Published by De Gruyter

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East

Edited by: Stefan Heidemann, Gottfried Hagen, Andreas Kaplony, Rudi Matthee and Kristina L. Richardson

ISSN: 2198-0853

Previously published under the title "Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients"

eISSN: 2198-0861

Overview
Volumes

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence.

Author / Editor information

S. Heidemann, Hamburg; G. Hagen, Ann Arbor, MI; A. Kaplony, Munich; R. Matthee, Newark, DE; K. Richardson, Charlottesville, VA.

Supplementary Materials

Style Sheet

Topics

Book Open Access 2023

Islamic Law in Early Modern Iran

Sharīʿa Court Practice in the Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries

Zahir Bhalloo

Volume 48 in this series

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Historical studies on the practice of Islamic law (sharīʿa) tend to focus on practice in a Sunni setting during the Mamluk or Ottoman periods. This book decenters Sunni and Mamluk and Ottoman normativity by investigating the practice of sharīʿa in a Twelver Shiʿi Persian-speaking milieu, in early modern Iran between the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. Drawing on documentary evidence and narrative sources, it reconstructs who the practitioners of Islamic law were, how they authenticated, annulled, and archived legal documents, and how they intervened in the resolution of disputes over religious endowments (waqf). The study demonstrates that following Iran's conversion to Twelver Shiʿism under the Safavids, the dominance of Uṣūlī Shiʿi legal theory, which conferred judicial authority on scholars recognized as Shiʿi jurists (mujathids), affected both the practitioners of Islamic law and the procedures of sharīʿa court practice in Iran. Shiʿi jurists in Iran, as a result, would come to exercise by the end of the nineteenth century a judicial monopoly over valid sharīʿa court practice thus laying the foundation for Ayatollah Khomeini's extension, during the Iranian revolution, of the authority of the Shiʿi jurist over political affairs.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111239736
ISBN:: 9783111239736
ISBN:: 9783111239934
ISBN:: 9783111236582
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Topics in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Religion
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Arab World
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Religious Life
Subject:: Law
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Creation and Contemplation

The Cosmology of the Qur'ān and Its Late Antique Background

Julien Decharneux

Volume 47 in this series

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In Creation and Contemplation, Julien Decharneux explores the connections between the cosmology of the Qur’ān and various cosmological traditions of Late Antiquity, with a focus on Syriac Christianity.

The first part of the book studies how, in exhorting its audience to contemplate the world, the Qur’ān carries on a tradition of natural contemplation that had developed throughout Late Antiquity in the Christian world. In this regard, the analysis suggests particularly striking connections with the mystical and ascetic literature of the Church of the East, which was in effervescence at the time of the emergence of Islam.

The second part argues that the Qur’ānic cosmological discourse is built so as to serve the overarching theological message of the text, namely God’s absolute unity. Despite the allusive, and sometimes obscure, way in which the Qur’ān talks about the world’s coming into being and its maintenance in existence, the text betrays its authors’ acquaintance with cosmological debates of Late Antiquity.

In studying the Qur’ān through the prism of Late Antiquity, this book contributes to our understanding of the emergence of Islam and its relationship with other religious traditions of the time.

Winner of the 2022 Marie-Antoinette Van Huele Prize and the 2023 Richard Kreglinger Prize (both Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Free University of Brussels.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110794083
ISBN:: 9783110794083
ISBN:: 9783110794168
ISBN:: 9783110794014
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Quran
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2022

Recht und historische Entwicklung der Scharia im Islam

Christian Müller

Volume 46 in this series

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This book looks at recent research to document the practical significance of Islamic legal thinking in history. It examines various legal systems, legal trends, documents, and legal fields in their societal significance. In the process, it debunks the idea of Sharia as something unalterable. As a reference work, it lays the foundation for an innovative understanding of law in Islamic history and contemporary reception.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110765847
ISBN:: 9783110765847
ISBN:: 9783110765885
ISBN:: 9783110765779
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2022

