Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Professorship

Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Professorship in Arabia Asia Studies

Arabia and Asia have been sites of intense historical interactions, connected for centuries through trade, religion, food, culture, and kinship, both across the Indian Ocean and the overland routes bridging West and East Asia. The National University of Singapore (NUS) established the Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Professorship in Arabia Asia Studies at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), which is at the forefront of research on inter-Asian connections and comparisons. The Professorship is dedicated to promoting research in the social, cultural, historical, and contemporary Arabia-Asia relations that have shaped both societies profoundly, providing an authoritative academic view into the course such relations may take in the future and inspiring a new generation of academics in this field of study.

Since its establishment in 2014 with the generous support of Mr. Muhammad Alagil, the Alagil Distinguished Professorship in Arabia Asia Studies programme, under the Inter-Asia Engagements cluster of the ARI has undertaken serious research activities into Arabia-Asia connections. These include yearly workshops and conferences on various historical and contemporary areas of Arabia-Asia interactions. Previous conferences have discussed various themes and aspects of the longstanding Arabia-Asia engagement, such as Slender but Supple Threads: Arabia-Asia Relations Then and Now (2014), Silk Roads Muslim Passages: The Islam Question in China’s Expansion (2015), China Arabia Encounters and Engagements (2016), Beyond Bedouin and Baniya (2017), and The Southern Tier: New Gulf Thalassocracies in the Indian Ocean World (2019). This year’s iteration, Little Meccas (2022), will explore other key historical-regional Muslim centres in Asia, which have figured as famous destinations for transregional interactions like Mecca, with a focus on the scholarly networks, oral or literary traditions, pilgrimage and trade that came together in these sites. It will also examine how they became hotspots of contestations that generated rich historical or contemporary, literal or figurative, research materials.

Another initiative of the Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Professorship in Arabia Asia Studies is an archival project to document the history of Arab communities by collecting, digitizing, and preserving their materials, manuscripts, and primary sources, especially those that are in danger of destruction. It is presently concentrated on collection from three geographical regions: Hadramawt in Southern Arabia, Malabar in South India, and Maluku in Eastern Indonesia. Some of these very rare and significant manuscripts as well as dissertations and other published and unpublished materials will eventually be made available and freely accessible on the Arabia Asia Studies website, which is also envisaged as a portal for disseminating new and original data on the subject and improving the quality of future research.

For more details of other Arabia Asia activities and upcoming publications, or to read more about our research, please visit the Arabia Asia website.