An engaging account of the history and influence of Muslim cultures on Bombay cinema.
Following Marshal Hodgson, the term “Islamicate” is used to distinguish the cultural forms associated with Islam from the religion itself. The term is especially useful in South Asia where Muslim cultures have commingled with other local cultures over a millennium to form a rich vein of syncretic aesthetic expression. Comprised of fourteen essays written by major scholars, this collection presents an engaging account of the history and influence of cultural Islam on Bombay cinema.
The book charts the roots of South Asian Muslim cultures and the precursors of Bombay cinema’s Islamicate idioms in the Urdu Parsi Theatre; the courtesan cultures of Lucknow; the literary, musical, and performance traditions of north India; the traditions of miniature painting; and various modes of Perso-Arabic story-telling. Published at a time of acute crisis in the perception and understanding of Islam, this book demonstrates how Muslim and Hindu cultures in India are inextricably entwined.
About the Editors
Richard Allen is chair professor of film and media art and dean of the School of Creative Media at City University Hong Kong.
Ira Bhaskar is professor of cinema studies at the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
Industry Reviews
'This collection elaborates carefully the waxing and waning of attachment to and detachment from the Islamicate at personal and political levels through the affective register of the cinema. There is no comparable volume that dives so thoroughly into the history, theory and analysis of such a wide array of Islam-derived themes in Bombay cinema's history, from its inception to the present.
A tour de force in both range and scope. Bombay Cinema's Islamicate Histories is unfailingly rigorous, lively and groundbreaking.'
Anupama Prabhala Kapse, Loyola Marymount University
