Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi

Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi is an Art Historian specializing in the art, architecture, and material culture of Mughal South Asia. She is the Deputy Curator of the Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and the In-House Editor for their publication series, is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and regularly teaches courses and lectures on Islamic and Indo-Islamic art at universities and museums in London and Oxford.

She has published extensively on aspects of Mughal and Persianate art, architecture and urbanism. Her most recent publications include: ‘Picturing the Mughal Madonna: The Virgin Mary as a Symbol of Mughal Legitimacy and Royal Authority in Jahangir’s Architecture’ (Forthcoming, 2022); ‘Power and Politics of Representation: Picturing Elite Women in Ilkhanid Painting’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2021); ‘Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid: Spatial interactions of the Sacred and the Secular’ (2020); ‘Patronage as Power, Power in Appropriation: Constructing Jahangir’s Mausoleum’ (2019); ‘From Function to Form: Chini-khana in Safavid and Mughal Architecture’, South Asian Studies (2019); ‘A Sultan before the Padshah? Questioning the identification of the turbaned figure in Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings’ (2016); and ‘Where is ‘The Greatest city in the East’?: The Mughal City of Lahore in European Travel Accounts between 1556 and 1648’ (Routledge, 2015).

In 2019 she guest-edited a Special Issue of South Asian Studies, titled Resituating Mughal Architecture in the Persianate World: New Investigations and Analyses, and is currently co-guest-editing a special issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society on Persianate painting titled “Lifting a Veil from the Face of Depiction”: Studies in Honour of Barbara Brend, to be published in 2022.

For a complete list of Mehreen’s publications and academic contributions, please see her Academia.edu page.

Mehreen has shared her academic expertise with wider audiences through her participation and consultation for documentaries on the Taj Mahal; programming on BBC World Service Radio, BBC2 and BBC4; participation in the Lahore, Jaipur, and Heidelberg Literary Festivals; and as an expert lecturer on cultural tours.

She was named a Trustee of the Luigi & Laura Dallapiccola Foundation in 2020, and since 2012 has been the Hon. Secretary of the Indian Art Circle, a monthly lecture series on all aspects of Indian art, held at SOAS.

History of Art & Architecture of the Muslim World, focusing on Mughal South Asia; Artistic, historic and cultural links between 17th Century Muslim South Asia and Iran, Anatolia and Europe; urbanism in Mughal South Asia.