The Bita Daryabari Endowment in Persian Language and Literature Presents:
At The Interstices Of Empire: The Case Study Of A Brahman Munshi
A Talk by Pooja Hazra
2023-24 Daryabari Dissertation Fellow
"In the end, the despicable infidels (kafir nakohidey), unable to resist, took to flight"
These are words which were uttered not by a Muslim author of a Tarikh, but by a Hindu munshi who took pride in being a Nagar Brahman. Muslim figures associated with the Mughals (particularly emperor Aurangzeb) were often charged with using idolatrous imagery such as “ghaza”, “jihad” and “kufr”. How then do we understand and contextualize a munshi’s identity, in light of their usage of the same Islamic iconographical imagery?
Tuesday, Oct 15
4:30pm
Sproul 912
