The Shu'ûbîyah Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran

1976 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy P. Mottahedeh
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Many ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Legal Fictions ◽  
Early Islamic

“In a state of rude nature”, wrote Edmund Burke, “there is no such thing as a people… The idea of a people is the idea of a corporation. It is wholly artificial; and made, like all other legal fictions, by common agreement. What the particular nature of that agreement was, is collected from the form into which the particular society has been cast”. Whether the Iranians in the early Islamic period — that is, the period from the seventh to the twelfth century — were in Burke's sense a “people” is a question that the cautious scholar would be eager to disregard and loath to handle. After all, those specialists on early Islamic Iran who have, directly or indirectly, expressed opinions on this subject have all too often projected events from the life of their own nation and times back to these earlier centuries. In no case is this projection more obvious than in the many essays written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which see this question only as a question of “national liberation”: did the Iranians hate the Arabs, and did they hope to regain their empire by destroying, or profoundly reshaping, the empire of the Muslim caliphs?

Zoroastrian law and the spread of Islam in Iranian society (ninth–tenth century)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Christian C. Sahner
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic

Abstract This article explores three important Zoroastrian legal texts from the ʿAbbasid period, consisting of questions and answers to high-ranking priests. The texts contain a wellspring of information about the social history of Zoroastrianism under Islamic rule, especially the formative encounter between Zoroastrians and Muslims. These include matters such as conversion, apostasy, sexual relations with outsiders, inheritance, commerce, and the economic status of priests. The article argues that the elite clergy responsible for writing these texts used law to refashion the Zoroastrian community from the rulers of Iran, as they had been in Late Antiquity, into one of a variety of dhimmī groups living under Islamic rule. It also argues that, far from being brittle or inflexible, the priests responded to the challenges of the day with creativity and pragmatism. On both counts, there are strong parallels between the experiences of Zoroastrians and those of Christians and Jews, who also turned to law as an instrument for rethinking their place in the new Islamic cosmos. Finally, the article makes a methodological point, namely to show the importance of integrating Pahlavi sources into wider histories of Iran and the Middle East during the early Islamic period.

Islamic Glass in the Making

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Schibille
Keyword(s):  
Glass Industry ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Plant Ash ◽  
Islamic Glass

The ancient glass industry changed dramatically towards the end of the first millennium. The Roman glassmaking tradition of mineral soda glass was increasingly supplanted by the use of plant ash as the main fluxing agent at the turn of the ninth century CE. Defining primary production groups of plant ash glass has been a challenge due to the high variability of raw materials and the smaller scale of production. Islamic Glass in the Making advocates a large-scale archaeometric approach to the history of Islamic glassmaking to trace the developments in the production, trade and consumption of vitreous materials between the eighth and twelfth centuries and to separate the norm from the exception. It proposes compositional discriminants to distinguish regional production groups, and provides insights into the organisation of the glass industry and commerce during the early Islamic period. The interdisciplinary approach leads to a holistic understanding of the development of Islamic glass; assemblages from the early Islamic period in Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Egypt, Greater Syria and Iberia are evaluated, and placed in the larger geopolitical context. In doing so, this book fills a gap in the present literature and advances a large-scale approach to the history of Islamic glass.

scholarly journals “Mother of the Faithful” and “Lion of Allah” in the Prophetic Tradition and Early History of the Caliphate or Why the Islamic Jama at Disintegrated?

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
F. A. Asadullin
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Islamic Schools ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic

The problem of disintegration of the Islamic Ummah a long time ago became the one of the most important for the Islamic world and worldview. The wave of violence in the Near and Middle East sharpened some regional conflicts, which have already taken place before. The paper deals with the roots of this conflict atmosphere in the Early Islamic period. As the tradition affirms, the Prophet Muhammad predicted the Ummah to split in 73 sects. Today there exist in any case not less than 73 different Islamic schools, movements and organizations, which mutually and constantly contest their doctrinal authenticity. Moreover, the activity of quasi- Islamic extremist organisations like the ISIS, which is forbidden inside as well as outside the Russian Federation, is quite remarkable. All these factors demonstrate, that from the academic point of view it is actual to critically research the nature of fragmentation and disintegration of Islamic communities through the prism of prophetic legends. This paper is to consider as an attempt to resolve this multidimensional problem.

