scholarly journals Developments in Egypt's early Islamic postal system (with an edition of P.Khalili II 5)

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Jelle Bruning
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
First Century ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThe importance of documentary sources for the history of the official postal system (barīd) in the first century of Islam has long been acknowledged. In addition to a small number of documents from the eastern part of the Muslim Empire, Egyptian papyri from the 90s/710s and 130s/750s form the main documentary sources for modern studies on the postal system. These papyri belong to a distinct phase in Islamic history. Papyri from other, especially earlier, phases have largely been neglected. The present article addresses the history of Egypt's official postal system from the Muslim conquest up to c. 132/750. It argues that the postal system gradually developed out of Byzantine practices and was shaped by innovations by Muslim rulers through which their involvement in the postal system's administration gradually increased. The article ends with an edition of P.Khalili II 5, a papyrus document from 135/753 on the provisioning of postal stations.

Notes on Ṭabarī's History

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence I. Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Valuable Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early Islamic

The caliphate of Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik (105–25/724–43) was undoubtedly one of the most important periods in early Islamic history, and as witness to the history of this era a source of paramount importance is certainly the Ta'rīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk of al-Ṭabarī. This in itself makes the publication of Volume xxv of the English translation of this work by Dr Khalid Yahya Blankinship, covering all but the last five years of Hishām's long reign, a matter of special interest to historians of the eastern lands of Islam. The reader will immediately notice that al-Ṭabarī devotes the bulk of his narrative for this period to events in Khurāsān and Transoxania, specifically, to the Umayyad campaigns there and hostilities with the Türgish khāqān Sü-lü Čur. In the course of this narrative one finds not only a wealth of information on military matters, but also much valuable data on the customs of the western Turks and life in Central Asia in general. The author's reasons for giving his work such a markedly eastern emphasis at this point are not unrelated to a desire, as Blankinship observes, to set forth the background for the 'Abbāsid revolution. But most of what al-Ṭabarī reports for this period is in fact not of immediate relevance to the advent of the 'Abbāsids, and indeed, the subject of 'Abbāsid propaganda activities hardly seems to be a prominent one in this volume.

Revisiting ModernNaẓmApproaches to the Qur'an: Iṣlāḥī’s Interpretation of Q. 107 and Q. 108 in hisTadabbur-i Qurʾān

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-74
Author(s):  
Kamran Bashir
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Internal Feature ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Polysemous Words ◽  
Early Islamic

Modern naẓm approaches to the Qur'an ask for a detailed study of the interpretive methodologies and assumptions that function behind them. In order to understand such structural approaches, the present article offers a focused study of two important suras of the Qur'an (Q. 107 and Q. 108), involving some polysemous words, in the Urdu tafsīr of Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī (d. 1997), Tadabbur-i Qur’ān. Iṣlāḥī’s theory of naẓm has gained considerable attention in the academy and is worthy of investigating from new perspectives. It is built on a holistic and unified system of connections within a sura and between suras. The paper aims to investigate the mechanism through which Iṣlāḥī identifies naẓm, and examine its relationship with specific meaning and historical context of a sura. It argues that Iṣlāḥī’s concept of naẓm, which he presents as an internal feature of the Qur'an, seems to be based on and shaped by a specific view of the life of Prophet Muḥammad. It appears that non-linguistic factors play a pivotal role in his theory of naẓm. Therefore, in order to fully comprehend his system of linkages in the Qur'anic discourses, there is a need to further investigate how he understands the biography of the Prophet and the early Islamic history in comparison to other exegetes and historians, and how he approaches the question of the authenticity of our knowledge about the details of Muhammad.

Whence Come Qurʾān Manuscripts? Determining the Regional Provenance of Early Qurʾānic Codices

Der Islam ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-393
Author(s):  
Ala Vahidnia
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
Textual Variants ◽  
Early Islamic

Abstract In studies of early Qurʾānic manuscripts, determining the provenance of these manuscripts is a thorny issue because in most cases they lack endowment notes or colophons. The reports in early Islamic sources regarding textual variants of regional codices (maṣāḥif al-amṣār) may contribute to find a solution to this problem. A list of regional variants, mostly based on al-Dānī’s al-Muqniʿ, can be found in Nöldeke et al.’s The History of the Quran. However, as the authors have stated, a comparison of some of the early Qurʾānic manuscripts in the Topkapı Sarayı Museum with this table of maṣāḥif al-amṣār variants indicates that the traditional reports are unreliable for identifying the provenance of Qurʾānic manuscripts because none of these codices can be attributed to any particular region. The present article is an attempt to demonstrate that this problem results from relying solely on the data provided by al-Dānī and ignoring earlier and more significant sources, such as al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif. It attempts to provide a new and more precise classification of regional variants by reading afresh the reports on the features of maṣāḥif al-amṣār, taking into account the sources which were not used by Nöldeke et al., especially al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif, thus making the list of maṣāḥif al-amṣār variants more accurate, thereby the variants of each of these early Qurʾānic Codices tally more with the reports preserved for the characteristics of one of the maṣāḥif al-amṣār in literary sources. As the texts of the surviving manuscripts are not of a diverse nature we are able, with some certainty, to draw conclusions that substantiate the reports as to the peculiarities of the muṣḥafs of different cities.

