Empire, Islam and the postcolonial

One of the most persistent criticisms of postcolonialism is that it promotes an antipathy to imperialism that tends to focus on the experience of European colonial empires and neglects other, non-western instances of imperial hubris. The articulation of Islam and empire has not been subject to sustained postcolonial investigation; rather, the relationship between Muslims and imperialism has tended to be represented in terms of Muslim subjugation to European colonial rule. Postcolonial critics have largely avoided the discussion of Islamicate imperialism. • Prof S Sayyid was the Director of the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding, University of South Australia. A version of this chapter was published in Graham Huggan (ed), Oxford handbook of postcolonial studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013