To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Medieval Islamic West.
Journal articles on the topic 'Medieval Islamic West'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 journal articles for your research on the topic 'Medieval Islamic West.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse journal articles on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Bangura, Ahmed Sheikh. "Islam in West Africa." American Journal of Islam and Society 14, no. 3 (October 1, 1997): 91–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v14i3.2271.
Full textAbstract:
Islam in West Africa is a collection of nineteen essays written by NehemiaLevtzion between 1963 and 1993. The book is divided into five sections. dealingwith different facets of the history and sociology of Islam in West Africa.The first section focuses on the patterns, characteristics, and agents of thespread of Islam. The author offers an approach to the study of the process of thatIslamization in West Africa that compares pattems of Islamizacion in medievalMali and Songhay to patterns in the Volta basin from the seventeenth to thenineteenth centuries. He also assesses the complex roles played by Africanchiefs and kings and slavery in the spread of Islam.Section two focuses on the subject of lslam and West African politics fromthe medieval period to the early nineteenth century. Levtzion identifies twotrend in African Islam: accommodation and militancy. Islam's early acceptancein West African societies was aided by the fact that Islam was initially seen asa supplement, and not as a substitute, to existing religious systems. Levtzionanalyzes the dynamics of Islam in African states as accommodation gave wayin time to tensions between the ruling authorities and Islamic scholars, callingfor a radical restructuring of the stare according to Islamic ideals. The tensionsbetween the Muslim clerics of Timbuktu and the medieval Songhay rulers. andthe ultimately adversarial relationship between Uthman dan Fodio and the Gobirleadership in eighteenth-century Hausaland, are singled out for sustained analysis ...
2
Chism, Christine. "Arabic in the Medieval World." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 124, no. 2 (March 2009): 624–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2009.124.2.624.
Full textAbstract:
Observers of the recent political polarizations of western and Islamic culture might be forgiven for concluding that we are living in a new Middle Ages (Holsinger; Eco). Such narratives as “the clash of civilizations” (Huntington) and “the rise of the modern West” (McNeill; which beguiles with the dangerous fantasy of the fall of the atavistic East) have attained the status of cultural mythologies. Conversely, modern Arab cultures have never forgotten the shock of their first encounters with medieval Europeans in the Levant and al-Andalus: the legacies of crusade, countercrusade, occupation, and re-conquest. Extremists have politicized the orientalist divide described by Edward Said to create their own postcolonial mythologies. We are now in danger of projecting current impasses historically backward until Islam and the West seem always to have been enemies, inimical by nature and throughout history. Doing so would reify East and West and render them monolithic. Most troubling, such mythologies obscure the uneasy, strategic, and often stunningly productive interchanges that enrich what might better be considered as a complex intercultural evolution. The deep roots of the encounter between Islam and Christendom—the influence of Arabic science, literature, and philosophy and of Islamic forms of thought, historiography, economics, and cultural practice—deserve a richer, less politicized examination. It would be useful to try to see medieval Islamic cultures write back, from a time before European hegemony, decentering and defamiliarizing their Western neighbors. What would a medieval world look like if it constructed itself not as a tedious intermission between classical and Renaissance enlightenments, but rather as a heterogeneous fretwork of contact zones, aversions, and transmissions between sophisticated and acquisitive cultures? This medieval world could better serve our own twenty-first-century global culture, whose multiplex networks exceed simple polarization. To this outcome, the study of Arabic writing in the premodern and early modern world is key.
3
Stillman, Norman A. "The Jews of the Medieval Islamic West: Acculturation and its limitations." Journal of the Middle East and Africa 9, no. 3 (July 3, 2018): 293–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2018.1519768.
Full text
4
Abuali, Eyad. "Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West." American Journal of Islam and Society 34, no. 3 (July 1, 2017): 153–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v34i3.787.
Full textAbstract:
Interactions between Latin Europeans and the Islamic world during the medievalperiod have received great attention in numerous scholarly studies. Thefocus of such works often consists of an attempt to delineate the constructionof identities and the extent to which they were utilized to mark out an “other.”By contrast, one of König’s most important conclusions demonstrates that formedieval Arab-Islamic scholars writing about the Latin West, these Latin Christiansocieties “were often simply regarded as alternative manifestations ofhuman life and its social and political organisation” (pp. 327-28).This is primarily a historiographical investigation with a macro-historicalapproach. König analyzes material spanning the early Islamic period (the seventhcentury) to the later medieval period (the fifteenth century) and covers arange of genres. It could be said that such an approach fails to critically analyzethe motivations of individual Muslim authors, something that the author doesacknowledge in his preface. However, such analyses lie beyond the scope ofthe project at hand. Furthermore, a macro-historical approach is necessary forchallenging previous scholarship on the subject. Bernard Lewis asserted thatthe Latin West was perceived as a united barbaric monolith, one viewed at bestwith disinterest in the minds of Muslim writers – a view that continues to influencescholarship to this day ...
5
Zulmuqim, Zulmuqim, Zainimal Zainimal, Martin Kustati, Besral Besral, Refinaldi Refinaldi, and Adriantoni Adriantoni. "The Characteristics of Pesantren in the Development of Islamic Education in West Sumatra." Ulumuna 24, no. 1 (June 18, 2020): 132–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v24i1.382.
Full textAbstract:
The aim of the study is to investigate the characteristics of pesantren in the development of Islamic education in West Sumatra. This region is well known for the early history of Islamic education in Indonesia. This is a qualitative study where the data were gathered through observation, interview, focus group discussion, and documentation in eleven pesantrens in the province of West Sumatra. This study reveals three main characters of the Islamic boarding schools, namely institutional system, curriculum and learning system and typology. Institutionally, Islamic boarding schools is under the auspices of a foundation. However, leadership and regeneration are still closely linked to the family of the pesantren founders. The curriculum and learning system are integrated from general/state school curriculum, classical pesantren curriculum, and modern Islamic school curriculum. Various classical-medieval literature in Islamic studies, commonly known as kitab kuning, are to a great extent also still used, especially in the institutions that only run traditional Islamic boarding schools (pesantren salaf).
Keywords: Characteristics, Islamic boarding schools, Islamic education
6
Grant, Edward. "Celestial Motions in the Late Middle Ages." Early Science and Medicine 2, no. 2 (1997): 129–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338297x00096.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractWith the introduction of Greco-Islamic science and natural philosophy, medieval natural philosophers were confronted with three distinct astronomical systems: Aristotelian, Ptolemaic, and the system of al-Bitruji. A fundamental problem that each had to confront was how to explain simultaneous contrary motions in the heavens -for example, the sun's motion, which moves east to west with a daily motion while simultaneously moving west to east along the ecliptic- within an Aristotelian physical system that assumed that a simple body could have only one proper motion. How medieval natural philosophers resolved this problem is the focus of the article.
7
Morton, Nicholas. "Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe." Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 27, no. 4 (May 20, 2016): 524–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2016.1186967.
Full text
8
Lázaro, Fabio López. "The Rise and Global Significance of the First “West”: The Medieval Islamic Maghrib." Journal of World History 24, no. 2 (2013): 259–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2013.0053.
