Journal articles on the topic 'Islamic hagiography'

Taking a medieval Egyptian Islamic hagiography as its reference point, this study explores dimensions of religious textuality with special interest in the materiality of intertextual sources. Focusing our study on the material and artwork status of the text as object, we begin to retrieve a neglected component of textual studies. Drawing on Genette’s idea of the paratext, with its open-ended and evolving conception of textuality, along with the appearance of these same texts as “material-texts” within the hagiography, we may cross the divide between discursive textuality and material culture. This traverse is made possible in the text through the performative and embodied treatments of intertext material.

<p><em>Every method and approach in Islamic Studies currently available to us has</em></p><p><em>weaknesses in looking at religious data. For that reason, efforts to find better and more</em></p><p><em>integrative method are needed. One of the approaches that might be useful for Islamic</em></p><p><em>Studies is historical approach. Sufism in the meantime, has become an important part</em></p><p><em>of the history of Islam. Nonetheless, it is only recently that Sufism–as well as its origin,</em></p><p><em>change and development- become a subject of historical study. Hagiography has also</em></p><p><em>become a new trend in the historical study of Sufism. And one of the Sufis whose</em></p><p><em>hagiography has become an important subject of study is that of Ahmad Yasafi, a Sufi of</em></p><p><em>16</em><em>th </em><em>– 17</em><em>th </em><em>century. Hagiography is a kind of written sources that narrate the life of a</em></p><p><em>supposedly holy man and the legends related to him. According to Devin Dewees, the</em></p><p><em>hagiography of Ahmad Yasawi portrays the man’s personal and communal life, his</em></p><p><em>patronage with the ruler, the rituals of his tar</em><em>î</em><em>qah, and the legends related to him and his</em></p><p><em>order. This article –using historical approach- is a descriptive account of Ahmad Yasawi’s</em></p><em>hagiography.</em>

Tales of God’s Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation, an anthologythat honors Sufis from every corner of the Muslim world, provides an easilyaccessible overview of Sufism’s history and the particularities of individualSufi experiences that helped spread Islam throughout the world. A valuablecontribution to the contemporary literature of Sufi studies, this volume alsooffers an excellent overview of the Sufi path and philosophy as well as classictexts of Islamic mysticism. The wide-ranging and eclectic collection of sources is a particular strength, and manuscripts have been edited with referencesto several authors who knew the life history of these Sufis.The book contains twenty illustrations; a preface; six parts (divided intotwenty-seven chapters); an appendix and a glossary; notes about the contributors;an index of names; an index of concepts, themes, places, and booktitles; and a Qur’an index. The editor claims that it is the first truly globalEnglish-language anthology of Islamic hagiography, both historically andgeographically – it is translated from seventeen languages of origin, with thehelp of two dozen Islamic scholars specializing in broad spectrum of languages(pp. xi-xiv) ...

In the last few decades the Western world has witnessed a growing interest in hagiography. Although previously hardly any scholarly status was ascribed to saints’ legends, the value of this genre is now generally recognized as a source for historical and social research. In order to get a clear impression of Islamic saints’ legends one cannot confine oneself exclusively to an analysis of written hagiography. Legends form part a still vivid oral tradition, too. This situation in Morocco is a clear example. The author collected thirty-seven saints’ legends during a 1992 research project in Marrakesh together with the study of the rituals that are still being performed at the shrines. The paper provides an analysis of these legends.

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the Pahlavi “Story of Jōišt ī Friyān”, comparing it with three other tales, which span several hundred years and belong to several cultural traditions. By isolating structural and content-related features from the narrative core of these tales and setting them into relation with each other, the present author attempts to answer the following questions. Are there meaningful parallels between these four tales, which would suggest literary borrowing? And, if there are, would it be possible to identify one of them as the primary source of the others? The study is intended to contribute to our understanding of the process of literary exchange between Zoroastrians and Muslims in early Mediaeval Iran.

This paper examines the religious proselytizing agenda of the order of Saint Jerome that ruled the Extremaduran sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe since 1389. To this end, I analyze how the Hieronymite’s used literary motifs such as dreams and light in the codex of the Miracles of the Virgin of Guadalupe to create a multi-confessional audience for their collection of miracles. I contend that these motifs were chosen because they were key elements in the construction of a particular image of the Virgin that could appeal to pilgrims of different faiths. Through them, the Hieronymites evoked in the minds of Muslim pilgrims and Christian captives beyond the sea the imagery and rhetoric of Sufi devotional literature and Islamic hagiography, in order to create a vision of the Virgin that was able to compete with the more important Islamic devotional figures: the Prophet, Sufi masters and charismatic saints. Finally, I explore how the possible influence of North African devotional models, such as the Shadhiliyya order or the hagiography of the Tunisian saint, Aisha al-Manubiyya, suggests that the aims of the monastic authors of this Marian miracles collection went far beyond the conversion of Castilian Muslims, aiming at the transformation of the Extremaduran Marian sanctuary of Guadalupe into a Mediterranean devotional center.

AbstractDigitized text repositories (such asal-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr,al-Maktaba al-ShāmilaandMaktabat Ahl al-Bayt) open new horizons in the study of early Islamic history. By employing them it was found that ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd had at least four courts, two in Kūfa and two in Medina, and at least two estates cultivated by sharecroppers, one in Rādhān near Kūfa and another in Saylaḥīn near Qādisiyya. His situation is comparable to that of a member of the pre-Islamic Sassanian landed aristocracy of absentee landlords. He also had three households in three different places. The desire for control and worldly assets is human, and those who lack it never make it to the highest echelons of power. Put differently, hagiography should not be mistaken for historiography. Whether or not Ibn Masʿūd's Rādhān should be linked with the Rādhānite Jewish merchants remains an open question.

The study of historiography has a great contribution to understand the dynamics of lslamic society in the past both cultural and intellectual. The emergence trend of the persona themes and how many works are coming up that should be conceived as an ideological character which places the important position of figure in the Islamic history. The relationship between a work and the cultural dynamics at any time and space reflects their respective historical work which is highly motivated by the cultural interest complexity. The study of persona in the lslamic historiography occupies a strategic position, particularly in strengthening and forming the schools. in the Islamic world, especially in the field of fiqh and Sufism. The study of biographical persona is not only restricted to thabaqat, tarjamah, and ansâb, but also to the study of persona that leads to the formation of hagiography (Manaqib), putting someone as a top figure of both intellectual and spiritual in the religious world. The Manaqib Book is a symbol in the schools tie and forms a psychological cohesiveness for the disciples of madzhab.

Abstract Although Islamic law generally identifies all free Muslim males as equal members of society, irrespective of race or ancestry, a peculiar exception is made for those who claim patrilineal descent from the Arab chieftain Hāshim b. ‘Abd Manāf, the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muḥammad. Drawing on hagiography and ḥadīth, Sunni and Shi‘i authors ascribe special nobility, privileges and customs to members of the clan of Hāshim. Jurists also incorporated their adoration of and respect for the Prophet’s family into their views of Islamic law. In particular, since the Prophet Muḥammad was revered as an individual who was pure (ṭāhir, zakī), some jurists held that Hāshimids possessed the same purity. The Prophet’s identities as an Arab and as a Qurashī also conferred certain legal privileges on members of these groups. After noting parallels to other high-status groups in early Muslim society, I examine more than a dozen laws that classical Sunni and Twelver Shi‘i jurists characterized as specific to the Prophet’s progeny and Household (ahl al-bayt).

