Seminar: Secularism, Sexuality, and Islam: Ismat Chughtai’s Indian Muslim Progressivism
The goal of this seminar is to offer a new perspective on secularism in Muslim thought. The need for such a project is keenly felt, since today Islam is often framed as incompatible with the institutions of secularism. Sadaf Jaffer will examine Urdu writer and Indian cultural critic Ismat Chughtai’s formation of an “Indo-Muslim secular” through literature and cinema from the 1940s through the 1980s as well as the continuing significance of her work in contemporary South Asia.
Ismat Chughtai (1911-1991) is perhaps best known for her short story “Liḥāf” (The Quilt, 1942) which describes an inequitable sexual relationship between two women, a work for which she was tried for obscenity in 1946. As a prominent member of the Indian Progressive Writer’s Movement, Chughtai’s work serves as a productive case study of the creative ways Muslim intellectuals engaged with modernity.
From her very first short story, “Kāfir” (Infidel), published in 1938, to her autobiography, published in 1979, Chughtai asserted a humanistic (insānī) and ultimately secular (sekyūlar) worldview by questioning religious boundaries and taboos. This book also explores the contemporary nostalgia for Chughtai’s work as part of an imagined secular Indian past.
In addition to her published short stories and novels, Jaffer draws on previously unexamined materials from the personal archives of Chughtai’s family and the National Film Archives of India to argue that Chughtai formulated a discourse of secularism rooted in the Indian Muslim context through her use of cosmopolitan religious symbolism, rejection of legalistic understandings on Islam, and promotion of the global ideals of sexual and economic justice translated into a vernacular idiom. This project contributes to scholarship on Islamic societies by focusing on literary culture as a major and underutilized lens through which to approach Islam. As one of the most prominent writers in the Urdu literary world, Chughtai’s work continues to reach a broad audience across South Asia and beyond. Her work provides a significant and unexplored perspective on the relationship between Islam, sexuality, and South Asian secularism. At a time when religious nationalism is reaching a fever pitch throughout South Asia, this research illuminates unexplored pasts and potential futures.
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About the speaker:
Dr. Sadaf Jaffer is scholar and activist. She recently completed two terms as mayor of Montgomery Township, New Jersey. In January of 2019, she became the first South Asian woman to serve as mayor of a municipality in New Jersey, and the first Muslim woman to serve as mayor of a municipality in the United States. Her signature initiatives included: creating and implementing a robust crisis communications plan to help Montgomery Township maintain some of the lowest COVID-19 infection and fatality rates in New Jersey; facilitating a participatory design and construction process for the Township’s new municipal center and library while securing $5.375 million in state funding; responding to demands for racial justice by coordinating meetings for Black community members and youth activists with the Township’s police leadership to build trust and mutual understanding; and inaugurating a Youth Leadership Council to elevate the voices of young people who are energized to lead.
Jaffer is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in South Asian Studies at Princeton University where she teaches courses on South Asian, Islamic, and Asian American Studies. Her current book project, entitled “Secularism and Sexuality in Indian Muslim Thought: Ismat Chughtai’s Literary Progressivism,” examines Urdu writer and Indian cultural critic Ismat Chughtai’s formation of what Jaffer terms an “Indo-Muslim secular” through Urdu literature and Bombay cinema from the 1940s through the 1980s. Jaffer argues that Chughtai formulated a discourse of secularism rooted in the Indian Muslim context. Her project also contributes to scholarship on Islamic societies by focusing on literary culture as the primary lens to approach Islam. Her writing has been published by the Journal of Women’s History, as well as the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Huffington Post, Altmuslimah, and American Kahani. Read more.
About the series
The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) is pleased to present the Muslim Women Scholars Series. One of CCMW's strategic goals is to promote critical thinking among Muslims and non-Muslims to challenge stereotypes and assumptions about Islam, Muslim women and their families. One way of doing this is to feature the work of contemporary Muslim women scholars focusing on diverse topics related to Muslim women.
For more information or partnership opportunities, email us at events@ccmw.com.