Questions Mernissi Posed
While parsing the jibes and demurs in the social media motivated by a religious scholar’s latest misogynic comments, I read the sad news of Fatema Mernissi’s demise. In Kerala, Mernissi has, of all feminist-leaning Muslim authors, been read most avidly. That is because two works by her has been translated into the native Malayalam language. […]
Tipu Sultan and his ‘Indian Dream’
A lot has been said of Tipu Sultan. Why does the so-called-debate pop up every third week of November? The newspapers in Karnataka and the rest of India have been filled with stories of the Mysorean ruler, trying to place him in an India that is increasingly gripped by frequent doses of ‘Ultra Nationalism’. The […]
Intolerance and Cultural Dissenters
Recently, a spate of artists, writers, filmmakers and scientists from different backgrounds came out and talked about rising intolerance in India. The Dadri incident where Muhammad Akhlaq was lynched after ‘rumours’ of him having stored beef in his refrigerator, the burning of Dalit children by upper caste men in Faridabad and the various sending offs […]
Sharjah Turns New Pages
Conveying somber mood over his non-participation this year, MUHAMMED NOUSHAD remembers the 30th Sharjah International Book Fair and the encounters he had with the people and books during the fair, as the event this year has ended three days ago. In a November midnight in 2011, Ali Ahsan and I landed in Sharjah Airport, […]
Selfies Can’t Capture Indian Streets
There are differences of opinion as to whether a photographer ought to click a picture of someone lying on the pavement. The question of whether they are being objectified solely on the basis of a few photographs is a raging debate. Ajeeb Komachi’s collection of photographs of the poor and the downtrodden have over the years […]
Mughals: Perspectives and Prejudices
Mughal history is often taken up in contemporary India, or larger South Asia, to absolve the present of its responsibility for some bitter, hard-to-digest political realities, by taking recourse to a past either glorious or disgraceful. Post Dadri lynching, it was debated all around how a bedridden Babur advised his son Humayun to respect Hindus […]
Selfies Can’t Capture Indian Streets
Modern day photography is digital and is available at a single click of the button. Almost every magazine or journal is available online. The posters and photographs in the magazines of the yesteryear are long gone out of fervour. They still manage to have a following, so do the photo stories in the newspapers and […]
India’s ‘Recep’tion of Erdogan
Recep Tayeb Erdogan’s resurgence in the Turkish Parliament election elicited mixed responses in India as it is everywhere. There are several ‘whys’ to be explained. The first why: Why resurgence? Because in the Parliament election held in the month of June, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party got away with 40.86 percent of votes, which means […]
West and Islam: Beyond Conflicts and Resolutions
In what appeared to have been uploaded four years ago, a YouTube video has Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, adored in the west as a traditional Islamic scholar with deep moorings in modern streams of thought and knowledge, having friendly chat with a motley group of scholars who straddled the diversity camouflaged in the binary expression Islam and West. […]
Haytham and the Naming of Islamic Science
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has organised a two-day conference that aims to explore the decisive contributions of Ibn Al-Haytham and Islamic culture to the history and evolution of sciences. The conference entitled “Islamic Golden Age of Science for actual knowledge based society – The Ibn Al-Haytham example” is part of […]
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