Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
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| Jaideep Pandey | Razieh Araghi |
Guest-edited by Razieh Araghi and Jaideep Pandey, this special issue explores the rich, multilingual, and transregional literary worlds shaped by and within the Islamicate sphere.
From the Mughal court to Metro Detroit, from Malayalam ghazals to Kurdish-inflected Persian prison poetry, this issue brings together literary translations and critical reflections that unsettle assumptions about language, identity, and belonging. Rather than framing the Islamicate as a fixed geography or religious category, Absinthe 31 approaches it as a set of fluid crossings—linguistic, cultural, historical, and affective.
The issue features work in and from an expansive range of languages, including Persian, Arabic, Malayalam, Kurdish, Assamese, Amazigh, Armeno-Turkish, Dari, and Urdu—foregrounding both canonical and marginalized voices. It includes new English translations of ghazals, sīrahs, biographies, and poems originally written by poets and thinkers working across sectarian, linguistic, and national boundaries, and often negotiating minority or diasporic positionalities.
In addition to the translated works, many contributions are accompanied by translator commentaries that reflect on the ethics, politics, and poetics of translating from within the Islamicate literary landscape. Together, they suggest that translation is not just a means of access, but a mode of thinking—a method native to the Islamicate tradition itself. Spanning from the premodern courts of empire to contemporary diasporic communities, Absinthe 31 offers readers a vibrant and pluralistic vision of the Islamicate as a dynamic literary terrain shaped by continual movement, negotiation, and transformation.
Article
Rethinking the Islamicate Through Translation: Crossings and Currents
Jaideep Pandey and Razieh Araghi
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
"Sepia Veils and the White Flowered Branches" (1990), by Forugh Karimi
Anna Learn
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
The Story of Sarwan and Farijan as told variously by the people of Punjab (1800s), by Captain R. C. Temple
Tara Dhaliwal
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
"Cries of Women, Dance of Flames": Farzad Kamangar's Letter from Prison on International Women's Day (2008), by Farzad Kamangar
Tyler Fisher and Haidar Khezri
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
Ghazals in Malayalam (early 2000s), by Venu V. Desam, Satchidanandan, ONV Kurupp, Shahabaz Aman, Vijay Sursen, and Rafeeq Ahamed
Ibrahim Badshah
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
The Path of Truth (ca. 1830), by Abdul Jalal Zulqad Ali
Bikash K Bhattacharya
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
Karnama-yi Munir (17th century), by Abu'l Barakat ‘Munir’ Lahori
Sunil Sharma
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
Nabi Nāṇayam (Prophet's Coin) (late 19th, early 20th century), by Sanaullah Makti Thangal
Musab Abdul Salam
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
"Horse-Cart Rider" (1954), by Thankamma Malik
Ziyana Fazal
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
Ibrāhīmkuṭṭi Musliyāṟ’s Muḥyuddīn mawlūdinṟe tarjuma (The translation of Muḥyuddīn's hagiography) (1887), by Koṅṅaṇaṃvīṭṭil Ibrāhīmkuṭṭi Musliyāṟ
Afeef Ahmad, Ameen Perumannil Sidhick and Ihsan Ul-Ihthisam
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
"Reading The Letter" (1949), by Essafi Moumen Ali
Adeli Block and Ali Abdeddine
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation
The Pearl Cannon (1947), by Sadeq Hedayat
Mostafa Abedinifard
2026-01-08 Volume 31 • 2025 • The Islamicate in Translation