Boaz Shoshan, Ph.D. 1978

Offering a new approach to the study of Ṭabarī's History, the most comprehensive historical work written by a classical Muslim historian, this book applies concepts developed by critical theorists and suggests a reading of historiographical material that is not primarily concerned with reconstructing…

Legislation Authority addresses issues of law, state violence, and state authority within the Ottoman and Turkish context.

Contents

Historical context -- Legal context -- 1840 to 1850 : crime and the bureaucracy -- 1851 to 1858 : the disappearance of the victim -- 1859 to 1876 : crimes against the…

Khaled Abou El Fadl is a classically-trained Islamic jurist, an American lawyer and law professor, and one of the most important Islamic thinkers today. In this updated and expanded edition of The Search for Beauty in Islam, Abou El Fadl offers eye-opening and enlightening insights into the contemporary realities of the current state of Islam…

Despite President George W. Bush's assurances that Islam is a peaceful religion and that all good Muslims hunger for democracy, confusion persists and far too many Westerners remain convinced that Muslims and terrorists are synonymous. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recent bombings…

The Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state encompassing most of the modern Middle East, and for much of its 600-year existence it managed to rule effectively its diverse peoples. The essays of this work move beyond the traditional state- and community-centered approaches and instead seek to explore the unknown terrain that…

Unearths the history of the Naqshbandiyya, one of the most widespread and enduring Sufi brotherhoods.

A Culture of Sufism opens a window to a new understanding of one of the most prolific and enduring of all the Sufi brotherhoods, the Naqshbandiyya, as it spread from its birthplace in central Asia to Iran, Anatolia,…

This book explores the life of el-Hajj Beshir Agha (ca. 1657-1746), the most powerful Chief Harem Eunuch in the history of the Ottoman Empire Enslaved in his native Ethiopia as a boy, then castrated in Egypt, el-Hajj Beshir became one of hundreds of East African eunuchs who inhabited the imperial palace's enormous…

Modern Algeria has been, in many ways, a harbinger of events and trends that have affected the Arab and Muslim worlds. The country's bold experiment in democratization broke down in the early 1990s, largely over the question of whether the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) should be permitted to come to power following its victories in local,…

Edited by Victoria Rowe Holbrook, Ph.D. 1985

The girl Hüsn and the boy Aşk are betrothed to each other as children. But Hüsn violates the custom of the tribe by falling in love with him, and Aşk must undergo the trials of a journey to Diyar-i-Kalp, the Land of the Heart, to prove himself worthy—a journey to realization of both his and…

Translated from the Ottoman Turkish with an introduction and key by Victoria Rowe Holbrook, Ph.D. 1985

The girl Beauty and the boy Love are betrothed to each other as children. But Beauty violates the custom of the tribe by falling in love with him, and Love must undergo the trials of a journey to the Land of the Heart to prove…

Edited by David S. Powers, Ph.D. 1979

Dispensing Justice is designed to serve as a sourcebook of Islamic legal practice and qadi court records from the rise of Islam to modern times, drawing upon court records and qadi judgments, in addition to literary sources. In the first chapter, we survey the state of the field,…

The first English translation of a novel by popular Turkish writer Nazlı Eray.

The myth of Orpheus has inspired revisions and retellings from writers and artists around the world—from poet Rainer Maria Rilke, to novelist Salman Rushdie, to filmmakers Jean Cocteau and Marcel Camus. In this version, celebrated Turkish author Nazlı Eray…

The Militant Ideology Atlas identifies the most influential thinkers in the Jihadi Movement and delineates the movement’s key ideological vulnerabilities. It situates the Jihadi Movement within the various Muslim constituencies that Jihadi leaders seek to influence and persuade.  Each constituency is responsive to leaders in the broader…

As in many areas of pre-modern history, the study of medieval Islamic history has been critically hindered by the lack of available evidence. Unlike many parallel fields, however, the shortage of contemporary documentary evidence for medieval Islam has less to do with the…

This study presents a comprehensive, balanced and factually grounded narrative of the Turco-Greek Exchange of Populations as a historic event that has been the subject of much distortion in the historiographical traditions of nationalist lore in Greece and Turkey, as well as in scholarly publications of various sorts elsewhere over the span of…

Fatwas of condemnation : Islam and the limits of dissent examines a particularly rich and relatively untapped source for Islamic intellectual history, namely the genre of legal writing represented by the compendia of Islamic legal response to examine the limits of dissent in Islam. Not confining himself to a particular period of history, but…

