Cemil Aydin (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)

European Imperialism during the long 19th century was characterized by increasing connectivity and mobility across Asia due to infrastructure grid of steamships and trains, telegraph lines and printing press. Symbolized by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, this era of connectivity linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean also coincided with the growth of Muslim modernism and Pan-Islamic visions of solidarity. This paper revisits the period from the 1860s to the 1920s, retrospectively characterized as the high age of racialized empires, to explore how the era of steam and print contributed to the emergence of new geopolitical, religious and civilizational discourses on the Muslim World. The presentations will also discuss the legacies of this experience for the 20th century story of decolonization, internationalism, nationalism, and religious revival.