China in Central Asia and the Balkans: Challenges from a Geopolitical Perspective

2017 ◽  
pp. 241-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junbo Jian
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
The Balkans

From the Demotic to the Literary

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-254
Author(s):  
Paolo Sartori
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Central Eurasia ◽  
Middle Volga ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract Understanding why Persian ceded ground to the vernacular Turkic in Central Asia in the 18th century is key to detecting major cultural realignments in the Balkans-to-Bengal complex. To date, however, focus has been predominantly on the constraining of Persian’s hegemonic status in Asia, its shaping colonial knowledge, and its stamping an imprint on other literary languages in post-colonial situations. Taking this literature as a point of departure, I change perspective and examine the process whereby a vernacular idiom acquired prominence prior to the onset of Russian colonization. By setting aside the issue of scope of Persian, I turn to an exploration of writing practices in Turkic in the early modern period in Khorezm, a major oasis in Central Asia within the territory of what is today Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Interpreted in the literature so far as an isolated phenomenon, the ascendance of Chaghatay Turkic in Khorezm has been in fact studied in isolation from similar processes of vernacularization. By reconnecting writing practices in this oasis to patterns of literary consumption in Central Eurasia more generally, I point to an area of shared vernacular sensibilities across Khorezm, the Middle Volga, the Kazakh Steppe and the Tarim Basin. Furthermore, I argue that the promotion of the vernacular among Turkic-speaking Muslims in the Russian empire in the early 20th century was built on earlier processes of elevation of a written culture from the demotic to the literary.

scholarly journals TOLERANCE HERITAGE: THE ROUTE OF SUFISM FROM KHORASAN TO THE BALKANS

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-101
Author(s):  
Morteza Nouraei ◽  
Bahman Zeinali
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Cultural Image ◽  
Special Character ◽  
Cultural Components

The necessity for peaceful coexistence today makes the study on tolerance a must have. The vast region from Central Asia-Khorasan to the Balkans has had its ups and downs for centuries. The diversity of nations and tribes along this path highlights the attention to common cultural components. Meanwhile, the existence of various Sufi groups throughout the history in the region has a special character. The idea of Sufism was essentially based on tolerance and grew into a Peaceful coexistence. However, various Sufi groups have experienced violence at historic junctures by entering the political arena. But it must be said that the distinction between cultural and ideological Sufism has shown peaceful life. This article endeavor to introduce the Sufism growth and development in different regions so that a significant and plausible path can be drawn as a Sufi Road. In addition, the legacy of Sufism has been activated by its cultural image in the areas in question, showing many similarities between different Sufi groups in various countries. The homogeny among the cultural components of Sufism in the geography of the region are a way for dialogue. As a result, one can experience cultural exchange in the form of coexistence and tolerance.

The Myth of the Ottoman Caliphate

2019 ◽  
pp. 218-276
Author(s):  
Hüseyin Yılmaz
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
Imperial Ideology ◽  
Sufi Order

This chapter discusses the mystification of the Ottoman caliphate and the apocalyptic-messianic reconstruction of imperial ideology in the context of the long Ottoman–Safavid conflict of the sixteenth century. Current studies in the main treat the Ottoman–Safavid conflict as no more than a sectarian conflict between two expanding Muslim empires. The Ottomans, however, perceived it as an apocalyptic conflict between primordial forces of faith and disbelief, often expressed in manicheistic dichotomies. Being one of the most aggressively fought religious wars in Islamic history, it profoundly altered both Sunni and Shiite conceptions of history and rulership. The Safavids, being at once a Turkoman chieftainship, a Shiite dynasty, and a Sufi order, were better endowed with esoteric image-making skills than the Ottomans, whose juristic and theological arguments against heresy were, simply, by definition nullified. Despite the Ottoman military might that overwhelmed the Safavids in multiple battles, the Safavid–Shiite call resonated much more strongly among the vast Turkoman diaspora from Central Asia to the Balkans, particularly among popular mystical orders of the countryside.

