focus of the Akhlaq literature was the fact that human nature needs disciplining the goal of political organization could be achieved through justice and justice was the cornerstone of social organization the rights of all subjects were to be kept safe irrespective of their religious affiliation and the true king was supposed to imbibe all these qualities so justice was defined as social harmony coordination balancing of conflicting interests and attaining etadal or equipoise Sharia was not to be understood in the same sense as jurisprudence but it was the objective of the state was to ensure that the people from diverse temperaments are able to live peacefully and Sharia was supposed to avoid any kind of conflict if you look at some of the Mughal texts like the Ayyari Agbari or Mausai Jahangir which were produced by the court we see a huge influence of the Akhlaq literature Muzaffar Alam has talked at great length about the Akhlaq literature in his writings however it's true that the Mughal states influence on the literary world the Persian literary world of the Indian subcontinent in the 16th 17th century was huge but is it possible to go beyond the state to look at some of these ideas how these ideas were being propagated by the Sufis or by other scholars for common Muslims so did common Muslims also try to imbibe these virtues about relating to social harmony equipoise for instance were the Sufi peace advocating these virtues in their writings in the didactic texts that were written by them or in other words were these ideas part of the larger intellectual milieu of the early modern period in India and it was not just the state which was a pretenator of these ideas but it was a participant in the larger intellectual milieu so in order to answer these questions I am looking at the letters of the scholar called Abdelhaq Mahdus Thehlavi who lived from 1551 to 1642 he lived in Delhi primarily he was trained as a scholar of Islamic learning he wrote both in Persian as well as Arabic he received training in Hadiths he was also initiated to Sufism, Qadri Sufism initially by his father and then by other Sufi peace interestingly he traveled to the Hijaz in 1589 and stayed in the Hijaz, stayed there for three years he received training in the Mishkatil Mashabi under the Muttaki Sufis Abdelhaq Mahdus who was a South Asian Sufi who had settled in Mecca so he received training in Hadiths learning from him he also received training in Sufism under Abdelhaq Mahdus in the Hijaz he stayed there for three years and having received training in Hadiths and Sufism he came back to India in 1591 he was a prolific author who produced large number of texts in Arabic and Persian and also he wrote large number of essays in Persian these texts were, I will talk about the content of this the genre of these texts briefly interestingly enough he never sought direct patronage from the Mughal court though he was based in Delhi, apparently he also stayed in Fatehpur Sikri which was the capital of the Mughals for a short while but he doesn't discuss about that phase of his life otherwise he is quite vocal about his own life in fact in one of the Taskaraths that he had written he talks in great detail about his own family along with 250 other South Asian Sufis who lived in India from the 13th century to the 17th century so in this particular text he talks about his family his grandfather his father his uncle and he also talks about his own life in a few other texts as well he provides details about his own life he also prepared a list of his own writings in this particular list he talks at a great length about each of the texts that he had written how long they were and briefly also explains the content of these texts so he wrote commentaries on the hadiths Mishkatul Mashabi both in Arabic as well as Persian then he wrote the Sufi biographical encyclopedia or the Taskarath Akbarulakhyar he also wrote a very very brief tariq he wrote letters to both Mughal courtiers and Sufis and I will be focusing primarily on the letters in this paper today he wrote biographies of the Qadri Sufis he wrote biography of the Muttaki Sufis he also wrote very short treatises on ideal conduct for Muslims ethical behavior he wrote a travelogue and most of these texts are not available only 16 of these texts out of 48 that he had written had survived but all his essays or the letters have survived so I will be talking about some of these letters today exchange of letters was very common in Indian subcontinent we have Sufis sheikhs for instance wrote letters to their murids sometimes courtiers also wrote letters to Sufis seeking their opinion about various problems or their opinion about Islam and largely about conduct so Naqshbandi Sufi Khaja Bakibilla who died in 1602 and sheikh Ahmad Serhindi who was a contemporary who was also a Naqshbandi Sufi they wrote a large number of letters to fellow Sufis to mobile courtiers to disciples Abdul Haq interestingly also wrote letters to some of the same people to whom sheikh Ahmad Serhindi and Bakibilla were writing but the nature of these letters are quite interesting in fact he tried to map the existing communication network by writing letters to mobile courtiers such as Faisi who was the brother of Abul Faisal who was a friend as well as a courtier of Akbar Murtaz Khan who held important position under Akbar and Jahangir and was also matrimonially related to Abdul Haq as his daughter was married to Abdul Haq's son Murul Haq Abdul Rahim Khane Khanan again a very very prominent scholar who was associated with Akbar and Jahangir and in addition to that he also wrote letters to Sufis, I will come to Sufis in a moment like Bakibilla, Abumali and Abdullah Niyazi so what was the nature of these letters that Abdul Haq wrote which is apparent from the content of these letters that Abdul Haq also held as a major was also a teacher and he taught in a different way and it is likely that as a teacher and with large number of students that he had he spoke to the congregation about the tense of Islamic faith most of these letters that Abdul Haq wrote to the courtiers and to an extent also to the Sufis carry a lot of citations from the Quran Hadith as well as various Arabic and Persian texts which were not commonly in circulation in the South Asian knowledge networks. Now if you look at the normative literature which was being produced by the Mughal court there was a huge emphasis on disciplining of lives of the courtiers Rosalind Hanlon has talked about this aspect about how Akbar sought to discipline the lives of the courtiers and how he tried to give his own interpretation to masculinity. If you look at Abdul Haq Abdul Haq also talked about self-disciplining particularly he talked about control over nafs but he talked about it in a very, very different manner, very different from the way the Mughal court interpreted it so in one of the letters that he wrote to Faizi he argued that the two kinds of people those who are wandering away time in pleasantries of life, Ashwashra and those who are indulging in all sorts of pleasures of life but while others who are living their life in solitude and sadness. Abdul Haq felt that it was nafs or lower soul which was responsible for drifting people away from and towards an inappropriate luxurious life. Hence it was pertinent to have patience Sabir and focus on the current part that would lead to God. So by upholding virtues of simple life Sabir which was similar to the kind of discourses that the Sufi sheikhs would actually have with their disciples or with the audience Abdul Haq put in trying to superiority of such people and also confirmed that this was the true sharia path that would lead to the ultimate reality and help in self-discipline but Abdul Haq was though he was initiated to a Sufi order he was not a Sufi peer but he disclosed virtues of an ideal Muslim life in several correspondence to Abdul Rahim Khana Khana who was a very, very influential Mughal courtier. Khana Khana was Marjalingh Mughal he wrote in Arabic, Persian, Turkish Braj and sometimes also used Hindavi metaphors and Hindavi religious vocabulary. Abdul Haq was trained in both Hadis studies as well as because of his initiation in the Sufi order he carried terminology from both domains in his letters. In a letter to Khana Khana he wrote that there was need to abide by decrees of venerable scholars or Buzur because we cannot reach their stature in addition he also said that all deeds span both Zahir and Bathin so to reach the stage of Marifat Muslim first needs to have firm belief in the path prescribed by prophet and purify the Bathin by doing Zikr in solitude so that the nafs is enlightened by Mure Haq and that would enable people to develop love for God. Elsewhere Abdul Haq also associated the need to purify nafs by following the prophetic path and making apt preparations for the day of judgment. He underlined that the prophet is the best Usta and one should do remembrance on the qualities of God so making effort in the right direction is pertinent to tread the path of Marifat and this can be attained by controlling nafs so that one's heart gets connected with Munri Ilan. He cited the dikta of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jalani who advised his followers to read to Rukat Namaz at night and raise invocations that will enable them to get Naimut which in turn will look after their Akhirat. Abdul Haq reminded Khani Khanan that pleasures of the world are the cause of pain as this world is a place of work and not relief and hence one should intend to attain spiritual pleasure through Sabra and Shukra and thus spreading the path of Haq for Akhirat. So he was talking about self-discipline but this is very different from what the Mughal quote I was prescribing. The Akhirat literature talks at great length about Aithudal or the path of moderation. In various writings Abdul Haq also talked about moderation and interestingly enough he did not see any contradiction between Sharia and Tarika. So in the Akbar Lakhia he mentioned he cited the dikta of Sheikh Hassan Tahir who had argued in a recital that Sharia is following the commandments of the Prophet. It is also about obedience. Tarika is being detached from all when Haqqikat is understanding the manifestation. Sharia means compliance. Tarika means control over nafs. Haqqikat means being united with God. Sharia is the middle path. Sharia is Aithudal. It's the path of moderation or equipoise. Tarika means to stop thinking about oneself and Haqqikat is to meet with friends. Sharia also means being obedience to the lawful. Tarika means indifference to the other and Sharia is abiding. Tarika is fana, annihilation. Haqqikat is eternity. So, Abdelhaq keeps talking about Sharia in most of his literary writings, but he did not see any kind of contradiction between mysticism and Islamic practices. In the text Marjul Bahrain, Abdelhaq