Becoming Arab

Sumit K. Mandal is an Associate Professor in the School of Politics, History, and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus. A historian interested in the transnational architecture of Asian societies, Mandal does research on Muslim societies in the Malay world - in relation to the Indian Ocean - as well as contemporary Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. His writing has appeared in Modern Asian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and Citizenship Studies. Previously, he worked at the National University of Malaysia and Humboldt University in Berlin, and held fellowships at New York University and Kyoto University, Japan. He is on the editorial board of Philological Encounters.

• Introduction; Part I. A Creole Malay World: 1. Lord Sayyids; Part II. Colonial Transformation: 2. From sea to land; 3. Categorisation and control; 4. Scholarship and surveillance; Part III. Modern Identity: 5. Turning to Istanbul; 6. Sayyids remade; 7. The contested state of modern Arab identity; Conclusion.

'Mandal makes an important and original contribution to our understanding of Arabs and Arabness in the Malay world, as well as to the history of colonial and postcolonial Indonesia. His lucid and accessible style makes Becoming Arab a pleasure to read. This ground breaking work will provoke various conversations that will further enrich our knowledge of the topic.' Ronit Ricci, Hebrew University, Israel