Podcast appearances and mentions of manan ahmed asif

Today on TPE Book Club we look at Manan Ahmed Asif's seminal work, "A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia" that dismantles the myth of Muslim Conquest and Muslims as outsiders in India.In this video we look at Chachnama, Colonialism, Separatism and Orientalism.The Pakistan Experience is an independently produced podcast looking to tell stories about Pakistan through conversations. Please consider supporting us on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/thepakistanexperienceTo support the channel:Jazzcash/Easypaisa - 0325 -2982912Patreon.com/thepakistanexperienceAnd Please stay in touch:https://twitter.com/ThePakistanExp1https://www.facebook.com/thepakistanexperiencehttps://instagram.com/thepakistanexpeperienceThe podcast is hosted by comedian and writer, Shehzad Ghias Shaikh. Shehzad is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters in Theatre from Brooklyn College. He is also one of the foremost Stand-up comedians in Pakistan and frequently writes for numerous publications. Instagram.com/shehzadghiasshaikhFacebook.com/Shehzadghias/Twitter.com/shehzad89Join this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC44l9XMwecN5nSgIF2Dvivg/join

In this discussion with Manan Ahmed, we consider thepolitical history of South Asia from the perspective of one of its most vibrant and famed cities, Lahore. Drawing from his latest book, The Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (The New Press, 2024), we consider the various episodic and modular histories of citiesin the Global South, their role in forming new kinds of tactile consciousness towards politics, and their presence in colonial and postcolonial political imagination. Enchanting yet tragic, monumental yet fragmented, Lahore—as depicted by Ahmed—embodies a dual legacy. It bears the scars of the 1947 partition of South Asia into India and Pakistan while also reflecting its own vibrant, if imperfect, history of religious and cultural cosmopolitanism—a legacy sacrificed to the nationalizing imperatives of what Ahmed calls “Prophetic Pakistan.”Ahmed's Lahore departs from the grand, romanticized, orientalist cities painted by Western writers. It is intimate and inhabited by ordinary emotions. Navigating the complexities of the city's past, Ahmed alerts us to the diversevisions of toil and labor, violence and subterfuge that shapes Lahore as a city of celebration and disappointments.

  Guest host Dr. David Mason is back to conclude a special two-part interview with historian Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif. Dr. Ahmed is an associate professor of history at Columbia University. A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia,  Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination, and The Loss of Hindustan. He and Dr. Mason will wrap up their conversation today about his latest title: Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore which is published by the New Press. 

  Guest host Dr. David Mason is back to host a special two-part interview with historian Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif. Dr. Ahmed is an associate professor of history at Columbia University. A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia,  Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination, and The Loss of Hindustan. He and Dr. Mason will begin their conversation today about his latest title: Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore which is published by the New Press. 