AbstractThis article examines conversion narratives of some Sufi ascetics by looking closely at their life-stories as expounded in Sufi biographical traditions. How is the ascetic conversion told in the Sufi biographical sources? What kind of purpose do the ascetic conversion narratives serve? In what sense can we see the ascetic practices as an intentional language of protest and opposition? and against whom/what? These questions form the major concern of this article. Different narratives of ascetic conversion will be discussed with the intention of demonstrating the larger context of setting the boundaries of an Islamic piety within which the portrait of idealized pious Muslims is framed in the main traditions of Sufi hagiography. It is, therefore, hoped that this article will shed light on the transformation of individuals from ordinary people to idealized pious Muslims.

<p><em>The Islamic rituals in Indonesia have been studied from several perspectives by many scholars. The rituals are usually performed by using several tools, and the text is most used and read in every ritual. However, the studies do not explain the text used in the rituals comprehensively. Therefore, this paper is meant to describe the roles or functions of the text used in the manaqiban ritual performed by Jamaah Aolia Gunung Kidul Yogyakarta. Using a qualitative method based on participate observations and in-depth interviews, the study finds that an-Nur al-burhani, a Javanese translation of al-Jailani ’s hagiography, is the crucial tool in the ritual. The text is merely a historical book about the miracles of al-Jailani , but it has been sacred and transformed with several functions. First, the text serves as a manual for performing the manaqiban. Second, the text as a sacred mantra must be read in the ritual. Third, the text can serve as a consolation for the participants. Fourth, the text serves as a binder for internal group solidarity. Fifth, the text as a source of educational values.</em></p><p><br /><em>Ritual Islam di Indonesia telah diteliti dari beberapa perspektif oleh para ilmuwan. Biasanya, ritual dilakukan dengan menggunakan beberapa sarana, dan teks adalah sarana yang paling digunakan dan dibaca dalam setiap ritual. Namun demikian, beberapa hasil penelitian tersebut tidak menjelaskan teks yang digunakan dalam ritual secara komprehensif. Oleh karena itu, artikel ini dimaksudkan untuk menggambarkan peran dan fungsi teks dalam ritual manaqiban yang diselenggarakan oleh Jamaah Aolia Gunung Kidul Yogyakarta. Dengan menggunakan pengamatan partisipatif dan wawancara mendalam, penelitian ini menemukan bahwa an-Nur al-burhani, sebuah buku terjemahan berbahasa Jawa dari hagiografi al-Jailani, adalah sarana terpenting dalam ritual. Teks buku ini pada dasarnya hanyalah narasi tentang karamah al-Jailani, namun telah diskralkan sehingga memiliki beberapa fungsi. Pertama, teks sebagai manual dalam pelaksanaan manaqiban. Kedua, teks sebagai sebuah mantra sakral yang harus dibaca dalam ritual. Ketiga, teks dapat berfungsi sebagai hiburan bagi para peserta. Keempat, teks berfungsi sebagai pengikat solidaritas internal. Kelima, teks sebagai sumber nilai pendidikan.</em></p>

"The article aims to approach the theme of the progress of the Turkish brigades into the Byzantine territories, in particular the Mount Athos, during the fourteenth century. It provides a new perspective for this topic. Indeed, it focuses on the hagiographical sources and how they describe the reaction of the Athonite monks in front of this phenomenon. The sources have been set according to a thematic order: 1) cases of escape from the Holy Mountain after the Turkish raids; 2) reports of or from captivity; 3) the consequences of the Turkish progress into the Asiatic and Western provinces of the Byzantine Empire; 4) the psychological impact on the monastic communities of Athos, and finally 5) the relationship between Athonite monks and Islamic communities in the Holy Land as favorite pilgrimage destination. The perception of the violence of the Turkish troops forces the Athonite communities to a general reconsideration of lifestyle and of ascetical practices. Moreover, it indirectly causes the propagation of the hesychast lifestyle out of the borders of the Holy Mountain during the late Byzantine period. Out of fear for the Islamic enemies the hagiographers take the opportunity to praise the ethical qualities of their monastic champions. On the other hand, in these sources they do not deal with Islamic morals; the violence of the enemies is the unique theme they consider as a priori distinguished feature of Muhammed’s followers. Keywords: Mount Athos, Byzantine monasticism, hesychasm, fourteenth century, Byzantine hagiography, Turkish conquest, Christian–Muslim relations, Kallistos I, Gregory Palamas, Philotheos Kokkinos "

AbstractThe concern to acquaint the Muslims of India with the earliest history of Islam, and to help them become better Muslims, has characterised the Nadwat alUlamā's historical scholarship since its inception in 1894. This paper concentrates on a monumental study of the life and achievement of the Prophet, the Sīrat al-Nabī, (7 vols., 1918-1980), produced by two distinguished scholars associated with the Nadwa. Planned as an authoritative presentation of the Prophet Muhammad's life, the Sīrat al-Nabī sought to answer Western scholarly criticisms on the Prophet, and remove all religious doubts perceived as having an unsettling effect on Muslims in British India. A clearly reformist concern, viz. to invigorate the Muslims' religious identity by reaffirming their link with their sacred history, guided the conception and execution of the project. Although there initially was a conspicuous concern to maintain high standards of critical historiography, it was gradually nudged out by the reformist outlook. By the time the Siyar-i Sahāba series was initiated in the 1930s-with the purpose of showing how the Prophet's life and conduct shaped those of his Companions, who in their own right could thus serve as moral guides-virtually all pretensions to critical historiography had manifestly been abandoned. Historiography had given way, the more glaringly in the Siyar-i Sahāba, to hagiography. For all its methodological and other deficiencies, however, the Sīra historiography of the Nadwa is of importance for two main reasons: it has served as a vehicle for the expression of reformist concerns, a way of responding to the dilemmas which the authors of these works perceived as confronting Indian Muslims; and it has been a medium through which a continuing effort has been made to acquaint Muslims with their sacred past, and with Islam itself.

AbstractThe prophetic encomia—panegyrics dedicated to the prophet Muhammad—are one of the most often recited forms of Arabic poetry up to today and are grounded in a cultural milieu where hagiography, competitive circulation of narrative and counter-narratives, rituals and esoteric practices, and educational institutions have a role in its formation. The unifying of the classical erotic poetic with the postclassical devotional created out of the encomium a vehicle that encapsulated palpable memory, nostalgia, and aspirational ideal for a greater past and beloved subject and successfully left a lasting cultural imprint. Against a general disregard for the postclassical tradition as one of decadence argued by Arab modernists, I join the ongoing effort to debunk the myth of premodern decadence as interrogated by Muhsin al-Musawi’s two-part article “The Republic of Letters: Arab Modernity?” by considering the role of the postclassical prophetic encomia’s amatory prelude—a convention from the classical Arabic ode—as a site of continuity and innovation. Within specifically the famousQaṣīdat al-Burdah(trans.The Mantle Ode) by Muhammad ibn Sa'īd al-Būsīrī (d. 693/1294) and thebadī’iyyātmodeled after theBurdahin meter and rhyme initiated by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī (d. 750/1349), the prelude takes a significant poetic turn replacing the classical abandoned desert campsites of the Arabic ode with the city of Madīnah. Operating as a unifying repository of the medieval Islamic Republic of Letters, the amatory prelude continued to perform its classical function as a liminal space but innovatively transformed that space for the reading/listening public as a collective reimagining of the Beloved as Muhammad and the abandoned desert campsite as the City of the Prophet outside of the discursive borders of the imperial.

