The Muslim Communities of Medieval Gujarat | Jyoti Balachandran

E516 | How did Sufis shape the identity of Gujarat, a region in northwest India? Gujarat is best known for its ancient port cities and its connectivity to the broader Indian Ocean world. It is also the site of some of the oldest Muslim settlements in the Indian subcontinent. In this interview, Jyoti Balachandran traces the way Sufi saints and communities settled the region in the fifteenth century, with lasting impacts for Gujarat's regional identity. Taking us on a tour of the vast Sarkhej tomb complex outside Ahmedabad where Sufis and Sultans are buried side by side, and through a variety of historical texts from the Sultanate to the Mughal periods, Balachandran explores the many layers of this story of Muslim belonging. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/01/gujarat.html Jyoti Gulati Balachandran is Assistant Professor of History at Penn State. She is a historian of medieval and early modern South Asia and the Indian Ocean world, focused on social and cultural histories of Muslim communities in Gujarat and the western Indian Ocean. Her next project is a history of Muslim scholarly networks in the sixteenth century, using a variety of Arabic narrative texts produced in Gujarat and the Hejaz. She serves on the editorial board of The Indian Economic and Social History Review. Shireen Hamza is a doctoral candidate in the History of Science department at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the history of medical exchange in the medieval Indian Ocean world. CREDITS Episode No. 516 Release Date: 8 January 2022 Recording Location: State College, PA / Chicago, IL Sound production by Maryam Patton Additional thanks to Faisal Husain Music: Rajna Swaminathan, Rajas, Of Agency and Abstraction: "Chasing the Gradient" Bibliography and images courtesy of Jyoti Balachandran available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/01/gujarat.html