Imperial Transgressions and Spiritual Investitures: A Begam’s “Ascension” in Seventeenth Century Mughal India

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afshan Bokhari
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Social Customs ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Family Legacies

AbstractIslamic jurisprudence and social customs regarding laws of inheritance privilege Muslim males as legitimate successors to family legacies and wealth. Furthermore, these heads of households were and are expected to sustain and uphold family values while representing the noble “face” of their legacies. Though women in pre-modern Islamic societies were awarded property and income to support them, they were neither required nor encouraged like their male counterparts to use their agencies or largesse to make banner representations of their lineage or heritage. This essay challenges androcentric ideas and practices surrounding Islamic laws of inheritance through the example of the Mughal princess Jahānārā Begam (1614-81) and her articulations of ascension. This analysis demonstrates how the princess’s extraordinary relationship with her emperor father, Shah Jahān (r. 1628-59), facilitated her spiritual and imperial achievements and elevated her rank in imperial and Sufi hierarchies.

Piracy in Ottoman Islamic Jurisprudence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. White
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
Legal Opinions

This chapter examines the legal opinions (Arabic: fatwa, Turkish: fetva) issued by the chief Islamic legal authorities of the empire (şeyhülislam) concerning maritime violence and explores the implications of their rulings for judges and litigants throughout the empire and for the corsairs based on its margins. Drawing on research in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century fetva collections, the chapter establishes the kinds of legal questions that piracy and captivity posed for the Ottomans and how they were answered as the intensity, frequency, and focus of Mediterranean piracy mutated in sometimes alarming ways. Showing how secular, interstate, and Islamic law were harmonized through fetvas, the chapter lays the groundwork for the subsequent analysis of the convergence of theory and practice in Ottoman courts.

scholarly journals Kitab Mir’at al-Ṭullāb dan Penerapan Fiqh Iṣlāḥ dalam Konflik Komunal pada Masa 'Abd al-Ra'ūf al-Sinkīlī

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-47
Author(s):  
Zainal Muttaqin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Groups

The Mir’at al-Ṭullāb written by al-Sinkīlī in the seventeenth century apparently did not mention the requirement of being male to become a head of state (sultan). This is interesting because the Shāfi‘ī school of fiqh which is used as a reference actually mentions this condition. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the factors underlying it. Based on the literature studies and looking at the social history of the Acehnese people at that time, it can be found that the book was written when the Acehnese were polarized and there were conflicts between different religious and political groups. The conflict was very severe and was able to threaten the unity and power of the sultan at that time. The exclusion of being male as one of the requirements for public office (political authority or judge) is a manifestation of the application of Islamic jurisprudence by al-Sinkīlī which was introduced from the Qur’ān and the Sunnah so that it became legitimate (shar‘ī) while at the same time strengthening the position of the sultan, the idea of which was eventually able to reduce the political conflict in the community. 

The Public Sphere

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Corporations ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Public Sphere

According to Habermas, there were two incarnations of the “public,” or as the English translation renders it “public sphere,” under the Ancien Régime. The first arose during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the royal state gradually absorbed powers and rights previously exercised by semi-public corporations, localities, and individuals. This institutional reshuffling, in Habermas's view, entailed a fresh division between the “public” and “private” realms. “Public,” according to Habermas, came to mean state-related and denoted the sphere occupied by a “bureaucratic apparatus with regulated spheres of jurisdiction” that exerted “a monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion.” “Private,” by contrast, denoted the sphere occupied by those who held no office and were for that reason “excluded from any share in public authority.” Beginning in the late seventeenth century, Habermas argued, a second “public sphere” took shape “within the tension-charged field between state and society” According to Habermas, the social nature of this new “bourgeois public sphere” allowed for the public articulation of previously private bourgeois family values in public settings.

Filled with Spirit and Power: Protestant Clergy in Politics. By Laura R. Olson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 174p. $57.50 cloth, $18.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 1005-1006
Author(s):  
Paul J. Weber
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
Family Values ◽  
State University ◽  
Protestant Clergy ◽  
African American Pastors ◽  
The Family ◽  
Limited Scope

Laura Olson is one of a small but energetic and influential group of Christian political scientists determined to bring the debate politically legitimate called it either racist or sexist. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, African American pastors held the most consistently conservative views on family values, although they also saw the connections among crime, violence, and the deterioration of the family. Within the authorÕs intentionally limited scope, this is an excellent study, but one should be cautious about generalizing.

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