Full text
9
Salaymeh, Lena. "Imperialist Feminism and Islamic Law." Hawwa 17, no. 2-3 (October 23, 2019): 97–134. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341354.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract This article presents three arguments about defects in imperialist feminism. First, I show that imperialist feminists engage in decontextualized comparisons: they consistently compare Western women to the Muslimwoman, without comparing Muslim men and women or comparing non-Muslim men and women. These inconsistent comparisons are the source of significant misrepresentations of Muslim women. Second, I propose that imperialist feminists view Muslim women through the heteronormative male gaze. That is, when imperialist feminists assess Muslim women’s practices, they implement the normative assumptions of heterosexual males in the West. Third, I argue that imperialist feminists incorrectly presume that Western women enjoy full autonomy or fail to recognize that women everywhere do not enjoy full autonomy. I present medieval Islamic legal ideas about a wife’s right to sexual fulfillment as evidence that the liberal myth of autonomy is not translatable to orthodox Islamic jurisprudence.
10
Caskey, Jill. "Steam and "Sanitas" in the Domestic Realm: Baths and Bathing in Southern Italy in the Middle Ages." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 2 (June 1, 1999): 170–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/991483.
Full textAbstract:
This study presents five little-known bathing chambers from the region of Amalfi in southern Italy. Dating from the thirteenth century, the baths define with remarkable consistency a type of structure that has not previously been identified or considered in histories of medieval architecture in the West. The study begins with an analysis of the five bathing chambers and their specific architectural features, technological remains, and domestic contexts. The diverse antecedents of the buildings, which appear in ancient Roman, medieval Italian, Byzantine, and Islamic architecture, are explored, along with the implications of this eclecticism for the history of southern Italy. Utilizing the rich array of surviving medieval documents for the region, including episcopal charters, royal decrees, and medical treatises, the study then reconstructs the economic, social, and scientific significance of the baths within medieval Amalfi. As monuments outside the traditional contexts of art production in southern Italy, the baths challenge long-standing characterizations of southern Italy's art and architecture, and point to the existence of a Mediterranean-wide balneal culture in which Byzantine, Islamic, and southern Italian communities participated.
11
Jackson, Peter. "Medieval Christendom's encounter with the alien." Historical Research 74, no. 186 (November 1, 2001): 347–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.00132.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract To explain the devastation of eastern Europe in 1241–2 by a hitherto unknown people, the Mongols, Latin Christians resorted to Scripture and to apocalyptic prophecy, notably the seventh-century Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius. They may have been encouraged to do so by information gleaned from contemporary Rus' and the Islamic world and by the Mongols' own notions about their origins. For all the accuracy of their reports, the Friars who visited the Mongol empire in the period 1245–55 were still apparently influenced by this perspective; they also transmitted to the West fresh material derived from the folklore they encountered in Asia.
12
Aminrazavai, Mehdi. "Medieval Philosophical Discourse and Muslim-Christian Dialogue." American Journal of Islam and Society 13, no. 3 (October 1, 1996): 382–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v13i3.2299.
Full textAbstract:
As pluralistic societies in the West become the nonn and the "globalvillage" becomes a reality, ecumenical dialogues gain prominence.Ecumenical dialogues, which, like many other discussions, first beganamong scholars as an exclusively academic activity, now take place inchurches, corrununities, and other sociopolitical organizations. In theUnited States, in particular, attempts are being made to introduce educationalcurricula that are sensitive to the culture and religious orientations ofminorities.The very feasibility of a Christian-Muslim dialogue should be calledinto question. Can the Islamic world enter into a dialogue with the secularWest? Any dialogue or discourse requires a corrunon language, a sharedworldview, and some basic agreement on some of the fundamental axiomsaround which a worldview is formed. I fear that the Islamic world and theWest no longer have such a common language.In the present discussion, I will offer an analysis and interpretation ofMuslim-Christian dialogue that calls for a reflection on the readiness ofMuslims to have a meaningful dialogue with the West. I argue that the necessarycondition for a meaningful dialogue between traditional Islam andthe secular West does not exist and, therefore, that any attempt to do so atthis time either will not succeed or will become a superficial survey of whatwe have in common, such as the Ten Commandments. To elucidate, I willfirst offer a model of a successful dialogue between Muslims and Christiansbased on the medieval philosophical dialogue between Muslim and Christianphilosophers. I will then apply the conclusions drawn from this modelto contemporary attempts at such ecumenical dialogues.Any student of medieval philosophy can observe two distinct periodsin the history of medieval philosophy, defined here as early and later,each of which has distinct characteristics. The early period belongs to theChurch fathers who laid the groundwork for Christian philosophical andtheological frameworks. Early Christian philosophical writings of suchfigures as Augustine, Boethius, John Scotus, St. Anselm, Peter Abaillard,and others were responses to specific questions of an intellectual nature ...
13
Horton, M. C., and T. R. Blurton. "‘Indian’ metalwork in East Africa: the bronze lion statuette from Shanga." Antiquity 62, no. 234 (March 1988): 11–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00073452.
Full textAbstract:
There are few frontiers from later periods whose archaeology is more beguiling than the east African coast. To the east are the sea-routes of the Indian Ocean, to the Islamic world, to India, to Indonesia, to China. To the west are the distinctive cultures of medieval Africa. And on the coast are the settlements where the east and the west touch. This paper works towards the wider issue of circum-maritime cultures from a single find from the new excavations at Shanga which have revealed mosques of a remarkably early date.
14
Shatzmiller, Maya. "Women and Wage Labour in the Medieval Islamic West: Legal Issues in an Economic Context." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, no. 2 (1997): 174–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1568520972600748.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe evidence of the late medieval period, 11th-15th centuries, indicates that women's participation in the labour market was both considerable and diversified. This paper studies whether and how women's wage labour was affected, controlled and regulated by laws, courts and judges, by using an array of the Mālikī legal sources from Muslim Spain and North Africa. It shows the existence of a legal approach straddling a strict application of the law of the ijāra, with adjustments to family law and admission of customary law, but more importantly, an approach inspired and adapted to the framework of women's property rights and therefore beneficial to them.
15
Abbasi, Rushain. "Did Premodern Muslims Distinguish the Religious and Secular? The Dīn–Dunyā Binary in Medieval Islamic Thought." Journal of Islamic Studies 31, no. 2 (January 9, 2020): 185–225. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jis/etz048.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract This article challenges the widely-held belief, within and outside academia, that premodern Muslims did not make a distinction between the religious and secular. I explore the issue by examining several usages of the dīn–dunyā binary across diverse genres of medieval Islamic writings and assessing to what extent it accords with or diverges from the categories of the religious and secular as commonly used in the modern Western world. I situate my particular counter-claim vis-à-vis the argument against the relevance of the religious–secular distinction to Islam made by Shahab Ahmed in his, What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. My findings show that contrary to Ahmed and the broader consensus, premodern Muslims did in fact view the world in terms of distinct spheres of religion and non-religion and that this distinction was used to understand phenomena as diverse and significant as politics and prophethood. Nevertheless, the two categories interacted in a way distinct from the common understanding of the two in the modern world insofar as, under the medieval Islamic conception, it was religion that regulated the secular. My article will make sense of these similarities and differences in an effort to present an indigenous account of the religious–secular dialectic in medieval Islam, one that problematizes the current standard account which holds that these categories were invented within the modern West.