stated that people can be classified into three categories. Those Fouqah and Ulmah Zahiri who are in the state of denial and hence do not regard being guided by nafs as problematic. Mashaykh gives commandments against Sharia. It is acceptable to them. Then there are scholars who believe in the tenets of the Ulmah and Fouqah as their only concern. And the third category of scholars argue that they are bound by the Sharia, but due to Haal they are transgressing it. Abdelhaq argued that these people lack knowledge and they are far away from Marifat and some of these people also lack iman and hence they are away from Islam. But he cautioned people that during any kind of behest in kind of argument, people should always adopt the moderate path. Zahiri Ilm should hold primacy and any statement that is made during the condition of what is not reliable. He also argued that any Mashaykh who in order to take the path of Tauheed starts living in the forest and argue and stops having food that is threatening. He also said that Atadal is the best path even for the Sufi so it is not just a path for following the Sharia or for any kind of conflict resolution but also the best path for Tariqa because without following the stage of Atadal one cannot follow the essential or righteous path. So it is pertinent to control the Nass. Just like the Mughal state which focused on conflict resolution Abdelhaq also talked about conflict resolution though Abdelhaq's concern was largely with Muslims and not with people from who were non-Muslims. So Abdelhaq argued that jurists often find that there are difference of opinion regarding the true path. He did not take any particular path as the definitive path and didn't prescribe that any one path is better than the other unless it was against the Sunnah. So for instance he said that he wrote in one of the letters that people hold Fakir who does sabr is better than the rich person who does Shukr but he said both are complementary to each other. Similarly with regards to Ulmin Akli and Ulme Akli he did not condemn Ulme Akli but he heard that Sharia is of prime importance and only after that one should practice philosophy. He argued that all Muslims irrespective whether they were Ulma or Sufi or Umrah they all need to practice abstinence and they should follow a path which is based on Sunnah and that should be the sole intention of life. He provided and it is in one of the letters that he wrote to Sufi Kwaja Bakibilla he provided detailed exposition regarding the Sufi practice of Samah. Now some Orthodox scholars or sometimes it is argued that the Ulma were always against Samah or musical gathering but if you look at Abdul Haq he was not prescribing that whether Samah was illegal or not and he provided a whole range of opinions regarding Samah. So and this actually resonates his training as a muhatis as he presented arguments and counter arguments on the basis of proofs and citations that were derived from the writings of Sufis and Ulema and also negated the weak or inauthentic premises but he did not have any a priori derivative stand regarding permissibility of the Samah. So in this particular letter that he wrote to Bakibilla he cited from the writings of Junaid Bakdadi, Imam Ghazali, Ahmad Dawud, Ahmad Hanbal, Sheikh Jamal Abbas, Sheikh Shohabuddin Shauravardi, Sheikh Bahauddin Zakaria, Sheikh Kududdin Bakhtiyaraki, these are South Asian Sufis, Sheikh Fariduddin Ghanjishakar, Khazi Hamidi, Nizamuddin Auliya and Sheikh Nasiruddin Mahmoud Chiragid Ali as well as a prophetic Khudis. So I will briefly summarize this to show how he tried to resolve conflicting opinions that existed regarding Samah in the Islamic world. So Abduhuk stated that some sources argue that Hazrat Junaid Bakdadi was a regular to the Majlis of Samah but later stopped going there and on being asked he mentioned that he used to go to the Majlis of Samah to meet friends but he felt that this talk was taking this controversial as Hazrat Junaid Bakdadi also stated that Samah is not forbidden as per Sharia provided it entails only human voice. Ahmad Abud Dawud reported that Hazrat Umar was once walking on the road and when he heard some music he closed his ears but did not ask his accomplice to close his ears. Similarly, Sheikh Jamal Abbas was going for namaz when he heard somebody singing loudly and he asked if there was a problem and why he was crying and screaming and screaming so loudly. Ahmad Hanbal reported that in Samah, music and dance is not permissible but there is no hadith that Samah is permissible or forbidden. In fact, Abduhuk reported one hadith where prophet which apparently showcased a prophet's approach towards music. Once Ayesha was singing and playing a drum while prophet Muhammad was sleeping so when Abu Bakr scolded her for making noise a prophet stopped Abu Bakr from reprimanding Ayesha as she was singing on the occasion of Eid but Abduhuk felt that this hadith was of doubtful authenticity. Some Muslims held that if they were performing a difficult task then listening to Samah provided them with dynamism to tread the path easily. Abduhuk did not really agree with this particular opinion and said that if drinking alcohol provides a Muslim with the same kind of vigor as Samah will consuming alcohol be regarded as permissible? He said that performance of Samah is not problematic but the kind of statements that sometimes that are given to show that it is permissible are unconvincing and a reader cannot read a stage of funna and enduring Samah because one is in the state of wajda. He narrated several anecdotes regarding South Asian Sufis regarding the practice of Samah. So according to one such account Sheikh Sohrabuddin Sohrabuddin never invited Sheikh Ahmad Kirmani who is a promoter of Samah to his majlis and if there was any reference to Sheikh Kirmani in Sheikh Sohrabuddin he would not want to hear his name but this was a story which was narrated in the Sohrabuddin sources but as per the Chishti sources Sheikh Ahuddin once came to Sheikh Sohrabuddin Sheikh Sohrabuddin Sohrabuddin Sohrabuddin's majlis and expressed a desire to listen to Samah but due to the nature of the demand placed by Sheikh Ahuddin Sheikh Sohrabuddin Sohrabuddin permitted performance of Samah but himself stayed away and started reading Namahs. This is from Chishti source. Sheikh Bahuddin Zakari was also a Sohrabuddin Sufi apparently listened to Samah in solitude and even got into ecstasy. However, Ahuddin argued that this Chishti rendering of Sohrabuddin narratives seemed to be weak and unreliable. He also discussed the Chishti Sufi approach towards Samah which is participated in Samah and ensured that it conformed to the norms of the Sharia Sheikh Bahuddin Bakhtiyar Papi used to keep Rosa and listen to Samah and he died in state of ecstasy Sheikh Hamiduddin Nagori or Sohrabuddin lied Samah though the Ulima of his age did not like it and tried to stop it. Sheikh Nizamuddin Aulia introduced apparently some changes in the Samah and Sheikh Nasruddin Mahmud was his disciple enjoyed listening to Samah but once Samadhi started playing musical instrument during the performance so he left the much less. So when people told him that he was not adhering to his peers' tariqa Sheikh Nasruddin told that his peers' tariqa is not the reason or the proof to follow it and Nizamuddin Aulia heard the story and he agreed that usage of musical instrument is not permissible so Abdullah concluded this long letter to Vakibella by suggesting that Murids should know the Sharia and then they should follow their peer and not otherwise and this was in sharp contrast to some of the other Sufis like Abdul Rahman Chishti who argued that whatever my peers says that is my tariqa. Abdullah talks at great length about Sharia and Sunnat as well as tariqa in these letters, especially letters that he wrote to Sufi sheikhs like Vakibella, Abdullah Niyazi and Abul-Mahli. Abdul Haq wrote that Sufis and Ulema are not antagonistic to each other. Talib should follow the path of God but first should have Iman and then tread the path of Mahmud for God. True Iman is from Ulema and there is both fear and hope a fear of God in lifetime and hope for God's benevolence in the Akhira. It is important that Iman should include Amal to the norms of Sunnat as Abdul Haq argued Sharia is the base ish is the pillar and hence the instructed Muslims to obey the Sharia first because if one becomes Sufi first and under the control of Haal tries to follow the path of God then his in will be deficient. He also cited the Ditta of Abdul Qadir Jilani that every Haqika that ignores the Sharia is not reliable as proofs required to justify Haqika Sunnat and the Quran. While laying down the norms of Sufi tariqa, Abdul Haq stated that to tread the correct path one needs to understand the tariqa first and the correct tariqa is to do Ibadat of Quran. If due to ignorance some people choose a wrong path and argue that Nama and Rosa are appropriate. Thank you. He strongly condemned strongly condemned any innovation of changing the norms prescribed for the Muslims. So in one of the letters that was written at the time of the death of Haqqa to Mughal Kote Murtaza Khan he argued that Prophethood and Sultanate these are two different things. Farouk had claimed Godhood for himself though he was not capable of these actions because the claim of Prophethood is only for those people who get affairs from God who are seamless blessed with specific miracles and they bring Sharia to the world and they get ill from so that Jahalat is removed from this world and prophets have their own Ummat and so prophets make no claim for Saldana. Now this statement and this particular letter is very interesting because the kind of religious practices and kind of claims that Akbar was making it seems that after his death Abdul Haqq was trying to tangentially indicate that such practices should not continue in the future. Sheikh Abdullah Niyazi who was a former Mehdiwi and also servitor of Salim Chishri's Dargah which was patronized by the Mughal Kote, Abdul Haqq wrote large number of letters to him as well and informing him about the Adhikad of Sufis. Though he was quite elderly, Abdul Haqq wrote a letter in which he talked about the Sirat-e-Mustaqim or the True Path of God to get rid of fallacies. He argued that if a Sufi denies the import of Sunnah and projects something else as the core of Tasafuf then he is deficient in his belief. He reiterated that every Muslim should give importance to the knowledge of Fiqh as it enables them to read the method to understand the Tents of Faith and Quran. He cited several Hadiths in the letters he wrote to Abdullah Niyazi and underlined that Prophet's stature is very high and it is pertinent to we follow him stop all forms of Bidda that do not follow the Incarnate Sharia. He also argued that Sultans should not go against Deen and Ulema should follow and teach the Quran