The Persian Cosmopolis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Eaton
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Paper Making ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Subjective Phenomenon ◽  
Middle Persian

The Persian cosmopolis refers to the vast territory between the Balkans and Bengal in which, for 1000 years, an integrated sense of moral, social, political, and aesthetic order was informed by the circulation of normative Persian texts. Several centuries after the Arab conquest of the Iranian plateau, a spoken form of a hybridized Middle Persian and Arabic emerged in written form, using a modified Arabic script. What had begun as a regional vernacular swiftly became a transregional, literary medium as regional courts in Khurasan and Central Asia patronized Persian literature and used that language in their bureaucracies, building on a tradition of professional writers that had served Persian empires for centuries. The technology of paper-making, recently introduced from China, facilitated the rapid movement of Persian texts across space, while Firdausi’s epic poem the Shah-nama (1010) celebrated Iranian mythology and pre-Islamic history in ways that connected widely scattered peoples of different ethnicities. Territorial conquests by Persianized Turks, followed by Mongol invasions that drove peoples of Central Asia and Khurasan into new lands, also served to expand the geographical extent of the Persian cosmopolis. By the 14th and 15th centuries, the political, aesthetic, and moral order elaborated in a growing Persian canon—for example, the principle of justice—had become associated with a prestigious, cosmopolitan style that was emulated and absorbed by widely scattered peoples of diverse ethnicities and religions. Persianate architecture, attire, urban design, music, cuisine, and numismatic traditions were also assimilated by such peoples. With the translation of a rich store of romance literature into vernacular tongues, the Persian cosmopolis became as much a subjective phenomenon, inhabiting people’s collective imagination, as it was an objective, mappable zone in which popular, discursive, and normative texts circulated along networks that connected royal courts, provincial notables, Sufi lodges, merchant communities, and schools.

The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayfer Karakaya-Stump
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Key Players ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Folk Islam

The Kizilbash were at once key players in and the foremost victims of the Ottoman-Safavid conflict that defined the early modern Middle East today. Today referred to as Alevis, they constitute the second largest faith community in modern Turkey, making up around fifteen percent of the country’s population, with smaller pockets of related groups in the Balkans. Historians have typically treated Kizilbashism/Alevism as an undifferentiated strain within the hazy category of “heterodox folk Islam.” Several aspects of their history therefore remain little understood or explored. This first comprehensive socio-political history of the Kizilbash/Alevi communities uses a recently surfaced corpus of sources generated within their milieu. It offers fresh answers to many questions concerning their origins and evolution from a revolutionary movement to an inward-looking religious order. Among other things, it argues for a readjustment in focus from pre-Islamic Central Asia to the cosmopolitan Sufi milieu of the Middle East when exploring genealogies of popular Islam in Anatolia, and of Kizilbashism-Alevism, in particular. While the Kizilbash constitute the focus of the book, its findings may open new avenues of research in the study of other “heterodox” communities in the Islamic world by alerting historians to the potential of Sufism to provide a basis for social order and give rise to distinct communities.

scholarly journals Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) skullsfrom the late Miocene Maragheh fauna (Iran)and the validity of Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elnaz PARIZAD ◽  
Majid MIRZAIE ATAABADI ◽  
Marjan MASHKOUR ◽  
Dimitris S. KOSTOPOULOS
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Late Miocene ◽  
Type Species ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Valid Genus ◽  
Northwest Iran

Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) is recorded from several late Miocene localities, primarily in the Balkans, the northern Black Sea region, Anatolia, central Asia and China. The first complete cranial material, with several mandibular rami, and postcranials of Samotherium are described here from the Middle Maragheh sequence in northwest Iran. The Maragheh taxon appears metrically and morphologically similar to the smaller Samotherium taxon from the Samos Island (Greece) referred to as S. boissieri Major, 1888, type species of the genus. These new data trigger further discussion about the Iranian Samotherium record, including Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890, which was recently resurrected as a valid genus in the Maragheh fauna. Our analysis of the material referred to this genus indicates that Samotherium is the most likely attribution for the Maragheh A. neumayri Rodler & Weithofer, 1890. Differences between S. boissieri and S. neumayri are more pronounced in postcranial elements than in cranial and dental ones and need further investigation.

From the Balkans to Central Asia: Kosovo as Harbinger

1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-132
Author(s):  
Sungur Savran
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
The Balkans
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