Serving the Sultan: Religious Diversity in Gujarat Under Islamic Rule

The Serving the Sultan conference will re-visit and cross-examine the processes that forged and shaped this religiously multi-layered, and ethnically plural society during the Islamic period in Gujarat (1298 - 1756 AD). This will be achieved by focusing on religious minorities, either in the numerical sense (Jains/Parsis), or minorities in the sense of not sharing the religion of power (various Hindu traditions). These communities’ intellectual, artistic, and literary contributions at the Islamic courts, their relation with the Islamic rulers, their everyday lives, and their mutual interactions will emerge as the common thread throughout this conference. Moreover, this colloquium seeks to explore how these local actors are embedded in trans-regional socio-political and cultural processes, thus connecting the developments in Gujarat with the broader South-Asian context