Manan Ahmed

Manan Ahmed is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Columbia University, affiliated with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He holds center affiliations with the Data, Media and Society Committee and the Computational Social Science Committee. His research focuses on the intellectual history of Islam in South and Southeast Asia, medieval urban spaces, and colonial/postcolonial historiography. Notably, his monograph A Book of Conquest re-examines the Chachnama's role in shaping South Asian Muslim identity. Current projects include a comparative study of seventeenth-century conquest narratives and their ties to 19th-century world history frameworks.

Dr. Ahmed is a pioneer in Digital Humanities, co-founding Columbia’s Group for Experimental Methods in the Humanities. His digital projects include spatial analyses of medieval North India and manuscript digitization initiatives. His work bridges traditional historiography with cutting-edge methodologies, exploring themes like textual geographies and archival deconstruction.

His scholarship spans interdisciplinary themes such as frontier spaces, memory studies, and postcolonial critique. Recent work critiques colonial historiography’s marginalization of Sindh and explores the intersection of technology with historical research. Ahmed’s publications reflect engagement with both pre-modern sources and contemporary debates on identity politics.