KARACHI: Islam is the desert, a historian once proclaimed. But this, says historian Ayesha Jalal, is to confuse the place of origin of the revelation with the character of the religion and its associated way of life. Instead, she believes, Islam is the ocean.
She was speaking during a lecture, titled ‘Islam is the Ocean – Muslims and Globalisation in the Modern Age’, at the Aga Khan University auditorium on Friday. Tracing the oceanic travels of religion in “the age of steam and print” – from the 1850s to the 1930s – she discussed Islamic universalism along the Indian Ocean Rim.
“Islam did not just travel by caravans, it travelled also by sea, through boats and ships,” explained Jalal. “It did not arrive fully formed in the South Asian subcontinent.”
via A sense of belonging: For Ayesha Jalal, Islam is an ocean – The Express Tribune
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