Bodies of knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia : the diviners of late Bronze Age Emar and their table collection /
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In Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia Matthew Rutz explores the relationship between ancient collections of texts, commonly deemed libraries and archives, and the modern interpretation of titles like 'diviner'. By looking at cuneiform tablets as artifacts with archaeological contexts, this work probes the modern analytical categories used to study ancient diviners and investigates the transmission of Babylonian/Assyrian scholarship in Syria. During the Late Bronze Age diviners acted as high-ranking scribes and cultic functionaries in Emar, a town on the Syrian Euphrates (ca. 1375-1175 BCE). This book's centerpiece is an extensive analytical catalogue of the excavated tablet collection of one family of diviners. Over seventy-five fragments are identified for the first time, along with many proposed joins between fragments.
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1 online resource (xxi, 682 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004245686 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamic piety in medieval Syria : mosques, cemeteries and sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146-1260) /
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A study of religious thought and practice across a broad social spectrum, but within a well-defined historical context, this book is an interdisciplinary endeavor that incorporates the tools of philology, social-history and historical-anthropology. Focusing on the mosques, public assemblies, cemeteries and shrines of Syrian Muslims in the period of the crusades and the anti-Frankish jihad, the book describes and deciphers religious rites and experiences, liturgical calendars, spiritual leadership, and perceptions of impiety and dissent. Working from a perspective that breaks down the dichotomization of religion into 'official' and 'popular,' it exposes the negotiation, construction and dissemination of hybrid forms of religious life. The result is an intimate and complex presentation of the texture of medieval Islamic piety.
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Extensively revised and expanded edition of the author's Hebrew Ph. D. thesis entitled: Dat ṿe-ḥevrah be-Suryah mi-Nur Aldin ṿe-ʻad la-kibush ha-Mongoli (1154-1260). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-286) and index. :
9789047422846 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Le pouvoir impérial dans les provinces syrienne s représentations et célébrations d'Auguste à Constantin (31 av. J.-C.-337 ap. J.-C.) /
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This book focuses on the role of the emperor and the image of the Roman Empire as a whole during the time period from Augustus to Constantine. It analyses this image by taking into account the epigraphic, literary, numismatic and archaeological sources from Phoenicia to Osrhoene and from Commagene to Arabia. While discussing Graeco-Roman cities and rural settlements among desert areas, it addresses celebrations as well as the organization and promotion of the imperial cult in the Near East. This includes the imperial cult's forms of expression of symbolic, political, and various other social or religious functions. This approach, therefore, explores the real and imaginary relationships that existed between the Roman Empire and the populations of the Syrian provinces.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-250) and indexes. :
9789004203624 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamic law on peasant usufruct in Ottoman Syria : 17th to early 19th century /
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Drawing on Hanafi fatawa and legal commentaries from Ottoman Syria between the 17th and early 19th centuries, this book examines the legal status of tenants and sharecroppers on arable lands, most of which were state or waqf properties. Challenging existing scholarship which argues that the status of cultivators gradually eroded after the 16th century, this study explores how jurists balanced the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords, thereby ensuring the adaptability of the Ottoman land system. The work addresses the differences between sharecropping and tenancy arrangements, the limitations that governed state and waqf officials, and the interplay between shariʿa and qanun in shaping land laws. The book also illustrates the doctrinal development of the law and sheds light on notions of 'ownership', ideas of private vs. public good, and prevailing conceptions of social and economic justice.