Neither Belief nor Unbelief

Intentional Ambivalence in al-Maʿarrī’s Luzūm

Sona Grigoryan

Volume 45 in this series

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The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (d.1057) and one of his best known works - Luzūm mā lā yalzam (The Self-Imposed Unnecessity), a collection of poems, which, although widely studied, needs a thorough re-evaluation regarding matters of (un)belief. Given the contradictory nature of al-Maʿarrī’s oeuvre and Luzūm in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Maʿarrī’s religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented al-Maʿarrī as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taqīya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented al-Maʿarrī as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luzūm, specifically in matters of belief. This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Maʿarrī lived in and he intentionally left it unsolved and intense as a robust stance against claims of certainty. Going beyond reductive interpretations, the notion of ambivalence allows for an integrative paradigm in dealing with contradictions and dissonance.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110773644
ISBN:: 9783110773644
ISBN:: 9783110773897
ISBN:: 9783110772531
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Language and Literature
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2022

Connected Stories

Contacts, Traditions and Transmissions in Premodern Mediterranean Islam

Mohamed Meouak, Cristina de la Puente

Volume 44 in this series

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Concepts such as influence, imitation, emulation, transmission or plagiarism are transcendental to cultural history and the subject of universal debate. They are not mere labels imposed by modern historiography on ancient texts, nor are they the result of a later interpretation of ways of transmitting and teaching, but are concepts defined and discussed internally, within all cultures, since time immemorial, which have yielded very diverse results. In the case of culture, or better Arab-Islamic cultures, we could analyze and discuss endlessly numerous terms that refer to concepts related to the multiple ways of perceiving the Other, receiving his knowledge and producing new knowledge.

The purpose of this book evolves around these concepts, and it aims to become part of a very long tradition of studies on this subject that is essential to the understanding of the processes of reception and creation. The authors analyze them in depth through the use of examples that are based on the well-known idea that societies in different regions did not remain isolated and indifferent to the literary, religious or scientific creations that were developed in other territories and moreover that the flow of ideas did not always occur in only one direction. Contacts, both voluntary and involuntary, are never incidental or marginal, but are rather the true engine of the evolution of knowledge and creation. It can also be stated that it has been the awareness of the existence of multidimensional cultural relations which has allowed modern historiography on Arab cultures to evolve and be enriched in recent decades.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110773651
ISBN:: 9783110773651
ISBN:: 9783110773859
ISBN:: 9783110772562
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2022

Projecting a New Empire

Formats, Social Meaning, and Mediality of Imperial Arabic in the Umayyad and Early Abbasid Periods

Eugenio Garosi

Volume 42 in this series

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Seventh and eighth-century papyri, inscriptions, and coins constitute the main evidence for the rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum.

Starting from the functional interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of practices of public Arabic writing, the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout, formulae and technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic to Central Asia, the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to neighboring scribal traditions in other languages.

The volume connects documentary practices to broader imperial policies, opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110740820
ISBN:: 9783110740820
ISBN:: 9783110740974
ISBN:: 9783110740721
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

The First Arabic Annals

Fragments of Umayyad History

Edward Zychowicz-Coghill

Volume 41 in this series

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The earliest development of Arabic historical writing remains shrouded in uncertainty until the 9th century CE, when our first extant texts were composed. This book demonstrates a new method, termed riwāya-cum-matn, which allows us to identify citation-markers that securely indicate the quotation of earlier Arabic historical works, proto-books first circulated in the eighth century.

As a case study it reconstructs, with an edition and translation, around half of an annalistic history written by al-Layth b. Saʿd in the 740s. In doing so it shows that annalistic history-writing, comparable to contemporary Syriac or Greek models, was a part of the first development of Arabic historiography in the Marwanid period, providing a chronological framework for more ambitious later Abbasid history-writing.

