More exciting alumni news from the 2019 cohort! Thahir Jamal Kiliyamannil recently published an article on the minoritization of Muslims in India. Featured in ReOrient journal, the article analyses the legal proceedings around the demolition of the Babri masjid in India in 1992 in comparison to the destruction of the Malappuram mosque in the 18th century. The article suggests that the change of narrative from ‘Allah’s home’ to ‘domes of secularism’ points to the crucial changes in the Muslim subject position that is decisively framed through excessive powers of the modern nation-state.
Following his participation in the UCSIA Summer School, Thahir Jamal was selected as an Erasmus Fellow at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Culture and Societies, Freie University, and later a DAAD Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), University of Göttingen. His scholarly contributions extend further, having participated in two prestigious programs last year: the Max Planck Summer Academy for Legal History 2024 and the Central European University’s Summer University Course 2024 on “Democracy and Inequality: The Challenge of a Society of Equals.”
In 2024, he also served as Guest Faculty at the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad. Most recently, Thahir Jamal co-organized a conference on “Ambedkar and Community” at the University of Hyderabad, which brought discussions on caste, religion, community, and identity.
Thahir Jamal’s PhD thesis focuses on Muslim engagements with the State in colonial and post-colonial India, exploring changes in the question of sovereignty. His work examines the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate and British colonial encounters in Malabar, investigating Muslim subject formation and critical issues surrounding minority, nationalism, religion, and state. His works can accessed here.