Serendipitous translations a sourcebook on Sri Lanka in the Islamic Indian Ocean edited by Nile Green

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Green, Nile, editor.

Series:

Connected histories of the Middle East and the Global South

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sri Lanka--History.

Sri Lanka.

Muslims--Sri Lanka--History.

Muslims.

Islam--Sri Lanka--History.

Islam.

Indian Ocean Region--Civilization.

Indian Ocean Region.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

First edition

Place of Publication:

Austin University of Texas Press 2025

Summary:

"Sri Lanka is an underappreciated focal point of global history. Known to Persian and Arab traders as Serendib, the island has long been a site of intensive cultural and material exchange, as well as a holy place—Islamic tradition holds that the biblical Adam arrived there after his expulsion from Eden. Assembling centuries of texts, this volume presents an array of sources from the Indian Ocean. Serendipitous Translations gathers travelogues, literary works, commercial records, inscriptions, religious tracts, pilgrim manuals, and more—an unprecedented range of Muslim voices from Sri Lanka between the 1200s and 1990s. These works vividly document medieval pilgrimages, maritime mysticism, diplomatic encounters, colonial-era commerce, and the bustling everyday affairs of a cosmopolitan Asian nexus. Expert translations bring Arabic, Malay, Turkish, Urdu, Dhivehi, Sinhala, Arabic-Tamil, and Tamil texts to readers of English for the first time. Editor Nile Green situates these texts in their Indian Ocean contexts by introducing the broad sweep of Sri Lanka’s story. An invaluable collection, Serendipitous Translations is the most comprehensive anthology of primary sources ever assembled on Sri Lanka’s thousand-year links to the Muslim world"-- De Gruyter Brill

Contents:

Introduction : an island in a sea of languages / Nile Green

Ibn Battuta’s Arabic travelogue on Sarandib / Christopher Bahl

A fragrance from Ceylon : an Arabic mystical epistle by Shaykh Yusuf al‑Maqasiri / Mahmood Kooria

From the seventh clime to the jewel mine : Ottoman Turkish visions of Lanka from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries / Michael O’Sullivan

Muslim Lanka in Malay : a prophet’s exile, a writer’s recollections, and a soldier‑saint’s journey / Teren Sevea

“A journey through the sea” : an Indian merchant makes sense of Ceylon in Urdu / Nile Green

The Muslim friend and the “Muslim revival” : religious change in Tamil Muslim newspapers / Torsten Tschacher

Daydreams at dawn : Hussain Salahuddeen’s Dhivehi novel *Numaan and Maryam* / Garrett Field

Weaponizing identity : the Sinhalese reaction to Muslim migration and Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism at the turn of the twentieth century / Shamara Wettimuny

Adam’s Peak and Muslim identity in modern Tamil texts / Alexander McKinley

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Other Format:

Print version Serendipitous translations

ISBN:

9781477332900

1477332901

9781477332917

147733291X

OCLC:

1553848320

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license