Worldmaking in the Hijaz: Muslims between South Asian and Soviet Visions of Managing Difference, 1919–1926
Journal: Comparative Studies in Society and History
Year: 2023

Abstract Between the end of World War I and the Mecca World Muslim Congress of 1926, Soviet officials and Indian Muslim thinkers imagined the possibilities of a post-imperial world through the Hijaz. The All-India Khilafat Committee (AIKC; established 1919), an organization led by prominent Indian Muslim thinkers, and the Soviet Union promoted competing projects to protect the Hijaz, home to some of Islam’s holiest shrines, against European imperialism. Yet, far from limiting themselves to the q