The MODI-fication of India
India, the world’s largest democracy, is known for uniting people of various backgrounds under one country. However, since the rise of the far-right Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister in 2014, the nation’s democratic and secular values which they took pride in are eroding rapidly.
Is Islam a Product of Late Antiquity?
Arabia was a significant part of the Late Antiquity from which Islam emerged. Contrary to traditional sources, writer Muhammad Ali Sohail article argues that what eventually became the Islamic civilisation was a continuation of Late Antiquity’s most salient features, with late antique empires establishing the foundations for the initial development of Islam. Moreover, it highlights the role played by traditional sources in instigating academic curiosity and mistrust from revisionist scholars who challenged the traditionalist premise entirely.
Inventing the Islamic ‘Golden Age’
The Muslim Golden Age is a historiographical creation like many other conceptions that influence our view of Medieval history. Muslim culture and civilisation flourished throughout an age of exception stability and wealth until at least the early thirteenth century (Kafadar, 2010). The Golden Age highlights the greatest achievements accomplished by the Muslim world between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, with the Ottomans and Mughals, who are normally disregarded, being included as part of this time period.
