New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria : Proceedings of the themed day of the Fifth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies /
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New Readings in Arabic Historiography contributes to research on Arabic texts of history from late medieval Egypt and Syria. Departing from dominant understandings of these texts through the prisms of authenticity and "literarization," it engages with questions of textual constructedness and authorial agency. This edited volume consists of 13 contributions by a new generation of scholars. Each of the volume's three parts represents a different aspect of their new readings of particular texts. Part one looks at concrete instances of textual interdependencies, part two at the creativity of authorial agencies, and part three at the relationship between texts and social practice. New Readings thus participates in the revaluation of late medieval Arabic historiography as a critical field of inquiry.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004458901
9789004447028
In the Author's Hand: Holograph and Authorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition /
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In recent years, a growing interest in "oriental manuscripts" in all their aspects, including the extrinsic ones, has been observed. Research that focuses on holograph, autograph and authorial manuscripts in Arabic handwritten script has nevertheless been casual, although these manuscripts raise important and varied questions. The study of the working methods of authors from the past informs different disciplines: paleography, codicology, textual criticism, ecdotics, linguistics and intellectual history. In this volume nine contributions and case studies are gathered that address theoretical issues and convey different, disruptive perspectives. A particularly important subject of this book, so far rarely discussed in scientific literature, is the identification of an author's handwriting. Among the authors specifically dealt with in this volume one will find: al-Maqrīzī (m. 845/1442), al-Nuwayrī (m. 733/1333), Akmal al-Dīn b. Mufliḥ (m. 1011/1603), al-ʿAynī (m. 855/1451) and Ibn Khaldūn (m. 808/1406). Contributors: Frédéric Bauden, Julien Dufour, Élise Franssen, Adam Gacek, Retsu Hashizume, Marie-Hélène Marganne, Elias Muhanna, Nobutaka Nakamachi, Anne Regourd, and Kristina Richardson.
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1 online resource :
9789004413177
Les fatimides et la mer (909-1171) /
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The Fatimids (10th - 12th centuries C.E) are known to have been the first Shiite caliphal dynasty and to have founded Cairo, the city that became their capital in 973 when they left Tunisia for Egypt. During their reign, the Fatimids built an effective war fleet that inflicted several defeats on Christian navies. This is the first study on the Fatimid naval force and, more generally, on the role of the sea for the Fatimids whose territories touched both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The documentation presented in this study demonstrates how, in the course of two centuries, this Ismaeli dynasty set up a maritime policy and developed a communication strategy in which their control of the sea helped legitimize their universalist claims against competing powers. Les Fatimides (10e -12e s. ap. J.-C) sont connus pour avoir été la première dynastie califale chiite et pour avoir fondé Le Caire qui devint leur capitale à partir de 973 lorsque la dynastie quitta la Tunisie actuelle pour s'installer en Egypte et prendre possession d'un empire qui s'étendait de l'Algérie orientale jusqu'à la Syrie en passant par la Sicile et certains territoires de la péninsule arabique. Durant leur règne, ils disposèrent d'une flotte de guerre efficace qui infligea plusieurs défaites aux marines chrétiennes. Au-delà de la chronologie des batailles navales, aucune étude n'existait sur le rôle de cette force navale et plus généralement sur le rôle de la mer pour les Fatimides dont les territoires touchaient à la fois la Méditerranée et la mer Rouge. La documentation met pourtant en évidence que sur durant plus de deux siècles, les Fatimides mirent en place une politique maritime qui dépassait largement les considérations militaires. Ils développèrent ainsi une stratégie de communication dans laquelle la mer jouait un rôle majeur pour à la fois légitimer les prétentions universalistes de cette dynastie ismaélienne face à des pouvoirs concurrents et pour lui permettre de survivre.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004410640
Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-Modern Twelver Shīʿī Islam /
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The history of Twelver Shīʿī Islam is a history of attempts to deal with the abrupt loss of the Imam. In Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-Modern Twelver Shīʿī Islam , Omid Ghaemmaghami demonstrates that in the early years of what came to be known as the Greater Occultation, Shīʿī authorities maintained that all contact with the Imam had been sundered, forcing him to remain incommunicado until his (re)appearance. This position, however, proved untenable to maintain. Almost a century after the start of the Greater Occultation, prominent scholars began to concede the possibility that some Shīʿa can meet the Hidden Imam. Accounts of encounters with the Imam from the Greater Occultation soon began to appear, adumbrating their exponential growth in later centuries.