16
Peraino, Judith A. "Sonograms of Desire, Medieval and Modern." Paragraph 41, no. 1 (March 2018): 26–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/para.2018.0248.
Full textAbstract:
This essay unites musicology's concern with the discursive force of organized sound, and sound studies' concern with the discursive force of sonic environments, recording formats and media networks, to consider how the widely transmitted medieval song ‘Lanqan li jorn son lonc en mai’ attributed to Jaufre Rudel produces sonograms that map distance and desire in the chasm between the Islamic East and the Christian West. The first half of the essay examines ‘Lanqan li jorn son lonc en mai’ in the context of transcultural sound networks, medieval notions of global geography and the material formatting of songs. The second half considers a 1977 recording of the song by the Clemencic Consort, and the 2000 opera by Finish composer Kaija Saariaho called L'Amour de loin with a libretto by the Lebanese author Amin Maalouf. In both cases, the song is sonically reimagined to express modern-day strife in the Middle East.
17
Lewinstein, Keith. "The Azāriqa in Islamic heresiography." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 54, no. 2 (June 1991): 251–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x00014774.
Full textAbstract:
Since the publication in the West last century of a major Sunnī work on the Islamic sects, those interested in the early firaq have found themselves dependent on the heresiographical tradition. Islamicists have had little choice in the matter; most writing and thinking produced in circles later deemed heterodox has not been preserved, and to a large extent is available only through the mediation of the heresiographers. While material of other sorts has not gone unstudied, it has for the most part been the heresiographers who have shaped the way we look at early Islamic sectarianism.This marriage of modern scholarship and medieval heresiography is, however, a distinctly uncomfortable one. As indispensable as the firaq material may be, questions about its reliability persist. The difficulties which characterize this literature are well known, and hardly need to be rehearsed here: it is late, highly schematic, and frequently hostile to the doctrines and groups which it describes. To these might be added one other problem noted less frequently: most of the books in general academic circulation have passed through Ash'arite and/or Mu‘tazilite hands. If, as we shall see, the tradition is not entirely synoptic, there are at least powerful forces at work which militate against a diversity of perspectives.
18
Sabet, Amr G. E. "The Islamic Quest for Democracy, Pluralism, and Human Rights." American Journal of Islam and Society 19, no. 3 (July 1, 2002): 118–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v19i3.1927.
Full textAbstract:
In a sequel to his earlier Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy, and the Islamic State, Moussalli makes a claim to highlight and, where possible, construct the important ideological and religious arguments on democracy, pluralism, and human rights, as these principles continue to be developed by modern Islamic political discourses. He maintains that by linking classical and medieval Islamic thought with pre- sent political and religious debates, Islamic discourses, at least in their socalled moderate versions, have both absorbed and Islamized western values. They have come, therefore, to "constitute a theology ofliberation and an epistemological break with the past." The basic argument that Moussalli attempts to present is both simple and grand. Islamic jurisprudence, philosophy, and theology protect individual and communal rights and legitimize political, social, economic, intellectual, and religious differences, while providing the grounds for viewing the people as the ultimate source of political sovereignty. While the history of the highest Islamic political institution - the caliphate - is mostly one of authoritarianism, classical and medieval Islamic political thought, in contrast, incorporated the seeds of such notions as democracy, pluralism, and human rights together with comparable doctrines of equality, freedom, and justice. Hence, Moussalli's purpose is to emphasize the distinction between Islam as a religious belief system and the Islamic state as a human construct. Such a distinction, he alleges, would provide for limitless possibilities of interpretation and reinterpretation, construction as well as decon struction. It would further al low for "humanizing the divine" as a means of establishing hannony and cooperation with the West. Each of the first three chapters begin with a short introduction and analysis to the relevant classical and medieval notions of Muslim political thought. This is followed, respectively, by a review of modem moderate and radical .lslamist discourses, as developed from and beyond earlier theoretical and nonnative Muslim thought, about the perceived compatible western notions. Chapter 1 examines the various concepts of shura (counsel), ikhtiyar (choice), bay>ah ( oath of allegiance), and !}ma> ( consensus of the Muslim community), which are presented as being the theoretical methods that should govern in political rule ...
19
Mallett, Alex. "Daniel G. König. Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe." American Historical Review 122, no. 5 (December 1, 2017): 1575–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ahr/122.5.1575.
Full text
20
Clarke, Nicola. "Daniel G. König, Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe." Mediaeval Journal 9, no. 2 (July 2019): 129–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1484/j.tmj.5.122839.
Full text
21
Kumar H.M., Sanjeev. "Untying the Mystique of an Islamic Threat: Western Imageries, the Clash of Civilizations, and a Search for Ontological Security." Jadavpur Journal of International Relations 22, no. 1 (April 6, 2018): 1–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0973598418765051.
Full textAbstract:
This article begins by arguing that a motivation to tarnish Islam as a religion has framed the foundations of Western imagery of the Muslim world. It consists of a negative cultural portrait that depicts Islam as a threat to the ontological security of the West. Such a representation is centered around an epistemic conviction that Islam and violence are inextricably intertwined with each other because the religion is still sedimented in medieval barbarism and as a civilization, it is yet to graduate out of the syndrome of dogmatic mono-cultural assertiveness and a retrograding sense of conservative obstinacy. In accordance to this, Islam emerges as an enemy of the modernized West that represents liberal cosmopolitanism and multicultural accommodation. Based on this, the article examines as to how such an epistemic conviction gets envisioned in the Islamophobic narratives of Samuel P. Huntington, Bernard Lewis, and their subsequent re-invocations that aim to problematize Islam as the ultimate nemesis of the West.
22
Fattah, Abdul. "Critiques and Appreciation on Orientalism in the Study of Islam." MADANIA: JURNAL KAJIAN KEISLAMAN 23, no. 1 (July 7, 2019): 11. http://dx.doi.org/10.29300/madania.v23i1.1744.
Full textAbstract:
This article describes critiques on orientalism as well as appreciates orientalist works which have positive values in Islamic studies that requires “reassessment”. This is because orientalism is a distinctive discipline that has a strong historical value between the West and the East (Islam) after the medieval European renaissance. This discipline was initially used as a Western political tool to exploit the East—both aggression and imperialism. However this discipline deserves careful attention by removing prejudices-geopolitical and historical revenge in the orientalists’ objective judgments. The work produced by such orientalists cannot be solely underestimated. Some orientalists merely using a scientific or semi-scientific approach have continuously produced “magnum opus” and contributed to the development of Islamic studies such as Hadith index, Quranic dictionary, and Encyclopedia of Islam.
23
Bonner, Michael. "Definitions of Poverty and the Rise of the Muslim Urban Poor." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 6, no. 3 (November 1996): 335–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1356186300007768.
Full textAbstract:
Poverty in medieval Islam is an enormous topic. It is worth considering from a historian's point of view, especially in the light of what has been accomplished by historians of Rome, Byzantium, and the medieval and modern West who have dealt with poverty and the poor. But as always, the sources for Islamic history, especially for the formative early centuries, present difficulties. Here I wish to make a preliminary attempt at dealing with part of this problem. I shall begin by considering an event which represents a turning point in the history of the Muslim poor, or more accurately, in the way poverty and the poor have been represented in modern historical scholarship on medieval Islam. Then I shall suggest a way in which this event may be set in context, and a possible strategy for handling some of the relevant sources. This strategy involves the identification of different, competing ways in which the poor were defined in the first centuries of Islam.
24
Metcalfe, Alex. "ORIENTATION IN THREE SPHERES: MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN BOUNDARY CLAUSES IN LATIN, GREEK AND ARABIC." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 22 (December 2012): 37–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0080440112000059.
Full textAbstract:
ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the development of land registry traditions in the medieval Mediterranean by examining a distinctive aspect of Latin, Greek and Arabic formularies used in boundary clauses. The paper makes particular reference to Islamic and Norman Sicily. The argument begins by recalling that the archetypal way of defining limits according to Classical Roman land surveyors was to begin ab oriente. Many practices from Antiquity were discontinued in the Latin West, but the idea of starting with or from the East endured in many cases where boundaries were assigned cardinal directions. In the Byzantine Empire, the ‘Roman’ model was prescribed and emulated by Greek surveyors and scribes too. But in the Arab-Muslim Mediterranean, lands were defined with the southern limit first. This contrast forms the basis of a typology that can be tested against charter evidence in frontier zones – for example, in twelfth-century Sicily, which had been under Byzantine, Muslim and Norman rulers. It concludes that, under the Normans, private documents drawn up in Arabic began mainly with the southern limit following the ‘Islamic’ model. However, Arabic descriptions of crown lands started mainly in the ‘Romano-Byzantine’ way. These findings offer a higher resolution view of early Norman governance and suggest that such boundary definitions of the royal chancery could not have been based on older ones written in the Islamic period.
25
Draper, Peter. "Islam and the West: The Early Use of the Pointed Arch Revisited." Architectural History 48 (2005): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0066622x00003701.
Full textAbstract:
As this is a valedictory rather than an inaugural lecture, it seemed legitimate to be a little self-indulgent in the choice of theme. Every medievalist at some time or other has to take an interest in the role of the pointed arch in the transformation of medieval architecture from Romanesque to Gothic and in the ways that the pointed arch form was subsequently manipulated through the later Middle Ages. It is only a short step, but one that has been taken less often than you might expect, to pursue that interest back into the early use of the pointed arch in Islamic architecture: to ask how it came to replace the semicircular arch of classical architecture and why it was used.
26
Davis-Secord, Sarah. "Arabic-Islamic views of the Latin West: tracing the emergence of medieval Europe, by Daniel G. König." Mediterranean Historical Review 32, no. 1 (January 2, 2017): 111–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2017.1314913.
Full text
27
Hirschler, Konrad. "Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe, by Daniel G. König." English Historical Review 132, no. 555 (February 4, 2017): 344–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cew423.
Full text
28
Kausar, Zeenath. "Oikos/Polis Conflict." American Journal of Islam and Society 13, no. 4 (January 1, 1996): 475–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v13i4.2294.
Full textAbstract:
Conflict has been an inescapable phenomenon of Western society,particularly since the sixteenth century. If the era of the medieval West ischaracterized by the conflict between Pope and Emperor, which eventuallygave rise to modem nation-states, the postmodem era may rightly bedescribed as one of conflict between family and state.The postmodem conflict can be traced back to the oikos/polis conflictgenerated by Western political thought, which originated from Greekmisogyny. In the same way the church was overthrown in the conflict inthe medieval era, the family is being overthrown in the postmodern era bythe neo-Marxist radical school of postmodern feminism, which is alsocalled gender feminism.Quite contrary to gender feminists, contemporary Islamic revivalistsfind no conflict between the two institutions of family and state. They givedue recognition to both institutions and consider them as complementary toone another. This is quite observable in their views and activities in the areaof women’s issues, particularly that of women’s political participation.The aim of this paper is to examine the debate on women’s politicalparticipation between gender feminists and contemporary Islamic revivalists.The paper shall demonstrate how gender feminists prefer women’spolitical participation at the cost of deconstructing gender and family. Thecontemporary Islamic revivalists, however, support and encouragewomen’s political participation-but not at the expense of family and thedistinct identity of woman.The paper is divided into three parts. In the first and second parts, thearguments of gender feminists and contemporary Islamic revivalists onwomen’s political participation shall be analyzed. The third part shall identifyand discuss the differences between them. It is followed by a briefconclusion ...
29
EL YAMLOULI, Rachid. "THE CONCEPT OF THE MIDDLE AGE IN THE ISLAMIC WEST TRY TO ROOTING." RIMAK International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 3, no. 4 (May 1, 2021): 224–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.47832/2717-8293.4-3.23.
Full textAbstract:
This effort is based on a systematic and cognitive conviction that the investigation problem of investigation does not depend on the purely technical dimension, but rather on a rereading of the Middle Ages concerned by the study, a political reading in the light of indicators capable of explaining the nature of stability, or the transformation / change in the stages that marked the Middle Ages. And if the obsession behind this affair is to circumvent the quadruple or dynastic survey that was implemented out in the survey of the middle Ages. Without taking into account the facts and phenomena supporting the accounting or rejection of this division, then the work is, in essence repose to the rejection of the two previous surveys because of their methodological limitations and shortcomings cognitive. And then think that the medieval age and in the western wing of the Islamic world is not in phase with its historical half, the quadruple European investigation of the differentiation in the mechanisms of measurement and its principles, and latent in the requirements of the same era and its indicators, which allowed the possibility of a political inquiry based on the basis of the foundations of the state And its characteristics, and I intended to distinguish between the sectarian era-tribal and religious, and its evolution towards symbolic "sectarianism" based on symbolic connections, including honor, trust tee ship and jihad, to conclude that this golden age is subject in its nature to three phases which are not necessarily homogeneous, the founding period, and the era of qualitative transformation and the era of turning point and transformation
30
García-Contreras, Guillermo. "Are Postcolonial Narratives useful in Al-Andalus Archaeology?." Anduli, no. 20 (2021): 179–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/anduli.2021.i20.10.
