History of the Islamic World

Vivre en prison à l’époque abbasside

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 52 (2009), p. 635-659.

In this article, we investigate the conditions of life in jail under the Abbasids. A comparative study of chronicles,... more In this article, we investigate the conditions of life in jail under the Abbasids. A comparative study of chronicles, biographical dictionaries, adab and legal literature allows a reconstruction of the main features of prison life. We argue that prisoners were supplied with the bare necessities by the prison institution and highly depended on their relatives or on public charity. The degree of promiscuity, hunger and dirtiness was quite similar in the politico-military prisons and in those of qādīs; in the first type of jail it played a major role in the criminals' punishment, in the second one it was part of the pressure put on debtors.

Nous proposons dans cet article d'examiner les conditions de vie dans les prisons à l'époque abbasside. Le croisement des chroniques, des dictionnaires biographiques, de l'adab et de la littérature juridique permet de reconstituer les principales caractéristiques de l'univers carcéral. Il apparaît que les détenus n'étaient entretenus qu'a minima par l'institution carcérale et dépendaient dans une large mesure de leurs familles ou de la charité publique. La promiscuité, la faim et la saleté, d'un degré comparable dans les prisons du pouvoir politico-militaire et dans celles des cadis, contribuait au châtiment des malfaiteurs dans les premières et à la pression exercée sur les débiteurs dans les secondes.

La société abbasside au miroir du tribunal. Égalité juridique et hiérarchie sociale

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Annales Islamologiques, 42 (2008), p. 157-186.

Les sources juridiques comme la littérature d’adab des IXe et Xe siècles insistaient sur la stricte égalité des... more Les sources juridiques comme la littérature d’adab des IXe et Xe siècles insistaient sur la stricte égalité des plaideurs devant le cadi, quelles que soient leurs places respectives au sein de la société. Cet article entend montrer comment, au-delà de cette règle théorique, le tribunal demeurait un puissant révélateur de l’appartenance sociale des individus. La doctrine limitait les droits de certaines catégories de la population et, de leur côté, diverses stratégies de distinction permettaient aux puissants d’asseoir leur supériorité ; par ailleurs, une mauvaise connaissance de la langue arabe ou une culture juridique insuffisante affaiblissaient la position des plaideurs issus des milieux populaires. Enfin, par son rôle dans la reconnaissance des filiations et des généalogies, le tribunal du cadi contribuait même à la fixation de groupes sociaux hiérarchisés.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, legal sources as well as adab literature stress the strict equality of the litigants before the qâdî, whatever their respective places in society. This article intends to show that despite this theoretical rule, the practice of the court still reflected individuals’ social backgrounds. The doctrine restricted the rights of some categories of the population and several strategies of discrimination enabled the powerful to establish their superiority; a weak knowledge of Arabic language or a poor legal culture could also weaken the position of litigants belonging to the popular classes. Finally, by recognizing filiations and genealogies, the qâdî’s court even contributed to the establishment of hierarchical social groups.

L’identification en justice à l’époque abbasside

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: L’identification. Des origines de l’islam au XIXe siècle, Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 127 (2010), p. 97-112.

Cet article se penche sur l’identification des principaux acteurs du système judiciaire à l’époque abbasside... more Cet article se penche sur l’identification des principaux acteurs du système judiciaire à l’époque abbasside (iie-ive/viiie-xe s.), tant dans la procédure ordinaire que dans la procédure épistolaire, à travers des sources biographiques et juridiques relatives à la province iraqienne. Si l’identification du juge, des plaideurs, de l’objet du litige et des témoins était nécessaire afin qu’un procès parvienne à son terme, les enjeux juridiques n’étaient pas les mêmes pour chacune de ces catégories. Les traits physiques, les artefacts et le nom furent autant de critères retenus par les juristes pour procéder au travail d’identification. Il apparaît au final que l’identification nominale des individus passait avant tout par leur notoriété, concept qui fut théorisé par les juristes ḥanafites dès le iiie/ixe siècle.