The city of Lahore was more than one thousand years old when it went through a violent schism. As the South Asian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to gain freedom from Britain's colonial hold, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed, the city's large Hindu and Sikh populations were pushed toward India, and an even larger Muslim refugee population settled in the city. This was just the latest in a long history of the city's making and unmaking. Over the centuries, the city has kept a firm grip on the imagination of travelers, poets, writers, and artists. More recently, it has been journalists who have been drawn to the city as a focal point for a nation that continues to grab international headlines. In Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (New Press, 2024), acclaimed historian Manan Ahmed Asif brings to life a diverse and vibrant world by walking the city again and again over the course of many years. Along the way he joins Sufi study circles and architects doing restoration in the medieval parts of Lahore and speaks with a broad range of storytellers and historians. To this Asif juxtaposes deep analysis of the city's centuries-old literary culture, noting how it reverberates among the people of Lahore today. To understand modern Pakistan requires understanding its cultural capital, and Disrupted City uses Lahore's cosmopolitan past and its fractured present to provide a critical lens to challenge the grand narratives of the Pakistani nation-state and its national project of writing history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The city of Lahore was more than one thousand years old when it went through a violent schism. As the South Asian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to gain freedom from Britain's colonial hold, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed, the city's large Hindu and Sikh populations were pushed toward India, and an even larger Muslim refugee population settled in the city. This was just the latest in a long history of the city's making and unmaking. Over the centuries, the city has kept a firm grip on the imagination of travelers, poets, writers, and artists. More recently, it has been journalists who have been drawn to the city as a focal point for a nation that continues to grab international headlines. In Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (New Press, 2024), acclaimed historian Manan Ahmed Asif brings to life a diverse and vibrant world by walking the city again and again over the course of many years. Along the way he joins Sufi study circles and architects doing restoration in the medieval parts of Lahore and speaks with a broad range of storytellers and historians. To this Asif juxtaposes deep analysis of the city's centuries-old literary culture, noting how it reverberates among the people of Lahore today. To understand modern Pakistan requires understanding its cultural capital, and Disrupted City uses Lahore's cosmopolitan past and its fractured present to provide a critical lens to challenge the grand narratives of the Pakistani nation-state and its national project of writing history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The city of Lahore was more than one thousand years old when it went through a violent schism. As the South Asian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to gain freedom from Britain's colonial hold, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed, the city's large Hindu and Sikh populations were pushed toward India, and an even larger Muslim refugee population settled in the city. This was just the latest in a long history of the city's making and unmaking. Over the centuries, the city has kept a firm grip on the imagination of travelers, poets, writers, and artists. More recently, it has been journalists who have been drawn to the city as a focal point for a nation that continues to grab international headlines. In Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (New Press, 2024), acclaimed historian Manan Ahmed Asif brings to life a diverse and vibrant world by walking the city again and again over the course of many years. Along the way he joins Sufi study circles and architects doing restoration in the medieval parts of Lahore and speaks with a broad range of storytellers and historians. To this Asif juxtaposes deep analysis of the city's centuries-old literary culture, noting how it reverberates among the people of Lahore today. To understand modern Pakistan requires understanding its cultural capital, and Disrupted City uses Lahore's cosmopolitan past and its fractured present to provide a critical lens to challenge the grand narratives of the Pakistani nation-state and its national project of writing history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

The city of Lahore was more than one thousand years old when it went through a violent schism. As the South Asian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to gain freedom from Britain's colonial hold, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed, the city's large Hindu and Sikh populations were pushed toward India, and an even larger Muslim refugee population settled in the city. This was just the latest in a long history of the city's making and unmaking. Over the centuries, the city has kept a firm grip on the imagination of travelers, poets, writers, and artists. More recently, it has been journalists who have been drawn to the city as a focal point for a nation that continues to grab international headlines. In Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (New Press, 2024), acclaimed historian Manan Ahmed Asif brings to life a diverse and vibrant world by walking the city again and again over the course of many years. Along the way he joins Sufi study circles and architects doing restoration in the medieval parts of Lahore and speaks with a broad range of storytellers and historians. To this Asif juxtaposes deep analysis of the city's centuries-old literary culture, noting how it reverberates among the people of Lahore today. To understand modern Pakistan requires understanding its cultural capital, and Disrupted City uses Lahore's cosmopolitan past and its fractured present to provide a critical lens to challenge the grand narratives of the Pakistani nation-state and its national project of writing history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