Full textAbstract:
Archaeological investigations of al-Andalus has become increasingly important in medieval studies, but it has traditionally been left out of the research agenda of European medieval archaeology. This is due to its exoticism and not fitting in well with the construction of a European identity and Spanish national history based on Christian expansion and the “Reconquest” process. At the same time, due to the geographical location and geopolitical position of the Iberian Peninsula within the “West”, scholars working on Islamic archaeology have dedicated less attention to al-Andalus than to other territories. Several factors pose a challenge for current research: the possibility of confrontation with feudal societies; the increasing importance given to technological transfer all along al-Andalus; religious, economic and institutional differences within Christian territories; the importance given in recent years to the identity construction of alterity; and the strong impact that the Andalusi period had on the creation of current landscapes, especially due to irrigated agriculture. This paper tries to reflect on and analyze the historiographical marginality of al-Andalus in both European medieval archaeology and Islamic archaeology. The aim is to understand how we have built an international narrative of the marginality of a territory that is theoretically outside Europe and outside the environment in which classical Islam developed, based mainly on literature produced in English on this matter. In short, this paper poses the question of whether postcolonial theory is a valid category of analysis for al-Andalus.
31
Redford, Scott. "Excavations at Gritille (1982–1984): the Medieval Period A Preliminary Report." Anatolian Studies 36 (December 1986): 103–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3642830.
Full textAbstract:
Gritille is the modern name for a mound lying on the right bank of the Euphrates River in southeast Turkey. Four years of excavation by a team led by Professor Richard S. Ellis of Bryn Mawr College concentrated on uncovering two main occupation levels bracketing the site's long sequence, the Neolithic and the Medieval. This article will focus on the last three seasons of excavation on top of the mound.The mound of Gritille lies 10 km. upstream from Samsat (Greek Samosata, Arabic Sumaisāṭ), a major halting point on the medieval road from North Syria through Urfa (Greek Edessa, Arabic ar-Ruhā) to Malatya (Greek Melitene) and central eastern Anatolia. It was at Samsat that the crossing of the Euphrates was attempted. Samsat was also a stop for East–West traffic from Diyarbakır (Āmid) to Birecik (Bīra) and beyond, but the road through Nisibin (Nusaybin) and Harran (or Urfa) to Birecik seems to have been heavily travelled in the late Middle Islamic period (Fig. 1).
32
Matthee, Rudi. "Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani And The Egyptian National Debate." International Journal of Middle East Studies 21, no. 2 (May 1989): 151–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743800032268.
Full textAbstract:
A remarkable man in his own lifetime, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani became a legend after his death.1 For many people, Afghani evokes an image that combines the medieval ideal of the cosmopolitan Islamic scholar with the romantic aura of the 19th-century revolutionary. Since the late 1960s, Afghani has been the object of particular attention and controversy in both the West and the Islamic world. Iranian and Western scholars have radically reinterpreted his background and beliefs.2 This reevaluation of Afghani on the basis of new information about him has, however, not been generally accepted in the Islamic world. If anything, recent attention to Afghani's unorthodoxy and possible irreligion has only served to harden his defenders by giving credence to his own statements. Afghani plays an important role in the historical image of Muslim unity and sophistication presented by many Islamic groups and governments in this age of revived panIslamism. His plea for Islamic renewal through solidarity never lost its relevance as a powerful symbol linking the past with hopes for the future. The image of Afghani as the indefatigable fighter against Western imperialism who helped make the Muslim world aware of its distinct identity remains equally as suggestive.
33
König, Katrin. "Deepened Monotheism. Philosophical Reasoning on the Trinity in Western Early Medieval and Classic Arabic Theology." Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 62, no. 2 (June 2, 2020): 233–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2020-0012.
Full textAbstract:
SummaryChristian theologians can explain the Trinitarian faith today in dialogue with Islamic thinkers as “deepened monotheism”. Therefore it is important to widen the systematic-theological discourse in an ecumenical and transcultural perspective and to retrieve resources from Western and non-Western traditions of Trinitarian thought (I).In this paper I will first work out historically that the Trinitarian creed of Nicea and Constantinople was originally an ecumenical but non-Western creed (II). Afterwards, I investigate the philosophical-theological reflection on the Trinity by Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) in the context of early interreligious encounters in the Latin West. Based on biblical, augustinian and Greek sources, he developed an approach to understand the mystery of the Trinity by rational arguments as “deepened monotheism” (III). Then I will proceed to explore the philosophical-theological dialogues on the Trinity from the Arabic philosopher and Syrian-orthodox theologian Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī (893–974). Much earlier he developed rational arguments for the Triunity of God with reference to Aristotle. Thereby he answers to anti-trinitarian arguments from Islamic thinkers like al-Kindī and al-Warrāq. He intends that the Trinitarian faith of Christian minorities can thereby be understood and tolerated by Islamic thinkers as rationally founded “deepened monotheism” (IV).In the end I will evaluate what these classics from the Western and non-western traditions of Trinitarian thought contribute to explicate the doctrine of the Trinity today in a pluralistic religious context as “deepened monotheism” (V).
34
Zein, Fuad Muhammad. "AL-SIYASAH WA AL-AKHLAQ �INDA MACHIAVELLI WA AL-MAWARDI." Indonesian Journal of Islamic Literature and Muslim Society 1, no. 1 (October 10, 2016): 109. http://dx.doi.org/10.22515/islimus.v1i1.256.
Full textAbstract:
The issue of politics and ethics are two sides of a coin that invited attention of medieval scholars both in the West and the Islamic world. Although interrelated, but the implementation raises the difference between the two worlds. For the Western world, represented by Machiavelli, politics and ethics should be separated. A ruler should not be bound by ethics and tradition, and does not need to obey the law. In domestic relations affairs, a ruler must collect on his love and fear of people. While in foreign affairs, a ruler must reflect "a smart wolf and a strong lion. As for the world of Islam represented by al-Mawardi, politics and ethics cannot be separated. Even the basics of government, he said, are inspired by Islamic values based on the Qur'an and Hadith. Even a ruler must have and improve its ethical because it is a basic rule.
35
Matoušková, E., K. Pavelka, K. Nováček, and L. Starková. "Documentation of archaeological sites in northern iraq using remote sensing methods." ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences XL-5/W7 (August 12, 2015): 331–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/isprsarchives-xl-5-w7-331-2015.
Full textAbstract:
The MULINEM (The Medieval Urban Landscape in Northeastern Mesopotamia) project is aiming to investigate a Late Sasanian and Islamic urban network in the land of Erbil, historic province of Hidyab (Adiabene) that is located in the northern Iraq. The research of the hierarchical urban network in a defined area belongs to approaches rarely used in the study of the Islamic urbanism. The project focuses on the cluster of urban sites of the 6th–17th centuries A.D. This paper focuses on remote sensing analysis of historical sites with special interest of FORMOSAT-2 data that have been gained through a research announcement: Free FORMOSAT-2 satellite Imagery. Documentation of two archaeological sites (Makhmúr al-Qadima and Kushaf) are introduced. FORMOSAT-2 data results have been compared to historic CORONA satellite data of mentioned historical sites purchased earlier by the University of West Bohemia. Remote sensing methods were completed using in-situ measurements.
