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This is a new and engaging examination of the emergence of a Muslim
women's movement in India. The state of Bhopal, a Muslim
principality in central India, was ruled by a succession of female
rulers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most
notably the last Begam of Bhopal, Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam.
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley puts forward the importance for early Muslim
female activists to balance continuity and innovation. By operating
within the framework of Islam, these women built on traditional
norms in order to introduce incremental change in terms of veiling,
female education, marriage, motherhood and women's political
rights. For the first time, this book analyzes the role of the
'daughters of reform', the first generation of Muslim women who
contributed to the reformist discourse, particularly at the
regional level.
Based on numerous primary sources in Urdu, including the tracts,
books, reports, letters and journal articles of Sultan Jahan Begam
and the other women of Bhopal along with official records such as
the reports of early organizations and institutions in the Bhopal
State, the author sheds light on an important part of India's
history.
This is a new and engaging examination of the emergence of a Muslim
women's movement in India. The state of Bhopal, a Muslim
principality in central India, was ruled by a succession of female
rulers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most
notably the last Begam of Bhopal, Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam. Siobhan
Lambert-Hurley puts forward the importance for early Muslim female
activists to balance continuity and innovation. By operating within
the framework of Islam, these women built on traditional norms in
order to introduce incremental change in terms of veiling, female
education, marriage, motherhood and women's political rights. For
the first time, this book analyzes the role of the 'daughters of
reform', the first generation of Muslim women who contributed to
the reformist discourse, particularly at the regional level. Based
on numerous primary sources in Urdu, including the tracts, books,
reports, letters and journal articles of Sultan Jahan Begam and the
other women of Bhopal along with official records such as the
reports of early organizations and institutions in the Bhopal
State, the author sheds light on an important part of India's
history.
When thinking of intrepid travelers from past centuries, we don't
usually put Muslim women at the top of the list. And yet, the
stunning firsthand accounts in this collection completely upend
preconceived notions of who was exploring the world. Editors
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Daniel Majchrowicz, and Sunil Sharma
recover, translate, annotate, and provide historical and cultural
context for the 17th- to 20th-century writings of Muslim women
travelers in ten different languages. Queens and captives, pilgrims
and provocateurs, these women are diverse. Their connection to
Islam is wide-ranging as well, from the devout to those who
distanced themselves from religion. What unites these adventurers
is a concern for other women they encounter, their willingness to
record their experiences, and the constant thoughts they cast
homeward even as they traveled a world that was not always prepared
to welcome them. Perfect for readers interested in gender, Islam,
travel writing, and global history, Three Centuries of Travel
Writing by Muslim Women provides invaluable insight into how these
daring women experienced the world—in their own voices.
Muslim South Asia is widely characterized as a culture that
idealizes female anonymity: women's bodies are veiled and their
voices silenced. Challenging these perceptions, Siobhan
Lambert-Hurley highlights an elusive strand of autobiographical
writing dating back several centuries that offers a new lens
through which to study notions of selfhood. In Elusive Lives, she
locates the voices of Muslim women who rejected taboos against
women speaking out, by telling their life stories in written
autobiography. To chart patterns across time and space, materials
dated from the sixteenth century to the present are drawn from
across South Asia – including present-day India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. Lambert-Hurley uses many rare autobiographical texts in
a wide array of languages, including Urdu, English, Hindi, Bengali,
Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Malayalam to elaborate a theoretical
model for gender, autobiography, and the self beyond the usual
Euro-American frame. In doing so, she works toward a new,
globalized history of the field. Ultimately, Elusive Lives points
to the sheer diversity of Muslim women's lives and life stories,
offering a unique window into a history of the everyday against a
backdrop of imperialism, reformism, nationalism and feminism.
Muslim South Asia is widely characterized as a culture that
idealizes female anonymity: women's bodies are veiled and their
voices silenced. Challenging these perceptions, Siobhan
Lambert-Hurley highlights an elusive strand of autobiographical
writing dating back several centuries that offers a new lens
through which to study notions of selfhood. In Elusive Lives, she
locates the voices of Muslim women who rejected taboos against
women speaking out, by telling their life stories in written
autobiography. To chart patterns across time and space, materials
dated from the sixteenth century to the present are drawn from
across South Asia - including present-day India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. Lambert-Hurley uses many rare autobiographical texts in
a wide array of languages, including Urdu, English, Hindi, Bengali,
Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Malayalam to elaborate a theoretical
model for gender, autobiography, and the self beyond the usual
Euro-American frame. In doing so, she works toward a new,
globalized history of the field. Ultimately, Elusive Lives points
to the sheer diversity of Muslim women's lives and life stories,
offering a unique window into a history of the everyday against a
backdrop of imperialism, reformism, nationalism and feminism.
When thinking of intrepid travelers from past centuries, we don't
usually put Muslim women at the top of the list. And yet, the
stunning firsthand accounts in this collection completely upend
preconceived notions of who was exploring the world. Editors
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Daniel Majchrowicz, and Sunil Sharma
recover, translate, annotate, and provide historical and cultural
context for the 17th- to 20th-century writings of Muslim women
travelers in ten different languages. Queens and captives, pilgrims
and provocateurs, these women are diverse. Their connection to
Islam is wide-ranging as well, from the devout to those who
distanced themselves from religion. What unites these adventurers
is a concern for other women they encounter, their willingness to
record their experiences, and the constant thoughts they cast
homeward even as they traveled a world that was not always prepared
to welcome them. Perfect for readers interested in gender, Islam,
travel writing, and global history, Three Centuries of Travel
Writing by Muslim Women provides invaluable insight into how these
daring women experienced the world-in their own voices.
Many consider the autobiography to be a Western genre that
represents the self as fully autonomous. The contributors to
Speaking of the Self challenge this presumption by examining a wide
range of women's autobiographical writing from South Asia.
Expanding the definition of what kinds of writing can be considered
autobiographical, the contributors analyze everything from poetry,
songs, mystical experiences, and diaries to prose, fiction,
architecture, and religious treatises. The authors they study are
just as diverse: a Mughal princess, an eighteenth-century courtesan
from Hyderabad, a nineteenth-century Muslim prostitute in Punjab, a
housewife in colonial Bengal, a Muslim Gandhian devotee of Krishna,
several female Indian and Pakistani novelists, and two male actors
who worked as female impersonators. The contributors find that in
these autobiographies the authors construct their gendered selves
in relational terms. Throughout, they show how autobiographical
writing-in whatever form it takes-provides the means toward more
fully understanding the historical, social, and cultural milieu in
which the author performs herself and creates her subjectivity.
Contributors: Asiya Alam, Afshan Bokhari, Uma Chakravarti, Kathryn
Hansen, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Anshu Malhotra, Ritu Menon, Shubhra
Ray, Shweta Sachdeva Jha, Sylvia Vatuk
Many consider the autobiography to be a Western genre that
represents the self as fully autonomous. The contributors to
Speaking of the Self challenge this presumption by examining a wide
range of women's autobiographical writing from South Asia.
Expanding the definition of what kinds of writing can be considered
autobiographical, the contributors analyze everything from poetry,
songs, mystical experiences, and diaries to prose, fiction,
architecture, and religious treatises. The authors they study are
just as diverse: a Mughal princess, an eighteenth-century courtesan
from Hyderabad, a nineteenth-century Muslim prostitute in Punjab, a
housewife in colonial Bengal, a Muslim Gandhian devotee of Krishna,
several female Indian and Pakistani novelists, and two male actors
who worked as female impersonators. The contributors find that in
these autobiographies the authors construct their gendered selves
in relational terms. Throughout, they show how autobiographical
writing-in whatever form it takes-provides the means toward more
fully understanding the historical, social, and cultural milieu in
which the author performs herself and creates her subjectivity.
Contributors: Asiya Alam, Afshan Bokhari, Uma Chakravarti, Kathryn
Hansen, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Anshu Malhotra, Ritu Menon, Shubhra
Ray, Shweta Sachdeva Jha, Sylvia Vatuk
In 1863, the Nawab Sikandar Begum, a Muslim woman and hereditary
ruler of the princely state of Bhopal in colonial India, traveled
to Mecca with a retinue of a thousand people. On returning, she
wrote this witty, acerbic account of her journey. In it, we glimpse
a process by which notions of the self could be redefined against a
Muslim "other" in the colonial environment. Sikandar Begum emerges
as a genuinely complex individual, crafting an image of herself as
an effective administrator, a loyal subject, and a good Muslim.
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley's critical introduction and afterword make
this edition a comprehensive resource on travel writing by South
Asian Muslim women, colonialism, and world history.
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