A Mamluk-Venetian Memorandum on Asian Trade, AD 1503

This article presents and discusses a source of unique importance for our knowledge of early modern global exchanges. Produced in 1503 by the Egyptian administration and found among the records of a Venetian company with global commercial interests, the document records hitherto unknown connections between the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia, followed by cargo figures. By sending the Memorandum to the head office in Venice, the Company's agents in Egypt were labouring to solve the most important concern of Venice's information network, that of coordinating Indian with Mediterranean trading seasons. By analysing the document's context, namely, a company involved in the export of central European metals to Asia, this article focuses on the capacity of its agents to gather information through collaboration, networking and ultimately, friendship with Muslim partners and informers. The story of the 1503 Memorandum and its transmission raises questions about the mixed networks underpinning global exchanges, the role of information and the drive of the late Mamluk sultanate into the world of the Indian Ocean.

Muḥammad ibn Maslama's Role in the Assassination of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf

Muḥammad ibn Maslama was a prominent companion of the Prophet Muḥammad who belonged to the Ḥāritha clan of the Medinan tribe of Aws. He played a key role in the events leading to the defeat of the three Jewish tribes of Medina and participated in the assassination of the Jewish leader Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf. Muḥammad ibn Maslama was connected to the Jews in various ways, as is evident, for example, from accounts claiming that he was Kaʿb's maternal nephew, and that his clan, the Banū Ḥāritha, lived in the predominantly Jewish oasis of Khaybar for nearly a year in the pre-Islamic period. Muḥammad ibn Maslama's role in Kaʿb's assassination has recently been argued to be of dubious historicity. This article offers a reassessment of this conclusion by placing the accounts of Muḥammad ibn Maslama's ties with the Jews, on the one hand, and those that depict him as their enemy, on the other, in the broader context of the change in the attitudes of some of the Anṣār towards the Jews during the Prophet's Medinan period. It argues that this change of attitudes is an attested historical pattern and, accordingly, that the fact of Muḥammad ibn Maslama's participation in the assassination of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf can be deemed reliable.

Fantastic Fauna in a Global Perspective: understanding composites in early Eurasian Antiquity

Ancient tombs and hoards across the Eurasian steppe call for a thorough revision of art-historical categories associated with pastoral societies from Mongolia to Crimea. This study focuses on one such category. “Animal style” is an umbrella term traditionally used to categorise portable precious metalwork ornamented with dynamic scenes of vigorous animal fights and entwined zoomorphic designs. With its emphasis on irregular animal anatomies and deeply rooted in a “pars-pro-toto” mode of expression, steppe imagery of fantastic fauna presents a useful case study in broader investigations of composites in the ancient world and their diffusion across cultural spheres. This study views beasts through a binary lens, the structured monsters of Greco-Roman thinkers and the organic composites of nomadic steppe artisans. In the Western canon, “composites” existed within a politically-manufactured framework of governable “otherness”, in which fantastic fauna conveys a certain tension with the exotic, unknown and uncontrollable East. Meanwhile, in the visual rhetoric of steppe artisans, monsters represented a tension with the (cyclical) shifts occurring in one's biota rather than the tumultuous events in one's constructed environment. This paper explores how the contrasting steppe pastoralist and sedentary imperial world-views came to define the various functions and meanings of “composites” in Eurasian Antiquity.

The ransom of high-ranking captives, tributary relationships and the practice of diplomacy in northern Syria 448-522/1050-1128

This article examines how the introduction of western European crusaders and settlers to northern Syria from 490/1097 onwards impacted upon two important mechanisms of regional diplomacy; the ransom of prominent political prisoners and tributary relationships. Discussion begins with a comparison of the capture and ransom of high-ranking captives in northern Syria between 442-522/1050-1128, where it is argued that the establishment of the crusader states led to an increase in both the rate at which prisoners of elite status were ransomed and the financial sums involved in these interactions. This is followed by a reassessment of the various peace treaties, tributary arrangements and condominia or munāṣafa agreements concluded between the rulers of Antioch and Aleppo during the late fifth/eleventh and early sixth/twelfth centuries. Ultimately, this article seeks to place key features of northern Syrian diplomacy from the early crusading period within the context of regional norms in the decades preceding the crusaders’ arrival.

Sharwīn of Dastabay: Reconstructing an early Persian Tale

The article discusses a little-known lost Persian tale, The Story of Sharwin of Dastabay, and traces references to it in Arabic, Persian, and Byzantine sources. The earliest references to the story come from the mid- to late eighth century, and it seems to have remained well known in Arabic and Persian literature until the early twelfth and possibly the early fourteenth century, while Byzantine literature shows that at least some of its elements circulated already in the mid-sixth century. The article also discusses how the story may have been transmitted both in Iran and, crossing the linguistic boundary, in an Arabic context. Though much of the story remains unknown, it is clear that it relates to later epics and reveals something of the literary context of Firdawsi and his Shahname.

Divine Sovereignty—Some Reflections

I offer some reflections here on the set of articles gathered in this special issue on divine sovereignty and further develop some thoughts first adumbrated in a piece published in JRAS 25/3 (2015).

Locating Ḥākimiyya in Global History: The Concept of Sovereignty in Premodern Islam and Its Reception after Mawdūdī and Quṭb

The concept of ḥākimiyya (sovereignty), as understood by its leading proponents, refers to the notion that it is God, rather than humans, Who possesses the prerogative to make laws. A concomitant of this is that Muslims with political power and authority must recognise the supremacy of Islamic law. This notion, perhaps most notably articulated in modern times by Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, may be viewed as the rearticulation of ideas latent in the premodern Islamic juristic tradition, but whose modern incarnation as ḥākimiyya emerged in response to the legislative norms of the liberal colonial state. Despite its modern articulation, and against the views of several scholars, I argue that ḥākimiyya qua sovereignty finds its antecedents quite clearly in the Islamic scholarly tradition. Such an understanding leads into a discussion of how Islamic conceptions of sovereignty can help us reassess influential Western articulations of the concept. I also show that Mawdūdī's influential younger contemporary, the Islamist alim Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwī, upholds ḥākimiyya despite his critique of Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb's conceptions of it. I conclude with a brief reflection on how our understanding of ḥākimiyya as sovereignty can help us provincialise Europe in global historical studies.