Islam in South Asia Vol. 2: Encountering the West : before and after 1857

This volume, the second in the series Islam in South Asia, introduces certain aspects of India's response to the West. It also includes travel literature which is becoming increasingly important, because cultural theorists treat them as serious little jigsaw puzzles of ethnography, anthropology and social and cultural history. Our contention is that while scholars in the West engage in constructing their epistemology of Islam, it is about time Muslim scholars start constructing their own epistemology of the West by turning to the travel documents that carry us into the wider world and often possess a penetrating quality in them. This volume includes the travelogue of Mirza Abu Taleb, the pioneer travel writer, and Lutfullah. As India celebrates the 150th anniversary of the 1857 Revolt, this collection of published essays include some seminal writings by Sayyid Ahmed Khan, the Aligarh reformer, Mirza Ghalib, the Urdu poet, Fazl-i-Haq Khairabadi, the scholar, and Abdul Halim Sharar, the essayist-novelist from Lucknow. Together they capture the trauma of an era. They are essential readings for the understanding of an important era.