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1 online resource (210 pages) :
9789004228672 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Nuṣayrī-ʻAlawīs : an introduction to the religion, history, and identity of the leading minority in Syria /
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Friedman offers new and updated research on the Nusayrī-'Alawī sect, today a leading group in Syria, covering a variety of aspects and focusing on the Middle Ages. A century after Dussaud's Histoire et religion des Nosairîs (1900), he reviews the history and religion of the sect in the light of old documents used by orientalists in the nineteenth century, documents that became available in the twentieth century, and later sources of the Nuṣayrī-'Alawī sect published most recently in Lebanon. Also studied in depth for the first time is the question of the identity of the sect through the 'Alawī-Sunnī-Shī'ī triangle.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-315) and index. :
9789047441274 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Migration and Islamic ethics : issues of residence, naturalization and citizenship /
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Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship addresses how Islamic ethical and legal traditions can contribute to current global debates on migration and displacement; how Islamic ethics of muʾakha, ḍiyāfa, ijāra, amān, jiwār, sutra, kafāla, among others, may provide common ethical grounds for a new paradigm of social and political virtues applicable to all humanity, not only Muslims. The present volume more broadly defines the Islamic tradition to cover not only theology but also to encompass ethics, customs and social norms, as well as modern political, humanitarian and rights discourses. The first section addresses theorizations and conceptualizations using contemporary Islamic examples, mainly in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees; the second, contains empirical analyses of contemporary case studies; the third provides historical accounts of Muslim migratory experiences. Contributors are: Abbas Barzegar, Abdul Jaleel, Dina Taha, Khalid Abou El Fadl, Mettursun Beydulla, Radhika Kanchana, Ray Jureidini, Rebecca Gould, Said Fares Hassan, Sari Hanafi, Tahir Zaman.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographic references and index. :
9789004417342
The Image of an Ottoman City : Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries /
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This urban and architectural study of Aleppo, a center of early modern global trade, draws upon archival and narrative texts, architectural evidence, and contemporary theoretical discussions of the relation between imperial ideology, urban patterns and rituals, and architectural form. The first two centuries of Ottoman rule fostered tremendous urban development and reorientation through judiciously sited acts of patronage. Monumental structures endowed by Ottoman officials both introduced a new imperial architecture from Istanbul and incorporated formal elements from the local urban visual language. By viewing the urban and social contexts of these acts, tracing their evolution over two centuries, and examining their discussion in Ottoman and Arabic sources, this book proposes a new model for understanding the local reception and adaptation of imperial forms, institutions and norms.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047404224
9789004124547
Forging urban solidarities : Ottoman Aleppo 1640-1700 /
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As with most empires of the Early Modern period (1500-1800), the Ottomans mobilized human and material resources for warmaking on a scale that was vast and unprecedented. The present volume examines the direct and indirect effects of warmaking on Aleppo, an important Ottoman administrative center and Levantine trading city, as the empire engaged in multiple conflicts, including wars with Venice (1644-69), Poland (1672-76) and the Hapsburg Empire (1663-64, 1683-99). Focusing on urban institutions such as residential quarters, military garrisons, and guilds, and using intensively the records of local law courts, the study explores how the routinization of direct imperial taxes and the assimilation of soldiers to civilian life challenged - and reshaped - the city's social and political order.
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1 online resource. :
9789004193307 :
1380-6076 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Architecture and asceticism : cultural interaction between Syria and Georgia in late antiquity /
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In Architecture and Asceticism Loosley Leeming presents the first interdisciplinary exploration of Late Antique Syrian-Georgian relations available in English. The author takes an inter-disciplinary approach and examines the question from archaeological, art historical, historical, literary and theological viewpoints to try and explore the relationship as thoroughly as possible. Taking the Georgian belief that 'Thirteen Syrian Fathers' introduced monasticism to the country in the sixth century as a starting point, this volume explores the evidence for trade, cultural and religious relations between Syria and the Kingdom of Kartli (what is now eastern Georgia) between the fourth and seventh centuries CE. It considers whether there is any evidence to support the medieval texts and tries to place this posited relationship within a wider regional context.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004375314 :
2213-0039 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), Scribes, Libraries and Market.
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This book is the first to date to be dedicated to the circulation of the book as a commodity in the Mamluk sultanate. It discusses the impact of princely patronage on the production of books, the formation and management of libraries in religious institutions, their size and their physical setting. It documents the significance of private collections and their interaction with institutional libraries and the role of charitable endowments ( waqf ) in the life of libraries. The market as a venue of intellectual and commercial exchanges and a production centre is explored with references to prices and fees. The social and professional background of scribes and calligraphers occupies a major place in this study, which also documents the chain of master-calligraphers over the entire Mamluk period. For her study the author relies on biographical dictionaries, chronicles, waqf documents and manuscripts.