The city of Lahore was more than one thousand years old when it went through a violent schism. As the South Asian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to gain freedom from Britain's colonial hold, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed, the city's large Hindu and Sikh populations were pushed toward India, and an even larger Muslim refugee population settled in the city. This was just the latest in a long history of the city's making and unmaking. Over the centuries, the city has kept a firm grip on the imagination of travelers, poets, writers, and artists. More recently, it has been journalists who have been drawn to the city as a focal point for a nation that continues to grab international headlines. In Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (New Press, 2024), acclaimed historian Manan Ahmed Asif brings to life a diverse and vibrant world by walking the city again and again over the course of many years. Along the way he joins Sufi study circles and architects doing restoration in the medieval parts of Lahore and speaks with a broad range of storytellers and historians. To this Asif juxtaposes deep analysis of the city's centuries-old literary culture, noting how it reverberates among the people of Lahore today. To understand modern Pakistan requires understanding its cultural capital, and Disrupted City uses Lahore's cosmopolitan past and its fractured present to provide a critical lens to challenge the grand narratives of the Pakistani nation-state and its national project of writing history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Theory co-host Disha Karnad Jani interviews Manan Ahmed Asif, Associate Professor of History at Columbia University and co-executive editor of the JHI, about his book, The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India (Harvard University Press, 2020).

Manan Ahmed Asif discusses his book The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India, which has just been shortlisted for the Cundill History PrizeHistorian Manan Ahmed Asif discusses his recent book The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India, which has just been shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize. He explores the historical concept of Hindustan and reveals how, through the colonial era, it came to be replaced with the modern idea of India.(Ad) Manan Ahmed Asif is the author of The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India (Harvard, 2020). Buy it now from Amazon:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Loss-Hindustan-Invention-India/dp/067498790X/?tag=radtim01-21&ascsubtag=radiotimes-social-viewingguide See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This special episode combines all the stories from Season 7…“Togolese Women in the Struggle for Independence” – Marius Kothor, PhD candidate in the Department of History at Yale University “Taungurung Community in Australia” – Dr. Jennifer Jones, Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies, Archaeology and History at La Trobe University's Albury-Wodonga Campus“Native Americans in Anti-Colonial Networks” – Dr. Justin Gage, Visiting Researcher at the University of Helsinki and Instructor at the University of Arkansas“An Islamic Community in Nineteenth-Century West Africa” – Dr. Mauro Nobili, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign“The Church Order in the Protestant Reformation” – Dr. Sky Michael Johnston, Associated Fellow, Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) Mainz“Underdogs in the American Imagination” – Dr. Bruce Berglund, Historian“Community in Loneliness” – Dr. Fay Bound Alberti, Reader in History at the University of York“Healers in Seventeenth-Century Angola” – Dr. Kalle Kananoja, Senior Researcher in the Department of History at University of Oulu“Intellectuals in Hindustan” – Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif, Associate Professor in the Department of History at Columbia University

“Muhammad Qasim Firishta was a physician, a diplomat and an intellectual. Born around 1570 CE and died sometimes after 1620 CE in the Deccan, contemporary India, he was known for his way around libraries and around circles of power…”So begins today’s story from Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif.For further reading:The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India by Manan Ahmed Asif (Harvard University Press, 2020) Episode transcript:https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

Justin Podur and I teamed up to interview Columbia University historian Manan Ahmed on his fantastic new book, The Loss of Hindustan.  This is the second half of the conversation. Subscribe to the Anti-Empire project and download the first!  

In this episode, Ali interviews Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif, an Associate Professor in Columbia University’s History department, about his book, The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India (Harvard University Press, 2020). Before nationalism—before even the European colonization of South Asia—the term Hindustan signified a regional identity that spanned the length of modern Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. It referred both to a geography with shifting and porous boundaries as well as to a shared physical and mental space inhabited by peoples with overlapping literatures, music, food, and even dress. To approach Hindustan, Dr. Ahmed Asif focuses on the writings of the 17th century historian Firishta, who lived in the Deccan region of what is now South India. Firishta’s history is unique because, unlike many premodern histories, it focuses on Hindustan itself as a subject, not a particular family or lineage. To do this, he drew not only from Arabic and Persian sources, but also from texts like the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, melding approaches in a way that reveals a comfort with contradiction and multiplicity. It was this multiplicity, not only of place, but religion, ethnicity, genre, and language, that defined Hindustan. The afterlife of Firishta’s work is equally telling. It was rendered into English multiple times in the 18th and 19th centuries for the British East India Company, providing them not only a means of approach to the histories, kingdoms, and religions of Hindustan, but also a bibliography of its major sources. In turn, once rendered into English, it inspired the theorizations of history that came to define European modernity, such as those of Kant, Hegel, and even Gibbon. Yet that same colonial enterprise mined Firishta’s work for its own ends until, by the 20th century, his history was considered derivative in relation to older sources, and thus, largely forgotten. Dr. Ahmed Asif concludes with his reflections on the ethics of history and its repercussions for the type of future that we can imagine.

