Resident Fellows

Sunil Kumar || Spring 2008

Professor Sunil Kumar is a historian of medieval Indian history at the University of Delhi. He is one of the most renowned scholars working on Islam in medieval India. His scholarship focuses on the genesis of the idea of a Muslim community in North India between the 13th and 14th centuries and the means whereby the state sought to be its servitor and protector.

Against a backdrop of contemporary global ambivalence to Islam and Muslims as well as India’s search for a nativist but also super-power identity, India’s Muslim heritage is a subject that is often elided or, more generally, reinterpreted to consolidate majoritarian biases. Dr. Kumar is concerned not merely with ‘correcting’ such problematic readings; he is also interested in researching the construction of memories and identities through an examination of contested moments and spaces that are subject to a variety of differing narratives from the past to the present. In this vein, and over the past 15 years, Dr. Kumar has determinedly explored his ideas from a variety of perspectives, including historic relations between Hindus and Muslims as well as those between Muslim rulers and Islamic mystical (Sufi) religious lineages.

Professor Kumar is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Present in Delhi’s Pasts (2002) and The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate (forthcoming).

In Fall 2008, he will be in residence in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, where he will participate in a series of campus-wide projects, including a new class on religion in medieval India and a large-scale conference, “Others Looking at Others: Hindu-Muslim Encounters, 1200-1600.” Details about his visit will be made available through the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies.