Travellers in the Golden Realm

How Mughal India Connected England to the World

A discussion with Dr Lubaaba Al-Azami

Organised by Brick Lane Circle

BOOK EVENT

Saturday, 10 August 2024, 2.30 - 4.30 pm

Conference room, Idea Store Whitechapel

321 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU

MEMOs Founding Editor, Dr Lubaaba Al-Azami will speak about her recently published book. She is a cultural historian specialising in the Global Renaissance. She is a lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at the University of Manchester and a research fellow at the University of Liverpool. She is also founding editor of Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs, memorients.com), a leading digital platform on premodern encounters between England and the Islamic Worlds.

 When the first English travellers in India encountered an unimaginable superpower, their meetings would change the world. Before the East India Company and before the British Empire, England was a pariah state. Seeking better fortunes, 16th and 17th century merchants, pilgrims and outcasts ventured to the kingdom of the mighty Mughals, attempting to sell coarse woollen broadcloth along the silk roads; playing courtiers in the Mughal palaces in pursuit of love; or simply touring the sub-continent in search of an elephant to ride.

Into this golden realm went Father Thomas Stephens, a Catholic fleeing his home; the merchant Ralph Fitch looking for jewels in the markets of Delhi; and John Mildenhall, an adventurer revelling in the highwire politics of the Mughal elite. It was a land ruled from the palatial towers by women – the formidable Empress Nur Jahan Begim, the enterprising Queen Mother Maryam al-Zamani, and the intrepid Princess Jahanara Begim. Their collision of worlds helped connect East and West, launching a tempestuous period of globalisation spanning from the Chinese opium trade to the slave trade in the Americas.

Drawing on rich, original sources, Lubaaba Al-Azami traces the origins of a relationship between two nations – one outsider and one superpower – whose cultures remain inextricably linked to this day.

 ‘This is a remarkable book. It combines a spellbinding account of the first forgotten half of the English encounter with India with a fascinating history of the Mughal Empire’ - Josephone Quinn, author of How the World Made the West.

‘A compelling, highly readable account of the earliest phase of English presence in India’ - Nandini Das, author of Courting India

You are invited to join the event, engage with her, share your perspectives and buy the book.

For further details, please email [email protected]