Contemporary Islamic Studies

Oxford University
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Explore key questions shaping Muslim societies today, with a particular focus on religious authority, religion and politics, and modern Islamic thought. Drawing on seminars, lectures, and conversations with leading scholars, this podcast series is produced by the Contemporary Islamic Studies Programme at the Middle East Centre, University of Oxford. Episodes reflect the Programme’s commitment to rigorous scholarship and international academic exchange, highlighting research at the intersection of Islam, society, and contemporary global debates, and showcasing collaborations between Oxford and partner institutions.

  1. 5D AGO

    Pahang and the Persian Gulf

    Dr Rowena binti Abdul Razak contributed to Panel Two of Day Two of this 2-day workshop. This paper examines the maritime connections between Pahang and the Persian Gulf. Since Safavid times, visitors from Persia have been coming to the Malay Archipelago. These connections have taken the form of trade, linguistic exchange and also social integration. The Persianate world is currently under study to include different geographic areas, from Iran through to the Indian Ocean. In my paper, I will reframe the Malay world within this context and look at how Persian culture disseminated and was brought through India, permeating Malay culture and eventually reaching Pahang where it firmly but subtly established itself.

    17 min

  2. 5D AGO

    Pahang and Euro-Asian Business Partnerships in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea in the 16th Century

    Dr Jorge Santos Alves contributed to Panel Two of Day Two of this 2-day workshop. Pahang was an important port for the operations and investments of overseas Chinese networks in Southeast Asia by the end of the 15th century. In the early decades of the 16th century, Pahang's significance grew even greater, as Chinese businessmen established commercial partnerships with Portuguese, Luso-Asians, and other Asians, enhancing trade with ports in southern China, particularly in the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian. This paper will utilise previously published Chines documentation alongside relevant printed or unpublished European/Portuguese documentation. Among the unpublished Portuguese documentation, a document from 1520 stands out, containing the guidelines for the first treaty signed by Pahang with a European power, Portugal.

    15 min

  3. 5D AGO

    The Connections between Pahang and The Kingdom of Italy in the Writings of Giovanni Battista Cerutti in a Global Perspective

    Dr Alessandro Di Meo contributed to Panel Two of Day Two of this 2-day workshop speaking on ‘The Connections between Pahang and The Kingdom of Italy in the Writings of Giovanni Battista Cerutti in a Global Perspective’. Giovanni Battista Cerruti, an Italian explorer, settled in 1882 in Singapore, where he set up a profitable business. He later traveled to Siam, the island of Java, and went to the island of Nias, in front of the Sumatra’s coasts, to facilitate the studies and explorations conducted by ethnographer Elio Modigliani, sent by the Italian Geographical Society. During his explorations in Nias Island, he established a remarkable ethnographic collection, which he sold to the Perak government in June 1891. In the same year, Cerruti settled in the Mai Darat territory, in the interior of the Malay Peninsula, to conduct ethnographic and scientific research, analyze local products, and examine the possibility of exporting them. In the following years, he explored the lands of the Sakai, coming into contact with the Mai Bretak, a people settled on the border between the states of Perak and Pahang (1893); to his experience, which lasted until his death, in 1914, he dedicated a book, Nel paese dei veleni e fra i cacciatori di teste, published in Italian and English as My friends the savages: notes and observations of a Perak settler, Malay Peninsula. In 1906, he briefly returned to Italy, presenting his research on the Sakai in the Milan International Exhibition; in the following months, he sold his ethnographic and naturalistic collections to several Italian museums. Giovanni Battista Cerruti is considered a passeur culturel between late Nineteenth Century Italy and the Malaysian States in the age of imperialism, due to the ethnographic collections he assembled and the reports he published during his lifetime, which will be the subject of this essay. Please find the slides for this lecture here: https://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/sant/islamic_studies/2026-01-27-sant-cis-alessandro_di_meo-SLIDES.pdf

    20 min

  4. JAN 7

    Pahang in the Maritime Spice Route: Insights from Numismatics, Shipwrecks, and Cartography

    Mr Amru Khalid Sazali contributed to Panel One of Day Two of this 2-day workshop. Please find the slides for this lecture here: https://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/sant/islamic_studies/2026-01-27-sant-cis-amru_khalid_sazali-SLIDES.pdf

    20 min

  5. JAN 13

    Pahang and the Iberian Thalassocracies: From the Golden Peninsula to the Passage of Empire

