Monsoon Islam
Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast

Reveals a distinct trajectory of Islamic history that developed among Muslim merchant communities across the medieval Indian Ocean.

Sebastian R. Prange (Author)

9781108438148, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 April 2019

360 pages, 22 b/w illus. 4 maps
23 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast strings a richly detailed narrative about seaborne networks of mercantile Islam, commercial exchange and political patronage … Prange's monograph succeeds in compiling a dazzling array of archival and architectural evidence to present a richly detailed narrative foregrounding the multiple imbrications between political economy, legal authority and spiritual networks.' Kelvin Ng, South Asian History and Culture

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.

Introduction. The first Indian Muslim
1. The port
2. The mosque
3. The palace
4. The sea
Conclusion. Monsoon Muslims.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]