36
Rosser-Owen, Mariam. "Andalusi Spolia in Medieval Morocco: “Architectural Politics, Political Architecture”." Medieval Encounters 20, no. 2 (March 27, 2014): 152–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12342164.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract Traditionally, art historians have viewed the art of medieval Morocco through the lens of Islamic Iberia, which is regarded as the culturally superior center and model for the region. However, more recent studies are beginning to show that, rather than Moroccan patrons and artisans passively absorbing an Andalusi model, the rulers of the Almoravid and Almohad regimes were adopting aspects of this model in very deliberate ways. These studies suggest that Andalusi works of art were part of a conscious appropriation of styles as well as material in a very physical sense, which were imbued by the Moroccan dynasties with a significance relating to the legitimacy of their rule. This paper focuses on the way in which Andalusi architectural and other, mainly marble, material was deployed in Moroccan architecture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Rather than reusing locally available material, this monumental (and extremely heavy) material was gathered in al-Andalus, at the ruined monuments of the Andalusi Umayyad caliphs, and transported over great distances to the imperial capitals at Fez and Marrakesh. Here this Umayyad spolia was deployed in key locations in the mosques and palaces constructed as the architectural manifestations of the Almoravids’ and Almohads’ new political power. Most frequently, this spolia consisted of marble capitals in the distinctive, dynastic style developed by the Andalusi caliphs for their palace at Madīnat al-Zaḥrāʾ. But together with other Andalusi imports, such as the magnificent minbars made in Córdoba for the Qarawiyyīn mosque and Almoravid mosque at Marrakesh, these physical symbols of al-Andalus in Morocco conveyed a clear message that the Almoravids and, later, the Almohads had taken up the mantle of rule in the Islamic West.
37
Sacco, Viva, Veronica Testolini, José Maria Martin Civantos, and Peter M. Day. "Islamic Ceramics and Rural Economy in the Trapani Mountains during the 11th century." Journal of Islamic Archaeology 7, no. 1 (November 7, 2020): 39–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jia.18273.
Full textAbstract:
Located in the Trapani Mountains of North-West Sicily, the hilltop site of Pizzo Monaco hasformed the focus of systematic excavation and an innovative, integrated study of the totalceramic assemblage, as part of the MEMOLA FP7 project. The date, provenance and productiontechnology of the varied types of pottery are investigated by macroscopic, morphological anddecorative analysis, in combination with petrography and scanning electron microscopy in orderto assess social, technological and economic ties of this rural site and its environs with the earlyIslamic capital of Sicily at Palermo, the wider island and North Africa. Local production of cookingvessels is compared with glazed and plain storage pottery, serving and consumption vesselsfrom Palermo, in a region where the new relationship between coastal centre and nearby mountaineconomies was being forged. Correlation of the properties of the pottery assemblage withthe unusual architecture suggests the storage of a repeated ceramic set, perhaps on a householdbasis, in a site which may be a fortified storage facility, rather than sustaining more permanentoccupation. The typological study provides new information on the range of ceramics circulatingin Sicily during the mid-11th century CE, revealing the full spectrum of ceramics consumedat this time. This approach contrasts with work that privileges a view of simple transmissionof glazing technologies across the Islamic Mediterranean. Indeed a comparison of productionsequences in the crafting of similar glazed bowls at Palermo demonstrates the co-existence ofdifferent communities of practice and cautions against over-simplified reconstructions of thetransmission of glazing technologies in the early medieval Mediterranean. The range of potteryavailable from a variety of sources highlights the consumption choices made by these communitiesin the medieval period.
38
Harris, Lynda. "Visions of the Milky Way in the West: The Greco-Roman and Medieval Periods." Culture and Cosmos 16, no. 1 and 2 (October 2012): 271–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.46472/cc.01216.0245.
Full textAbstract:
Before the new Greek cosmological system was developed, many ancient cultures had pictured the Milky Way as a vertical axis or tree, which was seen as a route leading into the heavens of a layered universe. This model began to change from about the sixth century BC, when the image of a spherical earth and geocentric universe became increasingly widespread among the educated people of Greece. The new model, standardised by Ptolemy during the second century AD, visualised a universe comprised of eight concentric crystalline spheres surrounding a fixed earth. By the Middle Ages, the Ptolemaic system had become the established picture of the cosmos in Europe and the Islamic world. Losing its old vertical image, the Milky Way was now pictured as a circular band surrounding the spherical earth. Now known as the Milky Circle, it kept something of its earlier religious significance in the pagan world. In Rome it was visualised as a post-mortem place of purification, located below the sphere of the moon. With the establishment of traditional Christianity, the Milky Way’s position became unclear. It had always been a scientific puzzle to thinkers trying to analyse its substance and define its place in the Ptolemaic universe, and its true nature remained unresolved. In one of its most intriguing identities, originated by the thirteenth century astrologer Michael Scot, it migrated to the sphere of the fixed stars where it became a mysterious, living constellation, known as the Daemon Meridianus.
39
Kersten, Carool. "From Braudel to Derrida: Mohammed Arkoun's Rethinking of Islam and Religion." Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 4, no. 1 (2011): 23–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187398611x553733.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis article examines Mohammed Arkoun as one of the pioneers of a new Muslim intellectualism seeking new ways of engaging with Islam by combining intimate familiarity with the Islamic civilizational heritage (turath) and solid knowledge of recent achievements by the Western academe in the humanities and social sciences. It will show how his groundbreaking and agendasetting work in Islamic studies reflects a convergence of the spatiotemporal concerns of an intellectual historian inspired by the Annales School with an epistemological critique drawing on structuralist and poststructuralist ideas. Influenced by Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics and the deconstructionist philosophy of Jacques Derrida, Arkoun evolved from a specialist in the intellectual history of medieval Islam into a generic critic of epistemologies, advocating a concept of so-called 'emerging reason' which transcends existing forms of religious reason, Enlightenment rationalism and the tele-techno-scientific reason of the postmodern globalizing world. This article concludes that Arkoun's proposals challenge the intellectual binary of the West versus Islam and the historical dichotomy between the northern and southern Mediterranean.
40
Niezen, R. W. "Hot Literacy in Cold Societies: A Comparative Study of the Sacred Value of Writing." Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, no. 2 (April 1991): 225–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0010417500017023.
Full textAbstract:
The argument that the presence or absence of widespread literacy constitutes the central criterion to distinguish “savage” from “domesticated” society, presented by Goody in a number of works (1968, 1977, 1986, 1987), makes close associations between alphabetic literacy and the growth of knowledge and between restricted literacy and traditional societies. In this essay, I will challenge these associations by presenting material from medieval Europe, in which the milieu of restricted literacy is creative, and from Muslim Africa, in which widespread literacy does not lead to criticism or the revision of basic religious tenets. Second, I will deal with some of the reasons for the vitality of Islamic reform in West Africa, concerning myself principally with the impact of Western education on village society and the response of reformers through the promotion of Arabic literacy. A consideration of Western education and acculturation is vital for an understanding of scriptural reformed Islam's appeal. The latter issue will emerge from the material to be presented, but I will deal exclusively with the literacy debate for the moment.
41
Rustam Fanisovich, Nabiev. "On the Question of Medieval Artillery in the Muslim Regions of Contemporary Russia." Islamovedenie 12, no. 1 (March 30, 2021): 30–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.21779/2077-8155-2021-12-1-30-40.
