East Africa & Indian Ocean Visual and Material Cultures

A study of the social lives of historical and contemporary visual materials (i.e., clothing, photographs, manuscripts) produced by Muslims on the Eastern African coast and their circulations around the Indian Ocean.

Research modalities

• Primary research on Islamic manuscript circulations: Illuminated Qur’an manuscripts produced in coastal East Africa
• Primary research on private family-based photographic collections: Photographs in the al-Hinawy Family Archive (Muscat, Oman)

Published Research

A Corpus of 18th-19th century Illuminated Qur’an Manuscripts from Coastal East Africa, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 14:2-4 (2023), 356-395.

The Faza Qurʾan: Three Nineteenth-century Illuminated Manuscripts from Coastal East Africa, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 24: 2, 2019, pp. 21-47.

The Siyu Qur’ans: Illuminated Qur’an Manuscripts from Coastal East Africa,
in Z. Hirji (ed.), Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 431-472.

The Kofia Tradition of Zanzibar: The Implicit and Explicit Discourses of Men’s Head-dress in an Indian Ocean Society, in R. Barnes (ed.), Textiles in Indian Ocean Societies, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005, pp. 68-84.

A Qur’an manuscript from coastal East Africa, in Smarthistory, 2023.

Islamic Manuscripts in Eastern Africa: A Conversation with Sana Mirza and Zulfikar Hirji on the Qur’ans of the Swahili Coast and an Ethiopian Qur’an from Harar, In Hidden Stories: Books Along the Silk Road Project, University of Toronto & Aga Khan Museum, 2022.

Unpublished Research

Decolonizing Swahili-Muslim Material Culture: Dispersed objects from the Sultanate of Witu (1858-1923), Article submitted for publication.

 (Re)assemblages: Photo-object-things and moving subjects in the Indian Ocean
Paper delivered at conference on ‘Photographies in Motion’, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia (November 28-29, 2019).

Conferences

Coordinator, Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa, Conference held at the Textile      Museum of Canada, May 19–21, 2011.

The Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa Conference, Conference at the Textile Museum of        Canada, 2011