Pub Date : 2021-11-29DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341557
Selim Güngörürler
This study introduces and publishes an array of Ottoman archival documents on the shrines of Ahl al-Bayt imams in Iraq, the endowments dedicated to these shrines, and the Shiite-Iranian pilgrims visiting these sites as well as the Kaaba and the shrine of Muhammad in the Hejaz. Focusing on the later seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries, it discusses the political-economic function of Islamic endowments, interconfessional contacts resulting from pilgrimage by Shiites in Sunni territory, and the potential use of Ottoman archives to enrich our knowledge on trans-Ottoman themes.
{"title":"Ottoman Archival Documents on the Shrines of Karbala, Najaf, and the Hejaz (1660s-1720s): Endowment Wars, the Spoils System, and Iranian Pilgrims","authors":"Selim Güngörürler","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341557","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study introduces and publishes an array of Ottoman archival documents on the shrines of Ahl al-Bayt imams in Iraq, the endowments dedicated to these shrines, and the Shiite-Iranian pilgrims visiting these sites as well as the Kaaba and the shrine of Muhammad in the Hejaz. Focusing on the later seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries, it discusses the political-economic function of Islamic endowments, interconfessional contacts resulting from pilgrimage by Shiites in Sunni territory, and the potential use of Ottoman archives to enrich our knowledge on trans-Ottoman themes.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45877707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-29DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341558
I. P. Petrushevskiĭ, A. Samie, J. Woods
{"title":"On the History of the Institution of the Soyūrghāl","authors":"I. P. Petrushevskiĭ, A. Samie, J. Woods","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341558","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44514481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-29DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341560
P. Sartori
This issue marks the creation of a new section within JESHO entitled ‘From the Archives of Asian History.’ This section will feature seminal works in the history of Asia from the late Antique period to the 20th century, which were originally published in languages other than English, but which unfortunately have long been forgotten and therefore tend to be underappreciated, especially by a younger generation of scholars. There are many ways to explain the peculiar phenomenon of ground-breaking scholarship falling into desuetude; but it is ironic to observe that, while major digitization projects have been now underway for a decade or more, thereby impressing upon many the idea that everything is available on-line, academic conformism remains rampant, indeed unrestrained. Time and again must JESHO’s editors and readers alike lament how manuscripts submitted for consideration tend to reproduce often uncritically the prevailing current of thought, to privilege established views over works that today are less cited, and disregard earlier scholarship that in fact contributed significantly to the advancement of historiography. While modern scholarship takes pride in the global reach of its perspectives and analyses, and almost every social science discipline reinvents itself by adding the adjective ‘global’ to its conventional name, the scholars who practice in these disciplines increasingly rely almost exclusively on anglophone literature. At the same time, we all must take stock of enduring asymmetries between national systems of higher education, which fuel a general mistrust for scholarship produced in countries outside the Anglo-Saxon world. It is an unfortunate fact that a graduate student coming from the Global South seeking to secure funding in Europe or North America will need not just to demonstrate her originality, but also her commitment to engaging with scholarship published in English rather than in, say, Portuguese or Turkish. Finally, we should all pause to reflect on the disincentive effects on multilingualism originating from the sinking quality of public education. Until the 1990s, for an undergraduate to hone multiple linguistic skills was a prerequisite for admission into schools offering courses on the histories and literatures of Asia. Nowadays, by contrast, lecturers are expected to constrain their syllabi mainly to scholarship
{"title":"From the Archives of Asian History","authors":"P. Sartori","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341560","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341560","url":null,"abstract":"This issue marks the creation of a new section within JESHO entitled ‘From the Archives of Asian History.’ This section will feature seminal works in the history of Asia from the late Antique period to the 20th century, which were originally published in languages other than English, but which unfortunately have long been forgotten and therefore tend to be underappreciated, especially by a younger generation of scholars. There are many ways to explain the peculiar phenomenon of ground-breaking scholarship falling into desuetude; but it is ironic to observe that, while major digitization projects have been now underway for a decade or more, thereby impressing upon many the idea that everything is available on-line, academic conformism remains rampant, indeed unrestrained. Time and again must JESHO’s editors and readers alike lament how manuscripts submitted for consideration tend to reproduce often uncritically the prevailing current of thought, to privilege established views over works that today are less cited, and disregard earlier scholarship that in fact contributed significantly to the advancement of historiography. While modern scholarship takes pride in the global reach of its perspectives and analyses, and almost every social science discipline reinvents itself by adding the adjective ‘global’ to its conventional name, the scholars who practice in these disciplines increasingly rely almost exclusively on anglophone literature. At the same time, we all must take stock of enduring asymmetries between national systems of higher education, which fuel a general mistrust for scholarship produced in countries outside the Anglo-Saxon world. It is an unfortunate fact that a graduate student coming from the Global South seeking to secure funding in Europe or North America will need not just to demonstrate her originality, but also her commitment to engaging with scholarship published in English rather than in, say, Portuguese or Turkish. Finally, we should all pause to reflect on the disincentive effects on multilingualism originating from the sinking quality of public education. Until the 1990s, for an undergraduate to hone multiple linguistic skills was a prerequisite for admission into schools offering courses on the histories and literatures of Asia. Nowadays, by contrast, lecturers are expected to constrain their syllabi mainly to scholarship","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47707692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-29DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341559