This paper aims to discuss the development of institutionalization of Sayyid Genealogy, Hadrami’s diaspora, and its expanding network process in Indonesia contemporary Sufism. During last three decades, the Hadrami has been embarking on occupying the Islamic public by establishing majelis shalawat and organizing “shalawat bersama”. This research was conducted towards Ahbabul Musthofa’s Majelis Shalawat in Solo, Central Java. Shalawat Bersama which is introduced through the recitation of prophetic hagiography and rihlah as the way to express love and, following Bourdieu’s view-as a rite to institutionalize the exclusivity of sayyid genealogy. The establishment of this Sufism religious-esthetic ethos is enabled by the economical-political historical situation of their indigenization in Indonesia. This ethnographic research showed that within the emergence of capitalism and democratic state context, Shalawat Bersama and Majelis Shalawat that thrive in the regions are not only using the media industry (audio-visual), but also—to assume—using modern marketing logic. This logic of majelis development is concepted as a “religious franchise” which means a religious movement which is based on a marketing logic through the branches established in the regions in order to promote and create direct certain religious practices supported by certain standards, especially the reference of sufistic piety and its particular performativity.Â

Between the years 850 and 859 forty-eight Christians were decapitated for offences against Islam in Córdoba, the capital of the Islamic Umayyad dynasty in Al-Andalus, Spain (756–1031). The majority of those executed had deliberately instigated their own deaths by making derogatory comments about the Prophet Muhammad, a known capital offence. The calculated nature of their behaviour, in action against rulers considered by their contemporaries to be fellow monotheists, and without the supernatural support of widely accepted miracles, strained the already fractured Christian community. While the Córdoban bishop and the metropolitan of Seville worked closely with the emirs to stop the would-be martyrs, Eulogius, a Córdoban priest and bishop-elect of Toledo, and his friend Paul Alvar composed martyrologies and apologies for the group. Written for prisoners preparing for martyrdom and for circulation amongst the religious communities surrounding the city, the works allow insight into a movement of martyrs composed of men and women, lay and religious, with Christian and non-Christian backgrounds. The works of Eulogius and Alvar reflect an intense preoccupation with public behaviour as an expression of identity in a religiously diverse society. This emphasis on the bodies of Muslims, Christians and martyrs in both hagiography and act draws attention to the movement’s motives by highlighting its relationship with the strictly ascetic monastic communities of Córdoba, where monks and nuns used their own bodies as means of preserving and articulating Christian culture in early medieval Spain.

Stylites (esṭūnōrē) represented a major form of eremitism in late antique and early Islamic Syria and Mesopotamia. As archetypes of the Holy Man described by Peter Brown, they were in close contact with rural populations (pagani) and therefore promoted the Christianization of such marginal, non-civic spaces. In doing so, they quickly became authorities competing with urban bishoprics. Many Syriac sources (such as synodical canons) attest to preaching, teaching, arbitration, judgments, and even administrative sentences carried out by these ascetics on columns for faithful crowds (ʿamē) in villages. Consequently, the churches, and especially the Syrian Orthodox Church, tried to use them for local anchorage during the seventh and eighth centuries while, at the same time, seeking to integrate them into stable and enclosed monastic structures. These solitary monks also fascinated Arab populations since St. Simeon both invented this asceticism and converted local Bedouins. Indeed, the Muslim tradition contains important evidence of the influence exerted by the so-called ahl alṣawāmiʿ on Muslims. In this article I demonstrate that during the first two centuries of the hijra, the concept of ṣawmaʿ(a) exactly matches the Syriac understanding of esṭūnō as a retreat on top of a high construction, whether a square tower or a proper column. I rely on poetry, early lexicography, bilingual hagiography and historiography, and especially the Syriac and Arabic versions of Abū Bakr’s waṣiyya, which expressly refers to these monks. I then show how the developing Islamic authorities tried to divert Arab Muslims from these initially privileged and valued figures. To this end, they used the same kinds of arguments as did the canonical anathemas against stylites, who were also often seen as competitors and threats by the official ecclesiasticalauthorities. Scholars of ḥadīṯ, fiqh, and tafsīr developed their own rhetoric, distinguishing, for instance, between good stylites and bad “tonsured” ones, while jurists gradually restricted their initial tax privileges. Finally, the latter, at the end of the second/eighth century, they required Muslims to completely avoid them, completing the process of excommunicating both Christianity and its most revered figure.

This article seeks to reveal the religious experiences of the members of the Tarekat Qadiriyah wa Naqsyabandiyah (TQN) in Suryalaya, Tasikmalaya, West Java. Using a phenomenological approach, this article finds that TQN followers exhibit religious awareness and obedience to legal norms, reflected in various ritual practices, such as dhikr (remembrance), khataman (completing the reading of the Qur’ān), manakiban (reciting the saint’s hagiography), riyāḍah (spiritual exercises), tawassul (mediating), and ḥajj (pilgrimage). The religious awareness is built upon the belief in achieving good morality as the attribute of a perfect man (insān kāmil). The socio-structural diversity of the TQN community in social life is manifested in the complexity of hierarchies involved in the tarekat system: murshid (spiritual leader); representatives of talqīn which include intellectuals/modernist, ulama/ traditionalist, scholar/neo-traditionalist; preachers from the realms of pesantren, university, and politics. This article argues that the relationship between different hierarchies of membership in the TQN with regard to religious awareness is based on the understanding of the tarekat teaching provided by the spiritual leader.

Abstract The article deals with a potential source and the subsequent borrowing of the motif of the self-destruction of the pagan idols. This motif is common in Eastern Christian apocrypha and hagiographic tales and also in the Arab Islamic tradition. In Muslim historiography, among stories about the destiny of ancient Arabian images, such a motif is found only twice. Both legends are connected with pre-Islanic Ḥaḍramawt, the autonomous region in Yemen. One legend deals with the idol called al-Djalsad, an object of veneration mostly by a tribe of al-Sakūn. It was represented in the shape of a white anthropomorphic rock with a black head. The other tale narrates about the domestic statue made of cornelian that belonged to the local notable Wā’il b. Ḥudjr. The subject of the spontaneous fall of idols appears to reflect a rivalry, especially in the spiritual sphere, between the tribal confederation al-Sakūn and the descendants of the indigenous sedentary population of Ḥaḍramawt. Their struggle for power in the early Islamic empire manifested in the most apparent way in Egypt, where they could borrow the motif of idols’ self-destruction from the Copts. Thus, in Chapter LXXIX of the Chronicle by John of Nikiu compiled in the late 7th–early 8th century AD obviously in Greek a tale about the childhood of St Theophilus, the Coptic Patriarch in AD 385–412, is preserved. According to it, in his presence, the statues of Artemis and Apollo became overthrown in a shrine situated in the district of Memphis.