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1 online resource :
9789004413153
Mediterranean Captivity through Arab Eyes, 1517-1798 /
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The post-Lepanto Mediterranean was the scene of "small wars," to use Fernand Braudel's phrase, which resulted in acts of piracy and captivity. Thousands upon thousands of Europeans, Arabs, and Turks were seized into bagnios stretching from Cadiz to Valletta and from Salé to Tripoli. After returning to their homelands, dozens from England and France, Germany and Spain, Malta and Italy wrote about their captivities. Their accounts were printed, distributed, translated, and plagiarized, making captivity a key subject in Europe's Mediterranean history. While Europeans wrote extensively about their ordeals, the Arabs wrote little because their religious culture militated against such writings, which would be construed as expressing disaffection with the will of God. Nor were there detailed records and registers of captives - their names, places of origin, and ransom prices - similar to what was kept in the European archives. Contrary, however, to what some historians have claimed, there was a distinct Arabic narrative of captivity that survives in anecdotes, recollections, reports, miracles, letters, fatawa, exempla and short biographies in both verse and prose. Cumulatively, these sources constitute the Arabic qiṣṣas al-asrā, or stories of the captives, in the native language and idiom of the men and women of the early modern Mediterranean.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004440258
9789004440241
Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750 /
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Articles collected in Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750 engage with the idea that "Sunnism" itself has a history and trace how particular Islamic genres-ranging from prayer manuals, heresiographies, creeds, hadith and fatwa collections, legal and theological treatises, and historiography to mosques and Sufi convents-developed and were reinterpreted in the Ottoman Empire between c. 1450 and c. 1750. The volume epitomizes the growing scholarly interest in historicizing Islamic discourses and practices of the post-classical era, which has heretofore been styled as a period of decline, reflecting critically on the concepts of 'tradition', 'orthodoxy' and 'orthopraxy' as they were conceived and debated in the context of building and maintaining the longest-lasting Muslim-ruled empire.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004440296
9789004440289
Light upon light: essays in Islamic thought and history in honor of Gerhard Bowering /
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Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Bowering brings together studies that explore the richness of Islamic intellectual life in the pre-modern period. Leading scholars around the world present nineteen studies that explore diverse areas of Islamic Studies, in honor of a renowned scholar and teacher: Professor Dr. Gerhard Bowering (Yale University). The volume includes contributions in four main areas: (1) Quran and Early Islam; (2) Sufism, Shiʿism, and Esotericism; (3) Philosophy; (4) Literature and Culture. These areas reflect the enormous breadth of Professor Bowering's contributions to the field over a lifetime of scholarship, teaching, and mentoring. Contributors: Hussein Ali Abdulsater, Mushegh Asatryan, Shahzad Bashir, Jonathan Brockopp, Yousef Casewit, Jamal Elias, Janis Esots, Li Guo, Matthew Ingalls, Tariq Jaffer, Mareike Koertner, Joseph Lumbard, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Mahan Mirza, Bilal Orfali, Gabriel Reynolds, Nada Saab, Amina Steinfels & Alexander Treiger.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004410121
Doing Justice to a Wronged Literature: Essays on Arabic Literature and Rhetoric of the 12th-18th Centuries in Honour of Thomas Bauer /
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Doing Justice to a Wronged Literature, a Festschrift for the Arabist and Islamicist Thomas Bauer, includes 17 essays by established academics on various themes and aspects of Arabic literature and rhetoric of the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods (12th-18th centuries).
Doing Justice to a Wronged Literature is a Festschrift for the Arabist and Islamicist Thomas Bauer. It includes 17 essays by established academics on various themes and aspects of Arabic literature and rhetoric of the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods (12th-18th centuries). Notoriously neglected and maligned by earlier scholarship, Arabic literature and rhetoric of the 12th-18th centuries is an understudied area of Arabic studies that Thomas Bauer has over the last two decades succeeded in developing and promoting. A tribute to his pioneering work on this field, the contributions highlight the wealth, complexity and importance of Arabic literature and rhetoric of the said period by offering close readings of paradigmatic texts or examining specific topics and trends in larger corpora.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004521780
9789004521773
The canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim : the formation and function of the Sunnī ḥadīth canon /
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The two 'Authentic' ḥadīth collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are the most famous books in Islam after the Qur'ān - a reality left unstudied until now. This book charts the origins, development and functions of these two texts through the lens of canonicity. It examines how the books went from controversial to indispensable as they became the common language for discussing the Prophet's legacy among the various Sunni schools of law. The book also studies the role of the ḥadīth canon in ritual and narrative. Finally, it investigates the canonical culture built around the texts as well as the trend in Sunni scholarship that rejected it, exploring this tension in contemporary debates between Salafī movements and the traditional schools of law.
