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
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
The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence : Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools /
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The current view among Western scholars of Islam concerning the early development of Islamic jurisprudence was shaped by Joseph Schacht's famous study on the subject published 50 years ago. Since then new sources became available which make a critical review of his theories possible and desirable. This volume uses one of these sources to reconstruct the development of jurisprudence at Mecca, virtually unknown until now, from the beginnings until the middle of the second Islamic century. New methods of analysis are developed and tested in order to date the material contained in the earliest compilations of legal traditions more properly. As a result the origins of Islamic jurisprudence can be dated much earlier than claimed by Schacht and his school.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491533
9789004121317
The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012 : Shaping Institutions for the Future /
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A study of the development of political and social institutions in Baghdad, center of the Abbasid Caliphate, in that neglected period between Abbasid collapse and the coming of the Seljuk Turks. Three brothers, Daylemite mercenaries from the southern Caspian succeeded in establishing a dynasty that lasted nearly a century, controlling Iraq, a good part of Iran and the Gulf. The period has been labled the "Iranian intermezzo" but careful examination shows that the dynasty shaped the basic institutions to which the Seljuks would fall heir: the chief amirate, the system of army fiefs and the bureaucracy. It was a period of profound change and dislocation which fostered an open and creative cultural atmosphere. The Caliphate, bereft of power, was re-established as the center of authority and legitimation.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492363
9789004128606
The Postcolonial Arabic Novel : Debating Ambivalence /
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This is the first study of its kind to tackle the postcolonial in Arabic fiction. In ten chapters, a lengthy preface and an extensive bibliography, the author discusses and questions a large number of novels that demonstrate cultural diversity and richness in the Arab World. Using current methodologies and discourse analysis, the author highlights engagements with postcolonial issues that relate to identity formation, the modern nation-state, individualism, nationalism, gender and class demarcations, and micro-politics. With this intention, the book locates Arabic narrative in the mainstream of world literature, and establishes the modern Arabic novel in the contemporary literary critical world of postcolonial studies. The author's lucid style and thorough knowledge of the field should recommend the book to students and scholars alike, as it comes in time to meet the needs of the academy for solid writing on Islam and the Arabs.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401544
9789004125865
The Development of Early Sunnite ḥadīth Criticism : The Taqdima of Ibn Abī ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854-327/938) /
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ḥadīth are the documents recording the words and actions of the Prophet Muḥammad. Originally an enormous and amorphous corpus, Muslim scholars of the third/ninth century separated the ḥadīth they regarded as true from those they held to be forgeries, producing collection of ḥadīth which still command the respect of Muslims today. Ibn Abī ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854-327/938) was one of the most prominent exponents and practitioners of ḥadīth criticism. He left a copious written legacy, including his famous Taqdima , a biographical dictionary of the early ḥadīth critics. The Taqdima reveals Ibn Abī ḥātims's vision of the critic and gives insight into the mechanism of ḥadīth criticism. It also provides a platform for the examination of the basic intellectual orientation of the ḥadīth critics and their conflicts with their opponents.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004453241
9789004118058
The Jews in Sicily, Volume 6 (1458-1477) /
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This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily from 1458 to 1477. It is the sequel to the first five volumes and covers the events during the rule of King John. Although John continued the policies of his father Alphonso towards the Jews of the island, there is a distinct deterioration in their position during his times. After years of incitement by the members of the Mendicant Orders, anti-Jewish riots broke out in various parts of the Sicily. The worst of them was the massacre in Modica in 1474. During that period the Jewish minority of Sicily continued to flourish economically and socially. Nearly a thousand documents, many of them published here for the first time, record the fortunes of the Jews and their relationships with the authorities and their Christian neighbours. Much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered. The abundance of historical records in the archives of the Crown and of local authorities compares favourably with the relative scarcity of surviving documentation in earlier centuries. Therefore, again, many documents had to be reported in summary form. The volume is provided with additional bibliography and indexes, while the introduction has been relegated to the end of the series on the Jews of the island.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047414261
9789004140769
Commerce, Culture, and Community in a Red Sea Port in the Thirteenth Century : The Arabic Documents from Quseir /
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This book is the first comprehensive study of the Arabic documents uncovered in Quseir, Upper Egypt, during the 1980s. The hundreds of paper fragments shed light on activities and operations of a family shipping business on the Red Sea shore in the thirteenth century. Part One is an introductory essay on historical and cultural context of these documents. The three chapters deal with, respectively, the "Sheikh's house," where the documents were found, the Red Sea commerce as reflected in the trade activities around the house, and aspects of popular culture as revealed through the texts. Part Two comprises a critical edition of eighty-four Arabic texts, the majority of which have never been published before, with translation and commentary.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047404972
9789004137479
The Revolution which toppled the Umayyads : Neither Arab nor Ἁbbāsid /
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This book re-examines the so-called Ἁbbāsid revolution, the ethnic character of whose effective constituency has been contested for over eight decades. It also brings to question the authenticity of the Ἁbbāsid dynastic claim. To establish its two theses (neither Arab nor Ἁbbāsid) this book employs, in its three parts, three distinct methodological approaches. To reconstruct the secret history of the clandestine Organization, Part One elicits a narrative through a rigorous application of the historical-critical method. Part Two subjects to close textual analysis some prime-grade literary specimen. In Part Three, a purely quantitative approach is adopted to study the demographic character of the formal structures of leadership within the Organization. History, historiography, heresiography, literature, the narrative, the textual analysis, and the quantitative approach, cannot be less inseparable.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047402084
9789004129948
The Idea of Universal History in Greece : From Herodotus to the Age of Augustus /
