It has become increasingly difficult to escape the language of numbers and the logic of demography in contemporary politics globally. Islam, despite its global reach and character, is often reduced to the conceptual category of the “minority”. Moving beyond narrowly conceived debates about integration or assimilation, this panel brings together researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds to discuss how Muslims themselves address the question of the “minority” in different contexts. How did Muslims in India, for example, conceive of their place within the nation during the intellectual ferment of the colonial period? How did minorities within Islam, such as the Twelver Shi‘a or the Ismai‘ili, cultivate their own shifting subjectivities?
Three early career researchers from the University of Cambridge will present elements of their work and engage in a moderated discussion via Zoom.
Presenters:
Emanuelle Degli Esposti is a Research Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies. Her current research examines the public forms of activism undertaken by Twelver Shi’a Muslims in Europe, especially those that might be said to be geared towards the cultivation of a “European Shi’ism”.
Taushif Kara is a Research Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the intellectual history and migration of the diasporic Khoja community across the Indian Ocean. He is also interested in the relationship of ideas to aesthetics in the postcolonial world, especially architecture.
Amar Sohal is an Early-Career Research Fellow in Politics and International Studies at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. An intellectual historian of modern India and Pakistan, Amar is interested in those ideas that continue to shape contemporary politics in both countries.