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About Me

Mehreen Chida-Razvi is an Art Historian specializing in the art and architecture of Mughal South Asia. She is the Deputy Curator of the Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and the In-House Editor for their publication series, is an Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and regularly teaches courses and lectures on Islamic and Indo-Islamic art at universities and museums in London. She was formerly a Research Associate in the History of Art & Archaeology Department at SOAS, University of London, from 2015-2019.

In 2019 she guest-edited a Special Issue of South Asian Studies, titled Resituating Mughal Architecture in the Persianate World: New Investigations and Analyses, in which her article ‘From Function to Form: Chini-khana in Safavid and Mughal Architecture’ appeared. She is currently co-guest-editing a special issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society on Persianate painting, to be published in 2021, and has an article accepted for inclusion, ‘Power and Politics of Representation: Picturing Elite Women in Ilkhanid Painting’.

Dr Chida-Razvi has published extensively on aspects of Mughal art, architecture and urbanism. A selection of her publications include: ‘Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid: Spatial interactions of the Sacred and the Secular’ (Intellect Publishing, 2020); ‘Patronage as Power, Power in Appropriation: Constructing Jahangir’s Mausoleum’ (Mumbai: Marg, Jan 2019); ‘A Sultan before the Padshah? Questioning the identification of the turbaned figure in Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings’ (London: The Ginko Library, 2016); and ‘Where is ‘The Greatest city in the East’?: The Mughal City of Lahore in European Travel Accounts between 1556 and 1648’ (Routledge, 2015). She has further shared her academic expertise with wider audiences through her participation and consultation for documentaries on the Taj Mahal; programming on BBC World Service Radio, BBC2 and BBC4; participation in the Lahore and Jaipur Literary Festivals; and as an expert lecturer on cultural tours.

She currently sits on the Conference Committee for the Association for Art History, being held online this year in April, and the Scientific Committee for the conference Mosque: Innovation in Object, Form and Function, planned for November 2021 in Dhahran.

Recent Publications

‘Power and Politics of Representation: Picturing Elite Women in Ilkhanid Painting’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (forthcoming, 2021 Special Issue, eds. A. Ohta, M. Chida-Razvi & E. Shovelton).

‘Mughal Governance, Mobility and Responding to the Plague in Agra, 1618-19’, in Epidemic Urbanism: How Contagious Diseases Have Shaped Global Cities, eds. M. Gharipour and C. DeClerq (forthcoming 2021, Intellect Publishing)

‘Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid: Spatial interactions of the Sacred and the Secular’, in The Friday Mosque in the City: Liminality, Ritual, Politics, eds. Suzan Yalman and Ayse Hilal Ugurlu (Bristol: Intellect Publishing: December 2020), 51-74.

‘Introduction: Resituating Mughal Architecture in the Persianate World: New Investigations and Analyses’, in M. Chida-Razvi (ed.) ‘Resituating Mughal Architecture in the Persianate World: New Investigations and Analyses’, Special Issue of the Journal of South Asian Studies, 35:1 (May 2019), 1-6.

‘From Function to Form: Chini-khana in Safavid and Mughal Architecture’, in M. Chida-Razvi (ed.) ‘Repositioning Mughal Architecture within the Persianate World’, Special Issue of the Journal of South Asian Studies, 35:1 (May 2019), 82-106.

‘Patronage as Power, Power in Appropriation: Constructing Jahangir’s Mausoleum’, in The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan: Politics, Art, Architecture, Law, Literature and Aftermath, eds. Ebba Koch, Ali Anooshahr and Robert McChesney (Mumbai: Marg, Jan 2019).

‘The Aga Khan Award for Architecture and Social Engagement via the Built Environment’, in The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement, ed. Farhan Karim (Routledge, May 2018). Lead author; co-author, Mohammad Gharipour.

‘Haft Paykar [Les sept beautés]’, Des Jardine & Des Livres (Geneva: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 2018), 36-7.

‘Bagh-i Vafa’, Encyclopaedia of Himalayas (2018). Lead author, co-author, Mohammad Gharipour

‘The Imperial Mughal Mausoleum of Jahangir: Homage and Legacy’, TAASA Review: The Journal of the Asian Arts Society of Australia, 26:3, September 2017, 10-11.

Contributor of sixteen entries, Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopaedia, ed. Cenap Cakmak (ABC-CLIO, May 2017)

Entries: Abbasids, Ayyubids, Declaration of faith/Word of tawheed, Fasting, Fatiha, Fatimids, Five pillars of Islam, Kabah, Mi’raj (Ascension of Mohammad), Mihrab (Altar), Minaret, Minbar, Mosque, Muharram, Qiblah (Direction of prayer), Ramadan, Safavids, Shah Ismail, Shia, Sunni, Tomb, Tomb (Shrine), Umayyads

‘A Sultan before the Padshah? Questioning the identification of the turbaned figure in Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings’, in Art, Trade and Culture in the Near East and India: From the Fatimids to the Mughals, eds. Alison Ohta, Michael Rogers, Rosalind Wade Haddon (London: The Ginko Library, 2016)

‘Where is ‘The Greatest city in the East’?: The Mughal City of Lahore in European Travel Accounts between 1556 and 1648’, in The City in the Muslim World: Depictions by Western Travel Writers, eds. Mohammad Gharipour and Nilay Ozlu (Routledge, 2015).

‘The Perception of Reception: the Importance of Sir Thomas Roe at the Mughal Court of Jahangir,’ Journal of World History 25, Numbers 2-3, June/September 2014: 263-284.

Book Review: Nile Green, Making Space: Sufis and Settlers in Early Modern India (OUP, 2012). Journal of Religious History 37, 3, September 2013: 412-3.

‘Ali Mardan Khan’, Entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. First print edition: June 2019

https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/ali-mardan-khan-COM_24851

 

‘Sultanate 1200-1526’, Archnet Timeline, Archnet.org

http://archnet.org/timelines/48/period/Sultanate/year/1200

 

‘Ajanta to London, Saris to Skirts: Tradition and Modernity in the Fabric of India’, November 23, 2015, Critical Collective

http://www.criticalcollective.in/Noticeboard.aspx

 

‘Mughal Architecture and Gardens’, Sahapedia: an Online Encyclopedia of Indian Culture and Heritage

http://sahapedia.org/mughal-architecture-and-gardens/

 

‘The Mausoleum of Itimad-ud-Daula’, Sahapedia: an Online Encyclopedia of Indian Culture and Heritage

http://sahapedia.org/the-mausoleum-of-itimad-ud-daula/

 

Media Coverage

Documentary Recording, Ancient Engineering, episode on Islamic Architecture and the Taj Mahal, Off the Fence Productions, for the German broadcaster ZDF and streaming channel Curiosity Stream. Recorded 23 Jan 2021, Qu studios, Bristol. Invited speaker fo

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@mchidarazvi

Country Focus

Pakistan, India, Central Asia, Iran

Expertise by Geography

Asia, India, Middle East

Expertise by Chronology

Pre-17th century, 17th century, 18th century, Early Modern

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Book History, Material Culture, Urban History