Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190-1350 PDF Download

Author: Michael Milton Chamberlain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Damascus (Syria)
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Author: Michael Chamberlain
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521525947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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A reconceptualisation of the relationship between the society and culture of the Middle East.

Author: Michael Chamberlain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Damascus (Syria)
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This dissertation is a study of relationships between the production of knowledg e and the social reproduction of elites in high medieval Damascus (1190-1350). I t advances several related arguments intended to reassess relations between soci ety and culture in the pre-Ottoman Middle East. First, it argues that because of the peculiarities of political power in the medieval Middle East, the social hi story of the region cannot be compared to that of others through analysis of ins titutions, social bodies, or social structures. The most productive level of com parison is practices of social reproduction, rather than the institutions that i n other societies were the forms such practices took. Second, it argues that the best evidence for elite political and social strategies is to be found not in o riginal documents stored in archives, but rather in the biographical dictionarie s, which constituted a written repository for the critical practices of the soci ety. Third, it suggests that as medieval Damascus was a city without strong lega l, state, or corporate institutions, all status, wealth, and power were prizes w on and held through constant competition. To the civilian elite, control over th e production of knowledge was both the object of such competition and the instru ment by which it was carried out. An introduction examines approaches to relatio nships between society and culture in the pre-Ottoman Middle East. Chapter one e xamines how a changing form of domination in twelfth and thirteenth century Dama scus transformed the recruitment, relations to state power, and social reproduct ion of the civilian elite. Chapter two looks at madrasas to understand whether t hey constituted the form of specialized higher education scholars have thought t hey did. It argues that madrasas did not transform the nature of education in Da mascus, but had their greatest effect in establishing a set of prizes for social competition among elites. Chapter three examines how elites acquired their soci al and cultural capital through the cultivation of knowledge. It is especially i nterested in the ritual and performative aspects of the production of knowledge. Chapter four examines how the civilian elite made use of their control over the production of knowledge in social competition.

Author: Konrad Hirschler
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474408788
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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The written text was a pervasive feature of cultural practices in the medieval Middle East. At the heart of book circulation stood libraries that experienced a rapid expansion from the twelfth century onwards. While the existence of these libraries is well known our knowledge of their content and structure has been very limited as hardly any medieval Arabic catalogues have been preserved. This book discusses the largest and earliest medieval library of the Middle East for which we have documentation "e; the Ashrafiya library in the very centre of Damascus "e; and edits its catalogue. This catalogue shows that even book collections attached to Sunni religious institutions could hold rather unexpected titles, such as stories from the 1001 Nights, manuals for traders, medical handbooks, Shiite prayers, love poetry and texts extolling wine consumption. At the same time this library catalogue decisively expands our knowledge of how the books were spatially organised on the bookshelves of such a large medieval library. With over 2,000 entries this catalogue is essential reading for anybody interested in the cultural and intellectual history of Arabic societies. Setting the Ashrafiya catalogue into a comparative perspective with contemporaneous libraries on the British Isles this book opens new perspectives for the study of medieval libraries.

Author: Jonathan Brown
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047420349
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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The two 'Authentic' ḥadīth collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are the most famous books in Islam after the Qur'ān – a reality left unstudied until now. This book charts the origins, development and functions of these two texts through the lens of canonicity. It examines how the books went from controversial to indispensable as they became the common language for discussing the Prophet’s legacy among the various Sunni schools of law. The book also studies the role of the ḥadīth canon in ritual and narrative. Finally, it investigates the canonical culture built around the texts as well as the trend in Sunni scholarship that rejected it, exploring this tension in contemporary debates between Salafī movements and the traditional schools of law.

