DUBAI: Moving beyond the usual “Middle East vs. West” frameworks, research at Singapore’s top university examines Arabia–Asia connections, shedding new light on centuries of trade, political and cultural ties that were long obscured by European colonial scholarship.
It all began with an endowment from Muhammad Alagil, a Saudi philanthropist and chairman of Jarir Group — one of the Kingdom’s leading retailers.
Located at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, the Muhammad Alagil Chair in Arabia–Asia Studies was established in 2014 to promote research on the contemporary and historical links between the two regions.
“This history has never been put together, and it’s been there for over a thousand years — and I thought this was missing,” Alagil told Arab News from the sidelines of the “Exploring the Sacred,” hosted by the chair in Singapore on Dec. 4-5.
“Considering that Asia is also rising, ascending, it would also be very good for Saudi and the Arabian Peninsula.”
Arabia and Asia have been linked for centuries through trade, religion, culture, food and kinship, with the connections spanning the Indian Ocean and overland routes between West and East Asia.
“Our research covers a wide range of topics — from economic, political, social and cultural interactions — because we are opening up a new geographical area of focus about which there is sparse knowledge and whose scope is huge, going from Arabia to China,” said Prof. Sumit Mandal, who holds the Muhammad Alagil Chair.
“To my knowledge, there is no comparable program of study anywhere else in the world.”
The research spans multiple regions at the same time — from the spread of Islamic spiritual and legal ideas across the Indian Ocean and its coastal areas, through the formation and survival of Arab diasporas in Asia, as well as trade and political networks created by Arab, Indian, Swahili, and Baloch merchants, lawyers, soldiers, preachers and seamen.
“By opening up scholarly analysis to a transregional scope rather than limiting it to national or regional boundaries, the research opens our eyes to the many and longstanding connections that have existed between Arabia and Asia but were erased with the rise of European colonial expansion,” Prof. Mandal said.
“Hadramis from Yemen, for instance, emerge as significant traders, diplomats, scholars and political leaders across the Indian Ocean, from East Africa to Southeast Asia. Where they were once understood purely through their roles within Indonesia, for instance, we can now see the significance of their connections to Yemen as well. The picture that emerges is broader geographically and deeper horizontally.”
Besides research, the endowment also promotes academics working in the field and aims to empower the growth of new generations of scholars, especially from its focus regions.
It made it possible to bring together a network of scholars, including Engseng Ho — a leading scholar of transnational anthropology, history and Muslim societies, who was the first to hold the Muhammad Alagil Chair.
Another initiative is a project to document the history of Arab communities by digitizing and preserving their manuscripts, especially those at risk of being lost or destroyed.
“They are part of a long tradition of local writing across the Indian Ocean that is disappearing because of neglect and lack of proper conservation,” he said.
“When they disappear, we will no longer be able to tell the story of a big part of centuries of trade, politics and cultural exchange between Arabia and Asia before the 20th century.”
The current focus is on three geographical regions: Malabar in India, Makassar in Indonesia and Hadramout in Yemen.
Mandal sees them as offering a completely new understanding of the worlds of Arabia, Asia and the Indian Ocean, because they are written in the local languages and “represent voices of the region,” he said.
“The emerging Arabia Asia Archives will change how we see Arabia, Asia and the world in the present and the past.”