The article is devoted to the reflection of the theme of dreams in Sufi writings, mainly manakibs (Lives of Saints), relating to the Middle-Age Transoxiana. Sufism is the earliest form of the spread of the Islamic faith in the world. Sufism has absorbed both some elements of the Qur'anic teachings, and many popular beliefs associated with the belief in supernatural forces. Sufis are people who dedicated their lives to the knowledge of God through various spiritual practices, one of which is, for example, the interpretation of dreams. In these dreams there are various images that are interpreted as flukes of providence, for example, appearing Saint Khidr (or Khoja Khizr) in a dream, who is considered as absolute authority and patron of the Sufis, and who is the bearer of the moral principle; he supports and guides people on the path of virtue. On the opposite side there is the genies community, which is “hostile” towards the Sufi community. Moreover, many Sufi authorities interpreted their presence in dreams or in reality as “good” or “bad” omens. Constant presence of such theme in Muslim hagiographic writings reflects the complex and specific worldview of Sufism. Some historical and Muslim hagiographic works (manakibs) of the late Medieval Transoxiana became the source base of our work. They contain numerous hagiographic episodes that tell us of such unusual phenomena in the life of Sufis. The subject of this article is the study of the dreaming spiritual practice of the Sufis. The purpose of the research is to study the phenomenon of dreams and its significance in Sufism, to consider the place and meaning of such an important hagiographic character as Khoja Khizra and such creatures as jinn in the Sufi’s worldview. The novelty of this work lies in the introduction of new information contained in the Lives of Muslim Saints of Transoxiana in the 16th century.

In this article, the first fruit of an ongoing research on the sociocultural history of midwifery in medieval Muslim societies, I trace the attitudes toward midwives as revealed in Arabic biographical, medical, and legal texts. These texts, the product of male scholars, mirror an ambivalent attitude toward midwives: a mixture of repressed admiration, open repulsion, and fear. Thus, midwives are almost totally absent from Islamic scriptures, and Muslim writers make them play only a minor role in biographical and hagiographic literature, where the midwives of the Prophet's family are consciously or unconsciously “blocked” from becoming mythological figures. Women, sometimes hesitatingly identified as midwives, nevertheless played a role through their very presence at the moment of the Prophet's birth. In a storylike manner, they set an example for the implication of the legal rules concerning the midwife's exceptional status as a witness in court, rules that were formulated and consolidated in the formative period of Islamic law side by side with the traditions on the Prophet Muhammad's birth.

The critical task of textualization of Sufi practices in the 10-13 centuries was legitimization and establishing Sufism within the framework of "orthodox" Islam. That is why the authors of this period strive to present Sufism as an authoritative "science," which uses other Muslim sciences' methods and techniques. Another important aspect of legitimizing the Sufi movement was creating its pious history, which traces the roots of Sufi teachings back to the Prophet Muhammad's time. The authors of Sufi bio- and hagiographic works of this period constructed the history of Sufism that involved the early Islamic renunciants and representatives of the local mystic-ascetical movements that Sufism encountered after spreading its influence outside Baghdad. One of those movements was the "Path of Blame" (malāmatiyya) representatives, which was initially one of Sufism's regional competitors. However, as the 10-13 century sources demonstrated, its representatives, ideas, and practices were actively incorporated into the "Sufi science." They became part of the history of Islamic piety constructed by the Sufi authors.

Hagiographic sources from nineteenth-century Inner Russia and Khvārazm indicate the existence of a cluster of Muslims opposed to the state-supported Islamic institutions of the Russian Empire. Many Muslim scholars of the period did not accord the Volga-Ural region the status of an ‘abode of Islam,’ as they considered it to be a ‘land of ignorance.’ This paper examines the significance attached by Muslims of Inner Russia to the pious rhetoric of resettlement from a ‘land of ignorance’ to the ‘abode of Islam’. I argue that the opposition to the already well-established imperial structures in the Volga-Urals resulted in the formation of a powerful migrant community near Urgench, Khvārazm, that used the Naqshbandiya-Mojaddediya Sufi networks as a stable bridge to home.

One of the central linages in Turkish Sufism was the Ottoman promoted Bektashi Order, closely connected to the Janissary corps. Nowadays the tradition is often labeled as a ‘popular Sufism’, without any discussion of what that concept means and the contradictions between folk religion and Sufism in general. This article concerns the question of what constitutes popular Sufism and how it is expressed within the Bektashi tradition. The first part analyzes the trends and religio-sociological components of Sufism and folk culture in the early Bektashi hagiographic text, Velayetname, and in the younger Bektashi textbook, Makalat. The second part consists of a discussion of what Sufi components the modern Albanian Bektashi Order has preserved and to what extent this Order still is a Sufi order and not just an Islamic folk religion

Abstract: Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038) and Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066) are mostly considered early representatives of Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa literature. As a consequence the genre itself has often been viewed as a subgenre of sīra literature, which bears stylistic, structural and methodological implications, and affects its reputation as popular hagiographic rather than scholarly literature. These implications may be partially valid for Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa works in the time period of Abū Nuʿaym and al-Bayhaqī but not for earlier works that have not been systematically studied so far. In this article, I examine early authorship in Dalāʾil al-Nubūwa literature by identifying numerous works that significantly predate Abū Nuʿaym and al-Bayhaqī. I argue that this literature constituted a continuous tradition from the mid-2nd/8th century onward and that it originated in circles of well-respected ḥadīth scholars who upheld their field’s methodological processes of authentication. Around the second half of the 4th/10th century, authorship shifted toward less acclaimed scholars of ḥadīth or other intellectual fields. Along with this shift came stylistic, structural and methodological changes that have led to the common classification of these works as a subgenre of sīra literature.

This article examines the subversion of the hagiographic genre in a biographical play from the seventeenth century about the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, written in Spain. In this essay I argue that the contradiction of using a theatrical genre intended to emphasize the holiness of Christian characters in a play about Muhammad unveils the historical tensions and anxieties of Spain’s Muslim past. The disparity between form and content reveals the unconscious political aspect of the play and illustrates why it can be read from two opposite perspectives regarding the Islamic leader. Departing from Caroline Levine’s use of the term ‘affordance’, and drawing on Fredric Jameson’s concept of the political unconscious, I posit that Vida y muerte del falso Profeta Mahoma (1642) is more a reflection on Spain’s hybrid and ambivalent religious culture than a dramatization of Muhammad’s life.

AbstractRecent studies of Islamic mysticism have unearthed and developed the central role of "imagination" in Sufism and mystical philosophy. This has been done in conscious contrast to the perceived "degradation of the image" in Western thought. Imagination is said to be both a cosmological and a noetic realm in the midst of a hierarchy of universes that mark, at the same time, different stations on the initiatory path of human beings on their way to God. Into these well laid-out plans of worlds and images, my paper introduces a component that is found very rarely in these studies and occurs, rather, in Islamic hagiographic texts about the lives of Saints or the "Friends of God" (awliya'). This component is the motive of "following," or obedience to the Prophet (sequela prophetae). In one particular account of a meeting of two "Friends of God," reference is made to the incapacity of imagination to contain—i.e. to imagine—one of them. The remedy for this incapacity is, strangely enough, expressed by a word (imtathala) which itself contains the element of imagination and means "obedience." The sequela prophetae appears, thus, not as an addition to imagination, something like its guide, but as a way of imagining that is unthought.