    Dr Ramón Vega Piniella from the National Library of Singapore presented during Panel 2 of Day 2 of the Pahang and the Sea workshop. This panel explores Pahang's Connections with the Persian Gulf and Europe. Dr Piniella examines Pahang's pivotal role within the shifting maritime networks of the early modern world, focusing on its strategic and symbolic place in Iberian expansion across the Malacca Strait during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing on early Portuguese and Spanish sources, including the neglected 1580s proposal by Captain Antonio de la Torre, it explores how Pahang became a hinge between the twin sea empires of Portugal and Spain during the Iberian Union. Beyond its economic allure as part of the legendary Aurea Chersonesus, the "Golden Peninsula," Pahang operated as a connective corridor in the mental and cartographic geographies of both empires. Iberian notions of tribute, labor, and wealth-shaped by the Spanish encomienda mentality-intersected here with indigenous agency, local navigation, and regional trade in gold, pepper, and silk. The paper also highlights how Pahang's maritime routes appeared in early Iberian, Chinese, and Jesuit maps, and how references within Portuguese documentation shed light on its political and cultural evolution. Through the lens of De la Torre's "Passage of Pahang" and the corroborating voyage of Alvaro Bolaños Monsalve, the study argues that this littoral zone was not a marginal frontier but a central node in the firstglobal system of exchange. Ultimately, Pahang's early documentation, especially in Portuguese archives, captures a transitional moment when Southeast Asia ceased to be merely an imagined "Golden Peninsula" and emerged as an integrated maritime hub linking Malacca, Brunei, and Manila across the Indian and Pacific Oceans You can find the slides here: https://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/sant/islamic_studies/2026-01-13-sant-cis-malaysia_workshop_day2_panel_2_piniella-slides.pdf

    18 min

  6. JAN 7

    Commentary Malaysia workshop, Day 2 Panel 1, Pahang, China and The Spice Route

    Dr Wai Weng Hew provides some comments on the Malaysia workshop Day 2 Panel 1. Dr Wai Weng Hew gave a commentary on the contributions from the first panel of the second day which included talks on 'Gold, Tin and Gambier: Chinese Migration and Pahang's Economic Development in the 19th Century' by Dr Rudolph Ng; 'Piecing together the early history of Pahang through Imperial Chinese scripture' by Mr Jonathan Privett-Mendoza; 'Pahang in the Maritime Spice Route: Insights from Numismatics, Shipwrecks, and Cartography' by Mr Amru Khalid Sazali; and 'The early history of the Bay of Bengal: An Austronesian Sea?' by Dr Roger Blench.

    6 min

  7. 12/22/2025

    Piecing Together the Early History of Pahang through Imperial Chinese Scripture

    A presentation within Panel 1 of Day 2 which looked at Pahang, China and The Spice Route. Despite Peninsular Malaysia’s significance in regional histories and its long exposure to external influences, the early history of its constituent states— particularly Pahang—remains understudied. Previous explorations into the prehistory of Pahang are dated and brief, often based on the lacking prehistoric chronology of sites in neighbouring regions and racial ethnographic preconceptions of wider Southeast Asian ethnic groups. These cursory looks into Pahang, rather than the state itself, focus on the spread of external influences into the region such as Hindu and Buddhist art forms. The earliest mentions and characteristics of Pahang as a state are found through the foreign perspectives of contemporary late imperial Chinese dynasties. These include the Chinese Song period Song Shu, Yuan dynasty Daoyi Zhilüe, and the Ming period print Dongxiyang kao. The disparate mentions of Pahang in these texts provide no firm location for the state aside from it being established on the eastern coast of the Malay peninsula. While these texts offer ambiguous geographical data, they furnish valuable insights into Pahang’s political economy, resource networks, and sociopolitical structures through accounts of tribute missions and diplomatic exchanges. By interrogating these foreign perspectives, this essay seeks to illuminate Pahang’s formative period, bridging the gap between its nebulous prehistory and the establishment of the Pahang Sultanate in 1470. Follow this link to view the slides from this talk: https://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/sant/islamic_studies/2025-12-22-sant-islamic_studies-jonathan_privett-slides.pdf

    16 min

  8. 12/22/2025

    Curating the Sea: Preserving Pahang’s Maritime and Riverine Past

    As one of the curators of Muzium Pahang, this presentation contributed to Day 1 Panel 2. Pahang forms part of the Malay Archipelago – a region inhabited predominantly by a maritime community with a strong maritime identity. The establishment of a maritime museum in Pahang is imperative, as a state with a rich culture and history as well as identity that is deeply influenced by riverine and maritime life which is highly intertwined with the concept of ‘tanah air’ – the term homeland that directly translates into ‘water land’. This paper will be looking into the current and ongoing effort of reconstructing Pahang’s riverine and maritime past through the establishment of a maritime museum in Pulau Beram, Pekan, Pahang. The museum will be delineating the story and narrative of a port town, which includes the historical, geographical, cultural, archaeological, technological and the local genius aspect of a port civilisation. From looking at the importance of Sungai Pahang (Pahang River) in history and prehistory to its underwater cultural heritage, this paper will also be highlighting the evidence of trade history in Pahang based on archaeological findings like ceramics and shipwrecks. Through the presentation of the historical narrative and the exhibition of artefacts including traditional boats, old maps, currency and goods traded along the Maritime Silk Road (Spice Route), it is hoped that the museum will encourage or instill a sense of appreciation towards the port civilisation history of Pahang and the Malay World as well as the principal role it once played in the global maritime history.

    19 min
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Explore key questions shaping Muslim societies today, with a particular focus on religious authority, religion and politics, and modern Islamic thought. Drawing on seminars, lectures, and conversations with leading scholars, this podcast series is produced by the Contemporary Islamic Studies Programme at the Middle East Centre, University of Oxford. Episodes reflect the Programme’s commitment to rigorous scholarship and international academic exchange, highlighting research at the intersection of Islam, society, and contemporary global debates, and showcasing collaborations between Oxford and partner institutions.

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