I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies The Muhammad Ali Hamdani Collection in the Library of The Institute of Ismaili Studies represents a large segment of the library collected over seven generations by an eminent family of scholars from the Da'udi Bohra community in India and the Yemen. The bulk of the manuscripts are Ismaili religious writings, but there are also a good number of interesting books of general Islamic, or indeed secular content, and these give a rare insight into the whole cultural range of a learned family of Indian religious scholars. The overwhelming majority of the books are in Arabic, but there are also a small number in Persian and in Bohra da'wat language (lisan al da'wat), Gujarati in Arabic script. Most of the manuscripts were produced in India, but some of the most interesting ones are from the Yemen, the ancestral home of the Hamdani clan (the oldest of these is from the 14th century CE, or perhaps earlier). The catalogue contains detailed descriptions of the manuscripts in this Hamdani collection, discussing both the content of the works and the codicological features of the manuscripts. The introduction contains also a comprehensive history of the Hamdani family.

A sweeping account of three Gujarati Muslim trading communities, whose commercial success over nearly two centuries sheds new light on the history of capitalism, Islam, and empire in South Asia. During the nineteenth century, three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes—the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons—came to dominate Muslim business in South Asia. Although these communities constitute less than 1 percent of South Asia’s Muslim population, they are still disproportionately represented among the region’s leading Muslim-owned firms today. In No Birds of Passage, Michael O’Sullivan argues that the conditions enabling their success have never been understood, thanks to stereotypes—embraced equally by colonial administrators and Muslim commentators—that estrange them from their religious identity. Yet while long viewed as Hindus in all but name, or as “Westernized” Muslims who embraced colonial institutions, these groups in fact entwined economic prerogatives and religious belief in a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism. Following entrepreneurial firms from Gujarat to the Hijaz, Hong Kong, Mombasa, Rangoon, and beyond, O’Sullivan reveals the importance of kinship networks, private property, and religious obligation to their business endeavors. This paradigm of Muslim capitalism found its highest expression in the jamaats, the central caste institutions of each community, which combined South Asian, Islamicate, and European traditions of corporate life. The jamaats also played an essential role in negotiating the position of all three groups in relation to British authorities and Indian Muslim nationalists, as well as the often-sharp divisions within the castes themselves. O’Sullivan’s account sheds light on Gujarati Muslim economic life from the dawn of colonial hegemony in India to the crisis of the postcolonial state, and provides fascinating insights into the broader effects of capitalist enterprise on Muslim experience in modern South Asia.

The fascinating account of how the story of the Buddha was transformed into the legend of a Christian saint. The story of Saint Josaphat, a prince who gave up his wealth and kingdom to follow Jesus, was one of the most popular Christian tales of the Middle Ages, translated into a dozen languages, and cited by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. Yet Josaphat is only remembered today because of the similarities of his life to that of the Buddha. In Search of the Christian Buddha is set against the backdrop of the trade along the Silk Road, the Christian settlement of Palestine, the spread of Islam, and the Crusades. It traces the path of the Buddha’s tale from India and shows how it evolved, adopting details from each culture during its sojourn. These early instances of globalization allowed not only goods but also knowledge to flow between different cultures and around much of the world. Eminent scholars Donald S. Lopez Jr. and Peggy McCracken reveal how religions born thousands of miles apart shared ideas throughout the centuries. They uncover surprising convergences and divergences between these faiths on subjects including the meaning of death, the problem of desire, and their view of women. Demonstrating the incredible power of this tale, they ask not how stories circulate among religions but how religions circulate among stories.

I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies Few fields of Islamic studies have witnessed as much progress in modern times as Ismaili studies, and in even fewer instances has the role of a single individual been as pivotal in initiating progress as that of Wladimir Ivanow (1886-1970), whose memoirs are now published here for the first time. The breakthrough in modern Ismaili studies occurred mainly as a result of the recovery and study of a large number of texts relating to the field, which had not been available to the earlier generations of orientalists. The Persian and Arabic Ismaili manuscripts, many edited and published by Ivanow, reflect a rich diversity of intellectual and literary traditions. Ivanow left his native Russia soon after the October Revolution of 1917 and settled in India where he was formally commissioned in 1931 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, the 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismailis, to investigate the history and teachings of the Ismailis. Henceforth, Ivanow began the systematic recovery and study of texts from this tradition of Shi'i Islam, discovered in India, the Middle East and Central Asia, amongst other regions. He also played a key role in the establishment of the Ismaili Society - the first research institution of its kind with a major collection of Ismaili manuscripts. Ivanow made these manuscripts available to other scholars, thereby contributing to further progress in the field. Ivanow completed his memoirs, entitled Fifty Years in the East, in 1968, shortly before his death. This work, originally written in Russian, is comprised of an autobiography and vivid accounts from his travels. These convey his ethnologist's interest in 'the archaeology of the way of life' and profound curiosity for regional customs and languages. The memoirs, written in Tehran during Ivanow's final years, have now been edited with substantial annotations by Farhad Daftary. They reveal for the first time the circumstances under which modern Ismaili studies were initiated and an eyewitness account of several regions during the early decades of the twentieth century before the rapid onset of modernisation.