Daily Times

Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove

An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Relations including Details of the Kashmir Framework

Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri

The book is the first comprehensive account by a Pakistani Foreign Minister who contributed in moving the peace process with India forward. This was hailed as the most promising dialogue between Pakistan and India since Independence. It provides a detailed analysis of the Kashmir issue and the complex Pakistan-US-Afghanistan-India quadrangular relationship. Kasuri believes that, whenever two statesmen are at the helm in India and Pakistan, for improvement of relations, they would have to revert to the framework formulated during his tenure as Foreign Minister.

Of Brick & Myth

The Genesis of Islamic Architecture in the Indus Valley

Holly Edwards

Pakistan’s shrine architecture, epitomized by the fourteenth-century tomb of Shaikh Rukn al Din Rukn-i Alam in Multan, is justly renowned for vivid tile work, imposing domes, and surpassing beauty. These buildings are also stylistically distinct from architecture in adjoining regions. This book traces the emergence of this extraordinary building tradition with reference to lesser known commemorative sites throughout the Indus Valley that predate more famous monuments. On the basis of extensive fieldwork, Edwards provides detailed descriptions of individual structures tracking brick working styles and other significant craft practices. The catalogue of monuments is contextualized with a brief historical narrative and art historical commentary.

Food Prints

An Epicurean Voyage through Pakistan: Overview of Pakistani Cuisine

Shanaz Ramzi

Food Prints strives to document the influence of geography, history, culture, and religion on the culinary habits of Pakistan. While it provides an insight into the kind of fare that forms the staple diet of the country, the ingredients commonly used, and the general eating patterns, it also allows the reader to become acquainted with the many communities that now inhabit the various parts of Pakistan and the cuisines they enjoy in particular. The book also traces the origins of many of Pakistan’s popular dishes, the enchanting legends behind some of them, and the occasions they are most associated with.

Journey to God

Sufis and Dervishes in Islam

Jürgen Wasim Frembgen

Translated from German by Jane Ripken 

The Sufi tradition as the ‘other face’ and ‘soft core’ of Islam represents a particular creative and liberal facet characterised by tolerance, humanism, and the accommodation of differences. This book, which understands Sufi Islam as being embedded in wider social and cultural contexts, surveys the whole of the Muslim world from Sub-Saharan Africa across the Middle East to Eastern Turkistan and South Asia, with particular emphasis on Pakistan and India as its demographic centre. What distinguishes this study most clearly from the considerable number of introductions to Sufism currently available is that it offers an account of Sufi Islam from the perspective of the ethnographer as much as that of the historian of religion.

Balochistan

Architecture, Craft, and Religious Symbolism

Mohsen Keiany

This work explores the living traditions of Balochistan and provides a deeper understanding of the province’s religio-cultural, architectural, textile, and symbolic traditions which are explored in depth. The architectural and artistic traditions of the myriad Baloch groups are documented. The field work and data collection is theoretically contextualised and draws upon a combination of reference points from Islamic architecture as well as anthropology. The Baloch lifestyle is examined on a broad plane, with particular focus on indigenous architecture and its characteristics, social contextualization, and methods of construction.

Published in Daily Times, March 19^th 2018.