In Antioch and its hinterland during late antiquity, Christian leaders frequently attacked baths and the activities that took place within them. Despite efforts to anathematize their use and to discourage their construction, baths remained important social and civic fixtures in both large cities and in semi-rural settlements continuously into the Islamic period. This survival, documented in archaeological and literary sources, offers a means to trace divergent attitudes towards their roles against their changing physical forms. Baths could be understood as places of luxury, yet also in early Christian perspectives understood by the evils produced by their excesses, while their construction could commemorate local civic patronage. Yet it is the notion of bathing as a means to promote hygiene and healing that survived to become dominant, adopted as the primary feature of baths in hagiographic texts in the fifth and sixth centuries, and further echoed in the physical transition into new smaller, more austere forms.

This paper focuses on Sufi attitudes towards Jews and Christians in Late Ayyubid and Early Mamluk Egypt, as reflected in hagiographic literature of the time. This will shed further light on interfaith relations in a society where Jews and Christians lived under Islamic rule in the condition of ahl al-dhimma (lit. “protected people”), implying an overall condition of social and juridical inferiority. With this in mind, works by four prominent Sufi authors have been analyzed: al-Risāla by Shaykh Ṣafī l-Dīn ibn Abī l-Manṣūr (d. 1283), al-Kitāb al-waḥīd by Shaykh Ibn Nūḥ al-Qūṣī (d. 1308), Laṭāʾif al-minan by Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī (d. 1309), Durrat al-asrār by Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh (fl. 1320s). This first survey shows a wide variety of attitudes towards Jews and Christians, ranging from interreligious violence to dialogue for converting and also to mutual respect, while adhering to the principles of dhimma and maintaining hierarchical relationships between Islam and other religions.

The present article analyses the Ashab al-Kahf tale and sites in Turkey and my analyses intersects the diciplines of the History of Religions and Religious Anthropology. The tale is a shared hagiographic tradition amongst Christians and Muslims which is widespread in many countries. The primordial Christian tale of Seven Sleepers which arose in the mid 5th century CE Asia Minor, flowed later into Islamic religion (Koran, sura al-Kahf: 9-26) but with some relevant differences. It is based on a historical episode occurred in the city of Ephesus during the reign of the Roman emperor Decius (mid 3rd century CE). Seven young Ephesians refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods according to the Decian edict, because of their Christian faith. To avoid the persecution, they escaped in a cave on the mountain Penayir Daghi. According to the Christian tale about two hundred years later God resuscitated them during the kingdom of Teodosius II. This miracle confirms the doctrine of the resurrection and the victory of monotheism upon idolatry. Beyond the Ephesian site which pertains to the Christian lore, we find three other existent caves concerning Ashab al- Kahf, the Islamic tale in Turkey. The ziyaret (visits) to Tarsus, Afşin and Lice caves highlight the Turkish Muslims’ popular religiosity since the Eshab i-Kehf sites encompass a variety of devotional rituals and traditions. Keywords: Seven Sleepers, Ashab al-Kahf, Sura XVIII, Afşin, Tarsus, Lice Caves.

Matthew Pierce’s first book, Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shi‘ism, is a unique scholarly work about Ithnā Ash‘arī Shī‘ism and the development of communal identity. His main argument in this book is that the Shi‘a religious identity was shaped over time based on collective social memory and specific biographical depictions of spiritual leadership centered on the sacredness of the Prophet Muhammad and his family, the ahl al-bayt. While much scholarship on Shi‘ism is centered on the topics of succession, theological doctrines, or the specific rituals of ‘Ashura, Pierce focuses instead on how love and devotion towards the imams and the ahl al-bayt developed. His scholarly inquiry was piqued by his experience in the shrine city of Qum, Iran, where he was a resident and scholar of an inter-faith dialogue program from 2003-2006. There he observed firsthand the personal devotional lives of Twelver Shi‘as who cultivate personal connections and relationship with the imams through devotional ritual, seeking intercession, pilgrimages to shrines, mourning their suffering, and seeking their guidance. In Twelve Infallible Men this system of piety and devotion is traced to five early biographical figures. His primary source material was biographical works, in particular the five collective biographies of the imams written between 943-1150 CE: The Establishment of the Inheritance (Ithbāt al-waṣiya), attributed to al-Masʿūdī; Proofs of the Imamate (Dalāʾil al-imāma), attributed to Ibn Jarīr; The Book of Guidance (Kitāb al-irshād), by al-Mufīd; Informing Humanity (Iʿlām alwara), by al-Ṭabrīsī; and Virtues of the Descendants of Abū Ṭālib (Manāqib Āl Abī Ṭālib), by Ibn Shahrashub. Through his thematic and comparative analysis of these five sources Pierce traces the origin of communal remembrance and the Shi‘i system of piety utilizing the methodology of collective 57 memory studies. Throughout his text he notes broader religious rhetorical trends related to the geographic area and time period, such as the martyrdom narrative in early Christianity and the influence of miraculous stories to confirm saintly status, amongst others. In this way, Pierce situates the Shi‘i narrative within a wider milieu that speaks to sociological developments and broader religious experiences. The selected texts were all produced during the ‘Abbasid reign that was established by utilizing the legitimacy of ahl al-bayt as the source of proper Islamic leadership in their overthrow of the Umayyad regime. The ‘Abbasid era saw the development and emergence of Shi‘i scholarship and identity. Pierce could perhaps have given more historical context and analysis of anti-‘Alid sentiment (such as the institutionalized cursing of ‘Ali) during the Umayyad regime, as part of the development of sympathy and sorrow for the family of the Prophet. But one aspect of the Shi‘i narrative that Pierce analyzes in great depth throughout his work is the shared memory of suffering, primarily as demonstrated by the martyrdom of and the centrality of sorrow for the ahl al-bayt. In his analysis of narrative patterns and recurring symbols he is interested in revealing the needs of the believing community and what made these particular stories meaningful to them. The book is organized into five chapters. Crucial to this work is Pierce’s clarification of Sunni-Shi‘a disputes and the fluidity of how these identities developed and eventually solidified over time. He notes how this time period saw a variety of theological and jurisprudential debates, and the central aspects of what formalized into a Shi‘a identity, ritual, and concepts. The writings Pierce examines emerged during a period where Arabic literature was first taking shape and therefore demonstrate a process within the Islamic community at large of articulating specific narratives. The first chapter describes the canonization of the Twelve Infallibles. Pierce purposefully does not engage the polemics of the time, although these may have provided means to understand another facet of how the selected authors chose to craft their narrative. But he analyzes how the biographies of the imams became standardized over time—for example, how martyrdom was attributed to all of the imams after Mufīd’s writings and how Mufīd in particular set the standard for these narratives contributing to a coherent Shi‘a community with clear boundaries. In the second chapter Pierce explores the collective biographies’ central concern, namely the deaths of the Imams. Their tragic martyrdom becomes a theme in this genre of writing where suffering and grief comprise the proper Shi‘a response. Notably, Pierce also sheds light on the role of martyrdom in minority spiritual groups in the Near East. In this chapter Pierce also begins his gendered analysis, which is a highlight throughout the work, bringing in the tropes of the treacherous wife and the vulnerable bodies of the imams. These characterizations make the earlier narratives circulated, especially in Mufid’s writing, now unthinkable. Furthermore, emotional performances of grief and weeping emerge as demonstrations of piety, as well as being associated with political rebellion. Pierce explores how this emotional performance was in distinct contrast to the proto-Sunni traditionalists’ emphasis on controlling grief. The third chapter revolves around the themes of suffering and betrayal that permeate the biographies. Pierce investigates the arc of sacred history for Shi‘is as evidenced by their afflictions and the denial of their rights, which feature as central literary motifs in these primary sources, along with the symbols of suffering and outsiders. He discusses how the imams emerge as a distinctive type, as too do their betrayers. This chapter also features important events in Shi‘i history: the events of Ghadir and the martyrdom of Husayn in Karbala, a pivotal story in the Shi‘a community, but one that did not take central stage until later in these collective biographies. Love and devotion to the ahl al-bayt become salvific mechanisms that draw upon performances of mourning. Pierce also explores how religious ritual developed along with the narratives in the biographies. He continues his exploration of gender tropes where the female body is the site of mistrust and fear, specifically in the example of ‘A’isha. A central point of his book, elaborated in this chapter, is how the boundaries of the community were conceptually paired with the imams’ bodies. The fourth chapter is a systematic exploration of masculinity as revealed through the imams’ vulnerable bodies and the idealization of male performance. Pierce describes how masculine ideals as envisioned by the biographers comprise the concepts of virtue, manliness, and group loyalty. He explores how the narratives describe the physical appearance, miraculous achievements, and heroics of the imams. The importance of maleheirs, courage, strength, and skill in weaponry are all gendered themes of the imams as characterized in the biographies. Pierce analyzes how these qualities render claims of their legitimacy as leaders, observing how their portrayals also exemplify refinement and self-control. With the exposition of miraculous knowledge and actions, Pierce describes how the imams find victory in the spiritual realms while having experienced loss in the physical world. This chapter also features an important discussion of Fatima in the collective biographies and a fascinating and unique description of her pious female embodied performance sanitized of all female bodily imperfections (most specifically, blood). This last part of chapter four leads into the final chapter, which explores birth narratives in the collective biographies. These narratives form a unique center around which Shi‘is could celebrate and demonstrate communal devotion; it also established a divine ordainment through the transmission of prophetic light to the imams. Pierce explains that a unique aspect of Shi‘i hagiography is how the biographers labor to establish the imams’ mothers’ purity and chastity. His analysis of the sanitized bodies and bodily functions of these mothers is of particular interest. Part of the unique function of the imam is the transmission of his leadership to his successor and is revealed in the way in which the imams occlude the mothers in nurturing and caring for their newborn. These birth narratives underscore the Shi‘i claims of divinely appointed and rightful spiritual leaders, giving evidence to the community of believers that the imams were clearly designated from birth. Pierce effectively explores the Shi‘i community of memory and how these biographers established communal boundaries. His exploration of these primary sources with attention to literary analysis and genre specific themes and symbols is distinctive, and brings a different perspective into Islamic studies. Pierce’s analysis of gender ideals is also elucidating and could be explored more deeply in future work. It is also worth noting that within the body of the text, he predominantly references women scholars in his and related fields. Pierce successfully establishes the case for the crafting and defining of socio-religious Shi‘i identity via biographical texts whose key themes include loyalty, mourning, and justice for rightful heirs who were pure, ideal, and miraculous men. Nicole Correri, M.Ed., M.A.Hartford Seminary