Les “premiers” cadis de Fusṭāṭ et les dynamiques régionales de l’innovation judiciaire (750-833)

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Annales Islamologiques, 45 (2011), p. 214-242.

This article recounts the judicial innovations that developed in Egypt during the early Abbasid caliphate, through an... more This article recounts the judicial innovations that developed in Egypt during the early Abbasid caliphate, through an analysis of qāḍī-s who were the first to adopt a legal practice. The Egyptian legal milieu, which was critically committed to the Medinese school, had some influence in the middle of the 2nd/8th century as far as the Abbasid court, which developed partly its centrality by assimilating provincial models. In return, the attraction of several prominent jurists or qāḍī-s to Bagdad caused the adoption, in Fusṭāṭ, of new judicial practices inspired by Iraqi models. Centralisation of judgeship under al-Manṣūr and his successors, who send in Egypt a series of qāḍī-s trained in Iraq, increased even more the influence of Iraqi practices on the court of Fusṭāṭ. As a paradox, the reinforcement of central authority on the Egyptian judgeship set also in motion a dynamic of local innovations: the designation in Fusṭāṭ of non-Egyptian qāḍī-s caused a reorganisation of the court at the turn of the 3rd/9th century, in particular by the creation of new networks and the setting up of a body of professional witnesses, an institution which spread in other provinces of the caliphate.

Islam and the Olympics: seeking a host city in the Muslim world

by Kasim Randeree

International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management

Purpose – Awarding the Olympic Games to a host city in the Muslim world would send a clear indication from member... more Purpose – Awarding the Olympic Games to a host city in the Muslim world would send a clear indication from member nations of the International Olympic Committee of a desire by the international community to engage with Muslim nations on a level that transcends sport. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to answer the question: will a city in the Muslim world ever become host to the greatest sporting spectacle on Earth, and, if so, which is most likely to receive it, when and why?

Design/methodology/approach – To gauge the potential of cities in the Muslim world hosting the Olympics Games, the approach of the paper is to examine the merits of former host cities and then qualitatively comparing these with member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference which have a majority Muslim population.

Findings – The research findings indicate that there are five cities in the Muslim world, at least one of which is likely to be awarded one of the coming six Summer Olympic Games between the years 2020 and 2040.

Research limitations/implications – The broader implications of the study are that, in examining Muslim nations of the world from the point of view of mega-event management on a global scale, their development and advancement capability in the modern world can be probed.

Originality/value – In the absence of any other published study on the subject, this paper would open a discourse that would be of value to scholars and interested parties in diverse fields such as major programme management, Islamic studies, international politics, economics and international development.

Review of: BAKHTIAR, LALEH, O. CAMERON GRUNER, AND MAZAR~H. SHAH (EDS.), 1999. THE CANON OF MEDICINE (AL QĀNŪN FI'L-ṬIBB), AVICENNA (ABŪ `ALĪ AL-ḤUSAYN IBN `ABD ALLĀH IBN SĪNĀ, VOL. 1 OFGREAT BOOKS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD. CHICAGO: KAZI PUBLICATIONS, INC.

by Dominik Wujastyk

2000, published in the Newsletter of IASTAM, I think.

Arabo-Byzantine traffic of manuscripts and the connections between the Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement and the first Byzantine 'Renaissance' (9th–10th Centuries)

by Jakub Sypiański

Paper from the conference "Byzantium and Renaissances. Dialogue of Cultures, Heritage of Antiquity - Tradition and Modernity" (Warsaw, 19-21 October 2011)

The 9th and 10th centuries saw the parallel appearance in different corners of the Mediterranean of movements that... more The 9th and 10th centuries saw the parallel appearance in different corners of the Mediterranean of movements that shared common characteristic: unprecedented interest in ancient culture. Escalations of literary interest in ancient Greek culture, in Byzantium and in the Abbasid caliphate, took place almost simultaneously. Interestingly, there is almost a perfect correlation between the list of works translated into Arabic at that time and the list of the very first manuscripts that have undergone the process of transcription into minuscule in Byzantine scriptoria. In this paper I am developing a theory of Dimitri Gutas who maintained that these two processes were connected and that the manuscripts in Byzantium could have been copied because of the specific Arabic demand for these works. As the Arabs were highly interested in the Greek philosophical and scientific literature and as they needed the manuscript, the Byzantines possibly became aware of this matter and according and they may have provided the Arabs with fresh copies of the Greek manuscripts that were in their possession.