Author: Rebecca Hernandez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192528602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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This book offers a new theoretical perspective on the thought of the great fifteenth-century Egyptian polymath, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505). In spite of the enormous popularity that al-Suyuti's works continue to enjoy amongst scholars and students in the Muslim world, he remains underappreciated by western academia. This project contributes to the fields of Mamluk Studies, Islamic Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies not only an interdisciplinary analysis of al-Suyuti's legal writing within its historical context, but also a reflection on the legacy of the medieval jurist to modern debates. The study highlights the discursive strategies that the jurist uses to construct his own authority and frame his identity as a superior legal scholar during a key transitional moment in Islamic history. The approach aims for a balance between detailed textual analysis and 'big picture' questions of how legal identity and religious authority are constructed, negotiated and maintained. Al-Suyuti's struggle for authority as one of a select group of trained experts vested with the moral responsibility of interpreting God's law in society finds echoes in contemporary debates, particularly in his native land of Egypt. At a time when increasing numbers of people in the Arab world have raised their voices to demand democratic forms of government that nevertheless stay true to the principles of Shari'a, the issue of who has the ultimate authority to interpret the sources of law, to set legal norms, and to represent the 'voice' of Shari'a principles in society is still in dispute.

Author: Bethany J. Walker
Publisher: V&R Unipress
ISBN: 3847011030
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 759

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Book Description
This edited volume represents the research results of two international conferences organized and sponsored by the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg: "Environmental Approaches in Pre-Modern Middle Eastern Studies" and "Material Culture Methods in the Middle Islamic Periods". The following work consists of three parts, which correspond to the themes of the aforementioned conferences (Contributions to Environmental History and Material Culture Studies) and a third which bridges the gap between the two approaches (Practice and Knowledge Transfer). The present contributions cover a wide range of such topics as urban pollution, local perceptions of weather, rural estate economy, Sufi understandings of nature and the body and mind, houses and socialization, text and gardens, local know-how and interdependence in medieval Syrian agriculture, crop selection and the medieval agricultural economy.

Author: Osama Abi-Mershed
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135256500
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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In comparison to other parts of the developing world education in Arab countries has been lagging behind. This book examines the impact of Western cultural influence, the opportunities for reform and the sustainability of current initiatives.

Author: Muhsin J. al-Musawi
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268158010
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
In The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Muhsin J. al-Musawi offers a groundbreaking study of literary heritage in the medieval and premodern Islamic period. Al-Musawi challenges the paradigm that considers the period from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 as an "Age of Decay" followed by an "Awakening" (al-nahdah). His sweeping synthesis debunks this view by carefully documenting a "republic of letters" in the Islamic Near East and South Asia that was vibrant and dynamic, one varying considerably from the generally accepted image of a centuries-long period of intellectual and literary stagnation. Al-Musawi argues that the massive cultural production of the period was not a random enterprise: instead, it arose due to an emerging and growing body of readers across Islamic lands who needed compendiums, lexicons, and commentaries to engage with scholars and writers. Scholars, too, developed their own networks to respond to each other and to their readers. Rather than addressing only the elite, this culture industry supported a common readership that enlarged the creative space and audience for prose and poetry in standard and colloquial Arabic. Works by craftsmen, artisans, and women appeared side by side with those by distinguished scholars and poets. Through careful exploration of these networks, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters makes use of relevant theoretical frameworks to situate this culture in the ongoing discussion of non-Islamic and European efforts. Thorough, theoretically rigorous, and nuanced, al-Musawi's book is an original contribution to a range of fields in Arabic and Islamic cultural history of the twelfth to eighteenth centuries.

Author: Felicity Ratté
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476678111
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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This book is a study of architecture and urban design across the Mediterranean Sea from the 12th to the 14th Century, a time when there was no single, hegemonic power dominating the area. The focus of the study--four cities on the Italian peninsula, and four in Syria and Egypt--is the interconnectedness of the design and use of urban structures, streets and open space. Each chapter offers an historical analysis of the buildings and spaces used for trade, education, political display and public action. The work includes historical and social analyses of the mercantile, social, political and educational cultures of the eight cities, highlighting similarities and differences between Christian and Islamic practices. Sixteen new maps drawn specifically for this book are based on the writings of medieval travelers.