Book Talk: Palimpsests Past and Present: The Sufis and Sultans of the Maklī Necropolis, 1380–1660 with Fatima Quraishi

About this event

Join us for a book talk with Fatima Quraishi , Assistant Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. A scholar of South Asian art and architecture, Quraishi’s research focuses on the visual and material cultures of Muslim communities in the premodern period, with particular attention to transregional artistic exchange, devotional practices, and the role of artists in cultural formation.

In Palimpsests Past and Present , Quraishi examines the Maklī necropolis in Sindh, Pakistan , one of South Asia’s most significant funerary sites. Established in the late fourteenth century, Maklī developed over three centuries into a vast complex of monumental tombs, mosques, and graves. Drawing on rarely consulted archives in Pakistan and close analysis of the site’s architecture, Quraishi traces how successive generations of rulers, artisans, Sufi devotees, and local communities shaped and reshaped Maklī. The book explores the intersection of artistic traditions from across South and Central Asia and considers how funerary spaces acquire new meanings through devotion, memory, and continued use.

Published by the University of North Carolina Press , the book is part of the Islamic Civilizations and Muslim Networks series.

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Palimpsests Past and Present

The Sufis and Sultans of the Maklī Necropolis, 1380–1660

by Fatima Quraishi

336 pp., 103 color plates, 7 figs., 6 maps, appends., notes, bibl., index

ISBN 978-1-4696-9761-1 $99.00 cloth; ISBN 978-1-4696-9762-8 $37.95 paper

Publication date: October 20, 2026

For more information: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469697628/palimpsests-past-and-present/

From Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia