History 222 - Muslim Politics/Modern S.Asia

Taken together, Muslims in South Asia constitute the largest population of Muslims worldwide. This course will serve as an introduction to the political history of this diverse group of people. We will begin by considering religious conversion and the rule of Muslim kings in the premodern period. The bulk of the course will, however, concentrate on the modern history of the subcontinent, and especially on events and themes that continue to influence the countries and peoples of South Asia in the present, like Muslim social reform, the rise of communalism, the partition of the subcontinent, and the influence of religion on contemporary politics.