Pub Date : 2023-09-06DOI: 10.1017/s0041977x23000514
H. İ. Erkoç
The Qaŋlï (Qangli) Turks were a numerous people, active in Eurasia in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, but their ultimate origins remain a matter of debate. Often considered by modern scholars to be a part of the Kipchaks (Cumans), others have different opinions. One of these links them to cart-riding early medieval Turkic tribes called Tägräks, known in Chinese sources as Tiele 鐵勒, among other forms. This article examines the earliest possible (eighth-century) references to the Qaŋlïs in the historical sources, and points to the potential links between them and various tribes seen among Turko-Mongol groupings of the ninth to tenth centuries mentioned in the Chinese sources, such as the Black Carts (Heichezi 黑車子). Another aspect that this article focuses on is how both historical and mythological texts of the Mongol period show the Qaŋlïs to be a people distinct from the Kipchaks. Ultimately, this study, which is based on both historical sources and modern research, proposes to locate the origins of the Qaŋlï Turks among Tägräk tribes.
{"title":"On the origins and emergence of the Qaŋlï Turks","authors":"H. İ. Erkoç","doi":"10.1017/s0041977x23000514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x23000514","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Qaŋlï (Qangli) Turks were a numerous people, active in Eurasia in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, but their ultimate origins remain a matter of debate. Often considered by modern scholars to be a part of the Kipchaks (Cumans), others have different opinions. One of these links them to cart-riding early medieval Turkic tribes called Tägräks, known in Chinese sources as Tiele 鐵勒, among other forms. This article examines the earliest possible (eighth-century) references to the Qaŋlïs in the historical sources, and points to the potential links between them and various tribes seen among Turko-Mongol groupings of the ninth to tenth centuries mentioned in the Chinese sources, such as the Black Carts (Heichezi 黑車子). Another aspect that this article focuses on is how both historical and mythological texts of the Mongol period show the Qaŋlïs to be a people distinct from the Kipchaks. Ultimately, this study, which is based on both historical sources and modern research, proposes to locate the origins of the Qaŋlï Turks among Tägräk tribes.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43865076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000460
G. Izzo
Abstract This article looks at the history of jesters affiliated with the Iranian court during the Safavid and Zand periods. I present several case studies of jesters (dalqak), featuring Kal ʿEnāyat and Dalāleh Qezī from the Safavid period and Lūṭī Ṣāleḥ from the Zand period. From various primary resources including memoirs, European travelogues, and court-associated chronicles, I relate several accounts associated with these personalities and describe their unique relationship with the ruling shāh of their time. Through various staged and spontaneous performances involving irony, subterfuge, and satire, jesters – as embodied “mirrors for princes” – demonstrate the inherent precarity of the shāh's rule and the need to be accountable to his subjects. In comparing the Safavid jester to others across time and place, the performative simulation of transcending the status quo's gender, class, political, and moralistic boundaries will be shown to help preserve them.
{"title":"Playing the fool: jesters of the Safavid and Zand courts","authors":"G. Izzo","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000460","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article looks at the history of jesters affiliated with the Iranian court during the Safavid and Zand periods. I present several case studies of jesters (dalqak), featuring Kal ʿEnāyat and Dalāleh Qezī from the Safavid period and Lūṭī Ṣāleḥ from the Zand period. From various primary resources including memoirs, European travelogues, and court-associated chronicles, I relate several accounts associated with these personalities and describe their unique relationship with the ruling shāh of their time. Through various staged and spontaneous performances involving irony, subterfuge, and satire, jesters – as embodied “mirrors for princes” – demonstrate the inherent precarity of the shāh's rule and the need to be accountable to his subjects. In comparing the Safavid jester to others across time and place, the performative simulation of transcending the status quo's gender, class, political, and moralistic boundaries will be shown to help preserve them.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46164579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/s0041977x23000575
C. Branfoot
{"title":"T. Richard Blurton: India: A History in Objects 320 pp. London: Thames & Hudson and The British Museum, 2022. £30. ISBN 978 0 500 48064 9.","authors":"C. Branfoot","doi":"10.1017/s0041977x23000575","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x23000575","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48392143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000472
M. Wong
Abstract Previous studies of the Ying Wa College (英華書院) in early Hong Kong overlooked the role of the students. The scarcity of relevant sources could well justify such an oversight. This article aims at filling this gap through the careful use of London Missionary Society (LMS) materials. Not only does it aim to highlight significant aspects of the college, its unique history, its English education and its practice of Christian faith, it also discusses the careers of some graduates in Hong Kong, China and the world. This article argues that these Ying Wa boys formed a bridge that connected the Western and Chinese worlds. Their impact was felt through the spread of Christianity and global China business, on the one hand, and as a connection between the people and the government in colonial Hong Kong, Qing China and overseas Chinese communities in Singapore and Australia.