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This is an expanded version of a lecture given in the Departments of History and Classics at Harvard in 1998. Starting from a methodological point of view, this book show the evolution of the idea of world history through the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Ctesias, Ephorus, Polybius and others up to the historians of the Augustan epoch.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004494213
9789004156463
Shaping Tradition : Civil Society, Community and Development in Colonial Northern Ghana, 1899-1957 /
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Using Northern Ghana as a case study, this book challenges the invocation of civil society as a tool for building community in the name of development. Far from equating civil society with community, colonial officials used the doctrine of community against African civil society. For colonial officers, civil society represented the corruption of authentic development, which could be avoided only by protecting traditional peasant communities in the face of economic transformation. The book charts this colonial program, from the creation of "native states" in the early twentieth century to an ambitious agricultural mechanisation scheme in the late 1940s. In its challenge to current writing on civil society, the study offers an important contribution to African history and development studies.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047410232
9789004152434
The Sultan of Vezirs : The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angeloviů (1453-1474) /
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Mahmud Pasha Angelovic served as Grand Vezir under Sultan Mehmed II, in the years following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, which were marked by an extensive imperial project, transforming the Ottoman principality into an empire. This book attempts to piece together the available evidence on Mahmud Pasha's Byzantine descent and family network, as well as his multi-faceted contribution to the founding of the new empire, through military leadership, diplomatic practices and architectural and literary patronage, considering also his execution and the creation of a posthumous legend presenting him as a martyr. Using Ottoman, Greek and Western sources, as well as archival material, this study focuses on the period of transition from Byzantine to Ottoman Empire and would be of interest to historians and other specialists studying that period.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492332
9789004121065
A History of the Early Islamic Law of Property : Reconstructing the Legal Development, 7th-9th Centuries /
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The present book is devoted to an analysis of positive solutions concerning matters related to civil liability, certain kinds of sale that would evolve into agency and some forms of partnership, and the prohibition of ribā. The analysis has two aims. First, it attempts to trace the process by which some hitherto unclarified institutions and transactions were elaborated to form an integral part of the classical Islamic law of property. The second aim to determine how and why the teachings of particular jurists became predominant in Iraq and Medina and laid the foundation of the Ḥanafī and the Mālikī schools of law in each respective region.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047413417
9789004138490
Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire : Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652-1744) /
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This book studies the functions of Islamic courts within the framework of the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Ottoman provincial administration, and explores the processes of adjudication and dispute resolution through a detailed juxtaposition of court records from two Anatolian towns, Çankırı and Kastamonu. In particular, it identifies the socio-economic backgrounds of the court clients, the kinds of issues that they brought to the courts, their strategies of litigation, and how disputes were resolved in the courts. This book also sheds light on the costs of court usage and reveals alternative sites for dispute resolution that existed independently of the courts. This study is particularly useful for the students of legal anthropology as it pays a special attention to the practice of law and the process of dispute resolution.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401599
9789004126091
The Birth of a Legal Institution : The Formation of the Waqf in Third-Century A.H. Ḥanafī Legal Discourse /
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This book present the first sustained analysis of the earliest legal treatises on the Islamic trust, or waqf -- the Aḥkām al-Waqf of Hilāl al-Ra᾿y and the Aḥkām al-Awqāf of al-Khaṣṣāf. The book situates the treastise and their authors within third/ninth century legal culture, and then undertakes a systematic textual analysis of the treatises, examining both the attributes of Ḥanafī legal discourse and how the waqf came to be defined and situated within existing categories of charitable giving, inheritance, bequest and death-sickness. The final chapter focuses on how the waqf was legitimated hermeneutically through traditions of the Prophet and his Companions. The close textual analysis of these treatises is especially important for historians of early Islamic law.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047402213
9789004130296
Christianity under Islam in Jerusalem : The Question of the Holy Sites in Early Ottoman Times /
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A major issue in nineteenth-century world politics, the question of Christianity's holiest shrines in Jerusalem is covered by a large body of literature. Most of this scholarship, however, concentrates on the period when the question of the Holy Sites has already evolved from a domestic Ottoman problem into an all-European issue. Much less is known about this problem in earlier times, when the Ottoman Empire was still a dominant power able to propose solutions free of foreign interference and outside pressures. Based on official Ottoman records found in the registers of the kadi's court in Jerusalem as well as the Prime Ministry's Archives in Istanbul, the present study offers a thorough treatment of Ottoman policy with respect to the Holy Sites during the first two centuries of Ottoman rule in Jerusalem. It focuses on three principal issues: (a) The legal status of the Holy Sites under Ottoman rule; (b) The Ottoman state and the inter-church struggle over the Holy Sites; (c) The Holy Sites as a source of income to the Ottoman state. The discussion of these issues sheds new light on one of the most obscure and controversial chapters in the history of Christianity under Islam in Jerusalem.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047400806
9789004120426
An Ottoman Mentality : The World of Evliya Çelebi (revised second edition) /
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In his huge travel account, Evliya Çelebi provides materials for getting at Ottoman perceptions of the world, not only in areas like geography, topography, administration, urban institutions, and social and economic systems, but also in such domains as religion, folklore, sexual relations, dream interpretation, and conceptions of the self. In six chapters the author examines: Evliya's treatment of Istanbul and Cairo as the two capital cities of the Ottoman world; his geographical horizons and notions of tolerance; his attitudes toward government, justice and specific Ottoman institutions; his social status as gentleman, character type as dervish, office as caller-to-prayer and avocation as traveller; his use of various narrative styles; and his relation with his audience in the two registers of persuasion and amusement. An Afterword situates Evliya in relation to other intellectual trends in the Ottoman world of the seventeenth century.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047410379
9789004152625