J. Paul
{"title":"Remarks on Petrushevskii’s Article K istorii instituta soiurgala","authors":"J. Paul","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341559","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43701971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-26DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341549
G. A. Nadri
In the Persianate world, a mukhtār-nāma (deed of representation or a power of attorney) was a legal instrument that enabled people to transact business through a representative or agent (mukhtār or wakīl). This is a study of one such document written in Surat in 1821. It analyses the document for its socio-cultural, legal, and commercial significance as well as to explore the transition in the adjudication of commercial disputes and civil cases from Mughal to East India Company courts. It shows that there was a strong tradition of documenting business transactions in early modern South Asia and that such practices have continued into the colonial and postcolonial periods.
{"title":"Transacting Business through/for Others in Early Colonial Western India: The Text, Context, and Meaning of a Mukhtār-nāma of 1821","authors":"G. A. Nadri","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341549","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the Persianate world, a mukhtār-nāma (deed of representation or a power of attorney) was a legal instrument that enabled people to transact business through a representative or agent (mukhtār or wakīl). This is a study of one such document written in Surat in 1821. It analyses the document for its socio-cultural, legal, and commercial significance as well as to explore the transition in the adjudication of commercial disputes and civil cases from Mughal to East India Company courts. It shows that there was a strong tradition of documenting business transactions in early modern South Asia and that such practices have continued into the colonial and postcolonial periods.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49422876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-26DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341550
Mohammad Shahnawaz
The huṇḍī or Indic mercantile instrument integrated networks of merchants and bankers across Persianate bazaars from South Asia to Central Asia, Iran and East Africa. Merchants performed long-distance financial transactions by means of this instrument, catering to both private individuals and the state. While much has been written about the commercial use of huṇḍīs, this paper turns to the working of huṇḍīs at the interface of mercantile and state institutions, looking in particular at the Jaipur state’s collection of nirakh huṇḍāwan registers—which tracked the rate of discounting of huṇḍīs on a daily basis. Produced at the mercantile centre of Sanganer, and open to inspection by the Jaipur state, these registers lie at the intersection of commerce and governance, and of corporation and state. They reveal an ‘economically curious’ state, which accessed and used data collected and maintained by mercantile entities to make significant economic decisions.
{"title":"Huṇḍī and Nirakh Huṇḍāwan: Indic Mercantile Instruments in the Persianate Bazaar","authors":"Mohammad Shahnawaz","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341550","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341550","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The huṇḍī or Indic mercantile instrument integrated networks of merchants and bankers across Persianate bazaars from South Asia to Central Asia, Iran and East Africa. Merchants performed long-distance financial transactions by means of this instrument, catering to both private individuals and the state. While much has been written about the commercial use of huṇḍīs, this paper turns to the working of huṇḍīs at the interface of mercantile and state institutions, looking in particular at the Jaipur state’s collection of nirakh huṇḍāwan registers—which tracked the rate of discounting of huṇḍīs on a daily basis. Produced at the mercantile centre of Sanganer, and open to inspection by the Jaipur state, these registers lie at the intersection of commerce and governance, and of corporation and state. They reveal an ‘economically curious’ state, which accessed and used data collected and maintained by mercantile entities to make significant economic decisions.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47783329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-26DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341544
F. Bishara, N. Chatterjee
The collection of essays in this volume examines forms of business documentation in the late Persianate world and the Indian Ocean, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Looking upon business in its broadest sense, the themes range from property disputes within families to inter-polity and inter-imperial deals, all of which is captured within the notion of the bazaar. Presenting documents and documentary forms written in Persian, but also the associated languages of Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Rajasthani, the articles collectively enrich the idea of the Persianate, delineating its specific dispensations within regional contexts, and also its boundaries and limitations. This is also a contribution to the study of Persographia, in this case Persianate rather than just Persian writing. The articles study specific language combinations, lexical elements and usages that came to be deployed in different areas and the legal cultures they provide evidence for.
