Curating Lived Islam in the Muslim World

Reviewed by: Zeeshan Mahmood, Nottingham, UK

Published by: New York: Routledge, 2021, 208pp. ISBN: 978-0367770730.

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What do a medieval philosopher, a travel writer in pre-Raj India and an imperialist-supporting sojourner based in 1930s Yemen have in common? They hailed from the British Isles yet their lives and careers were undoubtedly shaped by their interactions with Islam/Muslims. In Curating Lived Islam in the Muslim World, Iftikhar H. Malik, Emeritus Professor of History at Bath Spa University, analyses how some prominent British non-Muslims assessed the Muslim “other” they encountered in their respective epochs over the last millennium, with due emphasis placed on a precolonial and pre-Orientalist historical trajectory.

This is enhanced by incorporating gender dynamics into the analysis, something that male-dominated historical-anthropological studies on this subject currently lack, giving this study a refreshing outlook. The overarching aim of this book is to simultaneously move past standardised, essentialist tropes about colonialism, travel writing and memsahibs, yet at the same time retain a comprehensive awareness of the complex relations between Britain and Muslims (predominantly hailing from Europe/Asia in this study). As Malik notes early on, empire-building has traditionally been perceived as a ‘male domain’ enterprise of dominance, with scholarship of empire often marginalising women; effectively reducing them to ‘mute spectators’, passively going along with the schemes of their more assertive male counterparts. Curating Lived Islam in the Muslim World has been written, in part, to seriously disrupt this longstanding stereotype. Sandwiched in between the standard introduction and conclusions are eight main chapters in this two- hundred-page long book.