Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung
I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies
This collection of essays on the theme of culture and memory in medieval Islam is in honour of the eminent scholar of Islamic studies Wilferd Madelung, who was for twenty years Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford and is currently affiliated with The Institute of Ismaili Studies as Senior Research Fellow. Contributions address broad-ranging themes relating to memory, memorisation, memorialising or commemorating in a variety of historical, legal, literary and architectural contexts, including lists and maps as memory aids; the transmission of knowledge and traditions from medieval to early modern times; the application of medieval notions of law and statecraft; and the commemoration of individuals, civilisations and dynasties in historical and literary works, on coinage and in monumental forms.
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
1. Introduction
Josef W. Meri
2. Bibliography of the Works of Wilferd Madelung
Farhad Daftary
Part 1 The Transmission of Knowledge
3. Universities: Past and Present
George Makdisi
4. The ijāza from ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṣāliḥ al-Samāhījī to Nāṣir al-Jārūdī al-Qaṭīfī: A Source for the Twelver Shiʿi Scholarly Tradition of Baḥrayn
Sabine Schmidtke
5. Abu’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī on God’s Volition
Martin J. McDermott
6. Between Qumm and the West: The Occultation According to al-Kulaynī and al-Kātib al-Nuʿmānī
Andrew J. Newman
7. Memory and Maps
Emilie Savage-Smith
8. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī: A Sunni Voice in the Shiʿi Century
Wadād al-Qāḍī
Part 2 Memorializing, Remembering and Forgetting
9. Balʿamī’s Account of Early Islamic History
Elton L. Daniel
10. ‘Say It Again and Make Me Your Slave’: Notes on al-Daylamī’s Seventh Sign of Mans Love for God Joseph
Norment Bell
11. Lists and Memory: Ibn Qutayba and Muhammad b. Ḥabīb
Julia Bray
12. A Jonah Theme in the Biography of Ibn Tūmart
David J. Wasserstein
13. Meadow of the Martyrs: Kāshifī’s Persianization of the Shiʿi Martyrdom Narrative in the Late Tīmūrid Herat
Abbas Amanat
Part 3 Commemorating Rulers, Dynasties and Conquests
14. Khurāsānī Revolutionaries and al-Mahdī’s Title
Michael L. Bates
15. Shāhānshāh and al-Malik al-Muʾayyad: The Legitimation of Power in Sāmānid and Būyid Iran
Luke Treadwell
16. The Beginning of the Ismaili Daʿwa and the Establishment of the Fatimid Dynasty as Commemorated by al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān
Ismail K. Poonawala
17. Purloined Symbols of the Past: The Theft of Souvenirs and Sacred Relics in the Rivalry between the Abbasids and Fatimids
Paul E. Walker
18. Conceptions of Authority and the Transition of Shiʿism from Sectarian to National Religion in Iran
Saïd Amir Arjomand
19. ʿUmāra’s Poetical Views of Shāwar, Ḍirghām, Shīrkūh and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn as Viziers of the Fatimid Caliphs
Pieter Smoor
Selected Bibliography
Index
‘The contributions are of high academic standing, and the volume is a must for any library collection on Islamic history.’
– Remke Kruk, Bibliotheca Orientalis
‘the text as a whole is well produced, well organized, and user-friendly, certain to be of interest to both specialists and students alike.’
– Erik S. Ohlander, MELA Notes
Farhad Daftary is Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. A scholar of Ismaili studies, he is the author of several acclaimed books and numerous shorter studies in this field of Islamic studies. He is a regular contributor to Encyclopaedia Iranica of which he is a consulting editor. His publications include The Ismaʿilis: Their History and Doctrines (1990), The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʿilis (1994), and A Short History of the Ismailis (1998).
Josef W. Meri is a specialist in medieval Middle Eastern and Islamic history, culture and religion, as well as comparative religion. He is presently a Visiting Research Fellow at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. Among his publications are The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (2002), and A Lonely Wayfarer’s Guide to Pilgrimage (2005).