Pub Date : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341542
Svetlana Jacquesson
In this article I focus on the importance of folklore archives in staking heritage claims and in disputes over cultural “ownership.” I use as a case study the Manas epic which is shared by post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and China’s Kyrgyz minority. By analyzing the actors who took part in the transcription of the epic, the conditions under which these transcriptions were conducted, and the results they yielded, I show how, in the case of Kyrgyzstan, turning the epic from an oral tradition into a literary monument that could be claimed as national heritage was a long story of suffering and coercion, aspirations for reward and recognition, disaccords between holders of official authority and subordinates, and never-ending personal conflicts, all under the constantly looming threat of political repression. I contrast the uses of collections of transcripts under Soviet rule and in the post-independence period which overlapped with the UNESCO-driven heritage rush worldwide. I argue that while under Soviet rule the transcripts of the epic were “raw data” which editors, translators and scholars could bend according to their needs or their expertise, after independence these transcripts have been used both as a means of authenticating the epic and claiming it as heritage. I conceptualize this process as the “transvaluation” of folklore archives, or a process in which transcripts were turned into valuable historical artefacts by downplaying the agencies involved in their production and the circumstances under which it took place.
{"title":"On Folklore Archives and Heritage Claims: the Manas Epic in Kyrgyzstan","authors":"Svetlana Jacquesson","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341542","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this article I focus on the importance of folklore archives in staking heritage claims and in disputes over cultural “ownership.” I use as a case study the Manas epic which is shared by post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and China’s Kyrgyz minority. By analyzing the actors who took part in the transcription of the epic, the conditions under which these transcriptions were conducted, and the results they yielded, I show how, in the case of Kyrgyzstan, turning the epic from an oral tradition into a literary monument that could be claimed as national heritage was a long story of suffering and coercion, aspirations for reward and recognition, disaccords between holders of official authority and subordinates, and never-ending personal conflicts, all under the constantly looming threat of political repression. I contrast the uses of collections of transcripts under Soviet rule and in the post-independence period which overlapped with the UNESCO-driven heritage rush worldwide. I argue that while under Soviet rule the transcripts of the epic were “raw data” which editors, translators and scholars could bend according to their needs or their expertise, after independence these transcripts have been used both as a means of authenticating the epic and claiming it as heritage. I conceptualize this process as the “transvaluation” of folklore archives, or a process in which transcripts were turned into valuable historical artefacts by downplaying the agencies involved in their production and the circumstances under which it took place.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"425-454"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44995833","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 : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341543
M. Borroni
A close reading of two poetical sources provides new data on the reforms of the fiscal schedule of the Abbasid state in the ninth century. This paper reconstructs the calendrical complications in those Abbasid regions that followed Iranian administrative tradition and its solar calendar without intercalations. Two reforms were issued under al-Mutawakkil and al-Muʿtaḍid to correct the fiscal schedule of these regions. A panegyric by al-Buḥturī allows us to confirm and contextualize al-Mutawakkil’s reform in the final years of his caliphate. A few verses by Ibn al-Muʿtazz give a significant description of the close connection between al-Muʿtaḍid’s reform of the Iranian New-Year’s day and the construction of his public figure.
{"title":"Wandering Days: Two Sources in Poetry on the Abbasid Reforms of the Fiscal Schedule","authors":"M. Borroni","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341543","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000A close reading of two poetical sources provides new data on the reforms of the fiscal schedule of the Abbasid state in the ninth century. This paper reconstructs the calendrical complications in those Abbasid regions that followed Iranian administrative tradition and its solar calendar without intercalations. Two reforms were issued under al-Mutawakkil and al-Muʿtaḍid to correct the fiscal schedule of these regions. A panegyric by al-Buḥturī allows us to confirm and contextualize al-Mutawakkil’s reform in the final years of his caliphate. A few verses by Ibn al-Muʿtazz give a significant description of the close connection between al-Muʿtaḍid’s reform of the Iranian New-Year’s day and the construction of his public figure.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"455-481"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49299407","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 : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341540
Guy Burak
The article examines the rise of standardized collections of fatāwā issued by officially appointed provincial Hanafi muftis across the Ottoman Empire in the long eighteenth century. The article focuses on the earliest compilation, that of the Jerusalemite Ḥanafī mufti, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Abī al-Luṭf. This compilation was commissioned by the famous chief imperial mufti Feyzullah Efendi. The article then traces the proliferation of the standardized fatāwā compilation over the course of the eighteenth century, from Medina to the Balkans. This essay seeks to examine the emergence of local/provincial compilations of fatāwā over the eighteenth century as yet another chapter in the long intervention of the Ottoman dynasty (through its learned hierarchy) in the regulation of the doctrines of the Ḥanafī madhhab at the imperial and provincial levels. Focusing on Feyzullah Efendi’s initiative and its aftermath may cast light on specific venues and practices in which this intervention took place in a particular historical moment.