The Martyrdom of Bifām Ibn Baqūra al-Ṣawwāf by Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij and Its Fatimid Background

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 452-484
Author(s):  
Johannes den Heijer
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Arabic Text ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Literary Source ◽  
History Of ◽  
Urban Elite ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic

This paper discusses the primary Copto-Arabic literary source for the history of Fatimid Egypt, and indeed, for much of the history of Egypt in general: known as the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, it was compiled in Arabic in the late eleventh century ce on the basis of earlier, mostly Coptic sources, by the Alexandrian notable Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij, who added original Arabic materials of his own. Later continuations were added by others, from late Fatimid times up to the twentieth century. The first part of the paper is an outline of the textual history of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, its existing editions and their shortcomings, and the new critical edition that is now being prepared. This part also discusses the fundamentals of a meticulous method of textual criticism, close reading, and contextualization which should help to elucidate numerous problems of historic interpretation. In the subsequent sections of the paper, this same method is applied to a short text sample with an aim of, wherever possible, reconstructing Mawhūb’s original Arabic text, but also with the objective of illustrating how this late eleventh-century text may have been read by later generations. Finally, the freshly coined concept of “internal intertextuality” is employed to point to parallels with episodes that occur in the earlier parts of the Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, based on older Coptic sources. At the level of content, several new historical interpretations and corrections to older interpretations are offered. The text sample in question concerns the martyrdom of a young Copt, Bifām ibn Baqūra al-Ṣawwāf, during the imamate-caliphate of al-Mustanṣir Billāh (427/1036–487/1094). Throughout the paper, it is argued that narratives such as this, together with accounts of events belonging to the early Islamic period or even to pre-Islamic (Roman, Byzantine) history, are to be seen as emanating from the specific socio-cultural environment of the Coptic urban elite of the mid-Fatimid period.

The Chronology of Galen's Early Career

1973 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Nutton
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Psychology And Medicine

The last decade has witnessed a widespread resurgence of interest in Galen of Pergamum that is without parallel since the early seventeenth century. New studies of Galen's concepts of psychology and medicine have examined afresh his position in the development of scientific thought, and historians have begun to realize the wealth of material for the social history of the Antonine Age that he provides. But, despite the earlier labours of Ilberg and Bardong to restore a chronological order to the many tracts that flowed readily from his pen, many of the events of his life still lack the precise dates that would enable even more valuable information to be extracted, especially upon the careers of his friends.

scholarly journals Nueva Mujer y nuevas Electras: aproximaciones a la mitología clásica en el teatro burlesco victoriano

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Monrós Gaspar
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Electric Light

Abstract: This paper seeks to analyze Francis Talfourd’s Electra in a New Electric Light (1859) as related to the Victorian stereotype of the strong-minded woman. After a brief introduction on the links between nineteenth-century burlesque and the social history of women in Victorian times, I shall focus on the figure of Electra as epitome of late nineteenth-century representations of New Women.Resumen: Resumen: El objetivo de este trabajo es el estudio de Electra in a New Electric Light (1859) de Francis Talfourd a partir del estereotipo victoriano de la strong-minded woman. Para ello, tras comentar la relación existente entre el teatro burlesco decimonónico de tema clásico y la historia social de la mujer a lo largo del siglo, nos centraremos en la figura de Electra, y en cómo, acompañada de otras heroínas clásicas, anticipa la representación de la Nueva Mujer de finales de siglo.

scholarly journals The Role of Women in Medical Services in the Early Islamic Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 226
Author(s):  
Levent Ozturk
Keyword(s):  
Folk Medicine ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Pediatric Diseases ◽  
History Of ◽  
Body Care ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Surgical Operations

During the time of the Prophet Muhammad, some women took part in medical services to contribute their society, in Mecca and Medina. We found approximately 50 women contributing to their society in terms of medical services. Their medical contributions were generally traditional practices about the daily necessities of their society. Understanding the service provided by these women to their society at that time is very significant in terms of its contribution to the history of folk medicine. The contribution of these women was mainly in the areas of the nursing and assisting the midwifes, prenatal and postnatal care, some surgical operations, caring were wounded in wars, giving soldiers a meal, medical treatment for some diseases and daily injuring, treatment of animal beats, psychological therapy, practicing dietician care and body care, some folkloric treatments of some pediatric diseases, and sexual education. In this paper, I will ground my work on Islamic sources.

Whence Diyār Bakr? An Inquiry into Early Jazīran Administrative Geography

Der Islam ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-344
Author(s):  
Hannah-Lena Hagemann
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Administrative District ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tentative Explanation ◽  
Administrative History ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic

Abstract This article discusses the emergence of Diyār Bakr as the northern subdivision of the Jazīra in the early Islamic period. It shows that this sub-province is a product of the 10th century CE and not, as has hitherto been assumed, of the conquest or Umayyad period. As a first step, the paper traces the appearance of the name Diyār Bakr in the Arabic sources to the mid-10th century. It then turns to the ʿAbbāsid geographical tradition and gives an overview of the various portrayals of the region of the Jazīran north up to al-Muqaddasī (d. after 990), who is the first to provide a rudimentary depiction of the Jazīran north as ‘Diyār Bakr’. The article then turns to the history of the Banū Shaybān of Bakr/Rabīʿa in the Jazīran north to offer a tentative explanation for the origin of the term and administrative district of Diyār Bakr. It concludes with a brief discussion of the need to re-evaluate the political and administrative history of the Jazīra before the 10th century.

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