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1 online resource. :
9789004387058
Mathematical Instrumentation in Fourteenth-Century Egypt and Syria : The Illustrated Treatise of Najm al-Dīn al-Miṣrī /
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This volume contains the critical edition with English translation of a richly-illustrated Arabic treatise on the construction of over one hundred various astronomical instruments, many of which are otherwise unknown to specialists. It was composed by Najm al-Dīn al-Misrī, a rather shadowy figure, in Cairo ca. 1330. The edition is accompanied by a detailed technical and historical commentary, which is framed as a self-standing essay on Islamic mathematical instrumentation. While this essay/commentary is mainly based on Najm al-Dīn's treatise, it also benefits from the consultation of a large number of previously unstudied manuscripts, and includes a discussion of all relevant sources from the period 800-1500.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047402176
9789004130159
Damascus life 1480-1500 : a report of a local notary /
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"In Damascus Life 1480-1500: A Report of a Local Notary Boaz Shoshan offers a microhistory of the largest Syrian city at the end of the Mamluk period and on the eve of the Ottoman conquest. Mainly based on a partly preserved diary, the earliest available of its kind and written by Ibn Ṭawq, a local notary, it portrays the life of a lower middle class who originated from the countryside and who, through marriage, was able to become a legal clerk and associate with scholars and bureaucrats. His diary does not only provide us with unique information on his family, social circle and the general situation in Damascus, but it also sheds light on subjects of which little is known, such as the functioning of the legal system, marriage and divorce, bourgeois property and the mores of the common people".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004413269
Syria and Bilad al-Sham under Ottoman rule : essays in honour of Abdul-Karim Rafeq /
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"The papers in this volume were originally presented at a conference in honour of Abdul-Karim Rafeq held in 2004 at the Orient-Institut in Beirut (28-30 May) and at l'Institut français du Proche-Orient in Damascus (1-2 June)"--Acknowl. :
1 online resource. :
"Bibliography of Abdul-Karim Rafeq's Published Works (to April 2010)": pages [47]-56.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [597]-624) and index. :
9789004191044 :
1380-6076 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Aramaeans in ancient Syria /
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The historical and cultural role of the Aramaeans in ancient Syria can hardly be overestimated. Thus The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria gives precise and up-to-date information on different aspects of Aramaean culture. To that end, history, society, economy and law, language and script, literature, religion, art and architecture of the Aramaean kingdoms of Syria from their beginnings in the 11 century B.C. until their end at approximately 720 B.C. are covered within the handbook. The wide survey of Aramaean culture in Syria is supplemented by overviews on the Aramaeans in Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt, North Arabia and on the Aramaean heritage in the Levant.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004229433 :
0169-9423 ;
Umayyad legacies : medieval memories from Syria to Spain /
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The Umayyads, the first dynasty of Islam, ruled over a vast empire from their central province of Syria, providing a line of caliphs from 661 to 750. Another branch later ruled in al-Andalus - Islamic Spain - from 756 to 1031, ruling first as emirs and then as caliphs themselves. This book is the first to bring together studies of this far-flung family and treat it not as two unrelated caliphates but as a single enterprise. Yet for all that historians have made note of Umayyad accomplishments in the Near East and al-Andalus, Umayyad legacies - what later generations made of these caliphs and their achievements - are poorly understood. Building on new interest in the study of memory and Islamic historiography and including interdisciplinary perspectives from Arabic literature, art, and archaeology, this book highlights Umayyad achievements and the shaping of our knowledge of the Umayyad past.
