You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Ottoman lands, which extended from modern Hungary to the Arabian peninsula, were home to a vast population with a rich variety of cultures. The Ottoman World is the first primary source reader to bring a wide and diverse set of voices across Ottoman society into the classroom. Written in many languages—not only Ottoman Turkish but also Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Persian—these texts, here translated, span the extent of the early modern Ottoman empire, from the 1450s to 1700. Instructors are supplied with narratives conveying the lived experiences of individuals through texts that highlight human variety and accelerate a trend away from a state-centric approach to Ottoman history. In addition, samples from court registers, legends, biographical accounts, hagiographies, short stories, witty anecdotes, jokes, and lampoons provide exciting glimpses into popular mindsets in Ottoman society. By reflecting new directions in the scholarship with an innovative choice of texts, this collection provides a vital resource for teachers and students.
At the heart of this volume is the translation of a fourteenth-century Turkish version of the Joseph story, better known to Western readers from the version in Genesis, first book of the Hebrew Bible. Hickman provides us with a new lens: we see the drama of the Old Testament prophet Joseph, son of Jacob, through Muslim eyes. The poem’s author, Sheyyad Hamza, lived in Anatolia during the early days of the Ottoman Empire. Hamza’s composition is rooted in the recondite and little-studied tradition of oral performance—a unique corner of Turkish verbal arts, situated between minstrelsy and the “divan” tradition—combining the roles of preacher and storyteller. A cultural document as well as a literary text that reflects the prevailing values of the time, Hamza’s play reveals a picture of Ottoman sensibility, both aesthetic and religious, at the level of popular culture in premodern Turkey. To supplement and contextualize the story, Hickman includes an introduction, a historical-literary afterword, and notes to the translation, all ably assisting an unfamiliar reader’s entry into this world.
The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and ...
This catalogue decribes in a detailed and systematic way the rich and varied collection of Turkish manuscripts preserved in the John Rylands University Library in Manchester.
Traces the simultaneous crafting of political power, the codification of a historical record, and the unfolding of cultural change
The five Diez albums in Berlin, acquired by Heinrich Friedrich von Diez in Constantinople around 1789, contain more than 400 figurative paintings, drawings, fragments, and calligraphic works originating for the most part from Ilkhanid, Jalayirid, and Timurid workshops. Gonnella, Weis and Rauch unite in this volume 21 essays that analyse their relation to their “parent” albums at the Topkapı Palace or examine specific works by reflecting upon their role in the larger history of book art in Iran. Other essays cover aspects such as the European and Chinese influence on Persianate art, aspects related to material and social culture, and the Ottoman interest in Persianate albums. This book m...