Religious, Educational, and Trade Encounters Between Jews and Muslims in South Asia Paperback – September 27, 2024

This volume is the third of five dealing with Muslims and Jews in South Asia. Jewish Educators and Muslim Students Annie Samson founder of Mumbai’s Anjuman-i-Islam Saif Tyabji Girls’ SchoolJosef Horovitz was a German-Jewish Professor of Arabic language and history at Aligarh’s Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in India Gerda Philipsborn trained as an opera singer, was the “lost love” of the renowned physicist Leo Szilard, and worked for the betterment of Jewish orphans in Europe and Palestine. Muslim Involvement with Jews and Judaism Gottlieb Leitner (1840–99) devoted his life to helping Indians and Muslims retain their own languages, cultures, and religion in new institutions like University College Lahore. He was a tireless fighter against negative images of Islam. Leopold Weiss (1900–92) of Lemberg became Muhammad Asad. Margaret Marcus took the name Maryam Jameelah and lived most of her life in Pakistan as one of the wives of an associate of the Islamic revivalist Sayyid Abū’l A‘lā Maudūdī. Malida, a Bene Israel ceremony adapted from similar rites practiced by Muslims and Hindus in the Konkan region of western India. Thoufeek Zakriya, a Muslim chef now working in Dubai, is known to the world for his Hebrew calligraphy, his explorations of Kerala’s Jewish history, and his close relationships with individual Paradesi Jews Navras Aafreedi entitled his personal and academic autobiographical chapter “Antisemitism and Jewish Studies in South Asia.” TradeThe first chapter is a wide overview of the history of Jews and Muslims in the India trade until 1700. The second documents interactions between Jewish traders and Muslims in Kerala before 1700.2 The third delineates the importance of Muslim rulers in international Jewish trading networks. The fourth deals with trade in metals and gems. A separate chapter is devoted to the work of the 1375 Catalan Atlas, which is attributed to a Jewish cartographer Abraham Cresques. Jewish Encounters with the Portuguese and Muslims in South Asia The Portuguese often played important roles in Muslim-Jewish trade and religious encounters in the Indian Ocean. Jews did not hold power anywhere. They were often adept at navigating fluid international economic and political situations. The complexities of these triangular interactions is spelled out in three chapters: [1] The Portuguese and the Jews in India; [2] Muslim-Portuguese Competition in the Indian Ocean: The Role of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Hormuz; and [3] Jews, Muslims, and the Portuguese in Malabar, Gujarat, and Chaul. The final chapter tells the story of a sixteenth century Ethiopian Jew, who came to India as a slave. Read more