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Includes selected papers from a conference organized by the Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) and the University of Notre Dame's Medieval Institute held in Damascus, Syria, June 29-July 2, 2006. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004190986 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850-1890 : Intercultural Engagements with Architecture and Craft in the Age of Travel and Reform /
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"The commodification of Islamic antiques intensified in the late Ottoman Empire, an age of domestic reform and increased European interference following the Tanzimat (reorganisation) of 1839. Mercedes Volait examines the social life of typical objects moving from Cairo and Damascus to Paris, London, and beyond, uncovers the range of agencies and subjectivities involved in the trade of architectural salvage and historic handicraft, and traces impacts on private interiors, through creative reuse and Revival design, in Egypt, Europe and America. By devoting attention to both local and global engagements with Middle Eastern tangible heritage, the present volume invites to look anew at Orientalism in art and interior design, the canon of Islamic architecture and the translocation of historic works of art"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004449886
9789004449879
Die Eroberung von Damaskus : Quellenkritische Untersuchung zur Historiographie in klassisch-islamischer Zeit /
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The conquest of Damascus is one of the main events of the Islamic conquests in bilād al-Shām. Consequently, it appears with approximately 1000 narratives in the Islamic literature. This book shows the dependencies of these narratives. It therefore exemplifies the historiography from 700-1300 CE using one single event. Using the method of isnād-cum-matn-analysis the oldest forms of Islamic historiography are reconstructed. Among them are not only the version by Ibn Ishāq, but also the narratives in the futūh-work ascribed to al-Waqidī and in al-Azdī's Futūh al-Sham. Finally, the course of the events is described on the basis of the oldest reconstructed versions. Die Eroberung von Damaskus gehört zu den bedeutendsten Ereignissen der futūh im historischen Syrien. Folglich ist sie mit circa 1000 Einzelüberlieferungen ein häufig vorkommendes Element in der islamischen Literatur. Die Zusammenhänge und Abhängigkeiten der Überlieferungen zu analysieren, ist das Hauptanliegen dieser Studie. So können Aussagen über die Historiography von 700-1300 n. Chr. an Hand eines historischen Beispiels getroffen werden. Mit Hilfe der isnād-cum-matn-Analyse gelingt es zudem die frühesten Formen muslimischer Geschichtsschreibung zu rekonstruieren. Zu diesen gehören neben der Version Ibn Ishāqs auch die Erzählungen, die sich in dem Futūḥ-Werk, das al-Waqidī zugeschrieben wird, und dem Futūḥ al-Šhām al-Azdīs finden. Auf Grundlage dieser ältesten rekonstruierten Fassungen zeichnet diese Untersuchung abschließend die Eroberung von Damaskus nach.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047430285 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ancient Jewish art and archaeology in the diaspora /
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Jewish Diaspora in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods from first to the eighth centuries C.E. is the subject of this work. The author thoroughly investigates origin, symbolism and significance of the mainly synagogal and funerary art forms in the Diaspora. Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora is the companion volume to the successful Ancient Jewish Art and Archeaeology in the Land of Israel (1988) by the same author. The geographical area covered includes Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa and Mediterranean Europe. The first section examines the characteristic features of Diaspora Art synagogue architecture and art (including the Torah shrine and mosaic pavements). Another section deals with burial and funerary practices. Of special importance are the sections on the Biblical scenes , designs and iconography of the Dura Europos synagogue, and the Jewish symbols such as the Menorah, ritual objects, the Ark, the conch and the Torah Scrolls . The book is richly illustrated with more than 325 drawings and photographs, some in colour.
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1 online resource (xxxiii, 499 pages, [64] pages of plates) : illustrations (some color), maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 466-486) and index. :
9789004294042 :
0169-9423 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
In the shadow of the church : the building of mosques in early medieval Syria /
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In his book In the Shadow of the Church: The Building of Mosques in Early Medieval Syria Mattia Guidetti examines the establishment of Muslim religious architecture within the Christian context in which it first appeared in the Syrian region, contributing to the debate on the transformation of late antique society to a Muslim one. He scrutinizes the slow process of conversion to Islam of the most important town centers by looking at religious places of both communities between the seventh and the eleventh century. The author assesses the relevancy of churches by analyzing the location of mosques and by researching phenomena of transfer of marble material from churches to mosques.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004328839 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.