Sacred Topography: A Spatial Approach to the stelae of Gao-Saney

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
Georg Leube
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
Spatial Reconstruction ◽  
Spatial Approach ◽  
Islamic Historiography ◽  
Sacred Topography ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
The Ideal

The following are some comments by a scholar of early Islamic Historiography on the intriguing stelae of the Royal Cemetary of Gao-Saney dating from 11th / 12th century (ce) West Africa. They depart from interpretations focusing on the integration of the stelae into the literary corpus of later Arabic ta’rīkh – works dealing with West Africa by proposing a spatial reconstruction of the ensemble of the tombstones. The resulting spatial arrangement can be intrepreted as reminiscent of the topography of the burial of the Prophet Muḥammad in Medina. It is proposed that the peculiar naming pattern on the tombstones of the recently Islamicized rulers of Gao-Saney replicating the naming pattern of the first three rulers of the ideal Islamic polity of early Islamic Salvation History did not necessarily form a replica of Islamic Salvation History in life, but certainly a replica in death establishing a marker of Islamic Salvational Geography in 11th / 12th century (ce) West Africa.

The implications of, and opposition to, the methods and theories of John Wansbrough1

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Berg
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Muslim Scholars

This article serves as an introduction to Wansbrough's methods and theories for the study of the Qur¸dn, its Tafsīr, the Sīra, and other early Islamic texts. Muslim and most non-Muslim scholars work within essentially the same framework: one which reads the literature of early Islam as history. Wansbrough has demonstrated that what these sources provide is not history per se, but salvation history, and that methods appropriate for the study of this genre are not source critical but literary critical. Through the application of these methods Wansbrough has postulated theories, which, if correct, radically alter our understanding of Islamic origins. Islamicists have tended to fixate on these theories at the expense of the methodological approach from which they are derived. Judging by the arguments raised thus far by these opponents of Wansbrough, I suggest that their aversion to his work stems as much from the unwillingness of Islamicists to accept the uncertainty inherent in his methods and the political incorrectness associated with his theories as from their theoretical conservatism and methodological naivete.

The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100

1974 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Watson
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Close Contacts

The rapid spread of Islam into three continents in the seventh and eighth centuries was followed by the diffusion of an equally remarkable but less well documented agricultural revolution. Originating mainly in India, where heat, moisture and available crops all favored its development and where it had been practiced for some centuries before the rise of Islam, the new agriculture was carried by the Arabs or those they conquered into lands which, because they were colder and drier, were much less hospitable to it and where it could be introduced only with difficulty. It appeared first in the eastern reaches of the early-Islamic world—in parts of Persia, Mesopotamia and perhaps Arabia Felix—which had close contacts with India and where a few components of the revolution were already in place in the century before the rise of Islam. By the end of the eleventh century it had been transmitted across the length and breadth of the Islamic world and had altered, often radically, the economies of many regions: Transoxania, Persia, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, the Maghrib, Spain, Sicily, the savannah lands on either side of the Sahara, parts of West Africa and the coastlands of East Africa. It had very far-reaching consequences, affecting not only agricultural production and incomes but also population levels, urban growth, the distribution of the labor force, linked industries, cooking and diet, clothing, and other spheres of life too numerous and too elusive to be investigated here.

scholarly journals Effect of plot size and plant spatial arrangement on the efficiency of family selection in sugarcane

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Aparecido De Moraes ◽  
Matheus Henrique Silveira Mendes ◽  
Mauro Sérgio de Oliveira Leite ◽  
Regis De Castro Carvalho ◽  
Flávia Maria Avelar Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Sample Size ◽  
Bootstrap Method ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
Family Selection ◽  
Plot Size ◽  
Stalk Diameter ◽  
New Varieties ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
The Bootstrap Method ◽  
The Ideal

The purpose of this study was to identify the ideal sample size representing a family in its potential, to identify superior families and, in parallel, determine in which spatial arrangement they may have a better accuracy in the selection of new varieties of sugarcane. For such purpose, five families of full-sibs were evaluated, each with 360 individuals, in the randomized blocks design, with three replications in three different spacing among plants in the row (50 cm, 75 cm, and 100 cm) and 150 cm between the rows. To determine the ideal sample size, as well as the better spacing for evaluation, the bootstrap method was adopted. It was observed that 100 cm spacings provided the best average for the stalk numbers, stalk diameter and for estimated weight of stalks in the stool. The spacing of 75 cm between the plants allowed a better power of discrimination among the families for all characters evaluated. At this 75 cm spacing  was also possible to identify superior families with a sample of 30 plants each plot and 3 reps in the trial. Highlights The bootstrap method was efficient to determine the ideal sample size, as well as the best spacing for evaluation. The 75-cm spacing had the highest power of discrimination among families, indicating that this spacing is the most efficient in evaluating sugarcane families for selection purposes. From all the results and considering selective accuracy as the guiding parameter for decision making, the highest values obtained considering the number of stalks and weight of stalks in the stools were found at the 75-cm spacing.

