Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340176
Shounak Ghosh
This article examines a dispute between the Mughal emperor Akbar and his foster brother Mirzā ʿAzīz Koka in the late sixteenth century through a study of two epistolary compositions (inshāʾ) – a royal mandate (farmān) issued by Akbar and a petition (ʿarẓ-dāsht) from the mirzā in response. By focusing on the language of negotiation in these letters, I argue that epistolary practices were critical for reconfiguring kinship bonds, imperial service, and courtly disposition that were central to the rupture in fraternal and courtly relations. Letters served as the discursive site to reiterate norms of courtly comportment, register complaints against controversial actions, express emotions, and record reactions to exigent situations. Finally, the correspondence reveals the ways in which the complex dynamics of a court society were deeply intertwined with global power contestations and could have far-reaching implications on the imperial competition between early modern Islamic empires.
{"title":"Epistolary Strategies of Negotiation: Reading a Fraternal Dispute at the Mughal Court, 1593–1594","authors":"Shounak Ghosh","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340176","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines a dispute between the Mughal emperor Akbar and his foster brother Mirzā ʿAzīz Koka in the late sixteenth century through a study of two epistolary compositions (inshāʾ) – a royal mandate (farmān) issued by Akbar and a petition (ʿarẓ-dāsht) from the mirzā in response. By focusing on the language of negotiation in these letters, I argue that epistolary practices were critical for reconfiguring kinship bonds, imperial service, and courtly disposition that were central to the rupture in fraternal and courtly relations. Letters served as the discursive site to reiterate norms of courtly comportment, register complaints against controversial actions, express emotions, and record reactions to exigent situations. Finally, the correspondence reveals the ways in which the complex dynamics of a court society were deeply intertwined with global power contestations and could have far-reaching implications on the imperial competition between early modern Islamic empires.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139268188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340178
Antoni Biosca
{"title":"Medieval Latin Lives of Muhammad, edited and translated by Julian Jolles and Jessica Weiss","authors":"Antoni Biosca","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340178","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139267646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340177
Marie Legendre
This article offers a reassessment of the ties between the families of two half-brothers, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and ʿAbd al-Malik sons of Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam. The first succeeded their father as caliph, while the second was governor of Egypt at the turn of the eighth century. The modern historiography has made much of ninth- and tenth-century narratives of opposition between the two. Those narratives are reassessed with a focus on how ties of kinship were used as a literary tool to build a distinctive memory of the Marwanid family. Even if moments of competition are recorded between the two, the families of those two men were instrumental to the success of the Marwanids as a caliphal family. The focus here is on marriage ties between their sons and daughters as well as on how the sons and their fathers participated in the same marriage patterns. The paper offers to shift our perspective by placing emphasis on family members that are usually not given proper attention: mothers, daughters, sisters and a wider pool of sons.
{"title":"Changing the Narrative through Mothers, Daughters, and Sons","authors":"Marie Legendre","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340177","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers a reassessment of the ties between the families of two half-brothers, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and ʿAbd al-Malik sons of Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam. The first succeeded their father as caliph, while the second was governor of Egypt at the turn of the eighth century. The modern historiography has made much of ninth- and tenth-century narratives of opposition between the two. Those narratives are reassessed with a focus on how ties of kinship were used as a literary tool to build a distinctive memory of the Marwanid family. Even if moments of competition are recorded between the two, the families of those two men were instrumental to the success of the Marwanids as a caliphal family. The focus here is on marriage ties between their sons and daughters as well as on how the sons and their fathers participated in the same marriage patterns. The paper offers to shift our perspective by placing emphasis on family members that are usually not given proper attention: mothers, daughters, sisters and a wider pool of sons.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139269815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340174
Josef Ženka
This article deepens our understanding of kinship strategies in Fifteenth-century Granada in general and, in particular, among its ruling elite families. The newly accessible notarial documents from the hitherto ignored collection of the Archives of the Marquis of Santa Cruz contain a parchment with a donation and a sale contract produced by three generations of women from the legendary Banū al-Sarrāj (Abencerrajes) family. Through the analysis of this document, and of the context in which the Banū al-Sarrāj women lived and operated, the article argues that the ruling elite family in Granada at that time was a multi-generational household comprising relatives of consanguineal male and female descent and relatives by marriage. By studying the case of the Banū al-Sarrāj women from the perspective of this new document, it is possible to explore the reality of the ruling elite family, to distinguish between its branches and its head, and to deepen our understanding of family ties between various generations through the transfer of property and an understanding of the cohesion that existed between its women. An edition and a translation of the document are appended to the article.