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Revision of thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 2006. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [387]-409) and index. :
9789047420347 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Excellence and Precedence : Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership /
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This volume focuses on how legitimate leadership came to be defined in the formative period of Islam in terms of two key Qur'anic concepts: moral excellence ( faḍl/faḍīla ) and precedence ( sābiqa ). These two concepts undergirded a specific discourse on leadership which developed in the first century of Islam. This discourse is reconstructed through careful scrutiny of the manāqib literature in particular, which contains detailed accounts of the excellences attributed to the Rāshidūn caliphs. This book stresses that all early factions, including the proto-Shī'a, subscribed to the Qur'ānically-mandated vision of a righteous polity guided by its most morally excellent members. Such a conclusion forces us to rethink the nature of leadership in the earliest period and reconsider the criteria invoked to establish its legitimacy.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492196
9789004120433
Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East : Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period /
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The volume comprises a collection of 20 of the 43 papers presented at the Third International Round Table on Safavid Persia, held at the University of Edinburgh in August, 1998 and edited by the Round Table's organiser. The Third Round Table, the largest of the series to date, continued the emphasis of its predecessors on understanding and appreciating the legacy of the Safavid period by means of exchanges between both established and 'newer' scholars drawn from a variety of fields to facilitate an exchange of ideas, information, and methodologies across a broad range of academic disciplines between scholars from diverse disciplines and research backgrounds with a common interest in the history and culture of this period of Iran's history.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401711
9789004127746
The Construction of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization : Qudāma b. Ja'far and his Kitāb al Kharāj wa-sinā'at al-kitāba /
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This study examines the role of the state in the construction of knowledge in Islamic civilization in its early classical period (third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries). Different voices representing different social groups - savants, littérateurs, religious scholars, state officials - all brought their particular conception of knowledge to bear on the formation of the various branches of knowledge known to Islamic civilization. Reading the works of various branches of knowledge alongside the administrative encyclopedia of Qudāma b. Ja'far (d. 337/948), a state official in the employ of the Abbasid dynasty, has served to highlight the particular point of view of the state in the intellectual and cultural dialogue of the day. At the same time, this approach has shown Islamic civilization to be as much a dialogue of values between the different social groups of the day as a series of events or collection of ideas.
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Revision of thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2000. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401230
9789004123403
Poetics of Islamic Historiography : Deconstructing Ṭabarī's History /
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Offering a new approach to the study of Ṭabarī's History , the most comprehensive historical work written by a classical Muslim historian, this book applies concepts developed by critical theorists and suggests a reading of historiographical material that is not primarily concerned with reconstructing the facts. The book consists of two parts. Part one exposes the assumptions involved in writing classical Islamic history, especially the mimetic aspiration of the sources and the practice that subverts it. Part two examines in detail four significant events in the history of early Islam and demonstrates how a deconstructionist reading subjects endows these with a considerably different meaning and subjects them to new light.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047405092
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The Biography of Muḥammad : The Issue of the Sources /
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This book deals with the controversial value of the sources on which the biography of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, is based. Discussions on this topic have been going on for more than a century but it has become especially debated during the last two decades. This volume contains ten articles which are the outcome of an international colloquium on the issue. Part one of the book examines the development of the Muslim tradition concerning the life of Muhammad while the other part focuses on the historical reliability of the source material. The volume reflects not only the most recent methodological developments in the study of the life of Muhammad but also the improvement of its material-basis due to sources which have only recently become available or which have been neglected.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004452909
9789004115132
The Feats of the Knowers of God : (Manāqeb al-'ārefīn) /
