Sajida Alvi
Encyclopedia
Sajida S. Alvi is an academic of Pakistan
i origin in Canada
. She is a historian of Islam in South Asia
and was the inaugural appointment to the chair in Urdu Language and Culture at the Institute of Islamic Studies
from September 1987 till her retirement in June 2010.
. She accepted a teaching position at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University
, Montreal, in 1972; she taught there for five years and then moved to the University of Minnesota
in 1977. After receiving tenure and promotion at the University of Minnesota, she returned to McGill University in 1986.
She is the first appointee to an endowed Chair in Urdu Language and Culture (funded by the Government of Pakistan, Department of Multiculturalism, Government of Canada and McGill University), and is a Professor of Indo-Islamic History at McGill University.
Alvo has lectured in Canada and the United States on Islam, aspects of Islamic civilization, and women’s issues, and works with the Canadian Council of Muslim Women regarding women’s issues. She also worked various Boards of Education in Ontario to support and enhance the instruction of heritage languages programs with special reference to Urdu with funding from the Department of Multiculturalism.
She has contributed chapters and brief notes to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Encyclopædia Iranica, The Muslim Almanac: A Reference Work on the History, Faith, Culture, and People of Islam, Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, and Encyclopaedia of Religion. Her current two-volume research project in progress is: “Khanqah and Madrasah and Chishtiyya Sufis: Agents of Social Change and Spiritual Rejuvenation in the British Punjab (1750-1850).”
Instructional Materials Development Project. With the team of 10 members and 5 Boards of Education in Ontario Province, Alvi developed first set of books for junior and senior kindergarten and grade one, Urdu for Children: Book One (4 volumes plus set of two audiocassettes) in 1997. The second set of books in the series for grades two and three, Urdu for Children: Book Two (7 volumes and a set of two CDs) was published in October 2004. This project was sponsored and funded by the Canadian Government, and Urdu texts and related materials were published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press.
On the controversial issue of hijab
, Alvi undertook another major project at the request of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, and completed it in collaboration with two colleagues from Concordia University as co-editors and contributors along with some graduate students. It culminated in the publication of Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates in 2003.
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i origin in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. She is a historian of Islam in South Asia
Islam in India
Islam is the second-most practiced religion in the Republic of India after Hinduism, with more than 13.4% of the country's population ....
and was the inaugural appointment to the chair in Urdu Language and Culture at the Institute of Islamic Studies
McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies
The McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies and the Islamic Studies Library were established in 1952 by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and since 1983 both have been housed in Morrice Hall on McGill's campus in downtown Montreal...
from September 1987 till her retirement in June 2010.
Life
Alvi moved to Canada in January 1967 as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of TorontoUniversity of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
. She accepted a teaching position at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, Montreal, in 1972; she taught there for five years and then moved to the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in 1977. After receiving tenure and promotion at the University of Minnesota, she returned to McGill University in 1986.
She is the first appointee to an endowed Chair in Urdu Language and Culture (funded by the Government of Pakistan, Department of Multiculturalism, Government of Canada and McGill University), and is a Professor of Indo-Islamic History at McGill University.
Alvo has lectured in Canada and the United States on Islam, aspects of Islamic civilization, and women’s issues, and works with the Canadian Council of Muslim Women regarding women’s issues. She also worked various Boards of Education in Ontario to support and enhance the instruction of heritage languages programs with special reference to Urdu with funding from the Department of Multiculturalism.
Works
Alvi’s books on Indo-Islamic history include Mir’at al-‘Alam: History of Emperor Awangzeb Alamgir (2 vols); and Advice on the Art of Governance: An Indo-Islamic Mirror for Princes (Mau‘izah-i Jahangiri) of Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani.She has contributed chapters and brief notes to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Encyclopædia Iranica, The Muslim Almanac: A Reference Work on the History, Faith, Culture, and People of Islam, Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, and Encyclopaedia of Religion. Her current two-volume research project in progress is: “Khanqah and Madrasah and Chishtiyya Sufis: Agents of Social Change and Spiritual Rejuvenation in the British Punjab (1750-1850).”
Educator
She directed and edited a pioneering UrduUrdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
Instructional Materials Development Project. With the team of 10 members and 5 Boards of Education in Ontario Province, Alvi developed first set of books for junior and senior kindergarten and grade one, Urdu for Children: Book One (4 volumes plus set of two audiocassettes) in 1997. The second set of books in the series for grades two and three, Urdu for Children: Book Two (7 volumes and a set of two CDs) was published in October 2004. This project was sponsored and funded by the Canadian Government, and Urdu texts and related materials were published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press.
On the controversial issue of hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
, Alvi undertook another major project at the request of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, and completed it in collaboration with two colleagues from Concordia University as co-editors and contributors along with some graduate students. It culminated in the publication of Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates in 2003.
Works
- Muhammad Bakhtawar Khan.Mir'at al-‘Alam: History of Emperor Awangzeb ‘Alamgir (Political History), vol. 1. Edited by Sajida S. Alvi. Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, University of Punjab, 1979.
- Idem.Mir'at al-‘Alam: History of Emperor Awangzeb ‘Alamgir (The Biographies of the ‘ulama', Sufis, Calligraphers and Poets), Vol. II. Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, University of Punjab, 1979.