to people and never give any Fatwa that is against the Sharia and they should detach from everything else that is against them. Abdullah Niyazi was also closely associated with the Mughal court and it seems that through this letter and the kind of directions that he was given to this elderly Sufi he was commenting on the prevailing political and religious conditions where people were taking liberties with the tenets of Islam and hence he felt the need to reiterate the basics of Islamic Fiqh and especially to the leaders of the Muslim community. In several letters that he wrote to Abdullah Niyazi he talked about how several practices which are followed by Muslims are like going for Ibadat on Sharia Barat going to the graveyards of the department so he argued that people believe although this is untruth but people believe it doesn't do any harm to religion but it was duty of the Masha'a to guide people regarding these appropriate practices so that people follow the correct path and if any point of time any wrong with this is cited as a proof for a wrong path that is extremely harmful because Jihad Sufism is extremely harmful. Abdullah argued further that the true Perika is the path that takes the salik to the path of Marifat and it includes purity of heart and there is no dilemma regarding the correct path so while citing communication between Abu-Ali-Sinah and Sheikh Abul-Kher Abdullah recounted that raha-tariqat is not different from raha-i-haq provided people don't get busy in the pleasures of the world and people follow all the tenets of the Sharia by keeping rusa play-paying, zakat, performing salat, etc. so that the akhirat is comfortable so in most of the letters to Abdullah Niyazi he raised concern about the innovations that had been brought to the faith because of false these improper conduct of common Muslims and lack of proper guidance by the Mashaik though he did not directly indicate that Abdullah Niyazi was conducting all this or he was deliberately conducting all these but it seemed that he felt the great need to guide him regarding the correct path so that he could transmit the same to his followers though most of the Sufi writings if you look at most of the Sufi writings in the Indian subcontinent they tend to focus on a particular Sufi order the Sufi path Abdullah Niyazi did not propagate norms and ideas of any Sufi order neither in the Akbarul Akhiyar which was a Sufi biographical dictionary nor in his letters to fellow Sufis in fact he borrowed ideas and subjects and cited the dicta of Sufi preceptors from across time and space so he write he supported the dicta of Sufis from the Shazli order, Muttaki Sufis Chishti's, Soharavadi's Sufis from Central Islamic lands, Sufis from South Asia so for instance he reported the dicta of Sheikh Ashtabuddin Ahmad Zarukh who had premised on firm belief and trust in God and following Sunnah acquiring sound knowledge regarding the attributes regarding the attributes of God from Mashaik and following the prophetic path. He also cited the dicta of Sheikh Abuhal Sinsen Shazli who had advised one should converse with people so that it helps the Salik in following the true path. He reiterated the need to first make the Akhi that strong and then follow Sunnah. He cited the dicta of Sheikh Ali Muttaki who was the teacher of Sheikh Abdul Wahab Muttaki Abdul Haq's own teacher in the Hijaz in a Rasala and with regards to the appropriate path to reach God that is through Ibadat of God by fulfilling obligatory and supragetary prayers obedience to Sunnah in reading the Quran etc. So if Abdul Haq argued that following the directions of Pir and Sheikh is important a Salik does get a benefit from it but and he himself initiated into the Qadir-e-Sulfi order so he also cited the dicta of Sheikh Abdul Qadir-e-Jalani more often than any other Sufi and in one of the letters that he wrote to Bakibullah he reinforced the idea that all other practices are secondary Sufi must adhere Sufi's practices must be grounded in the Sunnah and this was interesting because Bakibullah had enrolled a large number of disciples he was an Akshbindi Sufi but he had enrolled a large number of disciples including those who had already been initiated into other Sufi order so it seems that he had disciples from diverse mystical orientation and Abdul Haq tried to guide himself towards a proper method in fact in another letter to Bakibullah he summarized a letter summarized an essay called Fakhre Muhammadi which was written by Sheikh Ahmad Ibrahim underlining that Dervish Murshid Murid should draw illustrations from Prophet's life and Sunnah in this letter it's argued that Salih should follow Usul and Kawayyat that will enable him to become friend or companion of God, sorry companion of Prophet on the day of judgment the presence include avoiding novelty being attentive being regularly in offering Salat in order to receive God's benefits Abdul Haq explained that regarding Namaz as not as an obligatory ritual and just not focusing on the inner meaning of Namaz can be very harmful so people should have unwavering faith in Prophet's tariqa should stay away from negative actions forgive people who have committed sins and keep one's heart busy in remembering Prophet who should be thought of as the Sheikh or Peer he emphasized that Prophet and Sheikh and Peer are the same and hence following Prophet's order is mandatory and one can be trained by reading the Hadith which would augment the love for him and practicing a Muslim will get a vigor to follow Prophet's mandate so Abdul Haq reported that the Faki should have fear of God as wearing Zahiri Sufi dress is not enough unless they have Iman and being busy in Samah is no good if Namaz is regarded as a prefectory ritual so the intention of mashayats of all tariqa was not limited to shielding the muris and instructing them in Sufi practices Abdul Haq stated that the mursheeds should educate their disciples about the norms of Sunnah so that the part advocated by the great Sufis and scholars is adhered to and no Bidda is introduced he also talked about Akhirat very often in the letters that he wrote to the courtiers so he in fact classified people into four categories He did not claim that any particular category of people was superior but people would get rewarded in the Akhirat as per their conduct in this world so hence it was important for Muslims to do Shukr and understand that that if Haqq and his originates from God and women beings have no existence without God so he wrote that he also argued that the notion of Akhirat is of great importance because the debt is inevitable but people somehow are negligent they are busy in seeking pleasures due to the control exercised by the lower soul and do not perform their duties and in one such although most of the tone of his letters was very very serious but he narrated an anecdote in which he mentioned that a man was running away from a lion and fell into a well and then he realized that there was a snake lying on the ground and he was facing death but in that moment of despair he got carried away by seeing a honey bee's nest and thought that if he consumes honey then he will be so happy and he fell down and he died so he argued that it was due to nuts that this man forgot about death so he reminded people across his writings not just in the letters that people should focus on the Akhirat and pursue the true path that will help them on the day of judgment although Bilhuk was a scholar of hadith he rarely talks about kafir, he rarely talks about non-muslims he talks a great length about making one's iman strong and in one such letter he commented on iman's acceptance at death so he cited Ibn al-Arabi's text Fusus al-Hikam and he said that some scholars believe that while there is a condemnation of Pharaoh's religion but there is no condemnation but his iman is accepted Bilhuk felt that if an entire life is spent in kafir then at the time of Akhirat once iman cannot be accepted he was critical of this position and he said that no ayat of Quran can actually explain what has been mentioned in Fusus al-Hikam and this kind of iman is not acceptable and if this is acceptable then what is kafir so to conclude Abdullah's letters to Qoteers demonstrate his desire as a teacher to edify Muslims about Islamic practices and context they carried the directed tone of the teacher but usually the letters that he wrote to Qoteers they were presented in a simple fashion in contrast to this so he focused on themes like offering namaz, invocation, thanksgiving practices which would benefit Muslims on the day of judgment abstaining from worldly pleasures he used simple words usually avoided difficult Arabic terminology though he summarized the ideas which were there in the Arabic text in simple position language he also cited verses from the Quran and citations from the hadith but they do not form the core of these letters in fact he focused more on explanation so that the readers could give the Qoteers largely or the general readers were probably accessing these resellers could read them but if you look at he also cited from the lives of great Sufis and scholars many of whom were not based in South Asia like Junaid Baghdadi Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani Sheikh Zikrallah and many others and many of these people were usually not cited in the Persian literature or Sufi literature in the Indian subcontinent but Abdul Qadir chose to provide his own rendering of the subject rather than providing proofs all the time because he tried to make these letters as easy to read as possible but when he wrote letters to the Sufis they were thematically much more complex one can see that how he was trying to showcase his knowledge regarding the Arab knowledge systems and his vast knowledge of hadiths as well as Sufism and a whole range of other texts the letters that he wrote to some of the very very senior Sufis like Baki Bilal Abdul Laniyazi or Shah Wilmal were much more complex linguistically as well as thematically it seemed that he tried to showcase his knowledge to his knowledgeable knowledgeable peers it is interesting Baki Bilal was also writing letters to courtiers and to Sufis regarding the Surahs of Quran regarding Dua but he never wrote any letters to Abdul Haq Abdul Haq wrote letters to Baki Bilal on similar themes and he also wrote to others but doesn't seem that Abdul Haq was trying to treat Baki Bilal as his machine or as his teacher he was certainly not seeking guidance from him but he was trying to showcase his vast knowledge of Islam and Sufism so it seems sexual scholasticism we relate to circulation of sexual scholasticism of Abdul Haq like the circulation of knowledge pertaining to tenets and practices of Islam the dicta of Islamic scholars from Egypt central Islamic lands which largely circulated in the Arabic scholarship could now circulate in the Persian language because