The Muhammad Avatāra : Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam

"The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Its focus is on examines the magnificent seventeenth-century Nabīvaṃśa of SaiyadSultān, who lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong to affirm the power of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Drawing upon the Arabo-Persian Tales of the Prophets genre, the Nabīvaṃśa ("The Lineage of the Prophet") retells the life of the Prophet Muhammad for the first time to Bengalis in their mother-tongue. Saiyad Sultān lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong,in a period when Gauṛiya Vaiṣṇava missionary activity was at its zenith. This book delineates the challenges faced by the author in articulating the pre-eminence of Islam and its Arabian prophet in a place land where multiple religious affiliations were common, and when GauṛīyaVaiṣṇava missionary activity was at its zenith. Sultān played a pioneering role in setting into motion various lexical, literary, performative, theological, and, ultimately, ideological processes that led to the establishment of a distinctively Bengali Islam in East Bengal, while yet shaping a distinctively Bengali Islam. At the heart of this transformation of a people and their culture lay the persuasiveness of translation to refresh salvation history for a people onoin a new Islamic frontier. The Nabīvaṃśa not only kindled a veritable translation movement of Arabo-Persian Islamic literature into Bangla, but established the grammar of creative translation that was to become canonical for this regional tradition. This text-critical study lays bare the sophisticated strategies of translation used by a prominent early modern Muslim Bengali intellectual to invite others to his faith"-- Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration and Other Conventions A Map of Medieval Bengal and Arakan 1. The Prophet of Light and Love: Nūr Muhammad in Bengal’s Mirror A Historical Overview of Caṭṭagrāma Islamic Bangla Literature and Islamization Literary Portraits of the Author Inscribing Islam in the Bengali Religious Landscape Nūr Muhammad as the Ontological Principle of Light and Love The Islamic Cosmogony of Om̐ Later Developments in Islamic Bengali Cosmogonical Discourse Cosmogony, Translation, and Conversion 2. Text, Author, and Authority: The Nabīvaṃśa and the Making of Islamic Community Genre and Performance The Structure of the Nabīvaṃśa's Salvation History The Critical Edition of the Nabīvaṃśa vis-à-vis the Manuscript Tradition Author and Authority in the Making of Islamic Community 3. Translation and the Historiographic Process: The Work of a Text in the Making of Bengali Islam The Terms of Translation Translation as Qur'ānic Exegesis The Representation and Transculturation of Musalmāni and Hinduāni Traditions Translation as Entextualizing Conversion A Hermeneutic Model of Muslim Missionary Translation Frontier Literature 4. A New Prophetology for Bengal: Purāṇa-Korān Salvation History An Indo- Islamic Salvation History for Bengal The Original Couple, Māric-Mārijāt or Śiva-Pārvatī The Purāṇic Predecessors of Ādam The Account of Ādam, the First Man Righteous Śiś and Islam's Triumph over Hinduāni Adharma Evil Iblis as Primal Guru of the Hinduāni Clans Translation as Renewal, Subversion, and Manipulation 5. Hari the Fallen Prophet: An Avatāra's Descent into Disgrace In the Shadow of Gauṛīya Vaiṣṇavism Recasting the Acts of Kr̥ṣṇa The Polemics of the Tale of Kr̥ṣṇa An Islamic Reappraisal of Vaiṣṇava Theology Messianic Intersections of the Avatāra and Nabī Missionary Translation as Creative Iconoclasm 6. Ascension and Ascendancy: Constructing the Prophet for Bengal The Nabīvaṃśa's Ascension Narrative in the Perso-Turkic Miʿrāj Tradition The Prophet as God's Beloved The Prophet as Perfect Phakir The Prophet as Intercessor The Historiographer and Legitimation Conclusion: Historiography, Translation, and Conversion Appendix: Distribution of Manuscripts of the NV in Various Bangladeshi Archives Works Cited Index "The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal.Its focus is on examines the magnificent seventeenth-century Nabīvaṃśa of SaiyadSultān, who lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong to affirm the power of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Drawing upon the Arabo-Persian Tales of the Prophets genre, the Nabīvaṃśa ("The Lineage of the Prophet") retells the life of the Prophet Muhammad for the first