Dr Mahmood Kooria
Lecturer in the History of the Indian Ocean World
Contact details
- Email: mahmood.kooria@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
1017, George Square 40
- City
- Old Town Campus
- Post code
- EH8 9JX
Availability
Thursdays 3.00-4.00pm;
Fridays 3.00-4.00pm and by appointment
Background
I was born and raised in Kerala, southwest India, where I completed my undergraduate studies in History and Islamic Studies at Darul Huda Islamic Academy and the University of Calicut. Later, I moved to Delhi to pursue an M.A. in Ancient Indian History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, followed by an MPhil there in a combination of history and landscape archaeology. During my M.A., I became interested in Indian Ocean histories, a fascination that continues to intrigue me to this day. Along these lines, I completed my Ph.D. in Global History at Leiden University Institute for History in 2016.
Since completing my Ph.D., I have taught and worked in various countries and institutions, including the University of Bergen (Norway), Ashoka University (India), and the National Islamic University Jakarta (Indonesia). Additionally, I've worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL), and the Dutch Institute in Morocco (NIMAR). My research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), New York, and the Dutch Research Council (NWO), the Hague.
I joined the University of Edinburgh in December 2023 and welcome applications from potential Ph.D. researchers interested in the premodern Indian Ocean world, Islamic (legal, intellectual or textual) cultures, Afro-Asian connections, and manuscript traditions.
Qualifications
BA, MA, MPhil, PhD
Undergraduate teaching
Oceanic Histories and Monsoon Cultures: The Indian Ocean, 750-1750
Women in the Ocean: Gendered Travel in the Indian Ocean, 1300-1700
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
The Indian Ocean World; Islamic (legal) history; Africa-Asia connections; Matrilineal/matriarchal cultures
Project activity
Currently I study the matrilineal and matriarchal Muslim communities of the Indian Ocean littoral from East Africa to South|East Asia. For centuries, the matrilineal system served as a practical means to engage in Indian Ocean trade: men could voyage as traders, sailors, and itinerants, while women, holding property, controlled households and broader social spheres. This economic and social stability empowered them in economic and personal choices, allowing for greater freedom within and beyond marriages. While the system has waned among Hindu, Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist communities, it persists among Muslims from Southeast Asia to Southeast Africa. The matrilineal-maritime continuum not only connected millions of them but also raised questions about the Islamic legal tradition.
Current project grants
Veni Research Grant, Dutch Research Council (NWO), the Netherlands
Past project grants
Transregional Junior Research Scholar Fellowship, Inter-Asia Program, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), New York, USA
Books
Islamic Law in Circulation: Shāfiʿī Texts across the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, edited with Michael N. Pearson (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Islamic Law in the Indian Ocean: Texts, Ideas and Practices, edited with Sanne Ravensbergen (New York: Routledge, 2022).
Narrating Africa in South Asia (New York: Routledge, 2023).
Journal Articles
“When Men Get No Share: Matrilineal Muslims and Laws of Succession.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 43, no. 2 (2023): 163-175.
“Textual Circulations and Citation Regimes: A Manuscript as a Library in the Indian Ocean.” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 14 (2023): 110-140.
“Arabic-Malayalam Texts at the British Library: Themes, Genres and Production.” International Journal of Islam in Asia 3, nos. 1-2 (2023): 89-127.
“Regimes of Diplomacy and Law: Bengal-China Encounters in the Early Fifteenth Century.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 64, no. 3 (2021): 217–250
“Un agent abyssinien et deux rois indiens à La Mecque: Interactions autour du droit islamique au XVe siècle.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, vol. 74, no. 1 (2020): 75-103.
“Languages of Law: Legal Cosmopolis and its Arabic and Malay Microcosmoi.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 29, no. 4 (2019): 705-722.
“Encounters with Matriliny of Indic-Abrahamic Religions in Premodern Southern India.” Entangled Religions 11, no. 5 (2020): 1-22
“Eastern African Doyens in South Asia: Premodern Islamic Intellectual Interactions.” South Asian History and Culture, vol. 11, no. 4 (2020): 363-373.
“Does the Pagan King Reply? Malayalam Palm-leaf Documents on the Portuguese Arrival in India.” Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions, vol. 43, no. 3 (2019): 423-442.
“Politics, Economy and Islam in ‘Dutch Ponnāni’, Malabar Coast.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 62, no. 1 (2019): 1-34.
“Uses and Abuses of the Past: An Ethno-History of Islamic Legal Texts.” Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, vol. 7, no. 2 (2018): 313-338.
