Abdul Manan Bhat

Abdul Manan is a sixth year doctoral Candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he specializes in Sufism in Persianate societies, Urdu and Persian devotional literature, and embodiment in Islamic literary practice. His dissertation, titled "Postures of Tradition: Poems, Performance, Islamic Adab in the 20th Century", explores Urdu and Persian poetry and its performance across northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as a site of studying Islamic Adab in the 20th century, with a keen focus on adab's discursive and embodied formations. His project puts in conversation the careers of the Afghan poet Khalilullah Khalili (d.1987) and the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (d.1984). He works primarily in Persian and Urdu, secondarily in Arabic, Hindi and Kashmiri, and he is currently studying Pashto. Abdul Manan is a Penn Presidential PhD Fellow. 

Abdul Manan is also a practicing Urdu poet. He has recited poetry upon invitation at poetry readings (Mushāiʿrahs) across South Asia, North America and Europe. A number of his ghazals have been sung by prominent classical singers in South Asia. Abdul Manan writes under the pen name ʿAlam (flag or banner). Abdul Manan was born and brought up in Kashmir.