L'islamizzazione dei Tuareg alla luce dei dati linguistici

by Vermondo Brugnatelli

Published in: P. Branca, V. Brugnatelli (a cura di), Studi arabi e islamici in memoria di Matilde Gagliardi, Milano, ISMEO, 1995, 63-74.

[Paper in Italian]
The discovery of an ancient borrowing from Arabic in the domain of religion (FAKRU, the... more [Paper in Italian]
The discovery of an ancient borrowing from Arabic in the domain of religion (FAKRU, the "name" of the she-camel of prophet Saleh, derived from "FA-‘AQARU..." i.e. the starting words of the quranic verses containing this story) suggests that the oldest relations with Arabs were not limited to secular, commercial ties, but included religious instruction.

Benchmarking in Islamic Finance

by Bashir Jaman

This paper is an initiative to analyze and justify benchmarking of interest rate (LIBOR) for Islamic Finance and... more This paper is an initiative to analyze and justify benchmarking of interest rate (LIBOR) for Islamic Finance and Banking. To do so author has tried to find the answer of following questions: How interest based benchmarking affects Islamic finance as an industry? In what extant Islamic Sharia allows it to benchmark a rate based on interest (Riba)? What are the recent researches have been done to establish an alternative of Interest based benchmarking?
Due to incorporation of interest benchmarking in the practice of Islamic banking and finance, this industry is not considered an interest free industry as it is claimed. Do you agree? Argue.

Eccentric Modernity? An Islamic Perspective on the Civilizing Process and the Public Sphere

by Armando Salvatore

European Journal of Social Theory, 14 (2011), 1: 55-69.

This article engages with Johann Arnason’s approach to the entanglements of culture and power in comparative... more This article engages with Johann Arnason’s approach to the entanglements of culture and power in comparative civilizational analysis by simultaneously reframing the themes of the civilizing process and the public sphere. It comments and expands upon some key insights of Arnason concerning the work of Norbert Elias and Jurgen Habermas by adopting an ‘Islamic perspective’ on the processes of singularization of power from its cultural bases and of reconstruction of a modern collective identity merging the steering capacities and the participative ambitions of an emerging urban intelligentsia.
The Islamic perspective provides insights into the interplay between civilizing processes and the modes through which cultural traditions innervate a modern public sphere. By revisiting key remarks of Arnason on Elias and Habermas, the Islamic perspective gains original contours, reflecting the search for a type of modernity that is eccentric to the mono-civilizational axis of the Western-led, global civilizing process.
While this eccentric positioning entails a severe imbalance of power, it also relativizes the centrality of the modern state in the civilizing process and evidences some original traits of the public sphere in a non-Western context.

Keywords: civilizing process, Islam, modernity, public sphere, tradition

"'Sovereign and Pious': The Religious Life of the Great Seljuq Sultans,"

by Deborah Tor

in The Seljuqs: Politics, Society, and Culture, ed. Christian Lange and Songul Mecit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 39-62

Holy War Redux: The Crusades, Futures of the Past, and Strategic Logic in the "Clash" of Religions

by Geraldine Heng

Theories and Methods Cluster, "Clash of Religions?"
PMLA March 2011

Other Papers:

Leah Marcus, on the European Renaissance

David Theo Goldberg, on the Internet and religion

Saskia Sassen, on globalization and religion

Gauri Viswanathan, on India's religions

Ato Quayson, on African religion in diaspora

Amy Hollywood, on religious studies

Respondent: Julia Luption

Pakistan: The State of Education

by Salim Mansur