of Abdul Haq's vast repertoire of knowledge regarding Hadith Islamic faith training in Sufism and he could easily cite introduce and summarize the dicta of Arab scholars in Persian in doing so he produced didactic texts in different genres letters are just one example he did so in other types of texts as well and depending on the audience there were Sufis of Forteus who used a differential approach he engaged with themes that concerned the moobals like Aithidal, moderation, resolution of conflict, self discipline guidance regarding true faith Sufi Tariqa and the Sharia but unlike some of his contemporary Sufis he did not use Hindavi motifs or Hindavi tomes and did not showcase any of its influence on Islam he did not even prescribe non Islamic precepts as equivalent to Islamic precepts which were done by some of his contemporary Sufis his approach towards writing was to unravel the truth and focus on aspects of moderate part within Islam without transgressing the prescriptions of some Thank you Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation So for questions please put your questions in the text box so I can basically read them out loud to Sushmita and we can get going like that but before we go on to the questions I would just like to say what was most interesting to me is the fact that Dahlavi here Abdullah Dahlavi does not see a tension between the Sharia and Sufism whereas as a historian of late Safavid Iran there is such a great tension between the Sufis and the more juristic minded ulema who are very Sharia based and just merely tension its outright hostility where one party is accusing the other of being kafir of not even being part of the Islamic religion if you read some of the and there are so many anti-Sufi treaties that are written in the late Safavid period it's very much about Sufis not being Muslim but being maybe Zoroastrians being various kind khawaraj is also something that they're called imagining that the Sufis are partaking in various kinds of sexual vice and un-Islamic practices it's fascinating to me that Dahlavi combines his Sharia and even uses it as a basis to build his Sufism on so that was absolutely fascinating to me I'm not expecting any comments on that but I suppose we'll go on to the first question and get the ball rolling that way you have mentioned of Dahlavi saying that he never sought patronage from the cause I just wonder what was his way of income as he wrote his works if he did not benefit from the quarterly patronage so he was his father had established a mother-sa in Delhi and his father used to teach in that mother-sa Abdul Haq started writing at a very early age when he was in his 20s he started writing the Akbarul Akhiyar then he went to the Hijaz so by the time he was 40 he had actually acquired a lot of knowledge and then he started writing more and more texts in fact most of these letters were written towards the end of 16th century to early 17th century and he continued teaching at his father's mother-sa and he had large number of students so if you try to take the intellectual network of Abdul Haq Dahlavi he had many many students who came and learnt from him many of them learnt hadiths from him but they also received training in other branches of knowledge and he was likely that as a teacher he probably earned his living and he did not seek koth petrishya well as I mentioned briefly that he did go to Fatehpur secretly for a very short period of time which was the capital now interestingly if he doesn't mention about this incident at all in wherever he talked about his own life he otherwise talks about his great length about himself his achievements his writings and at least in three of his books he talks about himself along with some of the other great people but he doesn't mention about this incident we get to know it from another text called the month of khawal tavari and he's probably spent around five years in Fatehpur secretly but it is likely that the kind of political environment that was there in the Mughal koth he did not find it conducive because the kind of ideas that were for instance was circulating so he was claiming that Akbar is Insane Kamil he's the perfect man Akbar is the Mujtahid of the age and there were various other ways in which Akbar was not treated like a prophet but he was being made into a larger than life figure so it's obvious that Abdul Haq who wanted everybody to follow the prophetic path was very uncomfortable with what was happening in the Mughal koth and hence he chose not to talk about this phase of his life and he continued his life as a teacher and he became very famous many of his students went on to become kothiers they also and he was, Abdul Haq was cited very often during his lifetime so when all these thaskarads were produced in the 17th century there was a reference to Abdul Haq so that he was a great scholar of hadiths he had written the Akbar-ul-Lakhia so his texts were in great circulation you'll find large number of manuscripts of the Akbar-ul-Lakhia the Sufi kaskarad and many of his other texts he wrote a biography of prophet Muhammad he wrote hadiths he wrote short treatises so it was probably an account of his teaching and his scholarship that he continued he didn't have to seek patronage from the koth it is another question yes I'll read that out this is more of a modernist question it's from Razia Aravi in your discussion of Nasiri in ethics and Akhlaq literature which is heavily influenced by religion do you see any connection to the modern genre of conduct literature which is more influenced by gender see I have not really worked on Akhlaq literature am I audible yes I have not really worked on Akhlaq literature Muzaffar Alam has talked at great length about Akhlaq literature and its influence on the Mughal quote but I don't see any connection with gender in the Akhlaq I don't think even he has talked about any influence of gender in the Akhlaq literature as such the history with regards to gender in Mughal is not very strong it's quite weak but Rosalinda Handlin has talked about the norms of masculinity and how Akbar tried to define what kind of conduct the male courtiers should have but I do not see a lot of influence I have not really thought about it but I don't think the scholars who have worked on Akhlaq literature have also talked about the gender aspect I see okay if there are any other questions now would be the time actually one final question that I had what we see in a lot of Sufi Tarikas whether Sunni or Shi'i is the lionization of the nephew of the Prophet Ali Ibn Abi Talib is that also the case in his own Sufi order that Ali became a prominent figure or an exemplar of Sufi kind of enlightenment Abdelhaq was initiated to the Qadri Sufi order but he did not write any original text on Qadri Sufism so what he did was he wrote a biography of Abdul Qadir Jalani the Akbar Alakhiar was a biographical dictionary which included biographies of Sufis from various Tarikas Qadri, Shishki, Sohrabaddi and I have read the Akbar Alakhiar but I do not see any kind of special importance being given to Ali so I don't think he tried to do that he focused largely on he kept saying Sharia and Tariqa they are all this together Tariqa that doesn't follow the Sharia because there were contemporaries Sufis who said that whatever my piece is that is my Tariqa so Abdelhaq was more interested in countering that line of argument but I have not really encountered any his writings where he tried to elevate the position of Ali to a different level Thank you very much Sushmita Banerjee that was a wonderful presentation and I had a terrific time listening to it we are going to move on to a very unique actually given what has come so far a very unique presentation we have mostly been focusing on medieval and early modern we are going to go forward now into the modern era and we are going to go to foreignization and ways of looking at the self in two major countries in West Asia which are as both to this wider turquotagic world that we have been speaking of Iran and Turkey so Razia Aravi lovely of you to join us please briefly introduce yourself and launch right into your presentation Thank you very much So my name is Razia Aravi I am originally from Iran it's been seven years I'm living in US so I study comparative literature at the University of Michigan I work on translation, gender and genre in modern period and I'm interested in migrating texts among like French, Arabic Turkish and Persian in this period with a focus on gender studies so in I will share my screen just a second Before you actually get started I would just like to say with regard to questions post the questions in the chat box as we go along and the questions pop into your head so we can come back to them at the end of the talk and launch right into the Q&A more smoothly Thank you, go ahead Okay So I start with my presentation the domesticated modernities in Iran and Turkey by talking about Edward Said his traveling theory so in his article Traveling Theory, Edward Said wrote quote like people and schools of criticism ideas and theories travel from person to person situation to situation and from one period to another the traveling concept specifically relevant to this paper or presentation is about feminism and women rights that I will talk about circulate in Egypt and Turkey and Iran through a translation Said argues that theories develop in response to specific historical and social reasons but when they move from their point of origin the power and rebelliousness attached to them dissipates as they become domesticated dehistoricized and assimilated to their new location so this is one first example where he uses domesticated as a kind of negative connotation for the word when a theory travels he says there is also the possibility that a theory can be reinterpreted and does reinvigorated by a new political situation however he does not elaborate further on this possibility which is a more positive possibility in his regard to traveling theory he specifies four different stages for a theory to travel first he talks about the point of origin or set of circumstances in which the idea came to birth second there is a distance traversed and third is a set of conditions conditions of acceptance or resistance to the theory and the final stage is the transformation of the theory into new users in a new time and place Said asks questions about the limits and possibilities of a theory that makes it either adaptive or non-adaptive for a new setting however he leaves these questions unanswered so he moves on after talking about these stages and kind of elaborating on traveling theory to talking about a concept which is very interesting to me it's called creative misreading before coming to elaborating what creative misreading would be for Said I would like to talk about translation and how a theory gets translated in a new