Matthew Pierce’s first book, Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shi‘ism, is a unique scholarly work about Ithnā Ash‘arī Shī‘ism and the development of communal identity. His main argument in this book is that the Shi‘a religious identity was shaped over time based on collective social memory and specific biographical depictions of spiritual leadership centered on the sacredness of the Prophet Muhammad and his family, the ahl al-bayt. While much scholarship on Shi‘ism is centered on the topics of succession, theological doctrines, or the specific rituals of ‘Ashura, Pierce focuses instead on how love and devotion towards the imams and the ahl al-bayt developed. His scholarly inquiry was piqued by his experience in the shrine city of Qum, Iran, where he was a resident and scholar of an inter-faith dialogue program from 2003-2006. There he observed firsthand the personal devotional lives of Twelver Shi‘as who cultivate personal connections and relationship with the imams through devotional ritual, seeking intercession, pilgrimages to shrines, mourning their suffering, and seeking their guidance. In Twelve Infallible Men this system of piety and devotion is traced to five early biographical figures. His primary source material was biographical works, in particular the five collective biographies of the imams written between 943-1150 CE: The Establishment of the Inheritance (Ithbāt al-waṣiya), attributed to al-Masʿūdī; Proofs of the Imamate (Dalāʾil al-imāma), attributed to Ibn Jarīr; The Book of Guidance (Kitāb al-irshād), by al-Mufīd; Informing Humanity (Iʿlām alwara), by al-Ṭabrīsī; and Virtues of the Descendants of Abū Ṭālib (Manāqib Āl Abī Ṭālib), by Ibn Shahrashub. Through his thematic and comparative analysis of these five sources Pierce traces the origin of communal remembrance and the Shi‘i system of piety utilizing the methodology of collective 57 memory studies. Throughout his text he notes broader religious rhetorical trends related to the geographic area and time period, such as the martyrdom narrative in early Christianity and the influence of miraculous stories to confirm saintly status, amongst others. In this way, Pierce situates the Shi‘i narrative within a wider milieu that speaks to sociological developments and broader religious experiences. The selected texts were all produced during the ‘Abbasid reign that was established by utilizing the legitimacy of ahl al-bayt as the source of proper Islamic leadership in their overthrow of the Umayyad regime. The ‘Abbasid era saw the development and emergence of Shi‘i scholarship and identity. Pierce could perhaps have given more historical context and analysis of anti-‘Alid sentiment (such as the institutionalized cursing of ‘Ali) during the Umayyad regime, as part of the development of sympathy and sorrow for the family of the Prophet. But one aspect of the Shi‘i narrative that Pierce analyzes in great depth throughout his work is the shared memory of suffering, primarily as demonstrated by the martyrdom of and the centrality of sorrow for the ahl al-bayt. In his analysis of narrative patterns and recurring symbols he is interested in revealing the needs of the believing community and what made these particular stories meaningful to them. The book is organized into five chapters. Crucial to this work is Pierce’s clarification of Sunni-Shi‘a disputes and the fluidity of how these identities developed and eventually solidified over time. He notes how this time period saw a variety of theological and jurisprudential debates, and the central aspects of what formalized into a Shi‘a identity, ritual, and concepts. The writings Pierce examines emerged during a period where Arabic literature was first taking shape and therefore demonstrate a process within the Islamic community at large of articulating specific narratives. The first chapter describes the canonization of the Twelve Infallibles. Pierce purposefully does not engage the polemics of the time, although these may have provided means to understand another facet of how the selected authors chose to craft their narrative. But he analyzes how the biographies of the imams became standardized over time—for example, how martyrdom was attributed to all of the imams after Mufīd’s writings and how Mufīd in particular set the standard for these narratives contributing to a coherent Shi‘a community with clear boundaries. In the second chapter Pierce explores the collective biographies’ central concern, namely the deaths of the Imams. Their tragic martyrdom becomes a theme in this genre of writing where suffering and grief comprise the proper Shi‘a response. Notably, Pierce also sheds light on the role of martyrdom in minority spiritual groups in the Near East. In this chapter Pierce also begins his gendered analysis, which is a highlight throughout the work, bringing in the tropes of the treacherous wife and the vulnerable bodies of the imams. These characterizations make the earlier narratives circulated, especially in Mufid’s writing, now unthinkable. Furthermore, emotional performances of grief and weeping emerge as demonstrations of piety, as well as being associated with political rebellion. Pierce explores how this emotional performance was in distinct contrast to the proto-Sunni traditionalists’ emphasis on controlling grief. The third chapter revolves around the themes of suffering and betrayal that permeate the biographies. Pierce investigates the arc of sacred history for Shi‘is as evidenced by their afflictions and the denial of their rights, which feature as central literary motifs in these primary sources, along with the symbols of suffering and outsiders. He discusses how the imams emerge as a distinctive type, as too do their betrayers. This chapter also features important events in Shi‘i history: the events of Ghadir and the martyrdom of Husayn in Karbala, a pivotal story in the Shi‘a community, but one that did not take central stage until later in these collective biographies. Love and devotion to the ahl al-bayt become salvific mechanisms that draw upon performances of mourning. Pierce also explores how religious ritual developed along with the narratives in the biographies. He continues his exploration of gender tropes where the female body is the site of mistrust and fear, specifically in the example of ‘A’isha. A central point of his book, elaborated in this chapter, is how the boundaries of the community were conceptually paired with the imams’ bodies. The fourth chapter is a systematic exploration of masculinity as revealed through the imams’ vulnerable bodies and the idealization of male performance. Pierce describes how masculine ideals as envisioned by the biographers comprise the concepts of virtue, manliness, and group loyalty. He explores how the narratives describe the physical appearance, miraculous achievements, and heroics of the imams. The importance of maleheirs, courage, strength, and skill in weaponry are all gendered themes of the imams as characterized in the biographies. Pierce analyzes how these qualities render claims of their legitimacy as leaders, observing how their portrayals also exemplify refinement and self-control. With the exposition of miraculous knowledge and actions, Pierce describes how the imams find victory in the spiritual realms while having experienced loss in the physical world. This chapter also features an important discussion of Fatima in the collective biographies and a fascinating and unique description of her pious female embodied performance sanitized of all female bodily imperfections (most specifically, blood). This last part of chapter four leads into the final chapter, which explores birth narratives in the collective biographies. These narratives form a unique center around which Shi‘is could celebrate and demonstrate communal devotion; it also established a divine ordainment through the transmission of prophetic light to the imams. Pierce explains that a unique aspect of Shi‘i hagiography is how the biographers labor to establish the imams’ mothers’ purity and chastity. His analysis of the sanitized bodies and bodily functions of these mothers is of particular interest. Part of the unique function of the imam is the transmission of his leadership to his successor and is revealed in the way in which the imams occlude the mothers in nurturing and caring for their newborn. These birth narratives underscore the Shi‘i claims of divinely appointed and rightful spiritual leaders, giving evidence to the community of believers that the imams were clearly designated from birth. Pierce effectively explores the Shi‘i community of memory and how these biographers established communal boundaries. His exploration of these primary sources with attention to literary analysis and genre specific themes and symbols is distinctive, and brings a different perspective into Islamic studies. Pierce’s analysis of gender ideals is also elucidating and could be explored more deeply in future work. It is also worth noting that within the body of the text, he predominantly references women scholars in his and related fields. Pierce successfully establishes the case for the crafting and defining of socio-religious Shi‘i identity via biographical texts whose key themes include loyalty, mourning, and justice for rightful heirs who were pure, ideal, and miraculous men. Nicole Correri, M.Ed., M.A.Hartford Seminary