The Anonymous “History of the Abbasid Family” and its Place in Islamic Historiography

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elton L. Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Large Measure ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islamic Historiography ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Source Materials

A recent burst of interest in revisionist interpretations of early Islamic and especially Abbasid history may be attributed in large measure to the availability of a number of fresh source materials, one of the most important of which is an anonymous history of the Abbasid family. A number of problems surrounding this work are still far from being satisfactorily resolved, including the questions of its title, the date of its composition, the identity of its author, and its historical and historiographical value.

Ghaylan al-Dimashqi: The Isolation of a Heretic in Islamic Historiography

1999 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven C. Judd
Keyword(s):  
Moral Authority ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Islamic Historiography ◽  
The Right ◽  
Early Islamic

The meaning and significance of accusations of heresy are difficult to ascertain, regardless of the religious setting or historical milieu in which they appear. Scholars studying medieval European religious history have described heresy as opposition to the Christian church's doctrinal authority, emphasizing that heretics were not only religious but also political dissenters. They questioned church doctrine per se, but also, perhaps more significantly, challenged the church's authority to determine doctrine. In early Islamic history, concepts of heresy and orthodoxy are somewhat more difficult to define. After the Rashidun, there was no dominant religious voice in the community. Instead, a variety of opposing parties struggled for the right to define doctrine. In such circumstances, there could be no orthodoxy, since none had sufficient moral authority or coercive power to impose their views to the exclusion of all others. Consequently, there could be no heresy either, because heretics are simply those whom the dominant religious authority deems to be outside the bounds of orthodoxy. Only after proponents of a particular set of views gained sufficient power to impose their views on others could heterodoxy become heresy.

Living happily ever after: fraternal polyandry, taxes and “the house” in early Islamic Bactria

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56
Author(s):  
Arezou Azad
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Islamic Historiography ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThis paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of Islam on families in eighth-century rural Ṭukhāristan (modern-day northern Afghanistan), at the periphery of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Tukhāristan lay in the ancient region of Bactria, which became the land and city of Balkh after the Islamic conquests of the early seven hundreds ad. My analysis is based on a fascinating corpus of legal documents and letters, written in Bactrian and Arabic in the fourth to eighth centuries ad, which were discovered, edited and translated relatively recently. Scholars of Central Asia have tended to discuss the region's early Islamic history within a politico-military framework based on chronicles and prosopographies written in Arabic and/or adapted into Persian centuries after the Muslim conquests. Such narrative sources describe an ideal state defined by genres of Islamic historiography, and come with the usual menu of distortions, simplifications and exoticisms. The documents under review, on the other hand, were written to serve immediate and practical uses; the evidence they offer is devoid of rhetoric, recording aspects of life and social groupings to which we would otherwise have no access. This paper argues that during the transition to Islamic rule (c. ad 700–771), Bactrian and Islamic administrative systems co-existed, and significantly affected family life and marriage traditions. Specifically, it is suggested that the early ʿAbbāsid tax system eclipsed the age-old practice of fraternal polyandry here: more by default than by design.

Graves and Shrines in Medieval Islam: From Pre-Islamic Times to Ibn Taymiyya’s Legacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ondřej Beránek ◽  
Pavel Ťupek
Keyword(s):  
Islamic History ◽  
Ibn Taymiyya ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Medieval Islam ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter provides an overview of the broader context within which debates regarding graves, funeral architecture and ziyāra have taken place. The early Islamic interdictions against certain funerary structures and grave-related rites did not arise in a vacuum. Therefore, the chapter contextualises these debates and the gap that began to emerge between the traditionalists’ (Ahl al-hadith) vision of ideal Islam and the reality of popular Islam. The chapter also offers a detailed focus on the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya, as it was his narrative of Islamic history and the ideal Islamic community that inspired later Sunni reformists, among them the Salafis, who sought to defend Islamic identity against the incursion of foreign influences and impurities, be they elements of Christianity, Judaism, syncretism or modernity.

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