“Dutch Mogharaer, Arabic al-Muḥarrar and Javanese Law-Book: VOC’s Experiments with Muslim Law in Java, 1747-1767.” Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction vol. 41, no. 2 (2018): 202-219.
“The Indian Ocean of Law: Hybridity and Space.” (co-authored with Sanne Ravensbergen). Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction vol. 41, no. 2 (2018): 164-167.
“Using the Past and Bridging the Gap: Premodern Islamic Legal Texts in New Media.” Law and History Review, vol. 36, no. 4 (2018): 725-752.
“Texts as Objects of Value and Veneration: Islamic Law Books in the Indian Ocean Littoral.” Sociology of Islam, vol. 6, no. 1 (2018): 60-83.
“Early Dutch Encounters with Islamic Law: The Text and Translation of Mogharaer Code or Semarang Compendium.” Indonesia, vol. 106 (2018): 45-87.
“An Abode of Islam with a Hindu King: Circuitous Imagination of Kingdoms in Sixteenth-Century Malabar.” Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (2017): 89-109.
“Two ‘Cultural Translators’ of Islamic Law and German East Africa.” Rechtsgeshichte: Journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, vol. 24, no. 2 (2016): 190-214
Book Chapters:
“Marumakkattayam.” In Concepts from Global South, edited by Dilip Menon (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), 197-215.
“Zones of Origins: The Formation of Islamic Law in the Indian Ocean Littoral, c. 615-1000CE.” In Islamic Law in the Indian Ocean: Texts, Ideas and Practices, edited by Mahmood Kooria and Sanne Ravensbergen (New York: Routledge, 2021): 14-38.
“Doors and Walls of the Masjids: The Arabic Inscriptions in Premodern Malabar.” In The Social Worlds of Pre-Modern Transactions: Perspectives from Epigraphy and History, edited by Meera Vishwanathan, Digvijay Singh and Mekhola Gomes (New Delhi: Primus, 2021): 128-151.
“Eastern African Doyens in South Asia: Premodern Islamic Intellectual Interactions.” In Routledge Handbook on Islam in Asia, edited by Chiara Formichi (New York: Routledge, 2021): 81-93.
“Introduction: Islamic Law in the Indian Ocean World.” In Islamic Law in the Indian Ocean: Texts, Ideas and Practices, edited by Mahmood Kooria and Sanne Ravensbergen (New York: Routledge, 2021): 1-13.
“In Between Many Worlds of One Law: Arab, Malay and Filipino Legal Intermixtures of Shāfiʿīsm.” In Philippine Crossings: Entangled Voices between Oceans, edited by Jos Gommans, Jorge Flores and Ariel Lopez (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2020), 311-331.
“An Indian Ocean Ribāṭ: War and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Ponnāni, Malabar Coast.” In Imagining Asia: Networks, Agents, Sites, edited by Andrea Acri, Kashshaf Ghani, Murari K Jha, Sraman Mukherjee (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2019), 147-174.
“Words of ʿAjam in the World of Arab: Translation and Translator in Early Islamic Judicial Procedure.” In Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, edited by Intisar Rabb and Abigail Balbale (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018): 71-90.
“Introduction.” In Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, edited by Mahmood Kooria and Michael N. Pearson (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018), xv-xxvii.
“Khuṭbat al-jihādiyya: An Unknown Anti-Portuguese Jihadi-treatise in Arabic.” In Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, edited by Mahmood Kooria and Michael N. Pearson (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018), 64-75.
“A Malayalam War-Song on the Portuguese-Dutch Battle, 1663.” In Malabar in the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism in a Maritime Historical Region, edited by Mahmood Kooria and Michael N. Pearson (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018), 141-171.
“‘Killed the Hajj-pilgrims and Persecuted Them’: Portuguese Estado da India’s Encounters with Hajj Pilgrimage, 16th Century.” In Europe and Hajj in the Age of Empires, edited by Umar Ryad (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 16-38.
“Taḥrīḍ ahl al-Imān: An Indigenous Account against Early Modern Interventions in the Indian Ocean World.” In Taḥrīḍ ahl al-imān ʿalā jihād ʿabadat al-ṣulbān, translated by K.M. Mohamed and foreword by Michael N. Pearson (Calicut: Other Books, 2013), 19-48.
“Etiquettes of Manu/scripts: Legal Discourses on Writing and Preserving Books in the Malabar Coast.” In Social Codicology: The Multiple Lives of Texts in Muslim Societies, edited by Olly Akkerman (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).