While Europe was still stuck in the Dark Ages, scientists in the Islamic world were tranlsating Aristotle, and making huge strides in astronomy, mathematics and philosophy. Two thousand years later, the idea of 'scientific progress' seems to be locked in a hopeless war with Islam. When and how did Islam lose its enthusiasm for the workings of the natural world? S. Irfan Habib, one of the country's foremost historians, traces teh trajectomy of how 'mainstream' Islam came to question modern science - beginning with the reformers of the nineteenth century and ending with present-day idealogoues. Through the lives of famous men like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, he demonstrates that the modern-day promulagtion of Islam and its followers as 'anti-modern' and 'anti-science' is a myth that leads, quite literally, to explosives consequences. Habib also channels his scholarship to both history and Islam to question the controversial idea of 'Islamic science' as a category distinct from 'modern', 'Eurocentric' science. In an engaging, easy style that belies the weightiness of the questions it seeks to answer, Jihad or Itijihad challenges both stereotypes and propaganda. This book places in perspective the relationship between Islam and science today.
A Marxist scholar and historian, Irfan Habib has been a towering presence in the Indian intellectual scene for over four decades. His formidable intellectual reputation, established in the sixties with the publication of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, broadened as he became an authority in the entire area of Indian history from ancient to modern. Professor Habib's undiminished commitment to the cause of socialism is reflected in these highly original and bold analyses of Marxist historiography and theories of socialist construction. This volume comprises essays from scholars around the world representing the wide variety of Habib's interests and contributions. Ranging from history to politics and economics, the essays cover both the medieval period and modern India, as well as theories for the future of this emerging superpower. This special edition also features an essay by Irfan Habib, originally published as The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey, covering the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara economy and the economy of Mughal India.
While Europe was still stuck in the Dark Ages, scientists in the Islamic world were tranlsating Aristotle, and making huge strides in astronomy, mathematics and philosophy. Two thousand years later, the idea of 'scientific progress' seems to be locked in a hopeless war with Islam. When and how did Islam lose its enthusiasm for the workings of the natural world? S. Irfan Habib, one of the country's foremost historians, traces teh trajectomy of how 'mainstream' Islam came to question modern science - beginning with the reformers of the nineteenth century and ending with present-day idealogoues. Through the lives of famous men like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, he demonstrates that the modern-day promulagtion of Islam and its followers as 'anti-modern' and 'anti-science' is a myth that leads, quite literally, to explosives consequences. Habib also channels his scholarship to both history and Islam to question the controversial idea of 'Islamic science' as a category distinct from 'modern', 'Eurocentric' science. In an engaging, easy style that belies the weightiness of the questions it seeks to answer, Jihad or Itijihad challenges both stereotypes and propaganda. This book places in perspective the relationship between Islam and science today.
Extolled for his extraordinary courage and sacrifice, Bhagat Singh is one of our most venerated freedom fighters. He is valourised for his martyrdom, and rightly so, but in the ensuing enthusiasm, most of us forget, or consciously ignore, his contributions as an intellectual and a thinker. He not only sacrificed his life, like many others did before and after him, but he also had a vision of independent India. In the current political climate, when it has become routine to appropriate Bhagat Singh as a nationalist icon, not much is known or spoken about his nationalist vision. Inquilab provides a corrective to such a situation by bringing together some of Bhagat Singh's seminal writings on his pluralist and egalitarian vision. It compels the reader to see that while continuing to celebrate the memory of Bhagat Singh as a martyr and a nationalist, we must also learn about his intellectual legacy. This important book also makes a majority of these writings, hitherto only available in Hindi, accessible for the first time to the English-language readership.
This book presents a detailed historical analysis of the agrarian conditions in pre-colonial India. It examines areas like land revenue, administration, and agrarian economy and social structure in the Mughal period. The new edition includes a new prologue.
The Book Covers The Period 350 Bc To 185 Bc, There By Encompassing The Invasion Of Alexander And The History Of The Mauryan Empire. It Attempts To Cover All Conventional Textbook Topics Besides Much Other Material Such As Economic Life, Technology, Social Structure, Modes Of Exploitation, Language, Gender Relations, Varied Aspects Of Culture Etc.