{"title":"Ying Wa boys in early colonial Hong Kong","authors":"M. Wong","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000472","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Previous studies of the Ying Wa College (英華書院) in early Hong Kong overlooked the role of the students. The scarcity of relevant sources could well justify such an oversight. This article aims at filling this gap through the careful use of London Missionary Society (LMS) materials. Not only does it aim to highlight significant aspects of the college, its unique history, its English education and its practice of Christian faith, it also discusses the careers of some graduates in Hong Kong, China and the world. This article argues that these Ying Wa boys formed a bridge that connected the Western and Chinese worlds. Their impact was felt through the spread of Christianity and global China business, on the one hand, and as a connection between the people and the government in colonial Hong Kong, Qing China and overseas Chinese communities in Singapore and Australia.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44580636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000538
Olivia Milburn
Abstract With the exception of legal texts, surviving records of rape in early China have been the subject of little academic study to date. This is the result of a number of factors, including the criminalization of both consensual and non-consensual sex outside of marriage in ancient China, the tradition of using euphemistic vocabulary to refer to such topics, considerable variation, depending on time and place, as to what constitutes rape and discomfort that some very famous men are said to have committed crimes of rape and sexual violence. This article examines two famous and well-documented incidents – one concerning the rape of a woman in peacetime, the other an instance of mass gang rape during war – to explore the specific challenges of studying sexual violence in ancient civilizations. Ignoring early accounts of rape serves to significantly distort our understanding of some key events in Chinese history and perverts the textual record.
{"title":"Rape in early China: two case studies","authors":"Olivia Milburn","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000538","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With the exception of legal texts, surviving records of rape in early China have been the subject of little academic study to date. This is the result of a number of factors, including the criminalization of both consensual and non-consensual sex outside of marriage in ancient China, the tradition of using euphemistic vocabulary to refer to such topics, considerable variation, depending on time and place, as to what constitutes rape and discomfort that some very famous men are said to have committed crimes of rape and sexual violence. This article examines two famous and well-documented incidents – one concerning the rape of a woman in peacetime, the other an instance of mass gang rape during war – to explore the specific challenges of studying sexual violence in ancient civilizations. Ignoring early accounts of rape serves to significantly distort our understanding of some key events in Chinese history and perverts the textual record.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41776297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/s0041977x23000307
C. Finkel
{"title":"Gül Şen: Making Sense of History. Narrativity and Literariness in the Ottoman Chronicle of Na‘īmā (The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage: Politics, Society and Economy, 74.) xiv, 387 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022. ISBN 978 90 04 51041 8.","authors":"C. Finkel","doi":"10.1017/s0041977x23000307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x23000307","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44349888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/s0041977x2300037x
Mohamad El-Merheb
{"title":"Carl F. Petry: The Mamluk Sultanate: A History Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN 978 1 1084 5699 9.","authors":"Mohamad El-Merheb","doi":"10.1017/s0041977x2300037x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x2300037x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46977438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000502
Hiu Yu Cheung
Abstract By focusing on a controversial figure in Northern Song China (960–1127), namely Xing Shu 邢恕, this paper traces the historiographical construction of particular scholar-officials in Chinese historical accounts. Xing Shu, one of the best students of the Daoxue 道學 master Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), was depicted in most historical writings as a betrayer of his teacher and a political opportunist, including in his biography in the official Song dynastic history. This article demonstrates how the testimonies of Xing Shu's contemporaries offered rich materials for the construction of his treacherous character in later written records. Through a careful examination of these testimonies, the article reveals various historiographical operations through which contemporary testimonies were modified and transformed into seemingly reliable documents of historical figures and thus passed to later generations.
