An author and scholar of Islam in South Asia will deliver the 2025 Thompson Lecture, sponsored by Kalamazoo College’s religion department, at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, April 17, in the Olmsted Room.  

Ayesha Irani is an associate professor of Asian studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She specializes in Islam in South Asia, the literature and history of Bengal and Bangladesh, Sufism, Islamic art, translation studies and Middle Bangla codicology.  

Irani’s lecture, titled “The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam,” will draw from her book of the same name and examine the Nabivamsa of Saiyad Sultan, the first Bangla language biography of the Prophet Muhammad, revealing the power of vernacular transition in the Islamization of Bengal. 

The Paul Lamont Thompson Lecture, named for the K president who served from 1938–49, brings in speakers who enrich the ethical understanding of the College’s position in society. The lecture was established by a gift from Thompson’s sons and daughters-in-law to recognize the crucial role he played in guiding the College through the Depression and World War II.