The metrical translation of the Psalms into the Punjabi language, set to indigenous music in the late nineteenth century in India, plays a vital role in the personal and communal worship of the global Punjabi Christian community. This book is a pioneer work that comprehensively encompasses the cultural, socio-historical, missional, and sociolinguistic aspects of the Punjabi Psalter. It investigates the unique and fascinating story of the contextualizing of Psalms in an exclusive South Asian Punjabi context and engages in an in-depth study on the life and work of Rev. Dr. Imam-ud-Din Shahbaz. This work determines to bring a deeper appreciation for the Punjabi Psalter by encouraging the Punjabi Christians to not only pass the Psalms on to the next generations but also to grow in loving and valuing their mother-tongue, the Punjabi language. The thrust of this book is to esteem the shared heritage of the global Punjabi Christian community—the Psalms in Punjabi, commonly known as the Punjabi Zabur.

This book offers the first social history of music in undivided Punjab (1800-1947), beginning at the Lahore court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and concluding at the Patiala royal darbar. It unearths new evidence for the centrality of female performers and classical music in a region primarily viewed as a folk music centre, featuring a range of musicians and dancers -from 'mirasis' (bards) and 'kalawants' (elite musicians), to 'kanjris' (subaltern female performers) and 'tawaifs' (courtesans). A central theme is the rise of new musical publics shaped by the anglicized Punjabi middle classes, and British colonialists' response to Punjab's performing communities. The book reveals a diverse connoisseurship for music with insights from history, ethnomusicology, and geography on an activity that still unites a region now divided between India and Pakistan.

Asians make up the largest and most dispersed peoples of the world, and Christians constitute a sizable proportion of this population. Asian Christians are likely to emigrate, and many have embraced Christian faith at their diasporic destinations. In light of these realities, the Asian Diaspora Christianity series charts the growing interconnections between the Diaspora Christian communities by providing a rich, multidisciplinary, and contemporary perspective on the globalization of Asian Christianity. This volume, the last in the Asian Diaspora Christianity series, brings together scholars of Asian background and a few others who are situated in diverse locations to draw insights on Christian ministry from a diasporic perspective. This volume pays special attention to the Asian diasporic experience in areas of theology and ministry. Issues of a practical nature, such as English-language worship, contextual leadership, and missionary training are included.

This volume is a collection of essays on transregional aspects of Malay-Indonesian Islam and Islamic Studies, based on Peter G. Riddell’s broad interest and expertise.

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What does it mean for music to be considered local in contemporary Christian communities, and who shapes this meaning? Through what musical processes have religious beliefs and practices once ‘foreign’ become ‘indigenous’? How does using indigenous musical practices aid in the growth of local Christian religious practices and beliefs? How are musical constructions of the local intertwined with regional, national or transnational religious influences and cosmopolitanisms? Making Congregational Music Local in Christian Communities Worldwide explores the ways that congregational music-making is integral to how communities around the world understand what it means to be ‘local’ and ‘Christian’. Showing how locality is produced, negotiated, and performed through music-making, this book draws on case studies from every continent that integrate insights from anthropology, ethnomusicology, cultural geography, mission studies, and practical theology. Four sections explore a central aspect of the production of locality through congregational music-making, addressing the role of historical trends, cultural and political power, diverging values, and translocal influences in defining what it means to be ‘local’ and ‘Christian’. This book contends that examining musical processes of localization can lead scholars to new understandings of the meaning and power of Christian belief and practice.

While the subject of Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian interaction is still not a traditional or systematic discipline, interest in the encounter of these two religions has grown considerably over the last decade. Historians, including historians of Islam and Christianity have always been interested in the civilizational meeting of the two religions, in conflict or in times of peace. This includes aspects of post-colonial studies, which incorporate cultural, literary and political writings which consider the intellectual and social ruptures in so much of the Islamic world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Theologians however have only recently begin to appreciate the amount of material which illustrates the extent to which Christians and Muslims wrote about one another's faith and spoke of each other in a variety of contexts in both polemical and eirenic terms. These resources serve to enrich the understanding of one's own faith and the changing historical relationship with the other. Today, Muslim-Christian is often understood as Islam/West where the Christianity and secularism are either conflated or Christianity subsumed within the larger cultural framework of the west. Either way, Islam is a foreign presence and its points of reference not easily assimilated in the narrative of a Judaeo-Christian West. Nevertheless this has created an interesting intellectual and scholarly dynamic in a wide range of disciplines. This includes ethics, politics, gender studies and the emergence of an interfaith' literature which is increasingly used in scholarly as well as grass roots settings. The collection will comprise around sixty pre-published journal articles and some book chapters. Each volume will contain around 15 articles/chapters. The articles will be secondary sources analysing the works of individual Christian and Muslim scholars, so will not be extracts of primary material thought it is hoped that the majority will contain some primary material. Volume One will contain an Introduction to the whole collection. The volumes will provide a unique and rich reflection of Muslim-Christian encounter. This work will introduce the scholar and the student to the variety of approaches people of faith/no faith have taken to thinking about the two religions. The volumes will cover doctrine, interfaith practice as theory and lived realities and philosophical and literary themes and approaches.