Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400-1800 (review)

It has become commonplace to note that travel literature reveals more about authors and and their contexts than about the place(s) that they visit. This remarkable book, however, manages to bring fresh perspectives not only to the study of travel literature as a genre but also to Indo Persian society and culture in the early modern world. The authors provide detailed treatments of accounts of travel between the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Mughal India. The accounts are all placed in proper context, extensively paraphrased or quoted, and compared with each other, in a manner that gradually makes readers familiar with the genre. The book focuses on illuminating the nature of this "Indo-Persian" cultural world.

The authors delve into the travelers' lives, their careers, their vicissitudes of travel, and their attitudes toward the "other." In this book, however, the "other" is not a static, absolute term, even for the travelers. Rather, the travelers reveal a deeply nuanced, complex and even paradoxical view of "self" and "other." On the one hand, the great Islamic empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals shared a remarkable degree of cultural and institutional continuity. Persian was the language of courtiers, and Arabic served as a lingua franca in all aspects of Islamic scholarship. Thus, scholars and courtiers shared a medium of discourse, as well as a corpus of "classic" texts that shaped their education and cultural norms. Courts across the region were familiar territory for scholars, poets, courtiers, and bureaucrats seeking employment. A large number of the travelers to India were spurred by just such opportunities. Islam was also a significant common feature, implying not only a shared literature and scholarship but also shared devotional practices and a shared sense of historical past and identity.

On the other hand, the travelers also reveal distinct hierarchies of power and cultural preferences within their common Indo-Persian world. A country's political strength typically elicited greater respect from the travelers; Mughal India, in particular, fluctuated in stature from 1400 to 1800. The accounts also evince a more nebulous sense of "centrality" based on cultural capital. In its heyday, Mughal India attracted scholars and litterateurs, creating a virtual "brain drain" from Safavid Iran. However, the fact that the historical Islamic sites were located in the Iranian and, more especially, Ottoman empires accorded them a prestige that the Mughals, reigning over a majority Hindu society, never could match.

It is remarkable what was shared and not shared in this Indo-Persian world. Travel literature—in both the theoretical discussions and the glimpses into the authors' own motivations, assumptions, preferences, and complaints—brings this world alive. Indo-Persian Travels enables this corpus of travel literature to illuminate the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the period.