time to Bengalis in their mother-tongue. Saiyad Sultān lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong,in a period when Gauṛiya Vaiṣṇava missionary activity was at its zenith. This book delineates the challenges faced by the author in articulating the pre-eminence of Islam and its Arabian prophet in a place land where multiple religious affiliations were common, and when GauṛīyaVaiṣṇava missionary activity was at its zenith. Sultān played a pioneering role in setting into motion various lexical, literary, performative, theological, and, ultimately, ideological processes that led to the establishment of a distinctively Bengali Islam in East Bengal, while yet shaping a distinctively Bengali Islam. At the heart of this transformation of a people and their culture lay the persuasiveness of translation to refresh salvation history for a people onoin a new Islamic frontier. The Nabīvaṃśa not only kindled a veritable translation movement of Arabo-Persian Islamic literature into Bangla, but established the grammar of creative translation that was to become canonical for this regional tradition. This text-critical study lays bare the sophisticated strategies of translation used by a prominent early modern Muslim Bengali intellectual to invite others to his faith"-- Provided by publisher In The Muhammad Avatara, Ayesha Irani offers an examination of the Nabivamsa, the first epic work on the Prophet Muhammad written in Bangla. This little-studied seventeenth-century text, written by Saiyad Sultan, is a literary milestone in the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural history of Islam, and marks a significant contribution not only to Bangla's rich literary corpus, but also to our understanding of Islam's localization in Indic culture in the early modern period. That Sufis such as Saiyad Sultan played a central role in Islam's spread in Bengal has been demonstrated primarily through examination of medieval Persian literary, ethnographic, and historical sources, as well as colonial-era data. Islamic Bangla texts themselves, which emerged from the sixteenth century, remain scarcely studied outside the Bangladeshi academy, and almost entirely untranslated. Yet these premodern works, which articulate Islamic ideas in a regional language, represent a literary watershed and underscore the efforts of rebel writers across South Asia, many of whom were Sufis, to defy the linguistic cordon of the Muslim elite and the hegemony of Arabic and Persian as languages of Islamic discourse. Irani explores how an Arabian prophet and his religion came to inhabit the seventeenth-century Bengali landscape, and the role that pir-authors, such as Saiyad Sultan, played in the rooting of Islam in Bengal's easternmost regions. This text-critical study lays bare the sophisticated strategies of translation used by a prominent early modern Muslim Bengali intellectual to invite others to his faith. The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Its focus is on the magnificent seventeenth-century Nabīvaṃśa of Saiyad Sultān, who lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong. Drawing upon the Arabo-Persian Tales of the Prophets genre, the Nabīvaṃśa (“Lineage of the Prophet”) retells the life of the Prophet Muhammad for the first time to Bengalis in their mother-tongue. This book delineates the challenges faced by the author in articulating the pre-eminence of Islam and its Arabian prophet in a land where multiple religious affiliations were common, and when Gauṛīya Vaiṣṇava missionary activity was at its zenith. Sultān played a pioneering role in setting into motion various lexical, literary, performative, theological, and, ultimately, ideological processes that led to the establishment of a distinctively Bengali Islam in east Bengal. At the heart of this transformation lay the persuasiveness of translation on a new Islamic frontier. The Nabīvaṃśa not only kindled a veritable translation movement of Arabo-Persian Islamic literature into Bangla, but established the grammar of creative translation that was to become canonical for this regional tradition. This text-critical study lays bare the sophisticated strategies of translation used by a prominent early modern Muslim Bengali intellectual to invite others to his faith. 'The Muhammad Avåatra' reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Its focus is on the magnificent seventeenth-century Nabåvaòmâsa of Saiyad Sultåan, who lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong