Staff profile

My research and teaching focuses on medieval and early modern South Asia (1300-1700) and the subcontinent’s links with regions and communities across the western Indian Ocean, especially the Red Sea region and increasingly with West Asia.

Before coming to Durham in 2020 I was a research associate at the Orient-Institut Beirut, Lebanon (Max Weber Foundation). I received my PhD in History from SOAS, University of London in 2018. Previously I completed an MA in Historical Research Methods at SOAS in 2014 and a Magister Artium in Islamic Studies and South Asian History at the University of Heidelberg in 2013. In the academic year 2010/11 I studied at Damascus University and the Central University, Hyderabad, India.

My studies and research have been funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, 2008-2013), the Erika and Ekmar Schoeneberg Foundation (2013-2014), through a SOAS Research Fellowship (2014-2017) and an Isobel Thornley Fellowship of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), University of London.

Completed Research Projects

Mobile Manuscripts - Arabic Learning across the early modern Western Indian Ocean

I recently published my first monograph entitled Mobile Manuscripts - Arabic Learning across the early modern Western Indian Ocean with Cambridge University Press (2025). The book traces shared cultural histories between the Red Sea region and western India through the circulation of Arabic manuscripts from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Based on archival research in Cairo, Istanbul, London and across India it focuses on the practices of transmitting and reading Islamicate texts among Arabophone communities from Egypt to the Deccan.

 

• Arabic in South Asia
• Social and cultural histories of the Indian Ocean region
• Early Modern manuscript cultures
• Exile in the early modern South Asia
• Political histories of medieval and early modern South Asia
• Shrine cities of South and West Asia

Authored book

• Mobile Manuscripts: Arabic Learning across the Early Modern Western Indian Ocean
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2025). Mobile Manuscripts: Arabic Learning across the Early Modern Western Indian Ocean. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009359719

Book review

• Khafipour, Hani (ed.): The Empires of the Near East and India. Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities
  
  Bahl, C. (2021). Khafipour, Hani (ed.): The Empires of the Near East and India. Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities. H-Soz-Kult. Advance online publication.
• Ebba Koch, ed., in collaboration with Ali Anooshahr, The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan, Mumbai: The Marg Foundation, 2019, 320 pp, Illustrations and Maps, Index and Glossary, ISBN 978-93-83243-26-6
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2021). Ebba Koch, ed., in collaboration with Ali Anooshahr, The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan, Mumbai: The Marg Foundation, 2019, 320 pp, Illustrations and Maps, Index and Glossary, ISBN 978-93-83243-26-6. Der Islam, 98(2), 618-621. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2021-0044
• Testimonies of Enslavement: Sources on Slavery from the Indian Ocean World
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2021). Testimonies of Enslavement: Sources on Slavery from the Indian Ocean World. Cultural and Social History, 18(5), 711-713. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2021.1973738
• Sebastian R. Prange, Monsoon Islam. Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, Series: Cambridge Oceanic Histories, xvi + 344 pp., 4 Maps, 22 Figures, 4 Tables, Index and Bibliographical Information, ISBN 978-1-108-42438-7 (Hardback).
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2019). Sebastian R. Prange, Monsoon Islam. Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, Series: Cambridge Oceanic Histories, xvi + 344 pp., 4 Maps, 22 Figures, 4 Tables, Index and Bibliographical Information, ISBN 978-1-108-42438-7 (Hardback). Der Islam, 96(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2019-0045
• Muhsin J. al-Musawi, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters. Arabic Knowledge Construction, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015, 449 pp., 9 Illustrations, Appendix, ISBN 0-268-02044-2 (Paperback).
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2018). Muhsin J. al-Musawi, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters. Arabic Knowledge Construction, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015, 449 pp., 9 Illustrations, Appendix, ISBN 0-268-02044-2 (Paperback). Der Islam, 95(1), 240-245. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2018-0017
• Die Rifāʿīya aus Damaskus. Eine Privatbibliothek im osmanischen Syrien und ihr kulturelles Umfeld
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2017). Die Rifāʿīya aus Damaskus. Eine Privatbibliothek im osmanischen Syrien und ihr kulturelles Umfeld. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 44(3), 466-467. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2017.1290773
• Dharampal-Frick, Gita; Dwyer, Rachel; Kirloskar-Steinbach, Monika; Phalkey, Jahnavi (Hrsg.): Key Concepts in Modern Indian Studies. . New Delhi 2015. ISBN 978-0-19-945275-0, In: ., 24.05.2016.
  
  Bahl, C. (2016). Dharampal-Frick, Gita; Dwyer, Rachel; Kirloskar-Steinbach, Monika; Phalkey, Jahnavi (Hrsg.): Key Concepts in Modern Indian Studies. . New Delhi 2015. ISBN 978-0-19-945275-0, In: ., 24.05.2016. H-Soz-Kult.

Chapter in book

• Textbooks of Grammar, Morphology and Lexicography: Cosmopolitan Arabic Philology in Early Nineteenth-century Acre
  
  Bahl, C. (2025). Textbooks of Grammar, Morphology and Lexicography: Cosmopolitan Arabic Philology in Early Nineteenth-century Acre. In S. Aljoumani, G. Burak, & K. Hirschler (Eds.), The Library of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār: Book Culture in Late Ottoman Palestine (pp. 345–357). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004720527_020
• Information, Interpretation, Interaction: Global Cultures of Colophons, c. 1400–1800
  
  Bahl, C. D., & Hanß, S. (2022). Information, Interpretation, Interaction: Global Cultures of Colophons, c. 1400–1800. In C. D. Bahl & S. Hanß (Eds.), Scribal Practice and the Global Cultures of Colophons, 1400–1800 (pp. 1-35). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90154-7_1
• A Prosopography in Circulation: Advertising Scribal Travails in Arabic Manuscripts across Early Modern South Asia
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2022). A Prosopography in Circulation: Advertising Scribal Travails in Arabic Manuscripts across Early Modern South Asia. In C. D. Bahl & S. Hanß (Eds.), Scribal Practice and the Global Cultures of Colophons, 1400–1800 (pp. 37-61). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90154-7_2
• Arabic grammar books in Ottoman Istanbul: The South Asian connection
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2021). Arabic grammar books in Ottoman Istanbul: The South Asian connection. In E. Wagner (Ed.), A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic (pp. 65-86). University of Cambridge and Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0208
• Eunuch and Scholar - Two Ways to be ‘Indian’ Socio-Cultural Significances of the Category ‘al-Hindī ’ in the Late Mamlūk Period
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2020). Eunuch and Scholar - Two Ways to be ‘Indian’ Socio-Cultural Significances of the Category ‘al-Hindī ’ in the Late Mamlūk Period. In S. Kiyanrad & et al. (Eds.), Islamische Selbstbilder: Festschrift für Susanne Enderwitz (pp. 25-37). Heidelberg University Publishing. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.531.c9251
• Preservation through elaboration. The Historicisation of the Abyssinians in al-Suyūṭī’s Rafʿ shaʾn al Ḥubshān
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2016). Preservation through elaboration. The Historicisation of the Abyssinians in al-Suyūṭī’s Rafʿ shaʾn al Ḥubshān. In A. Ghersetti (Ed.), Al-Suyūṭī, a polymath of the Mamlūk period (pp. 118-142). Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004334526_009

Edited book

• Scribal Practice and the Global Cultures of Colophons, 1400–1800
  
  Bahl, C. D., & Hanß, S. (Eds.). (2022). Scribal Practice and the Global Cultures of Colophons, 1400–1800. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90154-7

Journal Article

• Transoceanic Arabic historiography: sharing the past of the sixteenth-century western Indian Ocean
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2020). Transoceanic Arabic historiography: sharing the past of the sixteenth-century western Indian Ocean. Journal of Global History, 15(2), 203-223. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1740022820000017
• Arabic Philology at the Seventeenth-Century Mughal Court. Saʿd Allāh Khān’s and Shāh Jahān’s Enactments of the Sharḥ al-Radī
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2020). Arabic Philology at the Seventeenth-Century Mughal Court. Saʿd Allāh Khān’s and Shāh Jahān’s Enactments of the Sharḥ al-Radī. Philological Encounters, 5(2), 190-222. https://doi.org/10.1163/24519197-bja10004
• Creating a Cultural Repertoire Based on Texts
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2018). Creating a Cultural Repertoire Based on Texts. Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 9(2-3), 132-153. https://doi.org/10.1163/1878464x-00902003
• Reading tarājim with Bourdieu: prosopographical traces of historical change in the South Asian migration to the late medieval Hijaz
  
  Bahl, C. D. (2017). Reading tarājim with Bourdieu: prosopographical traces of historical change in the South Asian migration to the late medieval Hijaz. Der Islam, 94(1), 234-275. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2017-0010