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Daud Ali

American historian

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ16150063 ↗
Source-derived summary

Daud Ali (born 3 March 1964) is an American historian of Indian descent, born in Calcutta, India. He is currently associate professor of South Asian history at the University of Pennsylvania and the editor of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. He is a scholar focusing on Pre-Mughal South Asia.

Ali obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and religious studies at the College of William & Mary and then a Master of Arts degree in the history of religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School. At Chicago he was a student of Ronald Inden. After his receiving his Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of Chicago, he taught history for fourteen years at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Since 2009, he has been at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ali's interests range widely over the history South Asia as a whole, covering themes such as courtly protocol, gardens, gastronomy, war and violence. His analysis of feudalism and the historiography of the medieval, in particular his critique of B. D. Chattopadhyaya, have been particularly influential.

Scholarly works

Books

Ali, Daud (1999).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Daud Ali” is american historian. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Daud, American and historian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 2009, 1999—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964-01-01. For this dossier, Daud, American and historian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american historian” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16150063. VIAF identifies the subject as 7570617. The Library of Congress control number is n99015192. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 2009 and 1999.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Daud Ali”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Daud Ali primary sources, Daud Ali archive and Daud research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Daud Ali”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Daud Ali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.