The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian OceanThe Graves of Tarim narrates the movement of an old diaspora across the Indian Ocean over the past five hundred years. Ranging from Arabia to India and Southeast Asia, Engseng Ho explores the transcultural exchanges—in kinship and writing—that enabled Hadrami Yemeni descendants of the Muslim prophet Muhammad to become locals in each of the three regions yet remain cosmopolitans with vital connections across the ocean. At home throughout the Indian Ocean, diasporic Hadramis engaged European empires in surprising ways across its breadth, beyond the usual territorial confines of colonizer and colonized. A work of both anthropology and history, this book brilliantly demonstrates how the emerging fields of world history and transcultural studies are coming together to provide groundbreaking ways of studying religion, diaspora, and empire. Ho interprets biographies, family histories, chronicles, pilgrimage manuals and religious law as the unified literary output of a diaspora that hybridizes both texts and persons within a genealogy of Prophetic descent. By using anthropological concepts to read Islamic texts in Arabic and Malay, he demonstrates the existence of a hitherto unidentified canon of diasporic literature. His supple conceptual framework and innovative use of documentary and field evidence are elegantly combined to present a vision of this vital world region beyond the histories of trade and European empire. |
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Abd al-Qādir Abd al-Rahmān Abd Allāh Abñ abroad Abū Bakr Aceh Aden Adeni Ahmad al-Junayd al-'Aydarūs al-Kāf al-Kindī al-Mashhūr al-Saqqaf al-Shihr al-Shillī Alawi Alī Allāh ancestors Arab Arabia Archipelago Aydarūs became bedouin biography British Buginese Cairo canon century chapter coast colonial creole descendants diaspora discourse Dutch East figures foreign genealogy graves of Tarim Gujarat hadith Hadra Hadramawt Hadrami diaspora Hadrami sayyids Haji Hashim homeland Husayn imperial Indian Ocean Ingrams Irrigating Fount Irshādīs Islamic Java Jurist Kathīrī land Light Unveiled Malay Malay Archipelago mansab mawt Mecca Melaka Migrant mobility mosque movement Muhammad Muslim muwallads names narrative non-sayyid origins passport patrilineal persons pilgrimage political port prophet Muhammad Qasam Qur'an Raja Rasulid religious ritual rule rulers saints salafis Saudi Say'ūn scholars Shaykh Singapore social society Sufi Sufism sultan Surat Tarim texts tion tomb town trade Travelling Light tribal Umar wadi Yemen