Join us to hear Sebastian Prange of UBC Department of History talk about mosques of Kerala. Kerala is famously known as the “land of temples”, which makes it easy to overlook the region’s less numerous, less celebrated, and less studied mosques. These mosques, however, offer a unique window into Kerala’s relationship to the wider trading word of the pre-modern Indian Ocean. This talk will highlight different layers of evidence that are yielded by these mosques—stylistic features, architectural changes, epigraphs, literary references, historical context—to show that their significance extends far beyond their immediate purpose as places of worship. Rather, they serve as primary sources for the development of Muslim communities in South India, their links to wider Indian Ocean networks, and the place of Islam within this predominantly Hindu society.