Abstract Although most accounts of Christian encounters with Muslims in the period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries pay particular attention to conflict and violence, a body of hagiographical texts emanating from monastic circles points to a different kind of approach. In this article I foreground three examples of Italo-Greek saints’ lives from the tenth and early eleventh centuries in which the saints in question treat Muslims whom they encounter as potential converts, and explain to them the tenets of Christian theology. These texts are examined as precursors of the Cluniac ‘dossier’ compiled about Abbot Maiolus's encounter with Muslims in the 990s. Two of the three saints’ lives were translated from Greek into Latin, one in the late eleventh, the other in the late twelfth century. The motives for and circumstances of these translations are discussed in light of growing hostility towards the Islamic world during the period of the crusades.

AbstractThis contribution investigates perceptions of Arab nomads in the hagiography of the Late Antique East. Over the past decades, these texts, mostly saints’ lives and episodes from church histories, have often been used to provide social and cultural historians with information on the ethnography, geography, customs and manners of those labelled “Saracens” or “Ishmaelites” in the texts. However, the historicity of the narratives is difficult to assess, and a closer inspection reveals that most of the motifs used in Late Antiquity revert to older models from Classical Antiquity. The article therefore focuses on specific aspects, such as how the writers depicted the Arabs’ manners and customs as contrasting with their own societies and constructed a dichotomy between the civilisation and the animal-like ferocity of the former. It becomes clear that Christian authors used the depiction of the Arabs’ seemingly deviant lifestyle in order to both reassure their readership and excite its curiosity. The display of God’s omnipotence in a large number of the texts discussed here offered a chance to demonstrate that Christian saints could eventually convert such people, or, when conversion was not possible, could still hope for very potent miracles.

The article is devoted to prevalence of axiological approaches in all areas of research. At first, axiology was a subject of philosophical study and evaluation. Our research indicates that it later studied in a variety of different disciplines, including physics, chemistry, sociology, linguistics, and literature. Additionally, it is crucial to carefully address topics like linguoaxiological methodologies, synchronic and diachronic features of axiology, and their adherence to the national culture and values when analyzing translations of hagiographic literature. The axiological approach to the study of hagiographic literature in translation studies degree of alternativeness in the context in the target language of the words of national culture, religion, Islamic morality etc.

Abstract:This article follows the transmutations of narratives, material structures and rituals focused on Mashhad Ḥusayn. It begins with the alleged discovery of the head of the martyred grandson of the Prophet by the Ismāʿīlī Fāṭimids at the end of the eleventh century in Ascalon, spans the millennium and ends with the recent revival of pilgrimage to the site, dominated by tourists affiliated with the Bohra Dāʾūdiyya. It is based on medieval and modern historical, ethnographical and geographical accounts, hagiography, epigraphy, archaeology, travelers’ and pilgrims’ itineraries, state and military archives, maps, photographs and oral accounts. The establishment of the shrine in Ascalon, the transferal of the relic to Cairo and the visitation of the site under the Sunni Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans are studied in their political and religious contexts. The final part of the article explores the development of a Palestinian popular celebration (