Prehistory by Irfan Habib describes the earliest ages of human life in India, long before the existence of written records. It is part of a larger project, a People's History of India. In this monograph, the style is sought to be kept simple without making it 'popular', rhetorical or inexact. Chapter 1 of the monograph treats in brief the geological formation of India, and changes in its climate and natural environment in so far as these relate to an understanding of our prehistory and history. Chapter 2 provides the story of man, first in the global context and then in India. Chapter 3 describes the coming of agriculture and the beginnings of exploitative relationships.Technical or controversial matters that need special attention are dealt with in notes appended to each chapter. There are bibliographical notes, where the more important books and articles covering the subject of the chapter are listed with brief comments. There are also tables, maps and figures, which are useful aids in understanding the subject as well as interesting in themselves.Irfan Habib, formerly Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University, is author of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707 (1963; 2nd rev. edn, 1999), An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982), and Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995). He has also authored The Indus Civilization (2002) and Indian Economy, 1858-1914 (2006), and co-authored The Vedic Age (2003) and Mauryan India (2004), in the People's History of India series.. . . the author, by his simple and lucid style, has ensured that the monograph not only caters to the academic world, but also to lay readers. . . . One is forced to admit that Habib has broken the cliché about a medieval historian not being able to do justice to a different period of historical time. The Telegraph
The monograph surveys the developments within the Indian economy during the period of the high tide of colonial domination between the 1857 Rebellion and the First World War. Its various sub-chapters deal with population, gross product and prices; tribute, imperialism of Free Trade, and the construction of railways; peasant agriculture, plantations, commercialization of agriculture and its impact on rents, peasant incomes and agricultural wages; and rural de-industrialization, modern industries, tariff and exchange policies; banking and finance; and fiscal system, tax-burden and the rise of economic nationalism. There are extracts from contemporary comments and reports; technical notes on such matters as computing national income, counterfactual analysis, etc., and short bibliographies accompanying each of the five chapters.Irfan Habib, formerly Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University, is author of The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556 1707 (1963; 2nd rev. edn, 1999), An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982) and Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995). In the People s History of India series, he has authored Prehistory (2001) and The Indus Civilization (2002), and co-authored The Vedic Age (2003) and Mauryan India (2004). He has edited Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (1999), State and Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan (2001) and A Shared Heritage: The Growth of Civilizations in India and Iran (2002); and co-edited Sikh History from Persian Sources (2001), the Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I (1982), and UNESCO s History of Humanity, Vols IV and V, and History of Central Asia, Vol. V.
The essays in this volume examine the cultural reception of modern science in late colonial India. They show how the first generation of Indian scientists responded to and creatively worked the theories and practices of modern science into their cultural idiom. The process of cultural legitimation of modern science is revealed through the debates surrounding these theories. The first set of essays deals with the encounter between the rationality of modern science and the exact sciences as portrayed by missionaries and British administrators, and so-called traditional ways of knowing. A second set of essays shifts the focus of attention to Calcutta between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when it virtually functioned as India s scientific capital. The essays examine the reception of theories of science such as that of biological evolution and the rejection of social Darwinism. Further, a new set of concerns of scientific and technical education and the installation of modern scientific and technological research systems acquired central importance by the end of the nineteenth century. These concerns dovetailed with the thinking of the emerging nationalist movement, and the essays that discuss the larger Indian picture indicate how the scientific community enlisted the political elite into its vision, and how this very elite drew upon the nascent scientific community in the project of decolonization. Dhruv Raina teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. S. Irfan Habib is a scientist at the National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi.. . . a collection of essays which seeks to examine . . . the cultural offensive [of modernity] during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.The Book Review
This volume explores the economic and social history of India from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. It describes the agrarian order, urban economy, and trading world during the Delhi Sultanate, the subsequent period of political divisions, and conditions in the Vijayanagara Empire, which flourished during this period in south India.
Based on recent excavations and research, this coloured atlas provides detailed information on various aspects of ancient India-society, economy, polity. Each map deals with a historical period and is supported by a detailed description in the accompanying text.
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