Literature and knowledge have circulated between the Islamic Near East and India since the beginning of Islam to today. The panel focuses on select occasions of cultural contact and exchange between the eighth and the sixteenth centuries, investigated from literary and historical perspectives. With this panel, we hope to reawaken interest in the long-lasting connection and cross-cultural dialogue between both areas.

Panel programme:

Panel H. Islamic Near East V: India and the Islamic Near East: The Circulation of Knowledge between the Islamic Near East and India.

Beatrice Gruendler, Freie Universität Berlin: A Virtuous Transcultural Jackal.

Christopher D. Bahl, Orient-Institut Beirut, Lebanon: The Sayyid, the Shrine, the Court and the Sea—Community Building across the Sixteenth-Century Western Indian Ocean.

Florinda De Simini, University of Naples “L’Orientale”: Didactic Tales from the Mahābhārata as a source for the Kalīla wa-Dimna.

Matthew L. Keegan, Barnard College of Columbia University: Its Meaning Lies Elsewhere: Ibn al-Habbāriyya's Fictive Persian and Indian Readers.