The Great Mosque of Damascus : Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture /
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The celebrated Great Mosque of Damascus was built in the early eighth century by the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd b. 'Abd al-Malik. This book provides a detailed study of this Mosque. Using textual, visual, and archaeological evidence, the author attempts to reconstruct some of the basic formal and decorative features of the Umayyad mosque, to locate it within its broader urban context, and to consider its role within al-Walīd's unprecedented programme of architectural patronage. The work explores the intracultural and intercultural functions of religious architecture within an official visual discourse intended to project a distinctive Muslim identity in a manner determined by Umayyad political aspirations. It will be of particular interest to those concerned with the relationship between the Umayyad caliphate and Byzantium.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491618
9789004116382
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
A Journey to Palmyra : Collected Essays to Remember Delbert R. Hillers /
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A Journey to Palmyra originates from the desire to remember Delbert R. Hillers, who greatly contributed with his work to Palmyrene studies. However, it is not meant just as a memorial volume, but as a research tool. It contains thirteen papers by scholars in the field of Palmyrene studies and Semitics focusing on different aspects of Palmyrene history, social history, art, archaeology and philology, with publication of newly discovered inscriptions. It offers a state-of-the-art discussion on several issues pertaining to the field of Palmyrene studies, and illustrates methodologies to be employed in order to increase our knowledge of the complex and multifaceted culture of ancient Palmyra and of neighbouring areas.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047404194
9789004124189
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
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 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.
Letters of a Sufi scholar : the correspondence of ʻAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1641-1731) /
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As a leading Muslim thinker, 'Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī of Damascus creatively engaged with the social, religious, and intellectual challenges that emerged during the early modern period in which he lived. Yet, at a time of high anti-mystical fervour, his Sufi-inspired views faced strong local antipathy. Through extensive correspondence, presented here for the first time, 'Abd al-Ghanī projected his ideas and teachings beyond the parochial boundaries of Damascus, and was thus able to assert his authority at a wider regional level. The letters he himself selected, compiled, and titled shed fresh lights on the religious and intellectual exchanges among scholars in the eastern Ottoman provinces, revealing a dynamic and rigorous image of Islam, one that is profoundly inspired by humility, tolerance, and love. http://tntypography.com/brill.html
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047424338 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae addendum : squeezes in the Max van Berchem collection (Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Northern Syria) : squeezes 1-84 /
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During his research of the Arabic inscriptions in the Middle East at the end of the 19th century, Max van Berchem collected many squeezes of inscriptions. These squeezes are stored in the archives of the Fondation Max van Berchem in Geneva. The present publication wishes to present a scholarly record of these squeezes, many of which represent inscriptions that do no longer exist. This publication is the first of, hopefully, two addenda which will constitute a full record of one of the few treasures left by the great epigrapher in his archives. For many students of Arabic epigraphy these squeezes afford the only opportunity to have a close glimpse of the originals as possible, and learn about their contents with the aid of the photographs and studies which accompany them in this volume.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [179]-181) and indexes. :
9789047420736 :
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.
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.
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.
The Syrian wars /
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This book examines the causes and courses of the series of wars in the Hellenistic period fought between the kingdom of the Seleukids and the Ptolemies over possession of Syria. This is a subject always mentioned by historians of the period in a glancing or abbreviated way, but which is actually wholly central to the development of both kingdoms and of the period as a whole. Other than relatively brief summaries no serious account has ever been produced. This extended consideration will bring to the centre of research on the Hellinistic period this long sequence of wars. Arguably they were the basic causes of the failure of both kingdoms in the face of Roman aggression and interference.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [421]-430) and index. :
9789004188310 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
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 third millennium : studies in early Mesopotamia and Syria in honor of Walter Sommerfeld and Manfred Krebernik /
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"The Festschrift containing 36 contributions celebrates the scholarly achievements of the two outstanding Assyriologists, Walter Sommerfeld (University of Marburg) and Manfred Krebernik (University of Jena). The primary focus of the volume corresponds to the main topics of interests of Professors Sommerfeld and Krebernik - Pre-Sargonic and Sargonic Mesopotamia and third millennium Syria. The volume also features a few contributions dealing with Sumerian language, Mesopotamian literature and the early history of Akkadian and its Semitic background".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004418080
The Amorite dynasty of Ugarit : historical implications of linguistic and archaeological parallels /
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"In The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit Mary Buck takes a new approach to the field of Amorite studies by considering whether the site of Ugarit shares close parallels with other sites and cultures known from the Bronze Age Levant. When viewed in conjunction, the archaeological and linguistic material uncovered in this study serves to enhance our understanding of the historical complexity and diversity of the Middle Bronze Age period of international relations at the site of Ugarit. With a deft hand, Dr. Buck pursues a nuanced view of populations in the Bronze Age Levant, with the objective of understanding the ancient polity of Ugarit as a kin-based culture that shares close ties with the Amorite populations of the Levant. .
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004415119
The architecture and liturgy of the bema in fourth- to-sixth-century Syrian churches /
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First published in 2003 this is a new edition of a work that remains the only study of the nave platform known as the Syrian Bema to utilise an interdisciplinary approach. By combining archaeological and architectural research with a study of the Syriac Liturgy to explore how worship evolved on the Syrian Limestone Massif in Late Antiquity, this volume proposes a solution to the long debated question of why only approximately 50 of these bemata have been discovered amongst many thousands of late antique churches in Syria. It charts the evolution of the early liturgy in Syria and seeks to explain how the location of the Limestone Massif in the hinterland of Antioch may have affected the development of worship in the region.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 2001.
Previously published: Kaslik, Liban : Parole de l'Orient, 2003. :
1 online resource (xviii, 287 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-281) and index. :
9789004231849 :
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
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 ;
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.