Ottoman law of war and peace : the Ottoman Empire and its tribute-payers from the north of the Danube /
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Making use of legal and historical sources, Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of peace and war. He deals with the impact of Ottoman holy war and the way conquest in Southeast Europe took place; the role of temporary covenants, imperial diplomas and customary norms in outlining the rights and duties of the tributary princes; the power relations between the Ottoman Empire and the tributary-protected principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. He also focuses on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system in the area, rather than on the elements that set these territories apart from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-458) and index. :
9789004411104
A history of modern Jewish religious philosophy .
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The culmination of Eliezer Schweid's life-work as Jewish intellectual historian, this five-volume work provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the major thinkers and movements in modern Jewish thought, in the context of general philosophy and Jewish social-political historical developments. A major theme of the work is the response of Jewish thought to the rise and crisis of Western humanism from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Volume One, "The Period of the Enlightenment," includes a methodological introduction to the larger work, as well as thorough presentations of Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Maimon, Ascher, Wessely, Schnaber and Krochmal. Capsule essays on Kant, Hegel, and Schelling highlight the issues they raise that would be of crucial importance for Jewish thought. \'Schweid introduces the reader to many writers and thinkers who pioneered a new approach toward Jewish law and lore [...]. This is a work which should be in every university and seminary library.\' Morton J. Merowitz, Librarian and independent scholar, Buffalo, NY (AJL Reviews, Nov/Dec 2011)
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1 online resource (xv, 361 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004207349 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Moving in the Margins: Desert Travel and Power in Medieval Central Asia /
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Central Asia has been perceived as a landscape of connections, of Silk Roads; an endless plain across which waves of conquerors swiftly rode on horseback. In reality the region is highly fragmented and difficult to traverse, and overcoming these obstacles led to routes becoming associated with epic travel and high-value trade. Put simply, the inhabitants of these lands became experts in the art of travelling the margins. This volume seeks to unravel some of the myths of long-distance roads in Central Asia, using a desert case-study to put forward a new hypothesis for how medieval landscapes were controlled and manipulated.
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1 online resource (300 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004710283
Prophets, gods and kings in Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan : an intertextual reading of an Egyptian popular epic /
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This book is a literary, intertextual study of an Egyptian popular epic. In this innovative study, Helen Blatherwick investigates how various sources, including Islamic qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ ('tales of the prophets'), Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman and Coptic Egyptian myths and narratives, and recensions of the Alexander Romance function as intertexts within Sīrat Sayf . Blatherwick argues that these intertexts are deployed as narrative devices which are readily recognisable to the story's audience, and that they are significant carriers of meaning and theme. Crucially, these intertexts also interact within Sīrat Sayf to bring a conceptual continuity to its discussion of kingship and society that stretches from this late-medieval epic back to ancient Egyptian narratives.
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Revised and expanded version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--SOAS, University of London, 2002. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004314801 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A study of the narrator in Nonnus of Panopolis' Dionysiaca : storytelling in late antique epic /
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This Study of the Narrator in Nonnus of Panopolis' Dionysiaca by Camille Geisz investigates manifestations of the narratorial voice in Nonnus' account of the life and deeds of Dionysus (4th/5th century C.E.). Through a variety of interventions in his own voice, the narrator reveals much about his relationship to his predecessors, his own conception of story-telling, and highlights his mindfulness of the presence of his narratee. Narratorial devices in the Dionysiaca are opportunities for displays of ingeniousness, discussions of sources, and a reflection on the role of the poet. They highlight the innovative style of Nonnus' epic, written as a compendium of influences, genres, and myths, and encompassing the influence of a thousand years of Greek literature.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references, glossary, and index. :
9789004355347 :
1380-6068 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Kerala's Puḷḷuvas and Pāmpum Tuḷḷal : An Ethnography of Ritual Practice /
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Kerala's Puḷḷuvas and Pāmpum Tuḷḷal is a story about the lives of Kerala's Puḷḷuva ritual specialists and their days-long ritual performance, pāmpum tuḷḷal, or the "jumping dance" of the serpent deities (nāgam or pāmpu). The ritual is commissioned by members of Kerala's landed communities to bring health and prosperity to their extended families. Belonging to an ancient South Indian tradition, the ritual is orchestrated by Puḷḷuva ritual specialists, who hold the sole hereditary right to perform it. This book is the first in Kerala to approach this ritual tradition from the viewpoints and agency of its Dalit (formerly known as 'untouchable') ritual specialists-men and women, and to examine Puḷḷuva ritual practice in the context of rapid and extensive social change. The study sheds important light upon Puḷḷuva rituals, lives, and livelihoods, within the broader contexts of changing class, caste, and kinship relations; land tenure and ritual patronage; labour migration; and the decline of Nāyar matrilineality and old landed families. These wide-ranging social trends, indexed and acted out in ritual, are the backdrop for understanding Puḷḷuva ritual practice from the 1980s, and in terms of history, point to multiple structures and hierarchies of practice and meaning. The combination of the focused study of ritual performance and traditional ethnography allows readers to witness the ritual practices and lives of members of a small, real-world community rendered virtually absent from the historical record. It's extraordinary to hear from Puḷḷuvas in their own words and to witness their dedication to their sacred profession, at a time when the world they knew was rapidly falling apart. But thirty-plus years later, the story-at least for now, has a happy ending; both Puḷḷuvas and pāmpum tuḷḷal are thriving.
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1 online resource (268 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004753372
The Nadars of Tamilnad : The Political Culture of a Community in Change /
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Among the various communities of South India, the Nadars have perhaps most clearly evidenced the impact of change over the past 200 years. Considered by high-caste Hindus in the early nineteenth century to be of extremely low status, the Nadars-toddy-tappers, climbers of the palmyra palm-suffered severe social disabilities and were among the most depressed communities in the Tamil country. Because of their sensitive response to social and economic change over the past century and a half, the Nadars have today become one of the most successful groups in the South, in both economic and political terms, and considerable command respect. From among their numbers have come leaders in business, industry, and the professions; and in politics, Kamaraj, their illustrious son, brought fame to the caste as Chief Minister of Madras and as President of the Indian National Congress. The Nadars have had a turbulent and colourful history. Their struggle to rise above their depressed condition assumed dramatic forms in a series of escalating confrontations between the caste and its antagonists. From the breast-cloth controversy through the sack of Sivakasi to the Nadar Mahajana Sangam, the Nadars' rise, exemplifying the processes of mobilization in Indian society, provides rich material for an analysis of the political life of a community in change. When the book was first published in 1969, Lloyd Rudolph wrote, 'Hardgrave illuminates in ways hitherto unexplored the processes of social and political change that have so profoundly affected India. I judge his book to be one of the most important and exciting studies in the Indian field in recent years'. With this reissue, The Nadars of Tamilnad is again available, and its compelling portrayal of a caste in transition stands as, one reviewer wrote, 'one of the landmarks in South Indian social history'.
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1 online resource (352 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004753952