Gerd Althoff, „Selig sind, die Verfolgung ausüben“. Päpste und Gewalt im Hochmittelalter. Stuttgart, Konrad Theiss Verlag 2013, 254 S. (Wendelin Knoch: Hattingen, E-Mail: wendelin.knoch@ruhr-uni-bochum.de) Günter Bayerl, Technik in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Stuttgart, Konrad Theiss Verlag GmbH 2013. 199 S. 101 Abb. (Christian Scholl: Münster, E-Mail: christian.scholl@uni-muenster.de) Andrea Beck/Andreas Berndt (Hgg.), Sakralität und Sakralisierung. Perspektiven des Heiligen (Beiträge zur Hagiographie 13). Stuttgart, Franz Steiner 2013. 210 S. (Peter Gemeinhardt: Göttingen, E-Mail: Peter.Gemeinhardt@theologie.uni-goettingen.de) Jochen Bepler/Christian Heitzmann (Hgg.), Der Albani-Psalter. Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung. Hildesheim, Olms 2013. 230 S. (Gia Toussaint: Hamburg, E-Mail: gia.toussaint@uni-hamburg.de) Andreas Bihrer, Begegnungen zwischen dem ostfränkisch-deutschen Reich und England (850–1100). Kontakte – Konstellationen – Funktionalisierungen – Wirkungen (Mittelalter-Forschungen 39). Stuttgart, Thorbecke 2012. 668 S. (Sören Kaschke: Köln, E-Mail: soeren.kaschke@uni-koeln.de) Anna-Maria Blank/Vera Isaiasz/Nadine Lehmann (Hgg.), BILD – MACHT – UnORDNUNG. Visuelle Repräsentationen zwischen Stabilität und Konflikt (Eigene und Fremde Welten 24). Frankfurt am Main, Campus 2011. 317 S. (Anja Rathmann-Lutz: Basel, E-Mail: anja.lutz@unibas.ch) Karl-Heinz Braun, Mathias Herweg, Hans W. Hubert, Joachim Schneider u. Thomas Hotz (Hgg.), Das Konstanzer Konzil. Essays. Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2013. 248 S. 60. (Thomas Woelki: Berlin, E-Mail: woelkith@geschichte.hu-berlin.de) Erhard Brepohl, Theophilus Presbyter und das mittelalterliche Kunsthandwerk. Gesamtausgabe der Schrift ‚De diversis artibus‘ in einem Band, 2. Aufl. Köln/Weimar/Wien, Böhlau 2013. 511 S. (Ingrid Baumgärtner: Kassel, E-Mail: ibaum@uni-kassel.de) Andrea Denke, Konrad Grünembergs Pilgerreise ins Heilige Land 1486. Untersuchung, Edition und Kommentar (Stuttgarter Historische Forschungen, Bd. 11). Köln/Weimar/Wien, Böhlau Verlag 2011. 587 S. (Ekkehart Rotter: Bad Vilbel, E-Mail: mail@ekkehart-rotter.de) Gerhard Fouquet/Gabriel Zeilinger, Katastrophen im Spätmittelalter. Darmstadt/Mainz, Philipp von Zabern 2011. 172 S. (Stefanie Dick: Kassel, E-Mail: stefanie.dick@uni-kassel.de) Johannes Fried, Karl der Große. Gewalt und Glaube. Eine Biographie. München, C. H. Beck 2013. 736 S. (Michael Dallapiazza: Prato-Urbino, E-Mail: m.dallapiazza@uniurb.it) Hans-Werner Goetz, Gott und die Welt. Religiöse Vorstellungen des frühen und hohen Mittelalters. Teil I, Bd. 2: II. Die materielle Schöpfung: Kosmos und Welt, III. Die Welt als Heilsgeschehen (Orbis mediaevalis 13.2). Berlin, Akademie Verlag 2012. 320 S. (Thomas Vogtherr: Osnabrück, E-Mail: Thomas.Vogtherr@uni-osnabrueck.de) Martina/Wilfried Hartmann, Karl der Große und seine Zeit. Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen. München, C. H. Beck 2014, 160 S. (Klaus Oschema: Heidelberg, E-Mail: klaus.oschema@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de) Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller, Uplop – Seditio: Innerstädtische Unruhen des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts im engeren Reichsgebiet. Schematisierte vergleichende Konfliktanalyse (Studien zur Geschichtsforschung des Mittelalters 128). Hamburg, Dr. Kovač 2012, 293 S. (Michael Hecht: Münster, E-Mail: michael.hecht@uni-muenster.de) Charlotte Klack-Eitzen, Wiebke Haase u. Tanja Weißgraf, Heilige Röcke. Kleider für Skulpturen im Kloster Wienhausen. Regensburg, Schnell und Steiner 2013. 184 S. (Gia Toussaint: Hamburg, E-Mail: gia.toussaint@uni-hamburg.de) Florian Kragl, Heldenzeit. Interpretationen zur Dietrichepik des 13. bis 16. Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg, Universitätsverlag Winter 2013. 593 S. (Michael Dallapiazza: Prato-Urbino, E-Mail: michael.dallapiazza@uniurb.it) Andreas Külzer, Byzanz. Stuttgart, Theiss 2012. 177 S. – Reinhard Pohanka, Das byzantinische Reich. Wiesbaden, Marixverlag 2013. 191 S. (Michael Grünbart: Münster, E-Mail: gruenbart@uni-muenster.de) Ralph W. Mathisen/Danuta Shanzer (Hgg.), The Battle of Vouille, 507 CE: Where France Began (Millennium-Studien 37). Boston/Berlin, De Gruyter 2012. XXVI, 216 S. (Guido M. Berndt: Erlangen-Nürnberg, E-Mail: guido.berndt@fau.de) The Medieval Legends of Philosophers and Scholars (Micrologus XXI). Firenze, SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo 2013. 634 S.­­ (Henryk Anzulewicz: Bonn, E-Mail: anzulewicz@albertus-magnus-institut.de) Wolfgang Metternich, Teufel, Geister und Dämonen. Das Unheimliche in der Kunst des Mittelalters. Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2011. 144 S. (Angelica Rieger: Aachen, E-Mail: mail@angelica-rieger.de) Cordula Nolte (Hg.), Phänomene der „Behinderung“ im Alltag. Bausteine zu einer Disability History der Vormoderne (Studien und Texte zur Geistes- und Sozialgeschichte des Mittelalters 8). Affalterbach, Didymos-Verlag 2013. 368 S. (Hans-Werner Goetz: Hamburg, E-Mail: Hans-Werner.Goetz@uni-hamburg.de) Irven M. Resnick (Hg.), A Companion to Albert the Great. Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 38). Leiden, Brill 2013. 833 S. (Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp: Mexiko-Stadt, E-Mail: tlkp@xanum.uam.mx) Janina M. Safran, Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus. Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press 2013. 272 S. (Christian Saßenscheidt: Erlangen, E-Mail: christian.sassenscheidt@gesch.phil.uni-erlangen.de) Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger/Thomas Weissbrich (Hgg.), Die Bildlichkeit symbolischer Akte. Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme (Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs 496 Bd. 28). Münster, Rhema 2010. 411 S. (Vera v. der Osten-Sacken: Berlin, E-Mail: ostensav@hu-berlin.de) Roland Zingg, Die Briefsammlungen der Erzbischöfe von Canterbury 1070–1170. Kommunikation und Argumentation im Zeitalter der Investiturkonflikte (Zürcher Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft 1). Köln/Weimar/Wien, Böhlau Verlag 2012. 343 S. (Georg Strack: München, E-Mail: georg.strack@lmu.de)