Reconstructing the original production-contexts and larger narrative frames of now-atomised quotations not only lets us judge their likely accuracy, but to consider the political and social relations underpinning the first production of authoritative historical knowledge in Islam. It also enables us to assess how Abbasid compilers combined and augmented the base texts from which they constructed their histories.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712896
ISBN:: 9783110712896
ISBN:: 9783110712940
ISBN:: 9783110712650
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Subject:: Islamic Studies
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2021

The Maghrib in the Mashriq

Knowledge, Travel and Identity

Maribel Fierro, Mayte Penelas

Volume 40 in this series

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This is a pioneering book about the impact that knowledge produced in the Maghrib (Islamic North Africa and al-Andalus = Muslim Iberia) had on the rest of the Islamic world.

It presents results achieved in the Research Project "Local contexts and global dynamics: al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Islamic East (AMOI)", funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FFI2016-78878-R AEI/FEDER, UE) and directed by Maribel Fierro and Mayte Penelas.

The book contains 18 contributions written by senior and junior scholars from different institutions all over the world. It is divided into five sections dealing with how knowledge produced in the Maghrib was integrated in the Mashriq starting with the emergence and construction of the concept 'Maghrib' (sections 1 and 2); how travel allowed the reception in the Maghrib of knowledge produced in the Mashriq but also the transmission of locally produced knowledge outside the Maghrib, and the different ways in which such transmission took place (sections 3 and 4), and how the Maghribis who stayed or settled in the Mashriq manifested their identity (section 5).

The book will be of interest not only for those whose research concentrates on the Maghrib but more generally for those who want to understand the complex and shifting dynamics between 'centres' and 'peripheries' as regards intellectual production and circulation.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110713305
ISBN:: 9783110713305
ISBN:: 9783110712698
ISBN:: 9783110713442
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Arab World
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

“The Compassionate and Benevolent”: Jewish Ruling Elites in the Medieval Islamicate World

Alexandria as a Case Study

Miriam Frenkel, Tzemah Yoreh

Volume 39 in this series

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This is a monograph about the medieval Jewish community of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Through deep analyses of contemporary historical sources, mostly documents from the Cairo Geniza, life stories, conducts and practices of private people are revealed. When put together these private biographies convey a social portrait of an elite group which ruled over the local community, but was part of a supra communal network.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110713619
ISBN:: 9783110713619
ISBN:: 9783111110677
ISBN:: 9783110713688
ISBN:: 9783110712872
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Arab World
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Judaism
Subject:: Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2020

Volume 1 Transregional and Regional Elites – Connecting the Early Islamic Empire

Hannah-Lena Hagemann, Stefan Heidemann

Part of the multi-volume work The Early Islamic Empire at Work

Volume 36 in this series

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Transregional and regional elites of various backgrounds were essential for the integration of diverse regions into the early Islamic Empire, from Central Asia to North Africa. This volume is an important contribution to the conceptualization of the largest empire of Late Antiquity. While previous studies used Iraq as the paradigm for the entire empire, this volume looks at diverse regions instead. After a theoretical introduction to the concept of ‘elites’ in an early Islamic context, the papers focus on elite structures and networks within selected regions of the Empire (Transoxiana, Khurāsān, Armenia, Fārs, Iraq, al-Jazīra, Syria, Egypt, and Ifrīqiya). The papers analyze elite groups across social, religious, geographical, and professional boundaries.

Although each region appears unique at first glance, based on their heterogeneous surviving sources, its physical geography, and its indigenous population and elites, the studies show that they shared certain patterns of governance and interaction, and that this was an important factor for the success of the largest empire of Late Antiquity.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669800
ISBN:: 9783110669800
ISBN:: 9783110666489
ISBN:: 9783110666564
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Philosophising the Occult

Avicennan Psychology and 'The Hidden Secret' of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

Michael-Sebastian Noble

Volume 35 in this series

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Was it mere encyclopedism that motivated Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d.1210), one of the most influential Islamic theologians of the twelfth century, to theorize on astral magic – or was there a deeper purpose?

One of his earliest works was The Hidden Secret (‘al-Sirr al-Maktūm’), a magisterial study of the ‘craft’ which harnessed spiritual discipline and natural philosophy to establish noetic connection with the celestial souls to work wonders here on earth. The initiate’s preceptor is a personal celestial spirit, ‘the perfect nature’ which represents the ontological origin of his soul.

