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. FEB 2

    Closing ceremony of the 2-day workshop, Pahang and the Sea: Maritime Networks and Connections between Southeast Asia and Beyond

    Various guest speakers contribute closing presentations and thoughts, to formally close the 2-day international conference held at St Antony's College, University of Oxford.

    21 min

  2. FEB 2

    Finale Roundtable commentary

    Prof Dr Amal Ghazal provides summary thoughts of the entire 2-day workshop as part of the finale roundtable discussion.

    18 min

  3. JAN 27

    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

  4. JAN 27

    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

  5. JAN 27

    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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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
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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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