{"title":"Şeyhulislâm Feyzullah Efendi, the Ḥanafī Mufti of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Provincial Fatāwā Collections in the Eighteenth Century","authors":"Guy Burak","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341540","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article examines the rise of standardized collections of fatāwā issued by officially appointed provincial Hanafi muftis across the Ottoman Empire in the long eighteenth century. The article focuses on the earliest compilation, that of the Jerusalemite Ḥanafī mufti, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Abī al-Luṭf. This compilation was commissioned by the famous chief imperial mufti Feyzullah Efendi. The article then traces the proliferation of the standardized fatāwā compilation over the course of the eighteenth century, from Medina to the Balkans. This essay seeks to examine the emergence of local/provincial compilations of fatāwā over the eighteenth century as yet another chapter in the long intervention of the Ottoman dynasty (through its learned hierarchy) in the regulation of the doctrines of the Ḥanafī madhhab at the imperial and provincial levels. Focusing on Feyzullah Efendi’s initiative and its aftermath may cast light on specific venues and practices in which this intervention took place in a particular historical moment.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"377-403"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46038645","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 : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341539
Danielle Ross
This article explores how the Islamic elegiac genre of marthiya can shed new light on the social and cultural history of the Muslims of Russia’s Volga-Ural region in the late imperial period (1870s-1917). The marthiyas enjoyed great popularity across geographical, ethnic, and factional lines as a medium for asserting and affirming social bonds and expressing collective identities. Volga-Ural marthiyas reveal the links between Sufism and Tatar national history-writing, demonstrate the interrelation between Sufi literature and Muslim revolutionary culture, and point to historical figures and groups that were left out of the evolving Tatar national historiography.
{"title":"The Promiscuous Life of a Genre for the Dead: The Marthiya as an Instrument of Community Construction in Muslim Russia","authors":"Danielle Ross","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341539","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores how the Islamic elegiac genre of marthiya can shed new light on the social and cultural history of the Muslims of Russia’s Volga-Ural region in the late imperial period (1870s-1917). The marthiyas enjoyed great popularity across geographical, ethnic, and factional lines as a medium for asserting and affirming social bonds and expressing collective identities. Volga-Ural marthiyas reveal the links between Sufism and Tatar national history-writing, demonstrate the interrelation between Sufi literature and Muslim revolutionary culture, and point to historical figures and groups that were left out of the evolving Tatar national historiography.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"343-376"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41824484","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 : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341538
J. Bhattacharya
An increasing optimism at the prospect of “shared prosperity” has revived attention on ancient historical routes such as the Southern Silk Road compelling us to rethink notions of the “centre” and the “periphery” in comprehending binaries of nation-states and agencies of globalization. This article focuses on revisiting circulatory movements and networks from the past across land and sea between Bengal delta and China in strengthening the networks and a new alignment of communities and economic possibilities. It explores some of the lesser-studied historical routes in the region and different dimensions of “place making” in the popular imagination and new synergies to redefine the Bengal-China connections.
{"title":"Old Routes, New Dreams: Reminiscences of the Southern Silk Road and Bengal-China Connectivities","authors":"J. Bhattacharya","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341538","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000An increasing optimism at the prospect of “shared prosperity” has revived attention on ancient historical routes such as the Southern Silk Road compelling us to rethink notions of the “centre” and the “periphery” in comprehending binaries of nation-states and agencies of globalization. This article focuses on revisiting circulatory movements and networks from the past across land and sea between Bengal delta and China in strengthening the networks and a new alignment of communities and economic possibilities. It explores some of the lesser-studied historical routes in the region and different dimensions of “place making” in the popular imagination and new synergies to redefine the Bengal-China connections.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"302-341"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46605200","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 : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341536
Mahmood Kooria
This article examines the Bengal–China connections between the Ilyās Shāhī and Ming dynasties in the early fifteenth century across the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea. It traces how law played a central role in the cultural geography and diplomatic vocabulary between individuals and communities in foreign lands, with their shared understanding of two nodal points of law. Diplomatic missions explicate how customary, regional and transregional laws were entangled in inter-imperial etiquette. Then there were the religious orders of Islam that constituted an inner circle of imperial exchanges. Between the Ilyās Shāhī rule in Bengal and the Ming Empire in China, certain dimensions of Islamic law provided a common language for the circulation of people and ideas. Stretching between cities and across oceans the interpolity legal exchanges expose interesting aspects of the histories of China and Bengal.
