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The only Arabic voice to have witnessed the Ottoman conquest of Cairo, Ibn Iyās, is an eminent historical source for the late Mamluk period. This book is the first to take stock of the author's complete works, approaching him through an examination of his narrative voice and writing strategies. Tracing Ibn Iyās's working process by compilation analysis, it shows how the author adapted his representations of Egyptian history to his writing projects and audience. Ibn Iyās's ways of worldmaking are shaped deeply by beliefs, biases and intellectual trends as well as the impact of the social and historical context the author wrote in. Knowing these conditioning factors allows to understand his presentation of history as an individual voice of his time.
In Weltgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Schia und Sunna Philip Bockholt examines the manuscript tradition of Khvāndamīr’s Ḥabīb al-siyar, and gives an in-depth analysis of how the author adapted his chronicle to the Shiʿi and Sunni religio-political convictions of his Safavid and Mughal overlords. In Weltgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Schia und Sunna untersucht Philip Bockholt die Handschriftentradition von Ḫvāndamīrs Ḥabīb as-siyar und analysiert die Arbeitsweise des Historikers, seine Weltchronik vor dem Hintergrund der politischen Umwälzungen in Iran und Indien um 1500 an schiitische und sunnitische Kontexte anzupassen.
While the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluk realm in 1516-17 doubtlessly changed the balance of political power in Egypt and Greater Syria, the changes must be seen as a wide-ranging transition process. The present collection of essays provides several case studies on the changing situation during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and explains how the reconfiguration of political power affected both Egypt and Greater Syria. With reference to the first volume (2017), this second volume continues the debate on key issues of the transition period with contributions by scholars from both Mamluk and Ottoman studies. By combining these perspectives, the authors provide a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of the process of transformation from Mamluk to Ottoman rule.
The authoritative account of Islam's schism that for centuries has shaped events in the Middle East and the Islamic world. In 632, soon after the Prophet Muhammad died, a struggle broke out among his followers as to who would succeed him. Most Muslims argued that the leader of Islam should be elected by the community's elite and rule as Caliph. They would later become the Sunnis. Otherswho would become known as the Shiabelieved that Muhammad had designated his cousin and son-in-law Ali as his successor, and that henceforth Ali's offspring should lead as Imams. This dispute over who should guide Muslims, the Caliph or the Imam, marks the origin of the Sunni-Shii split in Islam. Toby Matthiese...
The comparative study of Persian historiography of the early modern Islamic empires, the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, presenting in-depth case analyses alongside a wide array of primary sources to illustrate the extensive universe of literary-historical writing that Persian historiography can be found within.
This volume offers the first comprehensive account of the monetary logic that guided the payment of wergild and blood money in early medieval conflict resolution. In the early middle ages, wergild played multiple roles: it was used to measure a person’s status, to prevent and end conflicts, and to negotiate between an individual and the agents of statehood. This collection of interlocking essays by historians, philologists and jurists represents a major contribution to the study of law and society in Western Europe during the early Middle Ages. Contributors are Lukas Bothe, Warren Brown, Stefan Esders, Wolfgang Haubrichs, Paul Hyams, Tom Lambert, Ralph W. Mathisen, Rob Meens, Han Nijdam, Lisi Oliver, Harald Siems, Karl Ubl, and Helle Vogt. See inside the book.
The most recent cutting-edge scholarship on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The vast majority of studies on rulership in medieval Europe focus on one kingdom; one type of rule; or one type of ruler. This volume attempts to break that mold and demonstrate the breadth of medieval Europe and the various kinds of rulership within it. How Medieval Europe was Ruled aims to demonstrate the multiplicity of types of rulers and polities that existed in medieval Europe. The contributors discuss not just kings or queens, but countesses, dukes, and town leadership. We see that rulers worked collaboratively with one another both across political boundaries and within their own borders in ways that are not evident in most current studies of kingship, inhibited by too narrow a focu...
Early Chinese inscriptions show that already the kings of the Western Zhou period (1045–771 BCE) called upon officials to submit remonstrances. However, it was not until the Warring States period (fifth century BCE to 221 BCE) that remonstrance was explained to mean that monarchical rule would be optimized if officials could object to the monarch's decisions. This book examines the history of remonstrance in China from conceptual, institutional, literary, and comparative perspectives, pointing out parallels to European institutions and the expression of dissent in modern China. Special attention is paid to the historical semantics of remonstrance, the strategies and intentions of remonstrants, and the perspective of the rulers who instrumentalized criticism to pursue their own goals.
Starting from 135 manuscripts that were once part of the library of the late Mamluk sultan Qāniṣawh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501–1516), this book challenges the dominant narrative of a "post-court era", in which courts were increasingly marginalized in the field of adab. Rather than being the literary barren field that much of the Arabic and Arabic-centred sources, produced extra muros, would have us believe, it re-cognizes Qāniṣawh's court as a rich and vibrant literary site and a cosmopolitan hub in a burgeoning Turkic literary ecumene. It also re-centres the ruler himself within this court. No longer the passive object of panegyric or the source of patronage alone, Qāniṣawh has an authorial voice in his own right, one that is idiosyncratic yet in conversation with other voices. As such, while this book is first and foremost a book about books, it is one that consciously aspires to be more than that: a book about a library, and, ultimately, a book about the man behind the library, Qāniṣawh al-Ghawrī.