context so Said does not talk about translation or translation being a medium for a theory or a set of ideas to travel but since this in this context when I'm talking about Egypt, Iran and Turkey translation is the most important medium I'm going to talk about translation as refraction so André Laufet, the French translator states that a writer's work gains exposure and achieves influence mainly through misunderstanding and misconceptions or to use the more neutral term refractions so it's very important to pay attention to the way that he talks about misunderstandings and misconceptions because Said also is talking about creative misreadings as a form of resistance to only imitating theory this is also interesting to talk about when we are considering translation as refractions producing different meanings in different directions to talk about prismatic approach to translation by Matthew Reynolds Matthew Reynolds sees translation as a dynamic activity fully engaged with cultural systems and he describes it it would no longer be a channel between one language and another he basically moves on from linguistic transmission of translation and he says that it's rather a prism it would be seen as opening up the plural signifying potential of the source text and spreading it into multiple versions each continues with the source different from it and related to the other versions do different from all of them too so translation as refraction and translation as prism introduces us to this idea introduces us to how translation can create different meanings and it shows different potentials for a theory when it travels through translation so after talking about these concepts about translation we come back to the idea of creative misreading that Said talks about he says it's the critics responsibility to creatively misread the theory this is the form of critical reading and resistance to the theory he writes quote when it is elevated to a general principle the idea that all reading is misreading is fundamentally an abrogation of the critic's responsibility it's never enough for a critic taking the idea of criticism seriously simply to say that interpretation is misinterpretation or that borrowings inevitably involve misreadings so here I would like to suggest a few things this misreading and creating resistance to literature is very important in colonial theory and when we are talking about misreading or reading in regard to translation many scholars argue like they argue that translation is a form of reading and also she talks about translation as a form of erotic and intimate reading so when we are talking about Menzai talks about reading we can also talk about translation as a form of reading and when we are doing like prismatic translations and refractive translations this can be also regarded as a creative misreading that Saeed is talking about here also he talks about this the critic's responsibility to misread or misinterpret in theory and create this space of resistance or in betweenness when theory travels but here I argue in my case that he dismisses the role of the translator and be regarded as the critic in this sense because it's the responsibility of the translator to first read the text so he or she will be the first person to misread the text and create this space of in betweenness or resistance in translation studies so then we come to the word domestication that Saeed uses for a theory when it travels from one point to another when discussing traveling theory Saeed uses the word domestication when the theory gets localized in a new setting for Saeed it has a negative meaning since he emphasizes that when a theory gets domesticated it loses its primary power the concept of domestication occurs in translation studies as well Laurence Venuti is one of the famous scholars who wrote on this ideas of foreignization and domestication Venuti describes a domesticating method in which the translator leaves the reader in peace as much as possible and moves the author towards him in much freer rewriting of the foreign text according to the intelligibility and interests of the receiving culture than foreignization which is the form of translation where the translator leaves the author in peace as much as possible and moves the reader towards him. Venuti discusses the concept of foreignization and domestication when the text is translated from a colonized language into the colonizer's language so just one point to highlight foreignization is a more preferred let's say form of translation when it comes to the post-colonial theory because foreignization creates the kind of resistance that we are looking for when a text travels from the colonizer's the colonized to the colonizer's language in order to unsettle the colonizer's language and context but domestication is not a preferred paradigm of translation in this concept but here because in my research I'm talking about a different route I'm talking about local translations rather than global to local translations I argue that domestication can be favorable in this context when texts get locally translated from like Egypt to Turkey or Iran so I basically argue that theory does not lose its power when it's tamed as Said says or domesticated in its new context it exhibits its true potentiality through translation so according to the Newsy foreign text may be chosen because the social situation in which it was produced is seen as analogous to that of the translating cultures and thus as illuminating of the problems that a nation must confront in its emergence a translator may choose a foreign text because its form and theme contributes to the creation of a specific discourse of nation in the translating culture Manuti further elaborates that a translation strategy may also be affiliated with a national discourse because it employs a dialect that has gained acceptance as the standard dialect or the national language the text translated in Iran and Turkey during the 19th and 20th century were centered on nationalism and gender to emphasize the nationalist agenda of modernity during this period translators or later authors chose text on this courses around women's education and nationalism so a little bit like I'm going to provide a brief background about translation history in Iran and Turkey before talking about the cases studies that I have here so across the 19th century translation was a growing industry in both countries with growing literacy across the Middle East cultural commodities proliferated presses were founded, books, newspapers and magazines emerged Arabic works were translated into Turkish and Persian and vice versa also there were lots of like English and French works being translated into Persian and Turkish while writing produced in Europe of salience to reformist, emergent nationalist and gender activist groups were translated early nearly simultaneously into Arabic, Turkish and Persian and other languages in the Iranian and Turkish context during the modernization period of the 19th century many men started translating a variety of books from different languages for the sake of speeding up national modernization women's role were important in these nationalist projects as Merlin Booth writes throughout the Ottoman Empire including Egypt translation is one index to the importance and contrast of debates on gender organization girls education and gender seclusion as political and global issues for modernizing elites and this is true also for Iran where translators purposefully chose the foreign and local text that would teach women their new roles as mothers and daughters of the nation during this period the body of translated literature is in harmony with the national discourse that was focused on creating female national identities desirable for the nation. The traveling text opened a space for a body of literature on women's rights although this literature already existed in both Iranian and Turkish they occupied a peripheral location in literature so moving on to talk about this case study I will first elaborate why they chose when it comes to translating on women's education in these two Islamic context why they choose local text over global text when choosing a foreign text from the West one implication for those engaged in the domestication of the new translated ideas in the above mentioned Turkey and Iran context was how to use translation productively as a social tool as intellectuals were arguing over how best to confront and receive Europe as a set of technologies a set of cultures a political space with frightening and appealing implications this implication was not a big issue when circulating local or regional text since they already had gone through one layer of domestication in my discussion of Qosem Amin I will talk about how he was already influenced by the by Darwinism so there is this set of already traveled idea of Darwinism in him and then how he implements this idea in his argument of Tahriratul Mara this implication was not a big issue when circulating local text since they already had gone through one layer of domestication however the process of adapting a text created a new issues for the translator that resulted in creative modifications of the target language which is also the aspect of misreading that Sayid talks about intellectuals working across different languages such as English, French, Arabic, Turkish and Persian grappled with questions of how inherited languages out to be retooled or not even for contemporary purposes and what the relationships were or out to be between spoken and written idioms particularly since texts were communicated orally and received as well as through written manuscripts or printed books in societies like Iran and Turkey these questions resulted in a new vernacular language to facilitate to facilitate communication between these translated works and ordinary people reading them so about this like I'm not going to go into detail about this new vernacular language reform that happened in Turkey and then more implicitly in Iran too but I'm going to say a few words about how the Iranian translator uses different words for gender and for women and how he is being creative in his translation and opening the space for new positive terms like using for women so moving on to Osam Amin this is going to be a case to study how his book got translated into the Iranian context and how the Turkish authors were influenced by him in their own work on women's education so in 1899 Osam Amin the Egyptian writer published a book on the emancipation of women however this publication unlike his other works gave him greater fame along with notority due to its subject before delving into women's issues inspired by Darwinism Amin comments on the Islamic society in general by saying that under the new changes happening all around the world the Islamic community is weak to face the pressures