- "Muhammad Bakhtawar Khan (d. 1685)," an historian of Mughal emperor Awrangzeb. Encycolopaedia Iranica, New York, 1988, vol. 3, 541-42.
- "The Historians of Awangzeb: A Comparative Study of Three Primary Sources." Essays on Islamic Civilization Presented to Niyazi BerkesNiyazi Berkes- Biography :Berkes was born in Nicosia on 21 October 1908. He started his secondary education in Cyprus, Nicosia. During his education, he later, went to Istanbul and graduated from Istanbul Erkek Lisesi in 1928. In 1931, Berkes graduated from the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Literature...
, D.P. Little, ed., (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), 57-73. - "Tarikh-i Husayniyah: An Unknown Source for the History of Awadh." Der Islam Hamburg, West Germany, 58,1(1981): 136-146.
- Advice on the Art of Governance: An Indo-Islamic Mirror for Princes (Mau‘izahi Jahangiri) of Muhammad Baqir Najmi Sani Persian Text with Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.
Articles
- "Mazhar-i Shahjahani and the Mughal Province of Sind: A Discourse on Political Ethics." Islam and Indian Regions, Texts, Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung Sudasien-Institut Universitat Heidelberg, 145, Anna.L. Dallapiccola and Stephanie Z. Lallemant, eds. Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1993. Vol. 1, 239-258.
- "Shi‘ism in India During Jahangir's Reign: Some Reflections." Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society Karachi, Pakistan, 27, 1(1979): 39-65.
- "Religion and State During the Reign of Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1605-27): Nonjuristical Perspectives." Studia Islamica, Paris, France, 69(1989): 95-119.
- "Qazi Sana'-Allah Panipati, An Eighteenth-Century Indian Sufi-‘Alim: A Study of His Writings in Their Sociopolitical Context." Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, W. Hallaq and D. Little, eds., (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 11-25.
- "The Mujaddid and Tajdid Traditions in the Indian Subcontinent: An Historical Overview." Journal of Turkish Studies, 18 (1994): 1-15.
- "Islam in South Asia." The Muslim Almanac: A Reference Work on the History, Faith, Culture, and Peoples of Islam, Azim Nanji, ed. Gale Research Inc., 1995, 55-72.
- "Foreword," Islam: Its Roots and Wings, A Primer, V. S. Behiery and A. M. Guenther. Canadian Council of Muslim Women: 2000, i-ix.
- "The Naqshbandi Mujaddidi Sufi Order’s Ascendancy in Cenral Asia Through the Eyes of its Masters and Disciples (1010s-1200s/1600s-1800s)". Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought, essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, Todd Lawson, ed., (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 418-431.
- The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, co-edited with Homa Hoodfar and Sheila McDonough. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2003.
- “Unpacking the symbolism of the Muslim Veil,” co-authored with Sheila McDonough, Ecumenism (Women of Faith in the World’s Religion), No. 115, September (1994).
- “Muslim Women and Society,” (comprises an introduction and editing of two excerpts taken from Fatima Mernissi’s The Forgotten Queens of Islam ,and Ruth Moore’s Ph.D. dissertation, “Women and Warriors@in An Anthology of Islamic Studies, Howard M. Federspiel, ed. (Montreal: Institute of Islamic Studies, 1996), vol. 2, 235-285.
- “Evidence, Inheritance, “Hudud”: Introduction and Comparative Perspective” in the Proceedings, International Conference on Islamic Laws and Women in the Modern World>/cite>,1996. (Islamabad n. d.): 96-97, 129-132, 147-149, 165.
- “Career Development of Women in Indonesian Society: A Study of Highly Successful Career Women,” co-authored with Sabir Alvi, in Women in Indonesian Society: Access, Empowerment, Opportunity: Conference Proceedings, Jakarta, Indonesia. (Yogyakarta: 2002), 111-133.
- “The Canadian Council of Muslim Women: A Chapter in the History of Muslim Women in Canada,” co-authored with Sheila McDonough, The Muslim World, nos. 1&2 (Spring 2002): 79-98.
- “Muslim Women and Islamic Religious Tradition: A Historical Overview and Contemporary Issues,” The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, co-edited with Homa Hoodfar and Sheila McDonough, (Toronto, Canadian Scholar’s Press, 2003), 145-180.
- “Buzurg Alavi’s Writings from Prison.” The Muslim World. Hartford Seminary Foundation, 67,3(1977): 205 222. Reprinted in Critical Perspectives on the Literature of Iran, Thomas M. Ricks, ed., and compiler (Washington, D. C., Three Continents Press, 1984), 274 291.
- “Urdu Literature from Prison: Some Reflections on the Writings of Pakistani Prisoners of War in India.” Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan. Lahore, Pakistan, 19, 3(1982): 43 54.
Pedagogy and Textbooks
- Urdu for Children: Book One, Junior and Senior Kindergarten & Grade One, comprising (Two textbooks, Teacher’s Manual, Workbook & two Audio cassettes), editor and project director, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.
- Urdu for Children: Book Two, Grades Two and Three comprising (Two textbooks), Let’s Read Urdu, 2 volumes, Teacher’s Manual, Workbooks, 2 volumes & two CDs, editor and project director, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004.