
Sajjad Alam Rizvi
Assistant Professor and Head of the Department

About-
I specialize in Medieval and Early Modern Indian History. My research interest is intellectual and cultural history of Islam and Muslim Societies in India with a focus on the flows of concepts / ideas and texts across the Islamicate World. As part of my doctoral research, I have written my dissertation on "Loving the Master? The Debate on Appropriate Emotions in North India (ca: 1750-1830)". The dissertation explores the debate on appropriate emotions in general and the concept of love in particular from the perspective of history of emotions. Various groups – affiliated with the spiritual and educational centers in Delhi – emerged during this period. They intensely discussed questions regarding how to cultivate divine love and examined the role of emotions in the master-disciple relationship. In doing so, they privileged emotional styles that differed but often overlapped. The different emotional styles were grounded in emotion knowledge derived from different disciplinary traditions. The perspective from the history of emotions to the study of Muslim religious groups in this period throws nuanced light on reformist trends in South Asian Islam and provides fresh insight to the existing scholarship on the "High Islam and Syncretic Islam" as well as the construction of distinct Muslim identity / identities.
The areas of my general interest inlcude Sufi ideas and practices, history of Islam, medieval and early modern Indian history, history of emotions and conceptual history.
Qualifications+
Ph.D. Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, Dissertation Topic: Loving the Master? The Debate on Appropriate Emotions in North India (ca: 1750-1830) (Grade: Magna Cum Laude) 2012
M. Phil in History, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi (Topic: Births, Marriages and Deaths- A Demographical Study of the Sultanate Ruling Families) 2006 (First Division)
M. A., (Sub: History of Medieval India, History of West Asia, World Power and Diplomacy, Historiography) Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 2002 (First Division)
B. A., (Sub: Indian History, Islamic Studies, English Language) Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 2000 (First Division)
Biography+
Educational Qualifications
Ph.D. Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, Dissertation Topic: Loving the Master? The Debate on Appropriate Emotions in North India (ca: 1750-1830) (Grade: Magna Cum Laude) 2012
M. Phil in History, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi (Topic: Births, Marriages and Deaths- A Demographical Study of the Sultanate Ruling Families) 2006 (First Division)
M. A., (Sub: History of Medieval India, History of West Asia, World Power and Diplomacy, Historiography) Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 2002 (First Division)
B. A., (Sub: Indian History, Islamic Studies, English Language) Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 2000 (First Division)
Fazil, (Sub: Quran, Hadith, Islamic Fiqh, Islamic Studies, Arabic English, etc.) Darul Uloom Ashrafia Mubarakpur, Azamgadh U. P. 1996 (First Division)
Alim, (Sub: Quran, Hadith, Islamic Fiqh, Islamic Studies, Arabic English, etc.) Darul Uloom Ashrafia Mubarakpur, Azamgadh U. P. 1994. (First Division)
Diploma in Modern Arabic & English Translation, JMI, New Delhi. 1998
Kamil , Arabic & Persian Examination U.P 1994
Munshi, Arabic & Persian Examination U.P 1992.
Conference Papers / Talks / Workshops
Presented a paper on The Sufi Concept of Love: Reception and Interpretation in 18th Century South Asia, in the Conference on Emotions in East and West, the Cultural History of Emotions in Pre-Modernity II, Istanbul, (September 29-October 1, 2011)
Presented a paper on “The Sufi Way of Controlling and Cultivating Emotions: A Study of Indian Sufi Manuals” in the conference on “Learning to Feel: Emotions beyond Nature vs. Nurture” in Jerusalem, (April 10-14, 2011)
Presented a paper on “Love in Master-Disciple Relationship: A Contested Concept” for the South Asian Graduate Conference in the University of Chicago, (3-4 March, 2011)
Participated in a PhD Students’ Workshop organized by Dr. Sunil Sharma and Richard Somers Delacy at the Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University, (11-03-2011)
Participated in the Summer School Course, “Introduction to Conceptual History”, in the University of Helsinki, Finland, (August, 2010)
Presented a paper on Purifying the Soul: Conceptualizing Emotions by Indian Sufis at the 21ST European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, University of Bonn, (26-29 July, 2010)
Co-convened a panel on “New Approaches to the Study of Sufism: Perspectives from the History of Emotions at the 21ST European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, University of Bonn, (26-29 July, 2010)
Presented “The Outline of my Research Project” to the South Asian Studies Colloquium, at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, (12 July 2010)
Presented a paper on “Allegiance to the Master: Conceptualizing Spiritual Authority in Indian Sufism” at the fourth Concepta Research Training Seminar, Culture, Civilization and the World –the Semantics of Globalization, University of Oslo, (January 25-27 2010)
Presented a paper on “The Master-Disciple Relationship in Indian Sufism (1750-1830) in a workshop on “Master-Disciple Relationship in the Interdisciplinary Discourse Part 1: Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality” organized by the Department of History and Cultural Studies, FU Berlin, (19 – 21, November, 2009)
Presented “Concept of the Soul: Sufi Scholars in North India (late 18th-early 19th Centuries)” in the panel, Towards the Historical Semantics of Emotions, New Directions in the History of Concepts, in the 12th annual conference on the History of Concepts, London and Oxford, (17-19 September 2009)
Participated in the “International Youth Conference” held in Cape Town, South Africa, (2004)
Participated in the “International Fiqh Conference” held in Pretoria, South Africa, (2003)
Read a paper on “Historical Classification: the Occident and the Saracens in the Middle Ages” in the Summer School, organized by the University of Erfurt, Germany, (2003)
Read a paper on “Textile Technology in Medieval India” in the Students ‘Seminar, Dept. of History and culture, JMI, (2002)
Delivered a talk on “Madras Education in India” in Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, (2002)
Fellowship / Scholarship
Doctoral Fellowship, Centre for the History of Emotions, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin (October, 2008-September, 2012)
Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for the History of Emotions, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin (October- December, 2012)
Merit Scholarship for B. A. and M. A., Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
Translations
Translated “Aljamiatul Ashrafia: A Brief History” from Urdu into English.
Translated “An Introduction to Aljamiatul Ashrafia” from Urdu into English.
Translated “Some Prominent Ulama and Their Role in 1857” from Urdu into English.
Translated “Masaa’il-e-Hajj wa Ziyarat” from Urdu into English.
Languages Known:
Urdu; English; Hindi; Persian; Arabic; Bengali (basics, speaking and understanding); German (Elementary)
Research / Administrative Experience+
Teaching / Other Experience+
I teach late medieval and early modern Indian history, history of Ottoman Empire and history of iran under the Safavids-Qajars and intellectual history of Islam and Muslim identities in modern South Asia.
Post Graduate Supervision+
Academic Memberships+
Publications+
"Conceptualizing Emotions: Perspectives from South Asian Sufism" Contributions to the History of Concepts (Forthcoming)
Work in Progress
"Emotions between Music and Theology: Mystical Audition (Samđ) in South Asian Sufi Texts"
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West Bengal, India
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