and consequently it will not survive in a world ruled by the laws of natural selection for Amin the cause of this weakness is ignorance ignorance about the true sciences from which alone can be derived the laws of human happiness later he narrows down his analysis to the family and the relation of men and women in the family by writing that quote the relations of men and women of mother and child are the basis of society end quote the deficiency of Islamic society is due to the dysfunction of smaller institutions like families since in Muslim countries neither men nor women are properly educated to create a real family when talking about these issues he underlines that these faults are not due to Islam or Islamic law the sharia Amin indeed states that the original Islamic system and laws were the first law to provide for the equality of women and men came into it from the outside from the people who were converted and brought in their own beliefs at the heart of the social issues lies the position of women Amin argued that in order to get rid of ignorance and weakness women's position in the society should be improved through education women's education should have elementary schooling in aiding them with managing the household properly and playing their roles in the society therefore their education should include reading, writing, some notions of natural and moral sciences of history and geography hygiene physiology as well as religious education physical training and training of artistic taste just inside parenthesis he also compares women's education to men's education and he says that women do not need to be educated like along with men it's just the basic things are just enough for women's education the independence that women could gain from education is the core goal for Amin for he states that unless a woman could support herself okay yeah sorry unless a woman could support herself she would always be at the mercy of a male of male tyranny no matter what rights the law gave her and would have to secure power for herself by devious means the purpose of his emphasis is to make sure that his readers would not think that Amin suggested reforms deviates from Islamic law he keeps emphasizing that these all are suggested by Islam and Sharia he says that Islam declared women's freedom and emancipation and granted women all human rights during a time when women occupied the lowest status in all societies and then he comes to his conclusion on women's struggle in the path of their emancipation he takes his stance on the Quran and Sharia's interpretation and he says on the matters that have been discussed in Oran and Hadith men must obey the instruction word by word despite the consequences however on the other hand when there is no text or interpretation on social issues at hand then one must choose among alternatives in the light of social warfare in the latter case one should be cautious that traditional rules and interpretations are not considered custom set in stone it is legitimate to seek a new interpretation which meets the need without departing from the general principle of the Sharia with the gradual process of modernization that happened in most Islamic countries during this period there were major social and cultural issues that were raised one in particular was the question of women's rights and their status and how this question influenced by Amin's writing appears in Ahmet Oğlu's writing so two years after the publication of Tahriratul Mar'a in 1899 in 1902 I think or 1901 I'm not exactly sure Ahmet Oğlu the Turkish writer he published a book mostly like a pamphlet called Islam Likta Kadın and in this he kind of like the influence is obvious when he is talking about women's issues so in women according to Islam or in the Islamic world he actually writes it in Russian the main body of the work begins by discussing the rights and positions of women according to the Quran and the actions of the Prophet and his companions so we see that in this one the first example from like like traveling instead of ideas into Turkish with a slight difference that Oğlu talks about he's own historicizing the moment of Sharia so his work is different from that of I mean in a sense that it takes up these like issues of women and women's education in the context and the treatment of women and the condition of society in general in Arabia prior to the advent of Islam in this way it's he seeks to make two fundamental points first that the rights accorded women in real Islam are very broad and liberal and second then when taken in context they reveal the Prophet's attitude towards women as quite favorable overall it shows how Islam is not only compatible with with but also supportive of women's rights and freedom in society yet the type of historical argument he uses to make his point serve to determine the inviolable eternal quality of revealed scripture so Muhammad's project the Prophet's project is described as an historical event in Oğlu's pamphlet whose content has to be understood in that specific historical cultural milieu Holly Shister in her book between two empires on the life and works of Oğlu argues that this historicism that includes the revelation itself is what makes Oğlu's work so different from other Muslim reformers of his time who also wrote on the topic if he compare what Oğlu says on women's rights and positions in Islam to what Qasem Amin said these differences become obvious for instance when addressing the issue of polygamy both men disapprove of it and both men see it as discouraged by Quran noting that the Quran tells men a second marriage is permissible only if they can be fair and that is like unlikely as these paragraphs show when compared to each other on this issue in many ways the treatment of intentions of the two authors towards polygamy are the same they both use the same Quranic quotation to show that Islam properly understood favors monogamy however whereas Amin is limited to stating that the Quran does not approve polygamy but simply allows it Oğlu ventures an historical explanation as to why the Quran should allow what it does not approve so this is that I will just briefly mention that this is how he intervenes with this influential work from Amin and how he adds his own kind of like prism or refraction as I talked about it with translation he takes it further in his own context and with his own knowledge so I will move on to now to talk about the Iranian case so the Iranian case is a translation it's not like a work of influence so I will talk about Ehteslam ul-Mulk and his translation of Tarbiyat al-Nesfan Mirza Yusef Hanash Yani known as Ehteslam ul-Mulk was one of the famous Algerian writers and translators in Iran unfortunately there is not much information about his personal life the only biographical source on Ehteslam ul-Mulk is by the writer Ali Akbar Tehuda mentions that Ehteslam ul-Mulk learned Arabic in his childhood and was well read in Arabic literature he also published Surat al-Hend in Egypt and it was a translation from a French work Tehuda also comments on Ehteslam ul-Mulk's art of translation skills saying that Ehteslam ul-Mulk's translation of Victor Hugo's is amazing to the point that if Hugo wanted to write his book originally in Farsi it would have been as great as Ehteslam ul-Mulk's translation so since he was born and raised in Tapriz it can be argued that he was Ehteslam ul-Mulk was already aware of the process of modernization that was already in Turkey and in Istanbul as he mentions himself in Tarbiyat al-Nesban he used to read Turkish and Arabic periodicals and books through being exposed to these texts and with the social and political changes that were happening in Iranian society at that time he deems it necessary to share his knowledge of the books he was reading with other Iranians through translation he had articulated his aim for translation as the way for making Iranians familiar with the poetry and prose of great writers so in this period particularly since the feminist thoughts were rare and very few people were thinking about the other invisible half of the Iranian population there was the lack of Persian educational texts that were written on women's education it was in this context that Ehteslam ul-Mulk translated some parts of Qasem Amin's book I say some parts because it's not the whole book he chooses not to translate a specific chapters especially like the one on veiling because it's a very sensitive topic to touch on in this period in Iran so he just excludes some parts of Amin's book the translation as well as the original text feels a necessary gap for women and paves the way for more work and translation on this specific subject so again this refers to what I was talking about translation as refraction because translation can also contribute to creating source texts when there is not much like available on specific subjects like women's education in this case the translation of this book was important in bringing Iranian women's right and issues into the attention of more writers and poets of modern Persian literature okay and then in his introduction Ehteslam ul-Mulk states his goal of translating the book as many European scholars have written various sources on the importance of women's education and each one of those books are hundreds of pages since there is no such a book in Farsi that talks about the significance of women's rights and education I have decided to translate some parts of Tahrirat ul-Mara and call it Tahrirat al-Islam from this quote it's very it's obvious that he chooses to translate this book to fill the gap that exists on women's education in Persian language the focus of translation is to highlight the importance of women's education when he says women are in need of education in order to educate their own children this education would help them to resort to religious piety and stay away from corruption caused by ignorance the same discourse that we see in Amin they can be good in saving money and will have a strong will so that for those women who do not have male guardianship they could make their ends meet and avoid humiliation all together however women who lack education they will take refugee in earning their living from shameless jobs shameful jobs like such as a bigory so he adds like this independency for women which is not present in Amin's discourse about women so his book as I mentioned becomes a textbook after the constitutional revolution in 1910 in Iran the ministry of education asks to translate this book because they didn't have any books on educating girls but there were lots of educational textbooks for boys so he translates this and it's very important when we are talking about translation as creative misreading or creation it's very important to look at in what context this book got translated so about the importance of translation and publication of