MUHAMMED NIYAS ASHRAF

A Historian specializing in early modern to contemporary South Asian history. With three years of experience as an Assistant Professor of History, his academic expertise spans vernacular print cultures, Islamic intellectual history, and transnational networks, supported by advanced proficiency in archival research, multilingual textual analysis, and digital methodologies.

Ashraf, M. N. 'Malayala' Islam and Modernity: Being 'Muslim' and Being 'Modern' in Colonial Kerala, Southwest Indian Ocean. International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, 13 (1), 2025, 1-33. https://doi.org/10.1163/22130624-20251301.

Mohan P, A.; Ashraf, M. N.; Varghese, A. “Kṛṣṇanāṭṭam Performance: Kṛṣṇa Devotion, Ritual Ecology, and Colonial Transformation in South India.” Religions, 16, 2025, 1503. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16121503.

Ashraf, M. N. Beyond Linguistics: Arabic-Malayalam and the Communal Discourse in Malayalam Literary History. Tapasam: A Quarterly Journal for Kerala Studies, (In Press 2026).

Ashraf, M. N. What is Arabic-Malayalam? Navigating Linguistic Intersections and Unravelling the Dynamics Between Arabic and Malayalam Script and Language. Malayalam Research Journal, 18, May-August 2025, 7030-7059.

Ashraf, M. N. Shaping Muslim Literary Heritage: Māppiḷapāṭṭŭ in Malayalam Literary Culture. Special Issue: Folklore from South Asia. Nidan: International Journal of Indian Studies, 7 (1),  2022, 17-34. https://doi.org/10.36886/nidan.2022.7.1.2.

Ashraf, M. N. Modernity and Reform in Colonial Kerala: Revisiting the Contributions of Sayyid Sanaullah Makti Tangal. Social Orbit, 3 (1), 2017, 9-31.

Ashraf, M. N. “‘Women Always Subordinate to Men’: Reforming Muslim Women and Reconfiguring Patriarchy in Colonial Kerala.” Journal of Women’s History. Revisions submitted; second-level peer review in progress.

Ashraf, M. N. “Living Archives of Colonial Resistance: Martyrdom, Memory, and Muslim Hagiographies in South India.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Under first-round peer review.

Islamic Reformism and Malayali ummah in the Nineteenth Century Colonial Kerala, Southwest Indian Ocean. Sweden: SASNET Publication: 2020 (ISBN: 978-91-986267-2-8).

Memories of Suffering: Vernacular Hagiographies and the Historical Sensibilities of the Nineteenth Century Malabar Muslims, in In Memory Studies in India. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. 303- 323. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004722514_020.

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Embodied Charisma in Mālappāṭṭu: Saintly Piety and Sacred Sovereignty in the Mappila Mindscape of Colonial Malabar, in Exploring Sovereignty: Engagements, Contestations, and Fabulations from the Global South, edited. Filippo Osella and R Santhosh. Cambridge University Press (Forthcoming 2026).

Saints Textualized: Pious Commemoration of Friends of God and Vernacular Hagiographies in Nineteenth Century Malabar, in Media Technology and Cultures of Memory: Mapping Indian Narratives, edited by Elwin Susan John and Amal P. Mathews, 97–113. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003350330.

Entanglement of Arabic-Malayalam Print Culture and Mappila Community Formation in Colonial Kerala,” in The Universe of Words: Two Years of Malayalam Printing, ed. Babu Cherian. Kottayam: Benjamin Bailey Foundation, 2021 (ISBN 978-93-91946-16-6).

Politics of Marginalization: Arabic-Malayalam and Mappila Literature in Kerala Literary History, in 1921: A Century-old History of Kerala Muslims, ed. A P Kunhammu. Kozhikode: Vachanam Books, 2021.

Hostagizing History: Commemorating the Sacrifices of 1921 Mappila Martyrs, in The Malabar Revolt and Dictionary of Martyrs, ed. Umair Bukhari. Kozhikode: IPB Books, 2021 (ISBN 978-93.91376-23-9).

Ashraf, M. N & others. Dictionary of Martyrs: India's Freedom Struggle (1857-1947). Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, and the North-Eastern Hill States. (1857-1920) Volume 4. Delhi: Manak Publications & Indian Council of Historical Research, 2018 (ISBN 978-81-938176-0-5-4).

Ashraf, M. N & others. Dictionary of Martyrs: India's Freedom Struggle; (1857-1947). Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu Volume 5, Delhi: Manak Publications & Indian Council of Historical Research, 2019 (ISBN 978-81-938176-1-2).

When History is Held Hostage: Commemorating the Continuing Sufferings of the Mappila Martyrs of 1921. The Wire, 2021.

Captivation of Historical Records and Silencing the Martyrdom Memories(Malayalam). Prabodhanam Weekly, 2021.

Never Hostagize History Writing(Malayalam). Madhyamam Daily, 2020.

Sacred Struggle, Resistant Memory: Piety, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sainthood in Clonila, South India. Writing and Remembering the Battle of Badr (7th-21st Century), University of Strasbourg, France, November 14, 2025.

