"The goal of this 48 months proposal is to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the ways Islam and the Mughal Empire were interpreted and represented in Europe during the early modern period. The chronological delimitation of the subject of this project includes the late sixteenth-century, and the whole seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This period corresponds to the end of the Portuguese monopoly on the sea route to India, the arrival of the English, Dutch and French companies in Asia, the great missionary experiences of the Jesuits in Asia, the expansion and decline of the Mughal Empire in India, the Enlightenment and the emergence of Indology and Orientalism as academic disciplines. The applicant is a specialist on the European presence in India during the early modern period. Although this project starts in that disciplinary field, one of its aims is to develop a distinctive historiographical approach based on a systematic interaction with disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, by adopting a conceptual framework based on the concepts of ‘contact zone’ and ‘go-between’. Through this interdisciplinary approach, this project aims to contribute to the current debates on Orientalism and Islam."