{"title":"Introduction: The Persianate Bazaar","authors":"F. Bishara, N. Chatterjee","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341544","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The collection of essays in this volume examines forms of business documentation in the late Persianate world and the Indian Ocean, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Looking upon business in its broadest sense, the themes range from property disputes within families to inter-polity and inter-imperial deals, all of which is captured within the notion of the bazaar. Presenting documents and documentary forms written in Persian, but also the associated languages of Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Rajasthani, the articles collectively enrich the idea of the Persianate, delineating its specific dispensations within regional contexts, and also its boundaries and limitations. This is also a contribution to the study of Persographia, in this case Persianate rather than just Persian writing. The articles study specific language combinations, lexical elements and usages that came to be deployed in different areas and the legal cultures they provide evidence for.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41785390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-26DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341548
N. Kondo
This article examines various aspects of conditional sales (bayʿ-i sharṭ) and other types of loans in Qajar Iran (1796-1925). Islamic law prohibited usury, but Shiʿi jurists found a way to legalize money lending at interest. In this paper, I explore how these transactions occurred in practice and what features they had. To this end, I consider three groups of bayʿ-i sharṭ deeds from the National Archives of Iran, discussing how each case proceeded and how differences between cases reveal the ways in which this type of transaction functioned. While similar types of transactions were allowed in other regions and schools of law, the details of Shiʿi legal devices were distinctive.
{"title":"Conditional Sales and Other Types of Loans in Qajar Iran","authors":"N. Kondo","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341548","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines various aspects of conditional sales (bayʿ-i sharṭ) and other types of loans in Qajar Iran (1796-1925). Islamic law prohibited usury, but Shiʿi jurists found a way to legalize money lending at interest. In this paper, I explore how these transactions occurred in practice and what features they had. To this end, I consider three groups of bayʿ-i sharṭ deeds from the National Archives of Iran, discussing how each case proceeded and how differences between cases reveal the ways in which this type of transaction functioned. While similar types of transactions were allowed in other regions and schools of law, the details of Shiʿi legal devices were distinctive.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45499052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-26DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341555
Christophe Werner
In the second half of the nineteenth century, practitioners of law in Iran were looking for more flexibility in contractual forms, especially those used to conclude routine transactions of properties and services. They increasingly made use of a type of contract named muṣālaḥa-nāma, derived from the legal concept of ṣulḥ and defined primarily as a means to arrange the amicable settlement of disputes. The present contribution attempts to categorise the kind of transactions for which this universal contractual type could be employed and raises the question what advantages such a “new” contractual form might have entailed.
{"title":"Flexible Forms of Contracts: Transactions through Fictitious Settlements (ṣulḥ/muṣālaḥa) in Iran","authors":"Christophe Werner","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341555","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the second half of the nineteenth century, practitioners of law in Iran were looking for more flexibility in contractual forms, especially those used to conclude routine transactions of properties and services. They increasingly made use of a type of contract named muṣālaḥa-nāma, derived from the legal concept of ṣulḥ and defined primarily as a means to arrange the amicable settlement of disputes. The present contribution attempts to categorise the kind of transactions for which this universal contractual type could be employed and raises the question what advantages such a “new” contractual form might have entailed.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44318900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-26DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341553
Elizabeth M. Thelen
Even though all state documents in Marwar in the second half of the eighteenth century were issued in Rajasthani, Persian-language documents continued to have an active legal life and were debated, discussed and judged through Rajasthani-language petitions and orders. A close reading of one such dispute highlights tensions over the authority of community versus documents, how new forms of state record-keeping affected the legal use of documents, and how the Rajput king’s practice of customary law led both to the interpolation of shariʿa principles into that law when applied to Muslims and to the restriction of the qazi’s jurisdiction.
{"title":"Disputed Transactions: Documents, Language, and Authority in Eighteenth-Century Marwar","authors":"Elizabeth M. Thelen","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341553","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341553","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Even though all state documents in Marwar in the second half of the eighteenth century were issued in Rajasthani, Persian-language documents continued to have an active legal life and were debated, discussed and judged through Rajasthani-language petitions and orders. A close reading of one such dispute highlights tensions over the authority of community versus documents, how new forms of state record-keeping affected the legal use of documents, and how the Rajput king’s practice of customary law led both to the interpolation of shariʿa principles into that law when applied to Muslims and to the restriction of the qazi’s jurisdiction.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47634024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}