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Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915
As a thriving port city, nineteenth-century Bombay attracted migrants from across India and beyond. Nile Green's Bombay Islam traces the ties between industrialization, imperialism, and the production of religion to show how Muslim migration from the oceanic and continental hinterlands of Bombay in this period fueled demand for a wide range of religious suppliers, as Christian missionaries competed with Muslim religious entrepreneurs for a stake in the new market. Enabled by a colonial policy of non-intervention in religious affairs, and powered by steam travel and vernacular printing, Bombay's Islamic productions were exported as far as South Africa and Iran. Connecting histories of religion, labour, and globalization, the book examines the role of ordinary people – mill hands and merchants – in shaping the demand that drove the market. By drawing on hagiographies, travelogues, doctrinal works, and poems in Persian, Urdu, and Arabic, Bombay Islam unravels a vernacular modernity that saw people from across the Indian Ocean drawn into Bombay's industrial economy of enchantment.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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About the author
Nile Green
21 books31 followersNile Green is Professor of History at UCLA, with an interest in the multiple globalizations of Islam and Muslims. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018.
In pursuit of the patterns of both global and local Islams, he has traveled and researched in India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Chinese Central Asia, the Caucasus, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Morocco, South Africa, Myanmar, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
His seven monographs, seven edited books, and over seventy articles have traced Muslim networks that connect South and Central Asia with the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Japan, Europe and the United States. His most recent book, The Love of Strangers: What Six Muslim Students Learned in Jane Austen’s London, was selected by the New York Times Book Review as Editors’ Choice. An earlier book, Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, received both the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Award and the Association for Asian Studies’ Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Award. His other books include Terrains of Exchange: Religious Economies of Global Islam; Sufism: A Global History; and, as co-editor, Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print, 1850-1930.
He served for eight years as founding director of the UCLA Program on Central Asia, as well as on various editorial and advisory boards, including the International Journal of Middle East Studies. He has held several visiting positions, such as at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and fellowships, including the Luce/ACLS Fellowship in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs. Before moving to the United States from his native Britain, he was Milburn Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University. He holds degrees from London and Cambridge.
In pursuit of the patterns of both global and local Islams, he has traveled and researched in India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Chinese Central Asia, the Caucasus, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Morocco, South Africa, Myanmar, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
His seven monographs, seven edited books, and over seventy articles have traced Muslim networks that connect South and Central Asia with the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Japan, Europe and the United States. His most recent book, The Love of Strangers: What Six Muslim Students Learned in Jane Austen’s London, was selected by the New York Times Book Review as Editors’ Choice. An earlier book, Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, received both the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Award and the Association for Asian Studies’ Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Award. His other books include Terrains of Exchange: Religious Economies of Global Islam; Sufism: A Global History; and, as co-editor, Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print, 1850-1930.
He served for eight years as founding director of the UCLA Program on Central Asia, as well as on various editorial and advisory boards, including the International Journal of Middle East Studies. He has held several visiting positions, such as at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and fellowships, including the Luce/ACLS Fellowship in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs. Before moving to the United States from his native Britain, he was Milburn Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University. He holds degrees from London and Cambridge.
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July 14, 2015Important contribution to the Re-Enchantment / Disenchantment debate. Contextualizes South Asian Islamic practices and the idea of religious markets.
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