Our knowledge of Muslim women artists in South Asia is limited primarily to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From the 1970s onward, in particular, women have been visible contributors to the art scenes that flourish in various urban centers of South Asia. Women also played significant roles in the production of visual arts during earlier centuries; however, our knowledge of their contributions is limited primarily to artistic patronage by elite women.

As recorded in Indo-Islamic court histories and architectural inscriptions, during the medieval and early …