Our meetings are open, but a RSVP is required.  In 2026/2027, we will hold four Zoom-only meetings.  If you have any concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to write to Heidi Hansen (heh2135 [at] columbia.edu).

Schedule

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, noon-2pm (NYC) – A. Gibran Siddiqui (Institute of Business Administration Karachi, Pakistan): An Ahrari Knight in the Celestial Emperor’s Court: Reading Mughal Petitions against the Sacro-Political Grain

Can petitions serve as epistolary spaces in which the sacro-political authority of emperors is negotiated by scions of long-venerated Sufi lineages? In this seminar I will read thirteen letters penned by Abdullah Khan Firuz Jang (d. 1644), a Turanian émigré to Mughal Hindustan. As a nobleman and commander, Firuz Jang composed these letters as battlefield reports covering the Second Orchha Campaign (1635-1636), which he led. Yet these are complex texts that combine the waqi’a (report) with the arzadasht (petition). In each letter, Firuz Jang petitions Emperor Shah Jahan on behalf of a different member of his ta’ifa (faction), invoking a precedent established two centuries earlier by his illustrious ancestor, Khwaja Ubayd Allah Ahrar, who served as a patron saint of the early Mughals and their Timurid forebears.

A close reading of these letters reveals a third dimension to their composition. As ego-documents, they allow Firuz Jang to position himself simultaneously as heir to the reverence traditionally afforded to Ahrar by Mughal emperors such as Shah Jahan and as Shah Jahan’s own disciple in an imperial Sufi order. The letters thus create a space where competing forms of sacro-political authority could be both articulated and negotiated, prompting a rethinking of the categories of the religious and the political in contexts where such boundaries remained fluid.

Thursday, Nov. 19, 2026, noon-2pm (NYC) – Sarina Kürsteiner (Union College)

Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2027, noon-2pm (NYC) – A. Tunç Şen (Columbia University)

Tuesday, April 13, 2027, noon-2pm (NYC) – Samuel Thrope (Hebrew University, Israel)

Columbia University encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities.  University Seminar participants with disabilities who anticipate needing accommodations may contact the Office of Disability Services at 212.854.2388 or [email protected].  Disability accommodations, including sign-language interpreters, are available on request.  Please note that requests for accommodations must be made two weeks in advance.

The official page of the Columbia University Seminar 751 is available at: http://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/religion-and-writing/.  For more information about the seminar’s history, please see: https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/usem751history/.  The abstracts of all talks since January 2012 are archived at: https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/abstracts/