Francis Robinson, CBE

Research Interests

My research interests embrace the Muslim world from the eighteenth century to the present. I have a particular regional interest in the Muslims of South Asia and particular thematic interests in learned and holy families, religious change and political change. The main thrust of my work could be characterised as the study of Muslim responses to the modern world. I am driven by a desire to know and to explain what it was to be human in other places at other times

I am currently working on an overview of Islam in South Asia since 1800.

Over the years, research students I have supervised have gone on to careers in a variety of locations. Ian Talbot, who worked on the politics of the Punjab before Partition is now a Professor of History at the University of Southampton; Humayun Ansari, who worked on the Indian Progressive Writers' Movement, is now a Professor of Islam and Cultural Diversity at Royal Holloway; Sarah Ansari, who worked on the Sufi Pirs of Sind under the British rule, is now a Senior Lecturer in History at Royal Holloway; Muhammad Salim, who worked on the All-India Muslim League, has recently retired from the Dept of History at Islamia University, Bahawalpur; Abdul Rashid Khan, who worked on the All-India Muslim Education Conference, is now a Professor of History at BZ University, Multan; Azra Asghar Ali, who worked on the emergence of Muslim feminism in India, is now a Professor of History at BZ University, Multan; Claudia Liebeskind, who worked on Sufi shrines and religious change in late nineteenth century Awadh, is now an Associate Professor at Florida State University; Saeed Kazembeyki, who worked on the politics of the Iranian province of Mazandaran, is now a Professor in the Department of History, University of Tehran; Yoginder Sikand, who worked on a comparative study of the Tablighi Jama`at in India, the UK and Bangladesh, is now a Professor of History at India's Jamia Millia Islamia; Amit Dey, who worked on changing images of the Prophet in C19th and early C20th Bengal, is now a Reader in the Dept of History, University of Calcutta, and Markus Daechsel, who worked on politics of the middle class in Lahore in the 1930s and 1940s, is now a Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh.

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