Networks of Knowledge Production

Abstract

AbstractThis essay explores networks of knowledge exchange and practices of knowledge production between South Asian Muslims and academic circles in Germany between 1915 and 1930. It centers on the brothers Abdul Jabbar Kheiri and Abdul Sattar Kheiri and foregrounds their interaction and encounters with German scholars during the First World War and in Weimar Germany until the brothers' return to India. Taking into consideration the asymmetries at play, the article looks at the motivations for the interest in knowledge exchange on the German and on the Indian sides, which changed in accordance with the different political situations and the positionalities and dependencies of the actors. The knowledge exchange went far beyond the newly emerging discipline of Islamic studies and classical Indology to include disciplines like sociology, economy, philosophy, and art.