{"title":"Women of Abencerrajes (Ibn al-Sarrāj): Kinship Strategies in Fifteenth Century Granada","authors":"Josef Ženka","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340174","url":null,"abstract":"This article deepens our understanding of kinship strategies in Fifteenth-century Granada in general and, in particular, among its ruling elite families. The newly accessible notarial documents from the hitherto ignored collection of the Archives of the Marquis of Santa Cruz contain a parchment with a donation and a sale contract produced by three generations of women from the legendary Banū al-Sarrāj (Abencerrajes) family. Through the analysis of this document, and of the context in which the Banū al-Sarrāj women lived and operated, the article argues that the ruling elite family in Granada at that time was a multi-generational household comprising relatives of consanguineal male and female descent and relatives by marriage. By studying the case of the Banū al-Sarrāj women from the perspective of this new document, it is possible to explore the reality of the ruling elite family, to distinguish between its branches and its head, and to deepen our understanding of family ties between various generations through the transfer of property and an understanding of the cohesion that existed between its women. An edition and a translation of the document are appended to the article.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"24 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139270344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340175
Leone Pecorini Goodall
This paper investigates the overlooked topic of maternal ties of kinship in Umayyad history through the case study of ʿĀʾisha bint Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl al-Makhzūmī, the mother of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 105–125/724–743). Using a range of primary sources, including annalistic, adab, and eschatological sources, as well as early Islamic poetry, it investigates the significance of matrilineal kinship and naming practices in the Marwanid period. ʿĀʾisha’s representations across sources illuminates how sources discuss caliphal mothers and the role of the matrilineal family in marriage and naming practices. A brief prosopographical analysis also demonstrates the widespread use of maternal names in early Islamic society – ʿĀʾisha is said to have named her son after her father. Early Islamic poets praised maternal kinship ties, indicating an appeal to caliphal constituents from the maternal family. Overall, by incorporating maternal ties of kinship into Marwanid history, we may gain a more complete understanding of early Islamic society.
本文通过对ʿĀʾisha bint Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl al-Makhzūmī（希沙姆-伊本-阿卜杜勒-马利克（Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik，卒于 105-125/724-743 年）的母亲）的案例研究，探讨了倭马亚历史中被忽视的母系亲属关系。该书利用一系列原始资料，包括年鉴、阿达布、末世论资料以及早期伊斯兰诗歌，研究了马尔瓦尼德时期母系亲属关系和命名习俗的意义。ʿʾisha在不同资料中的表现阐明了资料是如何讨论卡利帕尔母亲以及母系家庭在婚姻和命名习俗中的作用的。对母系社会的简要分析还显示了早期伊斯兰社会中母系名字的广泛使用--据说ʿĀʾisha用父亲的名字给儿子取名。早期的伊斯兰诗人赞美母系亲属关系，这表明了对来自母系家族的哈里发成员的呼唤。总之，通过将母系亲属关系纳入马尔瓦尼德历史，我们可以更全面地了解早期伊斯兰社会。
{"title":"Ibn ʿĀʾisha: Matrilineal Kinship, Naming Practices, and the Poetics of Marwanid Matrilineality","authors":"Leone Pecorini Goodall","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340175","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the overlooked topic of maternal ties of kinship in Umayyad history through the case study of ʿĀʾisha bint Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl al-Makhzūmī, the mother of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 105–125/724–743). Using a range of primary sources, including annalistic, adab, and eschatological sources, as well as early Islamic poetry, it investigates the significance of matrilineal kinship and naming practices in the Marwanid period. ʿĀʾisha’s representations across sources illuminates how sources discuss caliphal mothers and the role of the matrilineal family in marriage and naming practices. A brief prosopographical analysis also demonstrates the widespread use of maternal names in early Islamic society – ʿĀʾisha is said to have named her son after her father. Early Islamic poets praised maternal kinship ties, indicating an appeal to caliphal constituents from the maternal family. Overall, by incorporating maternal ties of kinship into Marwanid history, we may gain a more complete understanding of early Islamic society.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"12 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139266577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340171
Janina Safran
Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s (d. 1149) Ghunya is a biographical dictionary of the scholars the Ceutan jurist studied with and an inventory of the texts he acquired through various modes of transmission. As a catalogue of authors, teachers, and texts, al-Ghunya describes a network of scholarship contemporary with the rise and fall of Almoravid rule, and a history of learning that extends back to the earliest days of Islam. The essay demonstrates the importance of scholarly lineages and how they overlapped with lineal and marital bonds and explores the affective dimension of scholarly affiliations, focusing on the text as an expression of community and a work of memory. The ways in which the text reflects and reinforces a metaphorical “kinship of learning” contributes to our understanding of social cohesion in the Almoravid era.