In this episode, Ali interviews Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif, an Associate Professor in Columbia University's History department, about his book, The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India (Harvard University Press, 2020). Before nationalism—before even the European colonization of South Asia—the term Hindustan signified a regional identity that spanned the length of modern Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. It referred both to a geography with shifting and porous boundaries as well as to a shared physical and mental space inhabited by peoples with overlapping literatures, music, food, and even dress. To approach Hindustan, Dr. Ahmed Asif focuses on the writings of the 17th century historian Firishta, who lived in the Deccan region of what is now South India. Firishta's history is unique because, unlike many premodern histories, it focuses on Hindustan itself as a subject, not a particular family or lineage. To do this, he drew not only from Arabic and Persian sources, but also from texts like the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, melding approaches in a way that reveals a comfort with contradiction and multiplicity. It was this multiplicity, not only of place, but religion, ethnicity, genre, and language, that defined Hindustan. The afterlife of Firishta's work is equally telling. It was rendered into English multiple times in the 18th and 19th centuries for the British East India Company, providing them not only a means of approach to the histories, kingdoms, and religions of Hindustan, but also a bibliography of its major sources. In turn, once rendered into English, it inspired the theorizations of history that came to define European modernity, such as those of Kant, Hegel, and even Gibbon. Yet that same colonial enterprise mined Firishta's work for its own ends until, by the 20th century, his history was considered derivative in relation to older sources, and thus, largely forgotten. Dr. Ahmed Asif concludes with his reflections on the ethics of history and its repercussions for the type of future that we can imagine.

Manan Ahmed, Associate Professor, is a historian of South Asia and the littoral western Indian Ocean world from 1000-1800 CE. His areas of specialization include intellectual history in South and Southeast Asia; critical philosophy of history, colonial and anti-colonial thought. He is the author of 'The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India' and 'A Book of Conquest'. Manan comes on The Pakistan Experience to discuss his latest book, 'The Loss of Hindustan', and we get into a deep dive discussion about history and the need for the decolonization process. How many things we take be natural were actually constructed by Colonization? Till we do not reexamine our own history, we will continue struggling with the identity crises that face us. On this podcast we discuss, the historical significance of the word 'Hindustan', the process by which Colonizers enslaved us, the Hindutva philosophy, the language debate and 1971. The Pakistan Experience is an independently produced podcast looking to tell stories about Pakistan, and Pakistanis, through the lost art of conversation. We do deep dive long form podcasts to show you the many shades that encapsulate The Pakistan Experience. Please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepakistanexperience And Please stay in touch: https://twitter.com/ThePakistanExp1 https://www.facebook.com/thepakistanexperience https://instagram.com/thepakistanexpeperience The podcast is hosted by comedian and writer, Shehzad Ghias Shaikh. Shehzad is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters in Theatre from Brooklyn College. He is also one of the foremost Stand-up comedians in Pakistan and frequently writes for numerous publications. He can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tinder. https://www.facebook.com/Shehzadgs/ https://twitter.com/shehzad89