this book for the Iranian society and women it should be noted that this book was published in a time period where some Muslim religious readers of Iranian society like Sheikh Fazullah regarded both the opening of schools for women's education and elementary schools for young girls as equal to the spread of houses of prostitution Abdul Rahim who was a modern Iranian intellectual and reformist contemporary and a friend of Ita Samol Mulk wrote a letter to Ita Samol Mulk and told him I have received two editions of Tarbiatan Eswan that you have written I have read the book from the beginning till the end and Bravo for your talented feet of translation with publication of this book you have built the first break for a modern society that in the future when women will be talking about their rights in the society they will definitely talk about the translator of Tarbiatan Eswan most often the translator is considered as a mediator between two different languages and cultures however in this case the translator is more of a creator of an absent text in the target language that is equal to writing the text the original text in the source language itself so about the words just briefly that he uses for women so he chooses to use the word Zan in comparison to the words that mostly used in Qajar period Zaife, Begum or Baji which were like inferior let's say words to use for women but he chooses to use a more like kind of like neutral word for women as Zan it was the first time that this term for Zan was used throughout one book when they were talking about women so yeah I talked about this one and this is just a slide about some of the textbooks that you see here I'm not going to talk about more like about these because they have they are like different books and they are very like long but as you see in these pictures here the pictures taking from this manuscript show that the other textbooks that were available in the Iranian society they were mostly centered on boys education and if you see here gender roles are all male gender roles and there is no space for a girls education or a girls role in the society there is no even in these pictures there is no appearance of women like women or even girls student girls students in these pictures so when like imagine in this context it was the first time that Ehti Samolmolk was writing a book that was solely on girls education or women's education in Iranian context and then at the end I would like to talk about the legacy of his translation so Ehti Samolmolk took I mean's advice in his personal life as a father as well and did his best to educate his daughter Parvina Ehti Sami whose poetry is the concrete proof of her father's influence on her first of all he made sure that his daughter was not limited only to learning about how to manage the household and she would go beyond to learn the literature out the east and the west Parvina started her education at the American Presbyterian school in Tehran and learned English however her father also asked some of his friends to teach Parvina Islamic thoughts and philosophy of literature philosophy and literature upon her father's request Parvina joined different literary and political gatherings that her father initiated as Ehti Samolmolk translated from I mean one of the major benefits of women's education is that it would enable them to be more visible in the society by playing a role in it after Parvina graduated from her school she was hired as a teacher at the same school most important most important a duo was her poetry that acted as a mediatory vehicle to deliver her father and consequently Amin's ideas on women's education to a larger Iranian population since she was one of the few famous female poets in Iran there is no record of the reception of Tarbiata Nesvan we cannot see how the audience or readers acted to Tarbiata Nesvan other than it was used as one of the primary materials in Gora's school there is enough data to show that Parvina's poetry was read by many Iranians regardless of their gender and when we read her poetry I have just a very translation of one of her poems here for you it shows that she also preaches the same ideas that were stated by her father in Tarbiata Nesvan in this piece of poem in Parvina's poetry in particular those that were centered on women and their issues and her father's influence is clear it just like I leave this poem for you to read and it just shows that this legacy of translation goes on even after the decades it was published so my presentation was just to show how when a translation gets domesticated it shows its true potentials and it gets domesticated in a sense that it helps the culture it creates different ideas that were absent in that culture and I think we need in translation studies to think more about positive connotations of domestication when we change the route from like the one that Minuti talks about thank you that was a wonderful presentation there are so many things that I would like to pick up on so while the rest of you can enter your questions I'd like to begin with my own and that's with regard you mentioned it quite briefly actually the pushback against this kind of education of women and the likening of schools for girls as houses of prostitution how did the conservative Ulema who were very skeptical with regard to the education of women really articulate their version of an Islamic resistance to a foreign western kind of intrusion into their society how did they question the Islamist society of this movement because the people who are trying to advocate for the education of women they're doing it in reference to Islam it's not an anti-Islamic thing or even a non-Islamic thing in their minds at all yeah exactly so even I think in this period with people like Khaja who was that Sheikh Fazlullah Nudi I think they also see even people who are awesome I mean or anti-Islamic in this context there are lots of them like like Ahunzadeh or people like that they still see them as using Islam as something that they want to support using Islam as a way of support for their modernist or westernized ideas so there were like these preaches by them or pamphlets that that bored women from going to the schools that these people were just like funding so I think they they don't believe in the way that they use Islam as a way of like support for their modernist ideas that's why they think that we should go back to the Islam that they think about the main and not the one that is influenced by modernization or westernization because I know that from like Qosem Amin's book there was the backlash in Egyptian society after it was published and to the point that he had to change a little bit Tahrir At-Tormara and publish another book maybe a year after called The New Woman and change kind of his discourse he was still very much like activist in his tone but like I know in Egyptian society there was a backlash even when using Islam to support women's education and in Iranian context definitely with people like Fazlullah Nureed it's always there's this backlash Thank you very much Khosrow would like to know the first bait the first stanza of the Persian poem that you showed us I think is referring to the Parvian Ertsasami one Yes let me see let me read it oh okay I will read it for all sisters as long as the opportunity for indivir is there the abjectness of Iranian women is due to their ignorance so she basically puts the blame on Iranian women because she thinks that this was very interesting for me to read because the ground for women's education is this very like ripe and ready and it's for the women to use these opportunities and get educated in the country so this can be because of her father's education and her father's works on women's education that she assumes or thinks that the society is very much ready for women's education and they just have to like snatch this chance and get educated in the Iranian context I see with regard to connecting it to the wider concepts and the wider trends that are going on in this period in the 20th century all across the Middle East there seems to also be a repurposing of Islam to push for progressive change just with regard to Parine Tassami's poems there's a lot about the new role of women in society but it's also the role of Islam in society I remember one of the most famous poems that she had and we studied this when we were in school I think it was the 5th or 6th grade it was about a drunken man walking down the street and one of the morality police catches up to him and wants to take him in and basically just register him and the back and forth is essentially about how it's a satirical piece about how the person who's the morality police is actually immoral and is a hypocritical it echoes half is but it's set in a very kind of modern setting the role of Islam in society and the role of the police and like authorities in how they regulate the Islamicness of society so how do you see the gender debates that you've discussed with regard to translation and all of that connecting to the wider movement for change I think with your question about how she kind of like writes in a satirical tone about this authorities and like preaching these moral lessons I think with that we can see it in this context too when we're talking about Islamic lessons or ideas mixed with like supporting or fighting for rights I think the kind of conflict starts with modernization process when people like as I said Ahun Sadeh or his supporters like even Karimani I think at some point they feel that for a modernization project for Iranian context you should become detached from Islamic thought and from religious thoughts and they like literally deny any connection to Islam when they're writing about like what kind of modernization project they have in their mind and then we have another poll in here which is like people like Qasem Amin who think that using religion would help them to just advocate for the idea of modernization so as you can see like in Iranian context too there is these like like polar views of Islam and then at the same time when it comes to gender issues and women's issues I think mostly she refers in that point to people who preach about these moral lessons as I think there are a lot in Iran but they don't really believe in it themselves so they talk about it for the general public and they talk about it for like specific goals that they have in the society as leaders but they don't practice it in their own lives so she kind of like ridicules these figures by saying that how can we believe in these ideas of these clergy or these like leaders when they don't believe in it and they don't practice it in life so that's how I remember that point alright thank you very much are there any more questions for Razia Aravi I think that is it for today that concludes our first day of the conference I look forward to seeing all of you tomorrow at 9 o'clock for the second day where Professor Chirke will be panelling the first panel on language symbiosis and how these three major languages and language groups really blend into one another to create a shared discourse from the Ganges Delta all the way to the Balkans and the Nile Delta again I have to thank you our three speakers Razia, Erjan and Sushmita I look forward to discussing your work essentially because we're going to turn all of these into chapters in the edited volume that will be upcoming and throughout all of your presentations I remember thinking that I can't wait to get my hands on a published version of this so I can read it and cite it properly thank you again and I'll see you all tomorrow take care thank you