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This is a 14th-century biography of the famous Persian mystic poet and 'Knower of God', Jalāl al-Dīn-e Rūmī, in the form of a large compendium of Sufi-style teaching stories. It was commissioned by a grandson about fifty years after Rūmī's death. The author-compiler, Aflākī, includes chapters on Bahā'-e Valad (Rūmī's father), Shams al-Dīn-e Tabrīzī (Rūmī's great love), Solṭān Valad and Amīr 'Āref (Rūmī's son and grandson), and other transmitters of the spiritual Heritage of the Mowlavī dervish order. The protagonists are portrayed as performing miracles and confronting critics and rivals. Circumstantial detail abounds, thus providing one of our few windows onto social and political life during the Saljūq and Mongol period in Asia Minor. The translation has an extensive index of persons and concepts to assist readers and students.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491458
9789004121324
The Unveiling of Secrets (Kashf al-Asrār) : The Visionary Autobiography of Rūzbihān al-Baqlī (1128-1209 A.D.) /
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The Unveiling of Secrets ( Kashf al-Asrār ) is the visionary autobiography of one of the most significant mystics of twelfth-century Iran, Rūzbihān al-Baqlī (522/1128-606/1209). Written in Arabic, it describes the life of the author primarily as comprised of his mystical visions. Rūzbihān depicts himself in the unseen world ( ʿālam al-ghayb ) in the company of God, saints, prophets, and angels. His self-portrait in this manner communicates his special status with God. The sublime quality of these visions is well captured in the style of Kashf al-Asrār : the writing is simultaneously simple and clear, but eloquent and rich with extraordinary images. This is the first critical edition of the manuscipt of Kashf al-Asrār which provides an intriguing case in the genre of Islamic autobiographies.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047417774
9789004144088
Muslim Religious Institutions in Imperial Russia : The Islamic World of Novouzensk District and the Kazakh Inner Horde, 1780-1910 /
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Russia's Muslim religious institutions on the steppe frontier, during the imperial period, are examined in detail in this book. This study is based on a Turkic manuscript history entitled the Tavarikh-i Alti Ata, compiled in 1910. It examines the mosques, madrasas, imams, mu'adhdhins, and Sufis of a single district and in adjoining regions of the Kazakh steppe, areas that were inhabited by several Muslim communities, including Tatar peasants and merchants, Bashkir and Kazakh nomads, and Muslim Cossacks. The study compares the information from the manuscript with published sources on Islamic institutions in the Volga-Ural region, using it as a case study to draw conclusions for Russia as a whole. Special emphasis is placed on the social and communal functions of these institutions for the Muslim minorities inhabiting rural Russia.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492325
9789004119758
Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt /
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Tens of thousands of documents dating form the late Byzantine and early Islamic periods have been found in Egypt. These texts, written on papyrus and a variety of other materials, in Greek, Coptic Egyptian, and Arabic, offer a unique, but underutilized resource for the study of a society experiencing a profound transformation, this volume collects papers given at the conference "Documentary Evidence and the History of Early Islamic Egypt", including editions of previously unpublished Greek, Coptic, and Arabic documents, historical and linguistic studies which make use of documentary evidence, a discussion of the importance of Arabic literary papyri, and an introduction to papyrology and its relevance for the study of this period of Egyptian history. For more titles about Papyrology, please click here.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047405474
9789004138865
The Mongol Empire and its Legacy /
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The Mongol empire was founded early in the 13th century by Chinggis Khan and within the span of two generations embraced most of Asia, becoming the largest land-based state in history. The united empire lasted only until around 1260, but the major successor states continued on in the Middle East, present day Russia, Central Asia and China for generations, leaving a lasting impact - much of which was far from negative - on these areas and their peoples. The papers in this volume present new perspectives on the establishment of the Mongol empire, Mongol rule in the eastern Islamic world, Central Asia and China, and the legacy of this rule. The various authors approach these subjects from the view of political, military, social, cultural and intellectual history. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492738
9789004110489
Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien : Städtische Entwicklung und wirtschaftliche Bedingungen in ar-Raqqa und Ḥ̣arrān von der Zeit der beduinischen Vorherr...
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The period between 950 and 1150 A.D. is regarded as "turning point in the history of the Islamic Culture" from the Early Islamic to the Late Medieval civilization. What led to the urban decline in between and the later recovery? Ḥ̣arrān and al-Raqqa serve as paradigma for the development in Northern Syria and Northern Mesopotamia. The collapse of the ʿAbbasid state left the region cornered between Buyids, Fatimids and Byzantines to the nomadic tribes not acquainted with urban culture. After 1086 A.D., measures undertaken by the Seljuqs in order to safeguard their hegemony led to a renaissance of cities inspite of permanent power struggles and the crusades. They based their rule on fortified places. The financing of the army led to the distribution of land as fiefs ( iqtaʿ ) and subsequently to a dislodgement of nomads and a recultivation of former agricultural land. Cash money for the treasury was generated by skimming long distance trade; this in turn required public security on the roads. An analysis of the monetary circulation according to archaeological and literal evidence serves as measure for the economic recovery. A corpus of the coin production in al-Raqqa, ḥarrān and al-Ruha'/Edessa supplements the textual sources.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492240
9789004122741