In Writing and in Sound

Copies of Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt (Proofs of Good Deeds) by the Moroccan Sufi saint Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Jazūlī (d. 870/1465) were in high demand in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. This required producing manuscripts in large numbers and, later, printing the text. These mostly lithographic copies and corpora of the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt, when combined with references to biographical dictionaries, inheritance records, inventories, library catalogues, and endowment deeds, reveal a great deal of information about the public and private prevalence of the text, within and beyond the empire. The Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt appealed to many individuals, from Ottoman sultans to royal women, and from madrasa students to members of the learned class. Its copies were endowed to mosques and libraries, held in different book collections of the Topkapi palace, and were available from booksellers. Be it silently or aloud, the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt could be read in private homes and in mosques from Istanbul to Medina, a feature of pious soundscapes across the empire.

Virtue, Sanctity, and Charity of the Royal Women of Fez

The history of the Banū Marīn of the kingdom of Fez (seventh–ninth/thirteenth–fifteenth centuries) cannot and should not be reconstructed without a gender perspective which gives the women of this dynasty a place within its historic discourse. They played a key role in the political and religious legitimacy of the rulers, as reflected by the Banū Marīn historiography which, mirroring the idiosyncrasy of medieval Berber societies, afforded its women a visible space. However, as it was always subject to the clear interests of male political-religious legitimacy, this space for visibilisation is worthy of analysis. This study examines the different profoundly religious behaviour and capabilities which the chronicles assigned to different royal Merinid women, as related in the various anecdotes transmitted in their pages. Additional analysis is carried out on how these model characterisations aimed to increase the aura of spirituality of the amīrs, influenced by their close relationship and everyday contact with these women.

Stratification and Role of the Elite Muslim Women in the State of Awadh, 1742-1857

This paper focuses on stratification and role of the elite Muslim women in the State of Awadh during the second-half of the eighteenth, and first-half of nineteenth century India. It evaluates the categorization of women associated with the court and the division of political and domestic power among them. It also seeks their economic resources and their contribution in fields of art and architecture. The study finds that the first category of royal women of Awadh, including queen mothers and chief wives, enjoyed a powerful position in the state-matters unlike many other states of the time in India. Besides a high cadre of royal ladies, three more cadres of royal women existed in Awadh’s court with multiple ratios of power and economic resources. Elite women’s input and backing to various genres of art, language and culture resulted in growth of Urdu poetry, prose, drama and music in addition to religious architecture. The paper has been produced on the basis of primary and secondary sources. It includes the historical accounts, written by contemporary historians as well as cultural writings, produced by poets and literary figures of the time, besides letters and other writings of the rulers of Awadh. The writings produced by the British travelers, used in this paper, have further provided an insightful picture and a distinctive perspective.

Saints or Sinners? Sexuality, Reputation and Representation of Queens from Contemporary Sources to Modern Media

This article explores allegations of sexual scandal connected with premodern royal women in Europe and China. It begins by assessing expectations of queenly ideals, particularly the emphasis given to female chastity in European and Chinese culture. This forms a foundation for an extended discussion of tales of sexual impropriety of both real and legendary queens from China in the third century BCE to eighteenth century Europe. This survey highlights three key themes: the idea of dangerous and destructive beauty, the topos of the wanton and promiscuous queen and perceptions of transgressive affairs. Finally, the article assesses the connection between the portrayal of the sexual scandal of royal women in contemporary sources with the way in which these women’s lives are represented in modern media, particularly films and television series. Ultimately, it demonstrates that allegations of sexual scandal could both be a means to attack these women (and their royal husbands) in their lifetimes and could have long lasting negative impact on the memory of their lives, resulting in their political power, agency and activity being obscured by an emphasis on their love lives and supposed affairs.

Conclusion

This chapter elaborates the broad conclusions found in the study of ritual and dynasty in Russian royal weddings. It argues that wedding rituals were about dynasties and succession, and only incidentally about foreign policy or diplomacy. The chapter also unveils that wedding rites revealed both the misogyny of the court and the agency of royal women in a political system that rested so vitally on marriage and kinship. Also, royal weddings very directly revealed the interplay between Christian and non-Christian culture. The chapter then describes Peter I's reforms as part of a much longer and larger process of adaptation, borrowing, and improvisation. Ultimately, the chapter asserts royal weddings as an essential ritual that must be studied alongside other court spectacles like coronations, birthdays, name days, funerals, processions, and diplomatic audiences. It addresses weddings through the lens of dynasty and succession, which has necessarily led us to many other vital questions along the way and produced a number of venturesome reconsiderations of matters long thought settled in the historiography.

The First basilissa

This chapter focuses on the life and career of Phila (c. 350–294 BCE), daughter of Antipater and first of the many wives of Demetrius Poliorcetes, the first woman to whom the title of basilissa (a coinage of uncertain meaning formed by putting a feminine ending on the Greek word for “king,” basileus) was applied. It considers why she served as the prototype for so many other aspects of the role of royal women in Hellenistic monarchy. It argues that the critical role her husband and father-in-law Antigonus played in the formation of Hellenistic kingship, the ways in which Phila’s actions and titles mirrored theirs, as well as Phila’s function as a legitimator of her husband’s rule of Macedonia (because she was the daughter of Philip II’s and Alexander’s general Antipater) are the primary reasons she became an exemplar of the role of women in Hellenistic monarchy.

Women in Ancient Kush

Gender as one of the main categories of human identity is only sparsely traced in ancient Nubia, but at least some statements on royal and elite—and to a lesser extent non-elite—women are possible. This chapter focuses on royal women of the Kingdom of Kush and on non-elite women in general. It attempts to point out their specific roles in ideology, politics, and religion. General outlines of their situations in life (outfit, occupation) and death (burials) also are presented.