Full textAbstract:
The article deals with the problem of the spread of artillery weapons from the East to the West through the territory of the Eurasian steppes. Among the regions important for the devel-opment of firearms were countries with Islamic culture, which are currently part of the Russian Federation and the CIS. They were one of the most important links in the movement of new technologies from the East to Europe. Evidence of the development of artillery in the northern Muslim countries is not only written sources, but also finds of genuine medieval weapons. The author shows that the Muslim peoples of northern Eurasia have contributed to the world process of the development and spread of firearms. The article substantiates the view that in the territory of Russia powder technologies, the newest at that time, began to be used much earlier than in Western Europe. The author also identifies a number of areas of research into the history of powder technologies in the medieval Muslim world, such as sources of information, regions, landscapes, the main ways of spreading technologies, as well as terminology from the standpoint of cultural relationship of languages
42
Rudolph, Ulrich, and Roman Seidel. "The Philosophical Proof for God’s Existence between Europe and the Islamic World: Reflections on an Entangled History of Philosophy and Its Contemporary Relevance." Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques 73, no. 1 (March 26, 2019): 57–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/asia-2018-0043.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe Argument for God’s Existence is one of the major issues in the history of philosophy. It also constitutes an illuminating example of a shared philosophical problem in the entangled intellectual histories of Europe and the Islamic World. Drawing on Aristotle, various forms of the argument were appropriated by both rational Islamic Theology (kalām) and Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna. Whereas the argument, reshaped, refined and modified, has been intensively discussed throughout the entire post-classical era, particularly in the Islamic East, it has likewise been adopted in the West by thinkers such as the Hebrew Polymath Maimonides and the Medieval Latin Philosopher and Theologian Thomas Aquinas. However, these mutual reception-processes did not end in the middle ages. They can be witnessed in the twentieth century and even up until today: On the one hand, we see a Middle Eastern thinker like the Iranian philosopher Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī re-evaluating Kant’s fundamental critique of the classical philosophical arguments for God’s existence, in particular of the ontological proof, and refuting the critique. On the other hand, an argument from creation brought forward by the Islamic Theologian and critic of the peripatetic tradition al-Ghazāli has been adopted by a strand of Western philosophers who label their own version “The Kalām-cosmological Argument”. By discussing important cornerstones in the history of the philosophical proof for God’s existence we argue for a re-consideration of current Eurocentric narratives in the history of philosophy and suggest that such a transcultural perspective may also provide inspiration for current philosophical discourses between Europe, the Middle East and beyond.
43
Singleton, Brent. "Rulers, Scholars, and Invaders: A Select Bibliography of the Songhay Empire." History in Africa 31 (2004): 357–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0361541300003533.
Full textAbstract:
The Songhay Empire was a remarkable west African state, flourishing in several areas including territorial and trade expansion, development of a strong military and centralized government, unprecedented support for learning and scholarship, and skilful relations with the greater Sudanic and Islamic lands. Songhay arose out of the remains of the Mali empire under the rule of Sonni Ali ca. 1464. Yet it was the empire's second ruler, Askiya Muhammad, who initiated the century-long golden age of peace and stability, bringing Songhay to its zenith. This era was particularly fruitful for the cities of Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne, the empire's administrative, scholarly, and trade centers respectively. Timbuktu soared to preeminence in the Sudan and became known in other parts of the Muslim world, producing many respected scholars. However, by the later part of the sixteenth century fractious disarray among the descendants of Askiya Muhammad weakened the state, ultimately leading to the Moroccan invasion of 1591. Songhay's capitulation to the invaders ended the age of the great medieval west African states.
44
BLAYDES, LISA, and ERIC CHANEY. "The Feudal Revolution and Europe's Rise: Political Divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim World before 1500 CE." American Political Science Review 107, no. 1 (January 28, 2013): 16–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055412000561.
Full textAbstract:
We document a divergence in the duration of rule for monarchs in Western Europe and the Islamic world beginning in the medieval period. While leadership tenures in the two regions were similar in the 8th century, Christian kings became increasingly long lived compared to Muslim sultans. We argue that forms of executive constraint that emerged under feudal institutions in Western Europe were associated with increased political stability and find empirical support for this argument. While feudal institutions served as the basis for military recruitment by European monarchs, Muslim sultans relied on mamlukism—or the use of military slaves imported from non-Muslim lands. Dependence on mamluk armies limited the bargaining strength of local notablesvis-à-visthe sultan, hindering the development of a productively adversarial relationship between ruler and local elites. We argue that Muslim societies’ reliance on mamluks, rather than local elites, as the basis for military leadership, may explain why the Glorious Revolution occurred in England, not Egypt.
45
Akasoy, Anna. "CONVIVENCIA AND ITS DISCONTENTS: INTERFAITH LIFE IN AL-ANDALUS." International Journal of Middle East Studies 42, no. 3 (July 15, 2010): 489–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743810000516.
Full textAbstract:
Historians of Europe often declare that Spain is “different.” This distinctiveness of the Iberian peninsula has many faces and is frequently seen as rooted in its Islamic past. In the field of Islamic history, too, al-Andalus is somewhat different. It has its own specialists, research traditions, controversies, and trends. One of the salient features of historical studies of al-Andalus as well as of its popular image is the great interest in its interreligious dimension. In 2002, María Rosa Menocal published The Ornament of the World, one of the rare books on Islamic history written by an academic that enjoyed and still enjoys a tremendous popularity among nonspecialist readers. The book surveys intersections of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian elite culture, mostly in Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin literature and in architecture, from the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula in 711 to the fall of Granada in 1492. Menocal presents the religious diversity commonly referred to as convivencia as one of the defining features of Andalusi intellectual and artistic productivity. She also argues that the narrow-minded forces that brought about its end were external, pointing to the Almoravids and Almohads from North Africa and Christians from north of the peninsula as responsible. The book's subtitle, How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, conjures the community of Abrahamic faiths. It reflects the optimism of those who identify in Andalusi history a model for a constructive relationship between “Islam” and “the West” that in the age of the “war on terror” many are desperate to find.
46
Soliman, Mohamed Ahmed. "VIRTUAL REALITY AND THE ISLAMIC WATER SYSTEM IN CAIRO: CHALLENGES AND METHODS." International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR 11, no. 3 (November 22, 2017): 78. http://dx.doi.org/10.26687/archnet-ijar.v11i3.1386.
Full textAbstract:
The Nile River plays a central role in Egyptians’ everyday life as the sustainable source of fresh water. Egyptians sought to regulate the Nile through the ages by inventing water systems suitable to monitor, measure and oversee the Nile’s behaviour. Because of the high value of water in Islam and its link to agriculture and taxation, Muslim rulers paid attention to water projects for irrigation and delivery to the cities throughout Islamic medieval dynasties. Islamic Cairo has a variety of water systems reacting to two major factors. First: westward shifting of the Nile, according to topographic inclination, causing the waves cutting into the west bank to precipitate in the east. As a result, the founders (Sultans al-Naser Mohamed and al-Ghoury in particular) always built new water intake towers in response to this phenomenon. Second: the relocation of the capital of Islamic Egypt to Cairo and later to the Citadel northeast resulting in constant displacement further away from the Nile bank. Whereas 'Amr ibn al-'As built al-Fustat (641 A.D) close to the Nile, al-'Asakar (750 CE) and al-Qata'i (876 A.D) were built northeast of al-Fustat away from the Nile. When al-Mu‘izz Ledin-Allah came to Egypt in 971 A.D, he blamed the commander of his army Jawhar al-Saqaly because of the city’s location far from the Nile. The citadel of Cairo is the farthest capital of Islamic Egypt, because of the appropriateness of the fortified location on al-Muqattam heaps inside the newly built Citadel. Chronicles and surviving buildings provide a full narrative and accounts of water systems of the Islamic capitals in Egypt. Such knowledge and information enable a credible virtual reality model to create a realistic output for the tangibles and intangibles of the water system using the virtual reality application.