Did South Asia have a shared regional identity prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century? This is a subject of heated debate in scholarly circles and contemporary political discourse. Manan Ahmed Asif argues that Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Republic of India share a common political ancestry: they are all part of a region whose people understand themselves as Hindustani. Asif describes the idea of Hindustan, as reflected in the work of native historians from roughly 1000 CE to 1900 CE, and how that idea went missing. This makes for a radical interpretation of how India came to its contemporary political identity. Asif argues that a European understanding of India as Hindu has replaced an earlier, native understanding of India as Hindustan, a home for all faiths. Turning to the subcontinent's medieval past, Asif uncovers a rich network of historians of Hindustan who imagined, studied, and shaped their kings, cities, and societies. Asif closely examines the most complete idea of Hindustan, elaborated by the early seventeenth century Deccan historian Firishta. His monumental work, Tarikh-i Firishta, became a major source for European philosophers and historians, such as Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, and Gibbon during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet Firishta's notions of Hindustan were lost and replaced by a different idea of India that we inhabit today. The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India (Harvard UP, 2020) reveals the intellectual pathways that dispensed with multicultural Hindustan and created a religiously partitioned world of today. Samee Siddiqui is a former journalist who is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation explores discussions relating to religion, race, and empire between South Asian and Japanese figures in Tokyo from 1905 until 1945. You can find him on twitter @ssiddiqui83 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did South Asia have a shared regional identity prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century? This is a subject of heated debate in scholarly circles and contemporary political discourse. Manan Ahmed Asif argues that Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Republic of India share a common political ancestry: they are all part of a region whose people understand themselves as Hindustani. Asif describes the idea of Hindustan, as reflected in the work of native historians from roughly 1000 CE to 1900 CE, and how that idea went missing. This makes for a radical interpretation of how India came to its contemporary political identity. Asif argues that a European understanding of India as Hindu has replaced an earlier, native understanding of India as Hindustan, a home for all faiths. Turning to the subcontinent’s medieval past, Asif uncovers a rich network of historians of Hindustan who imagined, studied, and shaped their kings, cities, and societies. Asif closely examines the most complete idea of Hindustan, elaborated by the early seventeenth century Deccan historian Firishta. His monumental work, Tarikh-i Firishta, became a major source for European philosophers and historians, such as Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, and Gibbon during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet Firishta’s notions of Hindustan were lost and replaced by a different idea of India that we inhabit today. The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India (Harvard UP, 2020) reveals the intellectual pathways that dispensed with multicultural Hindustan and created a religiously partitioned world of today. Samee Siddiqui is a former journalist who is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation explores discussions relating to religion, race, and empire between South Asian and Japanese figures in Tokyo from 1905 until 1945. You can find him on twitter @ssiddiqui83 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did South Asia have a shared regional identity prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century? This is a subject of heated debate in scholarly circles and contemporary political discourse. Manan Ahmed Asif argues that Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Republic of India share a common political ancestry: they are all part of a region whose people understand themselves as Hindustani. Asif describes the idea of Hindustan, as reflected in the work of native historians from roughly 1000 CE to 1900 CE, and how that idea went missing. This makes for a radical interpretation of how India came to its contemporary political identity. Asif argues that a European understanding of India as Hindu has replaced an earlier, native understanding of India as Hindustan, a home for all faiths. Turning to the subcontinent’s medieval past, Asif uncovers a rich network of historians of Hindustan who imagined, studied, and shaped their kings, cities, and societies. Asif closely examines the most complete idea of Hindustan, elaborated by the early seventeenth century Deccan historian Firishta. His monumental work, Tarikh-i Firishta, became a major source for European philosophers and historians, such as Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, and Gibbon during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet Firishta’s notions of Hindustan were lost and replaced by a different idea of India that we inhabit today. The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India (Harvard UP, 2020) reveals the intellectual pathways that dispensed with multicultural Hindustan and created a religiously partitioned world of today. Samee Siddiqui is a former journalist who is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation explores discussions relating to religion, race, and empire between South Asian and Japanese figures in Tokyo from 1905 until 1945. You can find him on twitter @ssiddiqui83 