Locale of Ponnani as the 'Little Mecca' of Malabar: Intellectual Entanglements and Trajectories of Arabic Cosmopolis in the South-West Indian Ocean in Modern Times. 'Little Meccas' - 7th Muhammad Alagil Chair in Arabia Asia Studies Conference. Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, December 1, 2022.

Printed Texts, Translated Ideas, Intellectual Encounters: Shaping Arabo-Islamic Print Cosmopolis in South-West Indian Ocean. Spiced Islam and Textual Circulations: India, Indonesia and the Indian Ocean. Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University of Jakarta, Indonesia, 28 November 2022 (Online).

Marginalized Memories in Hagiographies: Vernacular Literature and Twentieth Century Malabar Muslims. Fifth Annual South Asia Conference, Ireland India Institute. Dublin City University, Ireland, April 28, 2022 (Online).

Reflections on Muslim- Christian Intellectual Encounters: Polemics and Public Disputations in Southwest Indian Ocean in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century. Decolonising Archives, Rethinking Canons: Writing Intellectual Histories of Global Entanglements, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, March 27, 2021.

Saintly/Sufi Piety in Mālā Literature: Muslim Liturgical Sphere and Cult of Sufi Saints in the Nineteenth Century Malabar. Exploring Sovereignty and Charisma: Engagements, Contestations and Fabulations from the Global South, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, (India), December 17, 2019.

Interactions and Negotiations in Printed Texts and Circulated Ideas: Vernacular Islam and Arabic Cosmopolitanism in the Nineteenth Century Indian Ocean Print Cosmopolis. Vernacular and Cosmopolitan in South Asian Islam, University of Pennsylvania, USA, April 6, 2019.

Printed Texts, Translated Ideas, and Islamic Network in Indian Ocean Littoral: Arabic Cosmopolis in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century South-West India. Muslim Cultures in the Indian Ocean Diversity and Pluralism, Past and Present Conference, The Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, London, UK, September 12, 2018.

Madúhú Nabi and Hubbū Rasūl: Prophetic Love and Devotion in South West Indian Ocean. Global History Student Conference Istanbul, History Department of Istanbul Sehir University, Turkey, June 23, 2018.

'Mawlids' in Mappila Mindscape: Muslim Social Life in Colonial Kerala, South-West India. Ways of Knowing: 5th Annual Graduate Conference on Religion, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, USA, October 28, 2016.

Muslim Print Sphere and New Public: Language and Identity in Colonial Kerala, South India. 24thEuropean Conference on South Asian Studies, Warsaw, Poland, July 28, 2016.

Entanglements of Print Culture and Trajectories of Community Formation: Mappila Muslims of Kerala, 1867-1924. 18thHumboldt India Project, Department of South Asian Studies, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Berlin, Germany, May 20, 2016.

Muslim-Christian Polemics and the Emergence of a Rational Muslim Discourse in Colonial South India. British Association of South Asian Studies Annual Conference, University of Cambridge, London, UK, April 6, 2016.

Text and Performance: Muslim Print Sphere in Malabar. Workshop on Islam in Malabar: Discourse, Text and Public Culture, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany 2016.

Reading Makti Tangal: Language, Education, and Identity in Colonial Kerala, 1884-1912. Second Muslim South Asia (MUSA) Graduate Conference in collaboration with The Royal Asiatic Society, London, UK, October 10, 2015.

Reconstructing Kerala’s Muslim Past Through Mosque and Shrine Landscapes, Kannur University, Kannur, 04-06-2025.

Public Sphere Unveiled: Exploring Muslim Intellectual Traditions and Print Culture in Colonial Kerala, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Tirur Campus, 01-10-2024.

Remembering Martyrs and Commemorating Sacrifice, Inaugural Lecture at College of Quran & IBN Khaldun Institute of Social Sciences, Kuttiadi – Kozhikode, 10-01-2021.

Studying History and Beyond, Lecture at Marthoma College Tiruvalla, Mahatma Gandhi University, 02-25-2021.

Sacred Sites and Sacred Lives: Martyrdom, Memory, and Mosque in Malappuṟaṁ Kissappāṭṭ. Kannur University, December 2024. 

Print Resistance: Marginalization of Mappilas and Resistance of Subalterns from Malabar. Research Scholars Seminar 'Marginalization and Resistance.' Tata Institute of Social Science, Tuljapur Campus, Maharashtra, 2012.

FWO Odysseus Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Ghent University, 2025-2027

DAAD Visiting Research Fellowship, JNU, Delhi, 2019-10-01 to 2019-12-31

DFG German Research Foundation Fellowship, 2015-10-01 to 2019-03-31

Behavioral Mentoring Analyst (CBMA)

Dr. Torsten Tschacher

South Asian Institute

University of Heidelberg

torsten.tschacher@sai.uni-heidelberg.de, ttschacher@gmx.de

Dr. Sara Mondini

Assistant Professor, Department of Languages and Cultures

Ghent University, Belgium

sara.Mondini@ugent.be

Prof. Dilip M Menon

Director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa

University of Witwatersrand

South Africa

Dilip.Menon@wits.ac.za