Zulfikar Hirji is Associate Professor at York University. His research project explores Muslim materialities in coastal East Africa before the 20th century, with particular focus on a corpus of illuminated Qur’an manuscripts
produced on Pate Island in the Lamu Archipelago between the 18th-19th centuries. The project aims to identify and describe the manuscripts in the corpus, and study its materiality, calligraphic and decorative content in order to understand the producers’ skills, knowledges, and practices. The project also seeks to situate the manuscripts in their historical and socio-cultural context by comparing their calligraphy and decorative programs to other types of material culture in the region, and by comparing the manuscripts’ materiality, calligraphy, and decorative programs with Islamic manuscripts from other regions in Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean littoral. His recent publications include “The Faza Qurʾan: Three Nineteenth-century Illuminated Manuscripts from Coastal East Africa,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies24:2 (2022) and “The Siyu Qur’ans: Illuminated Qur’an Manuscripts from Coastal East Africa,” in Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa, Zulfikar Hirji (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2021).