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Patricia Crone famously identified three distinct sub-traditions within early Islamic historiography: a “religious tradition”, a “tribal tradition”, and a “secular tradition”. Whereas the first is extremely unreliable and the second is partially unreliable regarding early Islamic history in general (c. 600–750 CE), Crone argued that the third provides “a coherent historical account”, at least as far back as the beginning of the Umayyad period (c. 661 CE). Some confusion has since arisen over the identity of this “secular tradition” (thanks to Crone's famously terse and technical style), but a close examination of her work reveals that she had in mind state-oriented chronology and prosopography (i.e., basic political information on early Muslim caliphs, governors, judges, and commanders) or proto-taʾrīkh. Crone argued that this material (which mostly survives intermingled with the religious and tribal traditions in extant Islamic literary sources) derives via continuous written transmission from rudimentary state-oriented chronicles and prosopographies composed by pro-Marwanid Muslim writers in eighth-century Syria. Although these proto-tawārīkh are now lost, Crone argued that their eighth-century existence can be inferred from contemporaneous references thereto in extant Christian chronicles—a conclusion strengthened by more recent scholarship. For this reason, the “secular tradition” is substantially more reliable than the other traditions within early Islamic historiography, which underwent a protracted process of oral transmission and consequent mutation, distortion, and growth.

During the colonial era, liberal Western states established vast empires which came to encompass almost all of the world's Muslims. Western states worked out specific methods for governing Muslims, which were often referred to as “Muslim policy”. Recent scholarship on Muslim policy exhibits several key trends. One is expansion of geographical scope, leading scholars to produce more comprehensive global accounts of Muslim policy. Another trend is expansion of temporal scope, leading scholars to systematically link colonial Muslim policy with the governance of Muslims in the post-colonial era. A final trend is the reevaluation of liberal governance. Accordingly, scholars argue that, contrary to conventional assumptions, liberal ideology allows for - or even encourages - imperialism, authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, and racism. The present article makes several new contributions. It provides a synthesis of recent studies on Muslim policy - giving special attention to the key trends mentioned above. Moreover, the article proposes a novel way of conceptualizing Muslim policy. It is argued that Muslim policy centers on three overlapping projects: (1) a “human rights” project (2) a “religious reform” project and (3) a security project akin to what is now known as “counter-terrorism”. Finally, the article argues that liberals created Muslim policy in the colonial era, and continue to champion it in the post-colonial era. As such, it may be regarded as a distinctive long-standing liberal policy for governing Muslim populations.

The South Asian presence in East Africa has roots in antiquity through oceanic trade routes linking the Subcontinent to Africa. Existing paper archives date to the colonial period, held both by the government and various communities. Only the most recent sliver of more than two millennia of history is therefore recorded on paper. Of that, most of the academic (Hofmeyr) work done on the Asian minority in East Africa has used colonial era archives in European languages, such as German and English. The voices of Asian merchant communities are rarely heard in their own language and context. Their texts are either totally absent from analysis or dismissed as religious and not addressing the “interesting” historical questions of power (economic, political, and social) that dominate academic historical research on the region.

The last decade and a half saw what we can call a historical turn in the study of India's democracy. By drawing on some of these new works and on archival materials, this article offers a new way of thinking about the rooting and workings of democracy in India and its endurance. The article explores how India and Indians produced a concrete and convincing notion of a shared functioning purpose, a common good, for their deeply plural society, while allowing a meaningful space for the conflicts and inherent contradictions that underlay their democracy. I suggest that the persistence of these conflicts was important for the resilience of India's democracy. I examine three interrelated processes that with independence contributed to this outcome: the nature of the constitution and its making; the first election and the preparation for them between 1947 and 1952; and the articulation of the principle of state resource distribution and its development projects. The conclusion reflects on the significance of the historical turn to our understanding of post-independence India.

The past few decades have witnessed great change in the study of the early Middle Ages in the Northern Iberian Peninsula. Spanish and Portuguese historiographies have moved away from older grand narratives such as ‘Reconquest and Repopulation’, which traced a centuries-long process encompassing the ultimate victory of Christianity over Islam and the construction of distinct nations or national societies. The basic tenets of these and other essentialist approaches to a period traditionally seen as the cradle of Spain and Portugal have been questioned and now superseded by a clearer awareness of the territorial diversity characterising the 8th to 11th centuries. Yet the ballast of both nationalism and regionalism has obstructed meaningful comparison amongst the Iberian regions to date. Drawing on the work of the research group EarlyMedIberia, this article argues for a new trans-regional approach to Northern Iberia, looking beyond political and geographical boundaries to consider the whole in a comparative light, and stressing the commonalities between regional and local societies. It does so by providing an overview of the extant charter material from before 1100 (indicating the principal editions) and by reviewing the major historiography. The conclusion proposes a closer assessment of the differences and similarities amongst regional historiographies, based on a more nuanced understanding of how they have been moulded by the specificities of the charter corpus in each region, as the first step towards a more integrated, contextualised, and rigorously comparative approach to the early Middle Ages in Northern Iberia.

This article presents an introduction to an array of historical sources from Sindh (in modern-day Pakistan) in the Arabic and Sindhi languages. It highlights the sizeable number of Arabic manuscripts in Sindhi institutions and discusses some of the larger historical forces that shaped their collection in the colonial and pre-colonial periods. In addition, it reflects on the significance these sources may hold for the field of Indian Ocean history, especially in terms of legal and intellectual history. Finally, this article lists and discusses bibliographical resources and catalogs that researchers can use to navigate major libraries and archival institutions across Karachi, Jamshoro, and interior Sindh.

This article seeks to address Giovanni Battista Montini's attitude towards the Christian Democrat party of the day-the PPI- and his reactions to the Fascist movement and regime between 1925 and 33. Contrary to most observers, the article argues that the future Paul VI was not a Christian Democrat at heart. With regard to his anti-Fascism, the article aims to qualify his attitudes and concludes that these were of a strong moralistic and religious character rather than characterized by political underpinnings.