This volume will be the first study of The Hidden Secret and its theory of astral magic, which synthesized the naturalistic account of prophethood constructed by Avicenna (d.1037), with the perfect nature doctrine as conceived by Abū’l-Barakāt (d.1165). Shedding light on one of the most complex thinkers of the post-Avicennan period, it will show how al-Rāzī’s early theorizing on the craft contributed to his formulation of prophethood with which his career culminated. Representing the nexus between philosophy, theology and magic, it will be of interest to all those interested in Islamic intellectual history and occultism.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110648096
ISBN:: 9783110648096
ISBN:: 9783110644616
ISBN:: 9783110644579
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

The Heritage of Edirne in Ottoman and Turkish Times

Continuities, Disruptions and Reconnections

Birgit Krawietz, Florian Riedler

Volume 34 in this series

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Modern scholarship has not given Edirne the attention it deserves regarding its significance as one of the capitals of the Ottoman Empire. This edited volume offers a reinterpretation of Edirne’s history from Early Ottoman times to recent periods of the Turkish Republic. Presently, disconnections and discontinuities introduced by the transition from empire to nation state still characterize the image of the city and the historiography about it.

In contrast, this volume examines how the city engages in the forming, deflecting and creative appropriation of its heritage, a process that has turned Edirne into a UNESCO heritage hotspot. A closer historical analysis demonstrates the dissonances and contradictions that these different interpretations and uses of heritage produce. From the beginning, Edirne was shaped by its connectivity and relationality to other places, above all to Istanbul.

This perspective is employed at many different levels, e.g., with regard to its population, institutions, architecture, infrastructures and popular culture, but also regarding the imaginations Edirne triggered. In sum, this multi-disciplinary volume boosts urban history beyond Istanbul and offers new insight into Ottoman and Turkish connectivities from the vantage point of certain key moments of Edirne’s history.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110639087
ISBN:: 9783110639087
ISBN:: 9783110635157
ISBN:: 9783110634136
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2018

L’ibadisme dans les sociétés de l’Islam médiéval

Modèles et interactions

Cyrille Aillet

Volume 33 in this series

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The history of Ibadism is still marginalized in Islamic studies, while there has been a significant increase of the available sources from Oman and North Africa. This books provides an overview of the scattered communities that formed the Ibadi archipelago during medieval times. It gives an insight into tribal patterns and power relationships and investigates on the political and social models developed by this school.

How did Ibadism justify political dissidence and rebellion and reinterpret the legacy of former Kharijite movements? How did it conceive political collegiality and put this model into practice? How did this minority coexisted and competed with the majority? Switching from the East to the West and from a broad frame of interpretation to local case studies, the volume seeks to better understand the political thought and social patterns that characterized this religious stream. Besides questioning the paradigm of the Imamate, we also explore how stateless societies could be regulated by collective social and religious institutions.

Les Ibadites, une minorité religieuse qui n’a survécu qu’au Maghreb et à Oman, aiment à se présenter comme les démocrates de l’Islam. Ce livre éclaire leur rôle dans la promotion, à l’époque médiévale, d’une alternative politique au califat. Il est question des formes de gouvernement collégial qu’ils développèrent, de leurs modèles d’organisation politique et sociale et de leurs interactions avec les autres musulmans.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110584394
ISBN:: 9783110584394
ISBN:: 9783110583793
ISBN:: 9783110584165
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Religious Groups
Subject:: Culture and Society
Subject:: Business and Economy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2018

The Qur'ān

A Form-Critical History

Karim Samji

Volume 32 in this series

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The corpus coranicum eludes familiar categories and resists strict labels. No doubt the threads woven into the fabric are exceptionally textured, varied, and complex. Accordingly, the introductory chapter of this book demonstrates the application of form criticism to the text. Chapter two then presents a form-critical study of the prayer genre. It identifies three productive formulae and addresses distinct social settings and forms associated with them. The third chapter begins by defining the liturgy genre vis-à-vis prayer in the Qurʾān. Drawing a line between the hymn and litany forms, this chapter treats each in turn. Chapter four considers the genre classified as wisdom literature. It identifies sapiential formulae and sheds light on wisdom contexts. The fifth chapter examines the narrative genre writ large. It also surveys narrative blocks of the long saga. The subsequent chapter on the proclamation genre inspects a set of vocative formulae, which occurs in the messenger situation. The concluding chapter looks at the corpus through synchronic and diachronic lenses. In the end, Qurʾānic genres encapsulate the form-critical elements of formulae, forms, and settings, as well as an historical dimension.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110580884
ISBN:: 9783110580884
ISBN:: 9783110580044
ISBN:: 9783110575453
ISBN:: 9783110685121
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Quran
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Islam
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2016

Essays in Islamic Philology, History, and Philosophy

Alireza Korangy, Wheeler M. Thackston, Roy P. Mottahedeh, William Granara

Volume 31 in this series

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The articles in this volume are dedicated to Professor Ahmad Mahdavi Damghani for the breadth and depth of his interests and his influence on those interests. They attest to the fact that his fervor and rigorously surgical attention to detail have found fertile ground in a wide variety of disciplines, including (among others) Persian literature and philology; Islamic history and historiography; Arabic literature and philology; and Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence. The volume has brought together some of the most respected scholars in the fields of Islamic studies and Islamic literatures, all his prior students, to contribute with articles that touch on the fields Professor Mahdavi Damghani has so permanently touched with his astonishing scholarship and attention to detail.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110313789
ISBN:: 9783110313789
ISBN:: 9783110383249
ISBN:: 9783110313727
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Arab World
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Islamic Studies
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Le contre-discours coranique

Mehdi Azaiez

Volume 30 in this series

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This book deals with a prominent literary element of the Koran, the “counter-discourse”, the citations of opposing voices. This feature of the Koranic text has been neglected in earlier scholarship although it is connected to the larger question of the religious milieu in which the Koran emerged. Accordingly, the topic is of considerable importance to our understanding of Islamic origins.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110419108
ISBN:: 978-3-11-041999-3
ISBN:: 978-3-11-041910-8
ISBN:: 9783110609462
ISBN:: 9783110419160
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Text and Exegesis
Subject:: Quran
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Islamic Studies
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Greater Khorasan

History, Geography, Archaeology and Material Culture

Rocco Rante

Volume 29 in this series

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The modern sense of “Greater Khorasan” today corresponds to a territory which not only comprises the region in the east of Iran but also, beyond Iranian frontiers, a part of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. In the past this entity was simply defined as Khorasan.

In the Sassanid era Khorasan defined the “Eastern lands”. In the Islamic era this term was again taken up in the same sense it previously enjoyed. The Arab sources of the first centuries all mention the eastern regions under the same toponym, Khorasan.

Khorasan was the gateway used by Alexander the Great to go into Bactria and India and, inversely, that through which the Seljuks and Mongols entered Iran. In a diachronic context Khorasan was a transit zone, a passage, a crossroads, which, above all in the medieval period, saw the creation of different commercial routes leading to the north, towards India, to the west and into China.

In this framework, archaeological researches will be the guiding principle which will help us to take stock of a material culture which, as its history, is very diversified. They also offer valuable elements on commercial links between the principal towns of Khorasan. This book will provide the opportunity to better know the most recent elements of the principal constitutive sites of this geographical and political entity.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110331707
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033155-4
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033170-7
ISBN:: 9783110390018
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Cultural History
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophical Anthropology
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Dämonenglaube im Islam

Tobias Nünlist

Volume 28 in this series

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The belief in demons is widespread in Islamic societies. Demons are frequently cited in the Koran and the Words of the Prophet. The author traces their history using Arabic and Persian sources. Demons occur with special frequency in “boundary situations”– whether spatial, temporal, or moral. The examined sources yield important insights into the present-day belief in demons.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110331684
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033154-7
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033168-4
ISBN:: 9783110382273
ISBN:: 9783110609455
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Religious Life
Subject:: History
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophical Anthropology
Publisher:: De Gruyter