"Consider that it is a Raid on the Path of God": The Spiritual Manual of the Attackers of 9/11

Numen ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Kippenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Political Center ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThe document found with three of the four cells responsible for the crimes of 9/11 is unique in providing specific information about how the Muslim suicide terrorists conceived of their action. The document shows that they found justification for violence by emulating the moment in early Islamic history when Muhammad cancelled contracts with non-Muslims and organized raids (ghazwa) against the Meccans in order to establish Islam as a political order. No statement in the Manual explicitly identifies the United States as the financial, military, and political center of today's paganism; rather, such identification is tacitly assumed, as was shown by the action itself. Instead, the Manual prescribes recitations, prayers and rituals by which each member of the four cells should prepare for the ghazwa, purify his intention and anticipate in his mind the successive stages of the struggle to come. Not the objective aim but the subjective intention is at the center of the Manual. The article places this type of justification of violence in the history of Islamic activism since the 1980s.

Understanding the History of Ancient Israel

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Islamic

In recent years, the study of the history of Ancient Israel has become very heated. On the one hand there are those who continue to use the Bible as a primary source, modified and illustrated by the findings of archaeology, and on the other there are some who believe that primacy should be given to archaeology and that the Biblical account is then seen to be for the most part completely unreliable in historical terms. This book makes a contribution to this debate by inquiring into the appropriate methods for combining different sorts of evidence – from archaeology, epigraphy, iconography, and the Bible. It also seeks to learn from related historical disciplines such as classical antiquity and early Islamic history, where similar problems are faced. Chapters focus on the ninth century BCE (the period of the Omri dynasty) as a test case, but the proposals are of far wider application. The book brings together in mutually respectful dialogue the representatives of positions that are otherwise in danger of talking across one another.

(Re)writing the Early Biography of the Alhambra’s Fountain of Lions: New Evidence from a Neo-Latin Poem (1497)

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 259-271
Author(s):  
Bernhard Schirg
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Physical Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Joint Interpretation ◽  
New Evidence

In the centuries following the conquest of Granada in 1492, the Alhambra’s iconic Fountain of Lions underwent numerous changes. More than a hundred years ago, a process of restoring the object to its original appearance under Nasrid rule was initiated. The joint interpretation of archaeological findings and historical texts guided the process of writing and rewriting the early biography of an object whose physical form has gradually been reshaped according to these narratives. The present article focuses on a brief period in the complex history of the fountain—the decades surrounding the conquest of Granada—and revisits Islamic and Christian written testimonies, emphasizing their inherent limitations as documentary sources. By introducing a hitherto unknown Neo-Latin poem, the article calls into question the early biography of the Fountain of Lions as it has been narrated so far, thereby challenging recent modifications to the fountain.


R.R. Vasmer and His Hand-written Catalogue of Tabarestān drachms

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 143-f
Author(s):  
Konstantin V. Kravtsov
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
The State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Islamic Glass

Abstract The present article concerns the hand-written catalogue of Tabarestān drachms, composed by the famous Russian orientalist R.R. Vasmer (1888-1938), in the possession of the State Hermitage Museum. The catalogue constitutes an integral part of Vasmer’s hand-written legacy, preserved in the Numismatic Department of the State Hermitage Museum, including 8 volumes of the catalogue of pre-Mongol Islamic coins and 1 volume of the catalogue of Islamic glass weights and stamps The catalogue of Tabarestān drachms (Tabari dirhams) contains detailed descriptions of 129 coins: 23 specimens of which belong to the Dabuyid coinage, and 106 were struck by the ‘Abbasid Governors of Tabarestān. Despite the fact that the catalogue was compiled between 1910 and 1916 it is still unpublished and remains a very important reference for studying the history of Tabarestān’s numismatics, in particular, and early Islamic numismatics, in general.

Presidential Address 1984 Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association

1985 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Ira M. Lapidus
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Board Of Directors ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Special Privilege ◽  
The World ◽  
The Board Of Directors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Early Islamic

Since this is my last gesture as President of the Association I should like to thank you all warmly for the honor you have done me in electing me as President and for the opportunity of working with the Board of Directors and with the Secretary, Michael Bonine, on your behalf. It also happens that I am just about to finish a book on the history of Islamic societies. In a very different way this project has also been a special privilege. I have been able to branch out from my basic and abiding interest in the Arab Middle East and from my studies in early Islamic history to learn something about Muslim peoples all over the world. To learn so much and to work out a way of presenting such a large subject in a coherent way has made this a wonderfully rewarding project. Like a great puzzle, it has occupied my mind for seven years. I hope that the book I am writing will return the rewards of this learning to the reader.

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