we're going to be praying today for our finances we're gonna be praying for our businesses we're going to be praying right now for our jobs and we're going to be praying for every area of our life but before we pray for the blessings of God I want us to repent right now from any sins of stealing maybe we've committed or other things if we can put the first prayer point let's place your hand on your heart right now we're gonna take a time right now and we're gonna pray and just ask the Lord to forgive us of anything that maybe we've done financial that was not wrong Lord Jesus I return to you today with my tide I repent of stealing and laziness in Jesus name we'll pray for our offering in the minute but right now I want us to pray place your hand on yourself and I want you to pray that prayer right now I want you to say Lord Jesus I'll return to you with my tide say I repent of stealing and laziness in my life in Jesus name come on let's pray right now yes father we begin to ask that you begin to wash us cleanness from that from stealing from you from maybe cheating from cutting corners from doing things that we know they're all maybe cheating on our taxes maybe not paying back to the people that we owed maybe father withholding things that we supposed to give we ask you that you can into wash us wash our mind from guilt your father wash our mind from shame Lord we repent right now we father ask us that you forgive us that you can a father make us clean of make us clean us snow without a spot without a wrinkle Lord we ask you Lord from the gift of from there from the sin of stealing that you're gonna father deliver us from that Lord that we will be a people who will be father truthful will father begin to give we're not gonna cut corners father we're gonna be righteous in everything that we do father especially when it comes to finances that you make us father right though we father not ashamed that we did not hide anything we did not steal we did not cheat Lord that you're gonna father deliver us from that father sin of stealing and laziness in Jesus in mighty name in a mighty name of Jesus Christ we pray right now we want you to take your offerings we didn't take we didn't do offering in the in the middle like we always do on purpose right now I want you to grab your offering grab your wallet if you're given through online or through the phone texting or through the app grab your phone with you right now and we're gonna lift it up and we're gonna ask God to touch our offering and bless it in Jesus mighty name would you help me pray this prayer point number two say the Lord is my shepherd I shall not lack so he will supply all of my needs according to his riches and his glory say the Lord is my shepherd say I shall not lack he will supply all of my ring needs according to his riches and his glory right now begin to pray that prayer point over your life begin to declare that he is your supplier he is the one that holds your finances in his hand he controls it he protects it in Jesus mighty name and then he will supply according according to his riches according to his glory not according to your abilities not according to what you're able to do what you need what to manufacture when you able to come out with not according to that job that you're working at but according to his riches according to his glory according to his abilities of life in Jesus mighty name father will lift up our hands will live on my offerings in Jesus mighty name. Father we declare you are our shepherd. You are our provider. You are our Jehovah Chiever God and today Lord together with you we are partnering up God and we declare Lord open up the windows of heaven. Pour out your reign. Pour out God's abundance in our life with Jesus mighty name. Father we trust you with your supply. We trust you God with your blessing of our life. We trust in the God you will provide in every area where there is lack, where there is a need God. We trust you they will take us from glory to glory in our finances in Jesus mighty name. If we can put the third prayer point and the ashes are going to send the baskets you can put the offering right now there and you're tied and you can put your prayer request there as well but I want us to look right now at the third point.  God will begin to release finances into your life I want you to say this with me say Lord Jesus give me power to get wealth come on say like me say Lord Jesus give me power to get wealth give me ideas that will produce money bless the work of my hands Lord Jesus give me power to get wealth give me ideas that will produce money bless the work of my hands in Jesus name come on open up your lips right now begin to pray for your ideas begin to pray for your career begin to pray right now for your calling begin to pray right now for your vision begin to pray right now for your job begin to pray right now for your application begin to pray right now for your business plan begin to pray right now that you will get connections that you will get ideas that that this will be the year your business will multiply that your finances will multiply that your territory is gonna be increased called Ravashiramara Ravosindaya Yes Father, we declare, we declare, we decree right now God your breakthrough in Jesus mighty name we declare your breakthrough in Jesus mighty name Jesus mighty name Right now we're gonna pray the next prayer point I want us to begin to say after me say the dry bones I want to say it louder say the dry bones shall live again say every dry bone in my finances begin to live again I want to say it right now the dry bones shall live again every dry bone in my finances begin to live again come on begin to declare that right now your business contracts the job that you work at begin to say every dry bone in my workplace every dry bone in my business every dry bone in everything that I do in Jesus mighty name begin to live begin to rise up in everything that I do Lord you promise me that you open the windows of heaven and crown the blessing we command every dry bone to begin to live in my finances in my business in my college in my school in my destiny Jesus mighty name begin to live begin to rise up breath begin to come and cover the dry bones in Jesus mighty name Father everything that we do will begin to prosper everywhere in Jesus mighty name in Jesus mighty name in Jesus mighty name we pray say anything that's withered or died in my business in my finances say right now I command the life of God to touch it in Jesus name to live again to live again to my business live again to my finances live again to my career live again to my dream live again in Jesus name right now in this prayer begin to speak life into every area in your life whether it's in finances whether it's in business whether it's your career in your school in your education whether it's in your dream right now begin to speak life begin to command to be resurrected in Jesus name begin to ask the Holy Spirit to touch that area and to be risen again in Jesus mighty name I come against every area that's withered and died every area that's been buried right now come to life in Jesus name come to life in Jesus mighty name every area finances every over this death right now I command you come to life in Jesus mighty name every business that's withering that's dying that's fading away right now I command you be touched by the light of the Holy Spirit be touched by the life of the Holy Spirit in Jesus mighty name we command you come back to life in Jesus mighty name we pray in Jesus mighty name we pray right now we just want to declare over us this year that we're going to begin to see supernatural miracles in our finances there are miracles that happen because you work hard but we're not talking about that we're not talking about you not going to get the credit for it but God is going to get the credit for it because somebody say amen for those of you who are looking for a job we just declare right now that you will receive jobs and better jobs in Jesus mighty name in the name of Jesus we declare that you will begin to receive raises and bonuses and I want you to say amen if you receive or you say I receive that you begin to receive benefits sales and commissions favorable settlements estates and inheritances interests and income rebates and returns checks in the mail gifts and surprises that you will find money your debts will be paid off expenses decreased blessing and increase I want you to say Lord Jesus I thank you that you're meeting all of my needs and I will have more than enough to give to your kingdom and promote the gospel of Jesus Christ come on if you believe and give God a shout of praise receive that right now receive that right now Father we just declare your grace right now Father we just declare right now you're anointing to begin to move in our finances we declare right now that every devourer is going to be broken every curse will begin to be broken in Jesus mighty name and there is going to be more than enough to begin to supply begin to take care of our families and to begin to share with those in need God and to advance your kingdom in Jesus mighty name we pray thank you for watching this content I hope this was a blessing to you if you're like me and you like to click on things click on this subscribe to our channel and the content will come to you every time we post it and remember the best is yet to come


Today we conducted a range 400 basically today as machine gunners. We employed as a section So basically ran up machine gun hill with we had about 9,200 rounds ran up there got guys on target From there, we pretty much saturated every single TRP that was on range 400 today My guys today the mood was at an all-time high every day. We have a live fire. My guys are always they're always so they're always No, I pass it down to my squad leaders. I give them some motivation. They feed that motivation into their squad Sometimes they could be a little belligerent with the motivation, but hey motivation motivation and today I know we executed that perfectly everyone excited to shoot some rounds down range and destroy those targets