{"title":"Regimes of Diplomacy and Law: Bengal-China Encounters in the Early Fifteenth Century","authors":"Mahmood Kooria","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341536","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines the Bengal–China connections between the Ilyās Shāhī and Ming dynasties in the early fifteenth century across the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea. It traces how law played a central role in the cultural geography and diplomatic vocabulary between individuals and communities in foreign lands, with their shared understanding of two nodal points of law. Diplomatic missions explicate how customary, regional and transregional laws were entangled in inter-imperial etiquette. Then there were the religious orders of Islam that constituted an inner circle of imperial exchanges. Between the Ilyās Shāhī rule in Bengal and the Ming Empire in China, certain dimensions of Islamic law provided a common language for the circulation of people and ideas. Stretching between cities and across oceans the interpolity legal exchanges expose interesting aspects of the histories of China and Bengal.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44474700","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 : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341535
Yiwen Li
By reinterpreting a set of correspondence between Chinese and Japanese monks, this article gives a “thick description” of a lumber transaction between a prestigious monastery in Hangzhou, China, and a newly established monastery in Hakata, Japan. Examining the network connecting the two monasteries shows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Hakata-based Chinese merchants sought patronage and connections from powerful religious establishments in both China and Japan, whose political patronage conferred economic privileges. The quest for gaining trade profits, spreading Buddhist teachings, and enhancing political authority drove all the parties together and formed a religio-commercial network linking China and Japan.
{"title":"Integrating Faith and Profit: The Religio-Commercial Network Spanning China and Japan, 1100-1270","authors":"Yiwen Li","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341535","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000By reinterpreting a set of correspondence between Chinese and Japanese monks, this article gives a “thick description” of a lumber transaction between a prestigious monastery in Hangzhou, China, and a newly established monastery in Hakata, Japan. Examining the network connecting the two monasteries shows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Hakata-based Chinese merchants sought patronage and connections from powerful religious establishments in both China and Japan, whose political patronage conferred economic privileges. The quest for gaining trade profits, spreading Buddhist teachings, and enhancing political authority drove all the parties together and formed a religio-commercial network linking China and Japan.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"191-216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45117147","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 : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341537
Nanny Kim, Yang Yuda
A donation stele discovered in the 1980 records that the community of the Fulong silver mines raised some 4500 liang of silver to build a temple dedicated to the God of Wealth in 1814. The site in a remote mountain range in northern Yunnan evidently was a prosperous and populous mining town. Yet it appears in no government record. Centered on the case study, this paper provides insights into social self-organization of communities and the structures within the Qing government that allowed the operation of mines that were registered with the local governments and submitted taxes yet kept out of the communications with the central government. The analysis contributes a specific example of communal governance structures and explains the two layers in late imperial administration, one which was official and documented in gazetteers and central records, and another which was customary and usually undocumented.
{"title":"Mining off the Map: Fulongchang and Silver Mines in the Qing Empire’s Far Southwest","authors":"Nanny Kim, Yang Yuda","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341537","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000A donation stele discovered in the 1980 records that the community of the Fulong silver mines raised some 4500 liang of silver to build a temple dedicated to the God of Wealth in 1814. The site in a remote mountain range in northern Yunnan evidently was a prosperous and populous mining town. Yet it appears in no government record. Centered on the case study, this paper provides insights into social self-organization of communities and the structures within the Qing government that allowed the operation of mines that were registered with the local governments and submitted taxes yet kept out of the communications with the central government. The analysis contributes a specific example of communal governance structures and explains the two layers in late imperial administration, one which was official and documented in gazetteers and central records, and another which was customary and usually undocumented.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"251-301"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46708295","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 : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341533
K. Hammond
{"title":"The Politics of Religion in the Japanese Empire: Responses to and Reflections on Michael Laffan’s “The Forgotten Jihad under Japan”","authors":"K. Hammond","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341533","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"162-174"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44689033","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 : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341534
C. Schayegh
{"title":"A Comment on Michael Laffan’s JESHO Lecture","authors":"C. Schayegh","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341534","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"64 1","pages":"175-190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46052156","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}