Oman’s Transregional Connections to Sindh and Gujarat: Mobility and Material Heritage of the Lawatiya

Studies that look at transregional connections between the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia have so far focused mainly on links between Yemen and South Asia (Bonnenfant: 2000; Akkerman 2022). Oman, which occupies a strategic place on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, has not yet recei...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zahir Bhalloo
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre Français d’Archéologie et de Sciences Sociales de Sanaa 2023-07-01
Series:Arabian Humanities
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/arabianhumanities/10129
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Summary:Studies that look at transregional connections between the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia have so far focused mainly on links between Yemen and South Asia (Bonnenfant: 2000; Akkerman 2022). Oman, which occupies a strategic place on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, has not yet received significant scholarly attention. Drawing on fieldwork in Oman, this paper explores Oman’s ties to South Asia, specifically to the regions of Sindh (Pakistan) and Gujarat (India), through the example of the mobility and settlement of the Lawatiya Shiʿi Muslim merchant community in Oman and its material heritage in the form of funerary architecture (graves) and written artefacts in Khojki Sindhi script (gravestones, devotional texts, commercial registers, and documents).
ISSN:2308-6122