{"title":"The Community of the Biographical Dictionary: Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s Ghunya","authors":"Janina Safran","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340171","url":null,"abstract":"Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s (d. 1149) Ghunya is a biographical dictionary of the scholars the Ceutan jurist studied with and an inventory of the texts he acquired through various modes of transmission. As a catalogue of authors, teachers, and texts, al-Ghunya describes a network of scholarship contemporary with the rise and fall of Almoravid rule, and a history of learning that extends back to the earliest days of Islam. The essay demonstrates the importance of scholarly lineages and how they overlapped with lineal and marital bonds and explores the affective dimension of scholarly affiliations, focusing on the text as an expression of community and a work of memory. The ways in which the text reflects and reinforces a metaphorical “kinship of learning” contributes to our understanding of social cohesion in the Almoravid era.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"29 1-2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139269757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340172
Pia Maria Malik
In the context of contested succession within a silsila (lineage) of sufis, this paper studies Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusaynī Gesūdarāz’s (d. 1422) recourse to a familial genealogy in order to claim the status of a pīr or sufi master, while attempting to entrench his legacy in Gulbarga where he emigrated to from Delhi after the incursions of Timur (d. 1405). As he arrived in the Deccan at the turn of the fifteenth century, Gesūdarāz used his kinship with the Prophet and particularly his identity of sayyid (a descendant of the Prophet through Ḥusayn) as a persuasive device, to set himself apart from other sufi shaykhs in the area who claimed an equivalent spiritual genealogy. The case of Gesūdarāz reveals a societal pattern wherein the identity of sayyid was gaining new traction, and relational ties were evoked not only as a means of establishing an identity as part of a community but also to supersede others who made the same claim. Kinship was a device through which Gesūdarāz staked his claim to authority, and it was also a mechanism that he and his family utilized to cement their hold on the Muslim community of Gulbarga.
{"title":"The Sufi Who Was a Sayyid: Muḥammad Ḥusaynī Gesūdarāz’s Assertions of Spiritual Authority","authors":"Pia Maria Malik","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340172","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of contested succession within a silsila (lineage) of sufis, this paper studies Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusaynī Gesūdarāz’s (d. 1422) recourse to a familial genealogy in order to claim the status of a pīr or sufi master, while attempting to entrench his legacy in Gulbarga where he emigrated to from Delhi after the incursions of Timur (d. 1405). As he arrived in the Deccan at the turn of the fifteenth century, Gesūdarāz used his kinship with the Prophet and particularly his identity of sayyid (a descendant of the Prophet through Ḥusayn) as a persuasive device, to set himself apart from other sufi shaykhs in the area who claimed an equivalent spiritual genealogy. The case of Gesūdarāz reveals a societal pattern wherein the identity of sayyid was gaining new traction, and relational ties were evoked not only as a means of establishing an identity as part of a community but also to supersede others who made the same claim. Kinship was a device through which Gesūdarāz staked his claim to authority, and it was also a mechanism that he and his family utilized to cement their hold on the Muslim community of Gulbarga.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"5 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139267161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340173
Ekaterina Pukhovaia
Studies of Zaydi Yemen tend to underline the divisions, rather than connections, between sayyids, descendants of the Prophet, and tribal groups in the political sphere. This paper answers the question what value family connections to tribes had for ambitious sayyids in early modern Yemen who wanted to become Zaydi imams. To this end, the article examines a section of Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn’s (d. 965/1558) unpublished biography, containing the genealogy of his second wife, Tāj al-Bahāʾ bint al-shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn. The paper argues that the imam and his circle valued the connections that the marriage to a daughter of a shaykh brought to the imamate, and that it is due to its symbolic value for the legitimacy of the imamate that her genealogy was included in the biography.
{"title":"Sayyids, Tribal Kinship, and the Imamate in Zaydi Yemen under Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1558)","authors":"Ekaterina Pukhovaia","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340173","url":null,"abstract":"Studies of Zaydi Yemen tend to underline the divisions, rather than connections, between sayyids, descendants of the Prophet, and tribal groups in the political sphere. This paper answers the question what value family connections to tribes had for ambitious sayyids in early modern Yemen who wanted to become Zaydi imams. To this end, the article examines a section of Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn’s (d. 965/1558) unpublished biography, containing the genealogy of his second wife, Tāj al-Bahāʾ bint al-shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn. The paper argues that the imam and his circle valued the connections that the marriage to a daughter of a shaykh brought to the imamate, and that it is due to its symbolic value for the legitimacy of the imamate that her genealogy was included in the biography.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"438 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139268985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340167
E. Spragins
The stories told about the battle of Wādī al-Makhāzin (August 4, 1578) reveal a major crisis of information for all involved in the event. At the very center of that epistemological crisis were the three warring kings. Even as new leadership gradually wrested the Western Mediterranean out of chaos, there remained a nagging sense that the knowable rested on shaky footing. This article explores one way in which a Maghrebi chronicler of this event contemplates the difficulty of protecting and transmitting reliable knowledge in a broad Mediterranean context. Ultimately, he promotes a theory for the conservation and transmission of knowledge reliant upon the functional interaction of enlightened leadership and information incorporated within situated human bodies.
{"title":"Body as Text/Text as Body: Embodied Knowledge Transmission in Sixteenth Century Morocco","authors":"E. Spragins","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340167","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The stories told about the battle of Wādī al-Makhāzin (August 4, 1578) reveal a major crisis of information for all involved in the event. At the very center of that epistemological crisis were the three warring kings. Even as new leadership gradually wrested the Western Mediterranean out of chaos, there remained a nagging sense that the knowable rested on shaky footing. This article explores one way in which a Maghrebi chronicler of this event contemplates the difficulty of protecting and transmitting reliable knowledge in a broad Mediterranean context. Ultimately, he promotes a theory for the conservation and transmission of knowledge reliant upon the functional interaction of enlightened leadership and information incorporated within situated human bodies.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64802656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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