The two Muslim poets featured in Scott Kugle's comparative study lived separate lives during the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries in the Deccan region of southern India. Here, they meet in the realm of literary imagination, illuminating the complexity of gender, sexuality, and religious practice in South Asian Islamic culture. Shah Siraj Awrangabadi (1715-1763), known as "Sun," was a Sunni who, after a youthful homosexual love affair, gave up sexual relationships to follow a path of personal holiness. Mah Laqa Bai Chanda (1768-1820), known as "Moon," was a Shi'i and courtesan dancer who transferred her seduction of men to the pursuit of mystical love. Both were poets in the Urdu language of the ghazal, or love lyric, often fusing a spiritual quest with erotic imagery. Kugle argues that Sun and Moon expressed through their poetry exceptions to the general rules of heteronormativity and gender inequality common in their patriarchal societies. Their art provides a lens for a more subtle understanding of both the reach and the limitations of gender roles in Islamic and South Asian culture and underscores how the arts of poetry, music, and dance are integral to Islamic religious life. Integrated throughout are Kugle's translations of Urdu and Persian poetry previously unavailable in English.

Tammy Lynn Robinson, the daughter of the late Kattie Mae Lewis and Jessie Ealy. She is the wife of Pastor John Robinson, III and the proud mother of two amazing children John IV and Tamara Lynn. She is the God Mother of six precious children: Chad, Gabriel, Jabari, Kaia, Naija, and Omichelle, and the favorite auntie of many nieces and nephews. Tammy enjoys working with children, teaching them to make good choices, helping them develop their educational skills, and offering them a second chance. She has been employed with the Saint Lucie County School District since 1993 working with Pre-K to 8th grade students. ~ Her encouragement to children is: Obey your parents, study hard, never give up, and believe that all things are possible! Finally, children become citizens in our society who are worth talking about! This book is for children, but I hope that adults will enjoy reading it as well! It emphasizes caring, sharing, friendship, and being thankful for one another. The intent is for children to have an exciting reading experience and that they will want to read this book over and over again! This is a great Circle Time story, Bed Time story, or Any Time story that is appropriate and fun!

This is the first history of Indian music and musicians during the transition from Mughal to British rule, c.1748-1858.

Leisure is a corollary to pleasure. Essays in this historical exploration trace how leisure and recreation were often imagined and celebrated during premodern times, from the ancient to the precolonial period. This book takes into account the differential access to leisure and pleasure based on class and gender where masculinity is projected through manly sports and femininity though beauty and indulgence in the projection of recreation, entertainment and luxury. The counter-discourse representing labour for those who cater for this leisure is invisibilized as is their transactional nature. The volume dwells on the attitudes, prescribed and proscribed, and brings to the fore the differences across religious ideologies such as Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jaina and Muslim in various periods. Further it looks at leisure in the various classes and cultural spaces such as the elite, women, the king in the bed chamber, the court with dancing girls, public areas such as orchards and gardens and performance spaces.

Jamal Malik provides new insights into the social and intellectual history of the complex forms of cultural articulation among Muslims in South Asia from the seventh to twenty-first century, elaborating on various trends and tendencies in a highly plural setting.

Examines the role of progressive Muslim intellectuals in the Pakistan movement through the lens of censorship.