{"title":"The “Black sheep” of the early Daoxue community: the making of Xing Shu's historical image","authors":"Hiu Yu Cheung","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000502","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract By focusing on a controversial figure in Northern Song China (960–1127), namely Xing Shu 邢恕, this paper traces the historiographical construction of particular scholar-officials in Chinese historical accounts. Xing Shu, one of the best students of the Daoxue 道學 master Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), was depicted in most historical writings as a betrayer of his teacher and a political opportunist, including in his biography in the official Song dynastic history. This article demonstrates how the testimonies of Xing Shu's contemporaries offered rich materials for the construction of his treacherous character in later written records. Through a careful examination of these testimonies, the article reveals various historiographical operations through which contemporary testimonies were modified and transformed into seemingly reliable documents of historical figures and thus passed to later generations.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46006195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000265
A. Edwards
Abstract One cannot speak of the nineteenth-century Beirut Nahḍa and not mention Muʿallim Buṭrus al-Bustānī (1819–83). This article examines how al-Bustānī utilized the Arabic oratorical tradition and the innovative medium of print to create the Muʿallim brand. The first section analyses his Khuṭba fī Ādāb al-ʿArab (An Oration on the Culture of the Arabs, 1859) to illustrate how he operationalized the Arabic rhetorical style to position himself as an eloquent public intellectual. This article next discusses how he built parts of this lecture on sariqāt (literary thefts/legitimate borrowings) from his contemporaries and participated in the collective practice of knowledge production. Lastly, al-Bustānī's advertising tactics in print to promote his public persona are explored. This article demonstrates that al-Bustānī successfully established himself as the Muʿallim by coupling the enduring cultural power of Arabic oration with the modern might of print.
{"title":"Becoming the Muʿallim: how tradition and innovation made a Nahḍa icon","authors":"A. Edwards","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000265","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract One cannot speak of the nineteenth-century Beirut Nahḍa and not mention Muʿallim Buṭrus al-Bustānī (1819–83). This article examines how al-Bustānī utilized the Arabic oratorical tradition and the innovative medium of print to create the Muʿallim brand. The first section analyses his Khuṭba fī Ādāb al-ʿArab (An Oration on the Culture of the Arabs, 1859) to illustrate how he operationalized the Arabic rhetorical style to position himself as an eloquent public intellectual. This article next discusses how he built parts of this lecture on sariqāt (literary thefts/legitimate borrowings) from his contemporaries and participated in the collective practice of knowledge production. Lastly, al-Bustānī's advertising tactics in print to promote his public persona are explored. This article demonstrates that al-Bustānī successfully established himself as the Muʿallim by coupling the enduring cultural power of Arabic oration with the modern might of print.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49425763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X2300023X
N. Miller
Abstract The Geniza fragment T-S AS 161.50 contains three poems, all in Judaeo-Arabic, attributed to the Egyptian Sufi poet Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Abū ʿAbd Allāh, known as Ibn al-Kīzānī (d. 562/1167). None of the texts are present in his published dīwān. In the Egyptian section of his anthology Kharīdat al-qaṣr, Saladin's secretary ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (d. 597/1201) testifies to the interest of Saladin in Ibn al-Kīzānī. We are thus in a unique position to evaluate the readership of this poet; while his followers called Kīzāniyya were already known, his popularity evidently extended not only across confessional lines to be read in a Jewish milieu, but also reached elite levels, despite his (according to ʿImād al-Dīn) “heterodox” beliefs. These new texts accordingly throw light on inter-religious and unorthodox currents normally not understood to have been promoted by Saladin and his avowedly Sunni successors.
{"title":"Reading across confessional lines in Ayyubid Egypt: a Judaeo-Arabic Geniza fragment with three new poems by Ibn al-Kīzānī (d. 562/1166)","authors":"N. Miller","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X2300023X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X2300023X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Geniza fragment T-S AS 161.50 contains three poems, all in Judaeo-Arabic, attributed to the Egyptian Sufi poet Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Abū ʿAbd Allāh, known as Ibn al-Kīzānī (d. 562/1167). None of the texts are present in his published dīwān. In the Egyptian section of his anthology Kharīdat al-qaṣr, Saladin's secretary ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (d. 597/1201) testifies to the interest of Saladin in Ibn al-Kīzānī. We are thus in a unique position to evaluate the readership of this poet; while his followers called Kīzāniyya were already known, his popularity evidently extended not only across confessional lines to be read in a Jewish milieu, but also reached elite levels, despite his (according to ʿImād al-Dīn) “heterodox” beliefs. These new texts accordingly throw light on inter-religious and unorthodox currents normally not understood to have been promoted by Saladin and his avowedly Sunni successors.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46723608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}