Complete, intelligent, and original, Objects of Translation is a remarkable achievement. This book is of such importance for the histories of India and the Islamic world, as well as for theories of culture and language, that it will be essential to all those who want to understand how different cultures interact with one another. -- Oleg Grabar, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study With nuance and subtlety, Objects of Translation joins other recent books in challenging the validity of projecting present-day conflicts onto the earliest encounters between Indians and Persianized Turks. The author cites from an enormous range of materials and evidence, and he brings them all together in an intelligent synthesis. -- Richard M. Eaton, University of Arizona Objects of Translation demonstrates the complex variability of cultural interaction between Muslims and Hindus in medieval India. It is Flood's willingness to tell the whole story--rightly stressing the creativity, but not ignoring the conflicts--that makes the book such a compelling and important work of historical scholarship. -- Phillip B. Wagoner, Wesleyan University This smart and engaging book will be invaluable to readers who seek an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of art and culture, especially in border zones where the most exciting artistic breakthroughs often occur. Comprehensive, creative, and lively, it will be read by scholars of Indian and Islamic art, and educate our next generation of undergraduate and graduate students in a more holistic context. -- Eva R. Hoffman, Tufts University
Acknowledgments xi A Note on Translations and Transliterations xv Introduction 1 Roots or Routes? 1 Networks, Translation, and Transculturation 5 Things and Texts 9 Chapter 1: The Mercantile Cosmopolis 15 Polyglot Frontiers and Permeable Boundaries 15 Gifts, Idolatry, and the Political Economy 26 Heteropraxy, Taxonomy, and Traveling Orthography 37 Chapter 2: Cultural Cross-dressing 61 Prestigious Imitation 61 Fractal Kingship and Royal Castoff s 75 The Raja's Finger and the Sultan's Belt 84 Chapter 3: Accommodating the Infi del 89 Sunni Internationalism and the Ghurid Interlude 89 From King of the Mountains to the Second Alexander 93 Homology, Ambiguity, and the Rule of Sri Hammira 107 Chapter 4: Looking at Loot 121 Signs of Sovereignty 121 Looting and Diff erence 123 Trophies and Transculturation 126 Chapter 5: Remaking Monuments 137 Taxonomies, Anomalies, and Visual Pidgin 137 Rupture and Reinscription 152 Noble Chambers and Translated Stones 160 Patrons and Masons 184 Markets, Mobility, and Intentional Hybridity 189 Chapter 6: Palimpsest Pasts and Fictive Genealogies 227 A World within a World 227 Monuments and Memory 247 The Fate of Hamm?ra 255 Conclusion: In and Out of Place 261 Appendix: Principal Dynasties and Rulers Mentioned 269 Notes 271 Bibliography 311 1. Primary Sources 311 2. Secondary Sources (a) History and Material Culture 317 (b) Conceptual and Theoretical 347 Index 353
Finbarr B. Flood is associate professor in the Department of Art History and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. He is the author of "The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Making of an Umayyad Visual Culture".
Winner of the 2011 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize, Association for Asian Studies, South Asia Council One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 "This brilliant book does many things well, but two stand out. It is an overview of the art, especially architecture and architectural decoration, of what is now northern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries--from the arrival of Islam to the eve of the Mongol conquests. It is also a trenchant essay of interpretation, substituting a richly textured consideration of cultural dynamics and cultural change on a theoretical level for the traditional dichotomy of Hindu versus Muslim... Nothing is comparable to this deeply learned, engrossing, and well-written albeit often challenging work, which is full of compelling discussions of important monuments. It deserves a wide readership."--L. Nees, Choice "[A] brilliant, far-ranging study... This book is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the medieval 'Hindu-Muslim' encounter."--John E. Cort, Religious Studies Review "Flood's is an outstanding book and its level of scholarship is far in excess of any other work on medieval Indian history that I am aware of. It is a book that gladdens one's heart as much as it enriches one's mind."--Harbans Mukhia, Medieval History Journal "This book will not only be of interest to scholars of material culture, art and architectural history, religion, and medieval history, but is also entirely relevant to scholars of modern South Asia. In its insistence on mobility--of objects, people, and ideas--and resistance to boundaries, Flood's book is a timely reminder that global mobility is hardly a new phenomenon."--Preeti Chopra, Contemporary South Asia "This book is a most welcomed addition to the still meager though growing number of studies in Islamic art and material culture, which are based on theoretical premises and on a close, comparative scrutiny of multiple visual objects and texts... [D]ue to its rich material and novel ideas, this book is a necessary asset in the library of historians and art historians of the Muslim world and India, and a useful text-book in academic teaching, hard to read but fully rewarding."--Rachel Milstein, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
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