Institute for the Study of
Muslims and Islam
in India (ISMII)
Our Impact · Scholarship & Education
Institute for the Study of Muslims and Islam in India (ISMII)
Formerly the Center for the Study of Islam in India (CSII)
An academic institute in Chicago advancing scholarship on Muslims and Islam in India through research, teaching, preservation and public understanding.
CSAS supported the establishment of the Institute’s predecessor, CSII, and continues to support its mission.
The Institute
ISMII, an institute of American Islamic College, Chicago
Former name
Center for the Study of Islam in India (CSII)
CSAS’s role
Supporter of the Institute’s mission
The history and evolution
CSII is now ISMII, and CSAS continues to support its mission
CSAS supported the establishment of CSII, which is now known as the Institute for the Study of Muslims and Islam in India (ISMII). CSAS continues to support the Institute’s mission of advancing scholarship, education, and the preservation of Indian Muslim intellectual heritage.
I · Foundation
CSAS supports the establishment of CSII
The Center on South Asian Studies supported the establishment of the Center for the Study of Islam in India (CSII), created to give the field a permanent academic home within American higher education.
II · Evolution
CSII becomes ISMII
CSII has since evolved into the Institute for the Study of Muslims and Islam in India (ISMII), an institute of American Islamic College in Chicago. CSII is the former name; ISMII is the name today.
III · Continuing support
CSAS continues to support the mission
CSAS remains a supporter of the Institute’s mission: advancing scholarship, education, research and the preservation of Indian Muslim intellectual heritage.
About ISMII
A field that deserves a wider place in scholarship
ISMII builds interdisciplinary scholarship on the historical, intellectual, cultural and contemporary dimensions of Muslims and Islam in India, and makes it available to students, researchers, the diaspora and the wider public.
Important work on Muslims and Islam in India exists, but it is spread across history, religious studies, sociology, literature, law, art and more. An institute adds continuity: bringing that work together, sustaining research over time, and preparing the next generation of scholars.
Muslim life in India spans many regions, languages and traditions, from Kashmir to Kerala and from Assam to Gujarat. Yet a 2020 survey of 38 Islamic-studies centers in the United States and Canada found none dedicated to Islam in India. ISMII was founded to help change that.
c. 14
centuries of Muslims and Islam in India, from the first coastal communities
200M+
Muslims in India today
311M
projected by 2050, which would be the largest Muslim population in the world
Figures as cited on ISMII’s official website. The 2050 figure is a Pew Research Center projection; the 2020 survey of Islamic-studies centers is cited from The Maydan.
Three commitments that guide the work
Academic freedom
Consequential ideas are examined in context, debated and criticized.
Scholarly integrity
What is claimed can be sourced, what is counted is dated, and what is expected is marked as expected.
Pluralism
Indian Muslim life was shared with neighbors of many faiths, and is studied in that shared light.
The Institute’s work
Four pillars, one field
ISMII organizes its work around research, teaching, preservation and public understanding, so that knowledge about Muslims and Islam in India is produced, taught, kept and shared.
01
Research and scholarship
Research fellowships, archival study and publication, including the Institute’s peer-reviewed journal, Indian Muslim. The aim is a field studied with the depth its scale demands, with South Asia treated as central to global Islamic studies.
02
Teaching and education
University courses and certificate programs at American Islamic College, doctoral fellowships and mentorship, training the scholars, translators and archivists the field will need.
03
Preservation and digital archives
Digital archives and preservation projects that secure manuscripts, oral histories, vernacular literature and community records, in India and across the diaspora.
04
Public understanding and engagement
Public lectures and conferences, publications, podcasts and visual storytelling that carry historically grounded accounts of Muslims and Islam in India to the public in India, the diaspora and the wider Muslim world.
CSAS’s continuing support
A supporter of the mission
The Center on South Asian Studies supported the establishment of CSII and continues to support the Institute’s mission of advancing scholarship, education and the preservation of Indian Muslim intellectual heritage. It does so because this field needs a lasting academic home, a need CSAS President Sameer Mohiuddin spoke to at the CSII launch.
Center on South Asian Studies
CSAS: a supporter
- Supported the establishment of CSII
- Continues to support ISMII’s mission
- Points its community to the Institute’s official channels
Institute for the Study of Muslims and Islam in India
ISMII: the Institute
- An institute of American Islamic College, Chicago
- Works in partnership with The Islamic Seminary of America
- Programs and governance sit within the academic structures of American Islamic College
▶ WatchFrom the CSII launch
Why CSII? Sameer Mohiuddin
President of the Center on South Asian Studies, on the critical need for CSII, at the CSII Launch Gala 2026.
Watch on YouTube ↗Continue to the source
Learn more from the Institute itself
ISMII’s courses, lectures, journal, people and ways to support the Institute are published on its official website.
Explore the Official ISMII Website ↗This page is published by the Center on South Asian Studies (CSAS), a supporter of ISMII. ISMII is an institute of American Islamic College, Chicago; its programs, publications and governance are its own. Information about the Institute is drawn from its official website, ismii.aicusa.edu.