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Although the early thirteenth century was a critical period in the development of Sufism, it has received little scholarly attention. Based on heretofore unexplored sources, this book examines a pivotal figure from this period: the scholar, mystic, statesman, and eponym of one of the earliest ṭarīqa lineages, ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī. In situating Suhrawardī’s life work in its social, political, and religious contexts, this book suggests that his universalizing Sufi system was not only enmeshed within a broader economy of Muslim religious learning, but also furnished social spaces which allowed for novel modes of participation in Sufi religiosity. In doing so, this book provides a framework for understanding the increasingly ubiquitous presence of intentional Sufi communities and institutions throughout the late-medieval Islamic world.
Drawing on canon studies, this book investigates the origins, development and functions of the core of the Sunni ?ad?th canon, the 'Authentic' ?ad?th collections of al-Bukh?r? and Muslim, from the time of their authors to the modern period.
Applying the Weberian concept of the routinization of charisma, the book examines the transformation of the nomadic empire of Tamerlane into a sedentary polity based on the Perso-Islamic model by focusing on the reign of the last Timurid ruler Sul n-?usain Bayqara in fifteenth-century Iran.
This book contains articles on historic cities of the Islamic world, ranging from West Africa to Malaysia, which over the centuries have been centres of culture and learning and of economic and commercial life, and which have contributed much to the consolidation of Islam as a faith and as a social and political institution. The articles have been taken from the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, completed in 2004, but in many cases expanded and rewritten. All have been updated to include fresh historical information, with note of contemporary social developments and population statistics. The book thus delineates the urban background of Islam has it has evolved up to the present day, highlighting the role of such great cities as Cairo, Istanbul, Baghdad and Delhi in Islamic history, and also brings them together in a rich panorama illustrating one of mankind's greatest achievements, the living organism of the city.
The present volume is a pioneering study of the development of Islamic traditions of learning in 20th century Zanzibar and the role of Muslim scholars in society and politics, based on extensive fieldwork and archival research in Zanzibar (2001-2007). The volume highlights the dynamics of Muslim traditions of reform in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Zanzibar, focussing on the contribution of Sufi scholars (Qādiriyya, ʿAlawiyya) as well as Muslim reformers (modernists, activists, anṣār al-sunna) to Islamic education. It examines several types of Islamic schools (Qurʾānic schools, madāris and “Islamic institutes”) as well as the emergence of the discipline of “Islamic Religious Instruction” in colonial government schools. The volume argues that dynamics of cooperation between religious scholars and the British administration defined both form and content of Islamic education in the colonial period (1890-1963). The revolution of 1964 led to the marginalization of established traditions of Islamic education and encouraged the development of Muslim activist movements which have started to challenge state informed institutions of learning.
This book exposes the mimetic assumption involved in early Islamic historiography, its literary practice and whatever subverts it as reflected in Ṭabarī's History. Four major events in the history of early Islam are then subject to analysis based on literary criticism and are shown to produce a new meaning.
The study of Arabic literature is blossoming. This book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework to help research this highly prolific and diverse production of contemporary literary texts. Based on the achievements of historical poetics, in particular those of Russian formalism and its theoretical legacy, this framework offers flexible, transparent, and unbiased tools to understand the relevant contexts within the literary system. The aim is to enhance our understanding of Arabic literature, throw light on areas of literary production that traditionally have been neglected, and stimulate others to take up the fascinating challenge of mapping out and exploring them.
This book charts the development of Islamic ships and boats in the Western Indian Ocean from the seventh to the early sixteenth century with reference to earlier periods. It utilizes mainly Classical and Medieval Arabic sources with iconographical evidence and archaeological finds. Maritime activities in the region resulted in a cross fertilization, not only of goods but also of ideas and culture which gave an underlying cohesion to the Arabian, Persian and Indian maritime peoples. This study has led to a re-evaluation of that maritime culture, showing that it was predominantly Persian and Indian, with Chinese influence, throughout the Islamic period until the coming of the Portuguese, as reflected in nautical terminology and technology.
This book brings together edited articles from the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam that are relevant to food culture, health, diet, and medicine in pre-Islamic Muslim societies.
The Prophet and the Age of Caliphates is an accessible history of the Near East from c.600-1050AD, the period in which Islamic society was formed. Beginning with the life of Muhammad and the birth of Islam, Hugh Kennedy goes on to explore the great Arab conquests of the seventh century and the golden age of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates when the world of Islam was politically and culturally far more developed than the West. The arrival of the Seljuk Turks and the period of political fragmentation which followed shattered this early unity, never to be recovered. This new edition is fully updated to take into account the considerable amount of new research on early Islam, and contains a c...