More than Beast: Muhammad's She-Mule Duldul and Her Role in Early Islamic History

Duldul, a beloved she-mule of the Prophet Muhammad and ʿAli b. Abi Talib (d. 661), fourth caliph and Muhammad's son-in-law, was a venerated riding beast in early Islamic tradition. The article argues that Duldul reflected the transmission of political authority and became a tool of legitimation for hadith compilers and medieval Muslim writers to use, contest, and navigate an emergent Shiʿa-Sunni rift. Exploring the responsive relationship between hadith construction and the Shiʿa-Sunni polemic, the article first analyzes three literary genres—maghāzī, hadith, and sīra—to describe Duldul and her role in early Islamic history. Second, the article examines the writings of al-Jahiz (d. 868) and al-Damiri (d. 1405) to understand medieval Muslim attitudes toward Duldul and she-mules in general. By taking Duldul more seriously as a historical actor, we can gain deeper insight into the disputes over Muhammad's legacy in medieval Islam.

The Monastery as Tavern and Temple in Medieval Islam: The Case for Confessional Flexibility in the Locus of Christian Monasteries

This article examines the diverse nature of Muslim interest in Christian monasteries during the medieval Islamic period. According to a variety of contemporary accounts, Muslim visitation to monasteries often involved wine consumption and licentious behavior on the part of the elites. While not dismissing this possibility, this research suggests that there was often a greater religious dimension to Muslim fascination with monastic sites. Sacred shrines throughout the late antique Levant had, after all, been held in esteem for their hospitality and miraculous powers long before the arrival of Islam. This examination contends that Muslim interest in such Christian shrines and monasteries represents a dynamic, flexible confessional environment at the dawning of Islam. The pious spirit of pilgrimage and ziyāra/visitation was simply transferred into a new religious context; one that was defined by its fluid character and amorphous sectarian lines.

Alternative Facts, Alternative Sciences: The Development of the Concept in Medieval Islam and Its Historical Consequences

The perception of reality, and of what is real and what false, as unproblematic and self-evident in stable societies hides the fact that reality as perceived by members of a society is socially and politically generated. The generation through political fiat of an alternative reality presented as alternative facts in the Unites States during the Trump administration, and the astounding espousal of that alternative reality by nearly half of the population, is a striking demonstration of this fact. In this paper, the development inmedieval Islam of the concept of alternative facts as alternative scientific reality is traced to the historical developments in the Middle East in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with an account of their consequences which persist to the present day.