Description: Between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, a distinct form of Islamic thought and practice developed among Muslim trading communities of the Indian Ocean. Sebastian R. Prange argues that this 'Monsoon Islam' was shaped by merchants not sultans, forged by commercial imperatives rather than in battle, and defined by the reality of Muslims living within non-Muslim societies. Focusing on India's Malabar Coast, the much-fabled 'land of pepper', Prange provides a case study of how Monsoon Islam developed in response to concrete economic, socio-religious, and political challenges. Because communities of Muslim merchants across the Indian Ocean were part of shared commercial, scholarly, and political networks, developments on the Malabar Coast illustrate a broader, trans-oceanic history of the evolution of Islam across monsoon Asia. This history is told through four spaces that are examined in their physical manifestations as well as symbolic meanings: the Port, the Mosque, the Palace, and the Sea.
Brief description: Sebastian R. Prange is Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He has published on South Indian history, Islamic connections between South and Southeast Asia, the pepper trade, and piracy. His scholarship has been recognized with major awards by the Institute of Historical Research, the International Economic History Association, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.
Review Quotes: 'No one can read this insightful monograph without recognizing the Indian Ocean as a major not a minor, a central not a peripheral, theatre of Islamicate civilization. Monsoon Islam deserves, and should attract, a wide readership in Asian history and comparative history but also civilizational studies broadly conceived.' Bruce B. Lawrence, Duke University, North Carolina and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University, Istanbul