International Quarterly for Asian Studies

Hydro-diversity: A Waterscape Model of the Medieval Western Indian City

Sara Keller — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In monsoon-dependent South Asia, harvesting and managing water is a necessity. Thus, monuments and modified landscapes related to irrigation, water storing and water worship represent a large share of Indian architectural heritage. Yet, this rich corpus and its attached hydrological knowledge awaits full recognition: thus far, documentation and studies focus on the most visible elements, especially stepwells, tanks and other dug facilities. Hydro-structures are generally considered in an isolated manner and lack contextualisation. Following the observations of English chaplain Edward Terry (1590–1660), this paper aims to explore the relationship between the medieval Indian city and the presence of monumental, often religiously connoted, hydraulic constructions. Based on archaeological and historical data, the paper proposes a fresh look at the hydraulic elements in the larger context of the city. The main argument rehabilitates the artificial lake and underlines its crucial function in plain regions that depend on a sufficient refilling of aquifers. In Western India, the typical city of the Solanki and later the Vaghela and the Muzaffarid dynasties had access to a broad variety of water sources capable of meeting the needs of multiple religious and secular activities (hydro-diversity). This generous waterscape and its multifaceted developments reflect on functions of sociability and religiosity in the city. Water here appears as an essential identity marker of urbanity.

Female, Veiled, Active: Muslim Professionals in Self-development Training in Today’s Kyrgyzstan

Manja Stephan-Emmrich, Mukaram Toktogulova — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article investigates the nexus between private Islamic education initiatives and spiritual self-development trainings that address in particular Muslim women in Kyrgyzstan. Translating religious knowledge into a pedagogy for self-development that works through biography, embodiment and persuasive aesthetics, publicly active veiled Muslim women contribute to the pluralisation of Islamic knowledge circulation in Kyrgyzstan and shape a kind of female leadership distinct from that of traditional religious authorities. Tackling Muslim professionalism as a practice of articulation that works through an embodied pedagogy, the authors highlight how professional Muslim women engage in affective politics and construct collective subjectivities that build on notions of Muslim modernity by promoting the imaginary of the active, self-reliant and knowledgeable Muslim woman. Thinking Muslim professionalism through affective work, this article seeks to better understand how Muslim renewal and religious revitalisation inspire educational and media professionalism in today’s Kyrgyzstan. Furthermore, the paper discusses the ways in which publicly active veiled Muslim women build inclusive communities of belonging through professional activities that transcend social and spatial boundaries.

Digital Connectivity as a Springboard to Professionalisation: Social Media Groups of Pakistani Women

Faiza Muhammad Din — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In Pakistan, female entrepreneurs and earning women encounter considerable challenges when trying to enter male-dominated job markets. Many turn to women-only social media groups as a forum to discuss these obstacles and share strategies for overcoming them. Unlike conventional, more bureaucratic networking avenues such as chambers of commerce, these online platforms offer flexibility and continuous connectivity. This proves especially beneficial for women during significant life events like maternity or caregiving breaks. In Muslim-majority countries, these groups also serve as platforms for exchanging culturally and religiously relevant business practices, including discussions on halal investments and Sharia-compliant entrepreneurship. This study employs online ethnography and interviews with key stakeholders in some of Pakistan’s most prominent women-focused online networking groups. While one might assume that the primary aim of such professional networks is to discuss business growth, cutting-edge research or technology, these groups actually thrive on a common language, shared challenges and shared values. The article begins by exploring the concept of professionalism and the role of community and networking in career advancement. It then delves into the specific challenges that make networking difficult for women in Pakistan but paradoxically act as a glue binding them together in these online spaces.

Platform Writers and the Production of Digital Literature: The Professionalism of Female Pesantren Novelists in Indonesia

Nor Ismah — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The new global genres of “chick lit” and “teen lit” in the early twenty-first century led to the rise of a new generation of Muslim women writers in Indonesia. They gained public attention, particularly from teen readers, by publishing Islamic novels and popular pesantren (Islamic boarding school) novels. Focusing on two online platforms for digital literature, the Komunitas Bisa Menulis and Halaqah 1001 Aksara as case studies, this study employs online observation of the platforms, content analysis of the works, and interviews with three young Muslim women writers from the pesantren tradition to explore their experiences of embracing socio-religious changes and technological developments in Indonesia. The article aims to answer three questions. Firstly, how and why do Muslim women writers from the pesantren tradition choose to publish their works on online platforms? Secondly, what are the predominant themes, genres and ideological messages present in their writing? And finally, to what extent do these platforms benefit women in developing their professionalism?

Mosques and Meeting Rooms: Professional Lives of Muslim Women

Claudia Derichs, Faiza Muhammad Din, Manja Stephan-Emmrich — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This IQAS special issue relates to the relationship between religious knowledge and women’s professionalisation. It links empirical observations of applied religious knowledge with the conceptualisation of professionalisation, examined through case studies from Southeast, South and Central Asia. The lens it looks through is intentionally gender-sensitive, exploring how Muslim women in Asia actively and creatively participate in the production and dissemination of religious knowledge and the formation of new knowledge societies through participation in social activism and the global economy on multiple scales. The authors are members and partners of a research initiative that seeks to explore women’s pathways to professionalisation in Muslim Asia. In the course of three years, substantial findings have come to light that lead the authors of this issue to suggest a more flexible understanding of the concept of “profession” and the notion of “religious knowledge”.

In Her Words: A New Translation of the Quran into Japanese

Fuga Kimura, Kyoko Nishida — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Kyoko Nishida, the Director of the Tokyo Camii Institute, an independent research institute on Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and a professional translator, recently published a translation of the Quran in Japanese as the second Muslim woman to do so, with the help of Turkish, Syrian and Japanese Muslim scholars who live and work in Japan. Her new book Quran: Japanese Comprehension is published by Tokyo Camii Publishing, a branch of Camii Diyanet, an official Turkish religious institute situated in Tokyo. Fuga Kimura interviewed Nishida for IQAS, discussing motivations for new translations, the challenges involved and the differences among Quranic translations, as well as the rich history of Quran receptions in Japan. Nishida also spoke of her struggles to maintain intellectual independence as a professional translator working under a religious institution.

Deborah L. Mulligan / Patrick Alan Danaher (eds): Researchers at Risk: Precarity, Jeopardy and Uncertainty in Academia

Aysuda Kölemen — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ziba Mir-Hosseini / Mulki Al-Sharmani / Jana Rumminger / Sarah Marsso (eds): Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage: Towards Egalitarian Ethics and Laws

Samia Kotele — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Syinat Sultanalieva: “Nomadity of Being” in Central Asia: Narratives of Kyrgyzstani Women’s Rights Activists

Naomi Ntakiyica — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Riho Isaka: Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India (Gujarat, c.1850–1960)

Mona G. Mehta — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

R. J. May: State and Society in Papua New Guinea, 2001–2021

Roland Seib — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000