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A Culture of Sufism opens a window to a new understanding of one of the most prolific and enduring of all the Sufi brotherhoods, the Naqshbandiyya, as it spread from its birthplace in central Asia to Iran, Anatolia, Arabia, and the Balkans between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing on original sources and carefully aware of the power of modern paradigms to obscure, Le Gall portrays a Naqshbandiyya that was devotionally sober yet not demysticized and rigorously orthodox without being politically activist. She argues that the establishment of this brotherhood in Ottoman society was not the product of political instrumentality. Instead the Naqshbandī dissemination is best explained in reference to a series of little-appreciated organizational and cultural modes such as proclivity to long-distance travel, independence from specialized Sufi institutions, linguistic adaptability, commitment to writing and copying, and the practice of bequeathing spiritual authority to non-kin.
Unearths the history of the Naqshbandiyya, one of the most widespread and enduring Sufi brotherhoods.
The Naqshbandiyya order has attracted increasing scholarly attention over the last two decades, yet so far there has been no attempt to present a comprehensive picture of the evolution of the rich organization and ideational Naqshbandiyyah tradition This book is therefore by now a highly desirable contribution that will fill this gap in the literature of this important Sufi order Spanning almost a millennium in time and most of the Muslim world in space, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the important Naqshbandiyyah Sufi order
In a lucidly argued revisionist study of Ottoman Egypt, first published in 1996, Jane Hathaway challenges the traditional view that Egypt's military elite constituted a revival of the institutions of the Mamluk sultanate. The author contends that the framework within which this elite operated was the household, a conglomerate of patron-client ties that took various forms. In this respect, she argues, Egypt's elite represented a provincial variation on an empire-wide, household-based political culture. The study focuses on the Qazdagli household. Originally, a largely Anatolian contingent within Egypt's Janissary regiment, the Qazdaglis dominated Egypt by the late eighteenth century. Using Turkish and Arabic archival sources, Jane Hathaway sheds light on the manner in which the Qazdaglis exploited the Janissary rank hierarchy, while forming strategic alliances through marriage, commercial partnerships and the patronage of palace eunuchs.
In this seminal study, Jane Hathaway presents a wide-ranging reassessment of the effects of Ottoman rule on the Arab Lands of Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq and Yemen - the first of its kind in over forty years. Challenging outmoded perceptions of this period as a demoralizing prelude to the rise of Arab nationalism and Arab nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hathaway depicts an era of immense social, cultural, economic and political change which helped to shape the foundations of today's modern Middle and Near East. Taking full advantage of a wide range of Arabic and Ottoman primary sources, she examines the changing fortunes of not only the political elite but also the broader population of merchants, shopkeepers, peasants, tribal populations, religious scholars, women, and ethnic and religious minorities who inhabited this diverse and volatile region. With masterly concision and clarity, Hathaway guides the reader through all the key current approaches to and debates surrounding Arab society during this period. This is far more than just another political history; it is a global study which offers an entirely new perspective on the era and region as a whole.
This book traces the evolution of Sufism from the formative period to the present.
Nostalgia for the Empire examines the social and political origins of beleaguered and wistful expressions of nostalgia about the Ottoman Empire. Political memories of the Ottoman past have been transformed in Turkish society, along with reactions from the outside world. The Ottoman past, as remembered now, is grounded in contemporary conservative Islamic values. Thus, the connection between memories of the Ottoman past and these values defines Turkey's new identity. This new expression of national memory portrays Turkey as a victim of the major powers, justifying its position against its imagined internal and external enemies.
In Politics, Poetry, and Sufism in Medieval Iran Chad Lingwood offers new insights into the political significance of poetry and Sufism at the court of Sulṭān Ya‘qūb (d. 896/1490), leader of the Āq Qoyūnlū. The basis of the study is Salāmān va Absāl, a Persian allegorical romance ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), the great Timurid belletrist and Naqshbandi Sufi, dedicated to Ya‘qūb. Lingwood demonstrates that Salāmān va Absāl, which modern critics have dismissed as ‘crude’ and ‘grotesque,’ is a sophisticated work of political and mystical advice for a Muslim ruler. In the process, he challenges received wisdom concerning Jāmī, the Āq Qoyūnlū, and Perso-Islamic advice literature. Significantly, the study illustrates the extent to which Jāmī’s compositions integrated the Timurid and Āq Qoyūnlū realms.
This groundbreaking work studies the Arabic literary culture of early modern Southeast Asia on the basis of largely unstudied and unknown manuscripts. It offers new perspectives on intellectual interactions between the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the development of Islam and especially Sufism in the region, the relationship between the Arabic and Malay literary traditions, and the manuscript culture of the Indian Ocean world. It brings to light a large number of hitherto unknown texts produced at or for the courts of Southeast Asia, and examines the role of royal patronage in supporting Arabic literary production in Southeast Asia.