Washington Post, December 29, 2008

Recently the Muslim Council of India sent an important message to the world’s Muslims. It asked one of the country’s largest Muslim graveyards, Marine Lines Bada Qabrastan, where unclaimed bodies are often interred, to deny burial rites to the nine men who died after terrorizing Mumbai. Refusal to bury the terrorists in a Muslim cemetery signifies not just that terrorist attacks are un-Islamic, a contention often heard, but that their perpetrators become, by carrying these acts, non-Muslim. “They cannot be Muslims or followers of Islam,” declared Muslim Council president Ibrahim Tai, “so they cannot have a final resting place anywhere
on sacred Mother India.”

The question then arises, what should India do with the dead bodies? Continue reading Excommunicating Dead Terrorists →