47
Fromherz, Allen. "A Vertical Sea: North Africa and the Medieval Mediterranean." Review of Middle East Studies 46, no. 1 (2012): 64–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2151348100003001.
Full textAbstract:
An extraordinary letter was discovered in a neglected pile of medieval diplomatic correspondence in the Vatican Libraries: a letter from Al-Murtada the Almohad, Muslim Caliph in Marrakech to Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254). The letter, written in finest official calligraphy, proposes an alliance between the Caliph and the Vicar of Christ, the leader of an institution that had called for organized crusades against the Islamic world. While the history of Pope Innocent IV’s contacts with the Muslim rulers of Marrakech remains obscure, the sources indicate that Pope Innocent IV sent envoys south to Marrakech. One of these envoys was Lope d’Ayn. Lope became Bishop of Marrakech, shepherd of a flock of paid Christian mercenaries who were sent to Marrakech by that sometime leader of the reconquista, Ferdinand III of Castile, in a deal he had struck with the Almohads. Although they now had Christians fighting for them and cathedral bells competing with the call to prayer, the Almohads were powerful agitators of jihad against the Christians only decades before. Scholars know only a little about Lope d’Ayn’s story or the historical context of this letter between Caliph Murtada and the Pope. Although very recent research is encouraging, there is a great deal to know about the history of the mercenaries of Marrakech or the interactions between Jews, Muslims and Christians that occurred in early thirteenth century Marrakech. The neglect of Lope d’Ayn and the contacts between the Papacy and the Almohads is only one example of a much wider neglect of North Africa contacts with Europe in the secondary literature in English. While scholarship in English has focused on correspondence, commerce and travel from West to East, between Europe, the Levant and Egypt, there were also important cultural bridges being crossed between North and South, between North Africa and Europe in the Medieval Western Mediterranean.
48
Hair, P. E. H. "The Early Sources on Guinea." History in Africa 21 (1994): 87–126. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3171882.
Full textAbstract:
The Guinea coast and near interior was a region of almost wholly preliterate societies before the coming of the Europeans. Islamic culture, with its literate strands, which had been spreading through the northern parts of West Africa over many centuries had barely begun to touch the Guinea region—although a handful of literate itinerant merchants and missionaries was to be encountered by the Portuguese, and Islamic religious practice had penetrated at least one royal court in Senegal. Hence the “medieval” sources in Arabic which are informative on the history of the Sudanic states of West Africa tell us little or nothing about the Guinea region. As for the oral traditions of the region, mostly collected only since 1850, these have an inbuilt “horizon” of recollection which falls far short of the arrival of the Europeans five centuries ago. Ethnographic, cultural, and linguistic evidence, systematized in recent times, can be extrapolated backwards to earlier times, but this can only be done, with any security, when trends over time have been identified from earlier hard evidence.Such trends can of course be obtained from archeology, as well as from written sources. But the limited investigations of archeologists in Guinea to date, while they certainly inform on general issues such as agriculture and technology, are as yet decidedly weak, for a variety of good reasons, on the regional details of human settlement and population, and on the varieties of political structure. Moreover it is doubtful whether archeology per se can inform to any significant extent on ethnicity, language, and social characteristics. It is therefore only marginally debatable to refer to the earliest European written sources on Guinea as “the early sources.”
49
Bhattacharyya, Shatarupa. "Localising Global Faiths The Heterodox Pantheon of the Sundarbans." Asian Review of World Histories 5, no. 1 (June 29, 2017): 141–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.12773/arwh.2017.5.1.141.
Full textAbstract:
This essay foregrounds the Sundarbans, a littoral zone in India that moves between sea and land and is a site of global history. It studies the pantheon of divinities, especially Bonbibi (Lady of the Forest), a mythical figure of Muslim origin. Such deities are worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims exclusively in the Sundarbans (Beautiful Forest) that straddles the state of West Bengal (India) and the nation-state of Bangladesh. It demonstrates how the Sundarbans, during Islamisation in the medieval era actively adapted, as against passively adopting, the global faith of Islam to suit the local needs of the people there. The result was a religious worldview that was not quite Islamic, but not quite Hindu either, but rather a singular faith system unique to the region and suited to meet the needs of the people there. And because this faith system does not conform to the orthodox beliefs of either Hinduism or Islam, it can accurately be described as a heterodox pantheon.
50
Gada, Muhammad Yaseen. "Historiography in the Twenty-First Century." American Journal of Islam and Society 32, no. 2 (April 1, 2015): 90–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v32i2.971.
Full textAbstract:
Books Reviewed: Thomas F. Madden, The Concise History of the Crusades,3d ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014); Paul M. Cobb, The Racefor Paradise (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014); Jonathan Harris,Byzantium and the Crusades, 2d ed. (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
During the last six decades, historians have adopted various approaches tostudying the Crusades. Unfortunately, few contemporary Muslim scholarshave dealt with this topic at all. In the aftermath of 9/11, however, this seriesof European military invasions of the Middle East began to reappear in themedia as analysts, historians, and academics posited that they were a precursorof the region’s present sociopolitical disorder as daunting as the current East-West discourse and relations between the Christian and Muslim worlds.1 Someworks deconstruct the perception that there is no connection between them,whereas others view the Crusades from the Islamic perspective in an attemptto balance the general triumphalist western narrative.2This essay focuses on three recent works that, although dealing with differentstandpoints, are explicitly interwoven. Thomas F. Madden’s The ConciseHistory of the Crusades “is an attempt to illuminate the complex relationshipof the past to the present” and narrates the Crusades in a “concise, understandable,and engaging manner” (pp. vii, viii) based on modern scholarship; PaulM. Cobb’s The Race for Paradise shows how medieval Muslims perceivedthe Crusades and is based on his research primarily from original Islamicsources (p. 6); and Jonathan Harris’ Byzantium and the Crusades concentrateson the relations between Byzantium and the Latin West during the Crusades.Madden’s book comprises ten chapters. Chapter 1, “The Call,” discussesthe crusading movement’s background as primarily an act of piety despite anunderlying current of selfish/secular desires, a fact that western scholars oftenoverlook. He also criticizes historians who believe that many Crusaders weremotivated by medieval Europe’s policy of “castoffs,” wherein only the firstson could inherit his father’s estate, by stating that the majority of crusading ...