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did South Asia have a shared regional identity prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century? This is a subject of heated debate in scholarly circles and contemporary political discourse. Manan Ahmed Asif argues that Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Republic of India share a common political ancestry: they are all part of a region whose people understand themselves as Hindustani. Asif describes the idea of Hindustan, as reflected in the work of native historians from roughly 1000 CE to 1900 CE, and how that idea went missing. This makes for a radical interpretation of how India came to its contemporary political identity. Asif argues that a European understanding of India as Hindu has replaced an earlier, native understanding of India as Hindustan, a home for all faiths. Turning to the subcontinent’s medieval past, Asif uncovers a rich network of historians of Hindustan who imagined, studied, and shaped their kings, cities, and societies. Asif closely examines the most complete idea of Hindustan, elaborated by the early seventeenth century Deccan historian Firishta. His monumental work, Tarikh-i Firishta, became a major source for European philosophers and historians, such as Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, and Gibbon during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet Firishta’s notions of Hindustan were lost and replaced by a different idea of India that we inhabit today. The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India (Harvard UP, 2020) reveals the intellectual pathways that dispensed with multicultural Hindustan and created a religiously partitioned world of today. Samee Siddiqui is a former journalist who is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation explores discussions relating to religion, race, and empire between South Asian and Japanese figures in Tokyo from 1905 until 1945. You can find him on twitter @ssiddiqui83 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim, and his conquest of Sind in the year 712. Manan Ahmed Asif, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University, provides a critical interrogation of this narrative in A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Harvard University Press, 2017). The crux of this origin narrative stems from the Chachnama, a 13th-century Persian text, which purports to be a translation of an eye-witness account written in Arabic. Asif approaches the Chachnama by initially situating it within the spatial and political context of Medieval Sind. He then places it within the textual universe of the early 13th century, thinking about audience, genre, and themes. Through this process of unreading he concludes that the Chachnama is neither translation nor primarily concerned with conquest but rather provides a coherent political theory for its contemporaneous readers. Thinking about the text in this new light, Asif examines the Chachnama though the lens of advice writing, questions of governing difference, and the calibration of gender and power. Finally, he explores the afterlife of the Chachnama and determines the factors that framed the story of the conquest of Sind as the primary narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia. In our conversation we discussed what origin narratives tell us about the contemporary world, the deployment of notions of conquest and foreignness in South Asian discourse, the maritime orientation of early Sind, literary and social context of the Chachnamas production, genres of advice writing, the political organization of religious difference, the roles women played in articulating just forms of rule, the colonial reframing of Muslim origins, and the social consequences of dominant readings of the Chachnama. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Ali interviews Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif, an Associate Professor in Columbia University's History department, about his book, [The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987906) (Harvard University Press, 2020). Before nationalism—before even the European colonization of South Asia—the term Hindustan signified a regional identity that spanned the length of modern Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. It referred both to a geography with shifting and porous boundaries as well as to a shared physical and mental space inhabited by peoples with overlapping literatures, music, food, and even dress. To approach Hindustan, Dr. Ahmed Asif focuses on the writings of the 17th century historian Firishta, who lived in the Deccan region of what is now South India. Firishta's history is unique because, unlike many premodern histories, it focuses on Hindustan itself as a subject, not a particular family or lineage. To do this, he drew not only from Arabic and Persian sources, but also from texts like the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, melding approaches in a way that reveals a comfort with contradiction and multiplicity. It was this multiplicity, not only of place, but religion, ethnicity, genre, and language, that defined Hindustan. The afterlife of Firishta's work is equally telling. It was rendered into English multiple times in the 18th and 19th centuries for the British East India Company, providing them not only a means of approach to the histories, kingdoms, and religions of Hindustan, but also a bibliography of its major sources. In turn, once rendered into English, it inspired the theorizations of history that came to define European modernity, such as those of Kant, Hegel, and even Gibbon. Yet that same colonial enterprise mined Firishta's work for its own ends until, by the 20th century, his history was considered derivative in relation to older sources, and thus, largely forgotten. Dr. Ahmed Asif concludes with his reflections on the ethics of history and its repercussions for the type of future that we can imagine.