A talk by Barbara D. Metcalf of the University of Michigan.
Bhopal in colonial India is best known for having been ruled for over a hundred years from 1819 to 1926 by a lineage of four Muslim women. The third of the Bhopal begums, Nawab Shah Jehan Begum, was in power at the height of British rule in the late 19th century. Bhopal was routinely described as "the second largest Muslim princely state;" the state’s label derived from the religious background of the ruler. Going beyond this label, many observers have described Shah Jehan Begum’s period as one of "Islamization."
In 1871, she made a radical second marriage, a break with respectability and family custom – which she justified as Islamic. In 1890 her second husband, one of the best known Islamic scholarly reformers and putative "jihadis" of the colonial era, died. Instead of understanding the period framed by these events by the blanket term of "Islamization," this talk explores issues of political autonomy, transnational networks, modern religious practice, and a ruler's distinctive taste.
Barbara D. Metcalf is the Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Michigan, where she served as Director, Center for South Asia Studies, 2004-07. Her publications include Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 and Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and Pakistan. Metcalf was editor of and contributor to the volumes Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam and Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe.
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