Join us for Vidhi’s 9th Annual Lecture on Thursday, 8th January, 2026. 

This year, Dr. Faisal Devji, Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History at the University of Oxford, will speak on ‘The Rise and Fall of Global Islam’ at 6:00 PM at the Prime Ministers’ Museum & Library. 

About the Lecture 

Islam came to be understood as a protagonist in history, an actor in its own right, starting in the middle of the 19^th century. It emerged as a subject of this kind with the erosion of traditional authorities like kings and clerics under colonial rule. The globalization of Islam as an agent in history was premised upon the weakness of such authorities, which it was meant to replace. But Islam was never able to reconstitute either theological or political forms of authority, and might have come to the end of its own career in our time.

About the Speaker

Dr Faisal Devji, Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History at the University of Oxford, completed his PhD in Intellectual History at the University of Chicago. He was then elected Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, after which he went on to run the graduate program at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, which included schools in Tajikistan and Iran. Returning to regular academic life in 2003, he taught for two years at Yale as a visiting lecturer and another four at The New School for Social Research in New York as Associate Professor, arriving in Oxford as Reader in Modern South Asian History in 2009.  

Event Details

Date: Thursday, 8 January 2026

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm (high tea will be served)

Venue: Prime Ministers’ Museum & Library, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi