This pioneering work traces the emergence of the modern and contemporary art of Muslim South Asia in relation to transnational modernism and in light of the region's intellectual, cultural, and political developments. Art historian Iftikhar Dadi here explores the art and writings of major artists, men and women, ranging from the late colonial period to the era of independence and beyond. He looks at the stunningly diverse artistic production of key artists associated with Pakistan, including Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Zainul Abedin, Shakir Ali, Zubeida Agha, Sadequain, Rasheed Araeen, and Naiza Khan. Dadi shows how, beginning in the 1920s, these artists addressed the challenges of modernity by translating historical and contemporary intellectual conceptions into their work, reworking traditional approaches to the classical Islamic arts, and engaging the modernist approach towards subjective individuality in artistic expression. In the process, they dramatically reconfigured the visual arts of the region. By the 1930s, these artists had embarked on a sustained engagement with international modernism in a context of dizzying social and political change that included decolonization, the rise of mass media, and developments following the national independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. Bringing new insights to such concepts as nationalism, modernism, cosmopolitanism, and tradition, Dadi underscores the powerful impact of transnationalism during this period and highlights the artists' growing embrace of modernist and contemporary artistic practice in order to address the challenges of the present era.

For thousands of years music in India has been considered a signifying art. Indian music creates and represents meanings of all kings, some of which extend outwardly to the cosmos, while others arise inwardly, in the refined feelings which a musical connoisseur experiences when listening to it. In this book the author explores signification in Hindustani classical music along a two-fold path. Martineq first constructs a theory of musical semiotics based on the sign-theories of Charles Sanders Peirce. He then applies his theory to the analysis of various types of Hindustani music and how they generate significations. The author engages such fundamental issues as sound quality, raga, tala and form, while advancing his unique interpretations of well-known semiotic phenomena like iconicity, metalanguage, indexicality, symbolism, Martinez`s study also provides deep insight into semiotic issues of musical perception, performance, scholarship, and composition. An specially innovative and extensive section of the book analyzes representations in Hindustani music in terms of the Indian aesthetic theory of rasa. The evolution of the rasa system as applied to musical structures is traced historically and analyzed semiotically. In the light of Martinez`s theories, Hindustani music reveals itself to be both a delightfully sensuous and highly sophisticated system of acoustic representations.

Scholars have long known that world music was not merely the globalized product of modern media, but rather that it connected religions, cultures, languages and nations throughout world history. The chapters in this History take readers to foundational historical moments – in Europe, Oceania, China, India, the Muslim world, North and South America – in search of the connections provided by a truly world music. Historically, world music emerged from ritual and religion, labor and life-cycles, which occupy chapters on Native American musicians, religious practices in India and Indonesia, and nationalism in Argentina and Portugal. The contributors critically examine music in cultural encounter and conflict, and as the critical core of scientific theories from the Arabic Middle Ages through the Enlightenment to postmodernism. Overall, the book contains the histories of the music of diverse cultures, which increasingly become the folk, popular and classical music of our own era.

A provocative account of the development of modern national culture in India using classical music as a case study. Janaki Bakhle demonstrates how the emergence of an "Indian" cultural tradition reflected colonial and exclusionary practices, particularly the exclusion of Muslims by the Brahmanic elite, which occurred despite the fact that Muslims were the major practiti oners of the Indian music that was installed as a "Hindu" national tradition. This book lays bare how a nation's imaginings--from politics to culture--reflect rather than transform societal divisions.

Islam in South Asia: Revised, Enlarged and Updated Second Edition traces the roots and development of Muslim presence in South Asia. Trajectories of normative notions of state-building and the management of diversity are elaborated in four clusters, augmented by topical subjects in excursuses and annexes offering an array of Muslim voices. The enormous time span from 650 to 2019 provides for a comprehensive and plural canvas of the religious self-presentation of South Asian Muslims. Making use of the latest academic works and historical materials, including first-hand accounts ranging from official statements to poetry, Malik convincingly argues that these texts provide sufficient evidence to arrive at an interpretation of quite a different character. With major and substantial revisions, changes, abridgements and additions follow the academic literature produced during the last decades.

"Song from the Land of Fire" explores Azerbaijanian musical culture, a subject previously unexamined by American and European scholars. This book contains notations of "mugham" performance-a fusion of traditional poetry and musical improvisation-and analysis of hybrid genres, such as "mugham"-operas and symphonic "mugham" by native composers. Intimately connected to the awakening of Azerbaijanian national consciousness while ruled by the Russian Empire and the USSR, "mugham" is inseparable from the contexts in which it is produced and heard. Inna Naroditskaya provides the historical and political contexts for "mugham" and profiles the musicians, musical genealogies, and musical institutions of Azerbaijan. INCLUDES AUDIO CD.

Amir Khusrau, one of the greatest poets of medieval India, helped forge a distinctive synthesis of Muslim and Hindu cultures. Written in Persian and Hindavi, his poems and ghazals were appreciated across a cosmopolitan Persianate world that stretched from Turkey to Bengal. Having thrived for centuries, Khusrau’s poetry continues to be read and recited to this day. In the Bazaar of Love is the first comprehensive selection of Khusrau’s work, offering new translations of mystical and romantic poems and fresh renditions of old favourites. Covering a wide range of genres and forms, it evokes the magic of one of the best-loved poets of the Indian subcontinent.

Records publications acquired from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, by the U.S. Library of Congress Offices in New Delhi, India, and Karachi, Pakistan.

Muslims have been present in South Asia for 14 centuries. Nearly 40% of the people of this vast land mass follow the religion of Islam, and Muslim contribution to the cultural heritage of the sub-continent has been extensive. This textbook provides both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as the general reader, with a comprehensive account of the history of Islam in India, encompassing political, socio-economic, cultural and intellectual aspects. Using a chronological framework, the book discusses the main events in each period between c. 600 CE and the present day, along with the key social and cultural themes. It discusses a range of topics, including: How power was secured, and how was it exercised The crisis of confidence caused by the arrival of the West in the sub-continent How the Indo-Islamic synthesis in various facets of life and culture came about Excerpts at the end of each chapter allow for further discussion, and detailed maps alongside the text help visualise the changes through each time period. Introducing the reader to the issues concerning the Islamic past of South Asia, the book is a useful text for students and scholars of South Asian History and Religious Studies.