Khaled Abou El Fadl's book represents the first systematic examination of the idea and treatment of political resistance and rebellion in Islamic law. Pre-modern jurists produced an extensive and sophisticated discourse on the legality of rebellion and the treatment due to rebels under Islamic law. The book examines the emergence and…

This collection brings together the work of eighteen scholars, all specialists in medieval sufism. Written in French, English and Arabic, the articles focus on Egypt of the Mamluk period (c. 1250-1517). With approaches varying from the historical to the tophographical, from the poetic to the theological, this volume offers a wealth of insight…

The Modern Middle East presents a wide-ranging and varied collection of translated sources covering the period from 1700 to the present. These sources include official and private archives, the…

This book examines the most important writings of a tenth century Islamic theologian and jurist who was one of the most original thinkers of his period. It argues that Qadi al-Nu'man's works constituted new and vital genres in Ismaili Shi'i literature, an emergence necessitated by the Fatimids' transition from revolutionary movement to…

This is a comparative study dealing with the maritime practices which prevailed in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds around the Mediterranean from 7-10 centuries C.E. and consists of seven chapters. The first chapter describes the physical and legal significance of the ship, computation of capacity, and the importance of naming commercial…

Table of Contents

Map of the Ottoman Balkans ca. 1800

Frederick F. Anscombe, “Introduction”

Antonis Anastasopoulos, “Crisis and State Intervention in Late Eighteenth-Century Karaferye (mod. Veroia)”

Michael R. Hickok, “Homicide in Ottoman Bosnia”

Virginia H. Aksan, “Whose…

In the years leading up to World War I, the Great Powers of Europe jostled one another for control over Morocco, the last sovereign nation in North Africa. France beat out its rivals and added Morocco to its vast colonial holdings through the use of diplomatic intrigue and undisguised force. But greed and ambition alone do not explain the…

As the world focuses on the conflict in Iraq, the most important political players in that country today are not the Sunni insurgents. Instead, they are Iraq’s Shi’I majority — part of the Middle East’s ninety million Shi’I Muslims who hold the key to the future of the region and the relations between Muslim and Western societies. So contends…

This collection of ten essays focuses on the way major schools and individuals have narrated histories of the Middle East. The distinguished contributors explore the historiography of economic and intellectual history, nationalism, fundamentalism, colonialism, the media, slavery, and gender. In doing so, they engage with some of the most…

What is jihad? Does it mean violence, as many non-Muslims assume? Or does it mean peace, as some Muslims insist? Because jihad is closely associated with the early spread of Islam, today’s debate about the origin and meaning of jihad is nothing less than a struggle over Islam itself. In Jihad in Islamic History, Michael Bonner provides…

Olga M. Davidson, Ph.D. 1983

A milestone in Persian Classical literature, Ferdowsi’s Book of Kings evokes a long span of Iranian history and myths following a chronicle of its kings from the creation of the world to the conquest of Iran by the armies of the Moslem Arabs in the latter half of the seventh century. Drawing on…

Collection of articles previously published in Zaman newspaper.

Edited by Ami Ayalon, Ph.D. 1980

Focusing on Near Eastern history in Mamluk and Ottoman times, this book, dedicated to Michael Winter, stresses elements of variety and continuity in the history of the Near East, an area of study which has traditionally attracted little attention from Islamists.

Ranging over the period from…

Joseph Evan LeBaron, Ph.D. 1980

This study explores the relationship between economic development and political evolution during a decisive period of modern Sudanese history. During the first half of the 20th century, Mahdists competed with nationalists in shaping politics and…

Since the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, the public has grappled with the relationship between Islamic education and radical Islam. Media reports tend to paint madrasas — religious schools dedicated to Islamic learning — as medieval institutions opposed to all that is Western and as breeding grounds for terrorists. Others have claimed that…

This volume argues that legislation on abortion, adultery, and rape has been central to the formation of the modern citizen. The author draws on rights literature, biopolitical scholarship, and a gender-studies perspective as a foundation for rethinking the sovereign relationship. In approaching the politicization of reproductive space from…

Based on an award-winning thesis, this volume is a pioneering study of musical theatre and popular culture and its relation to the production of identity in Lebanon in the second half of the twentieth century.

In the aftermath of the departure of the French from Lebanon and the civil violence of 1958, the Rahbani brothers (Asi and…

Positioned at the crossroads of the maritime routes linking the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Yemeni port of Aden grew to be one of the medieval world's greatest commercial hubs. Approaching Aden's history between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries through the prism of overseas…

High rates of divorce, often taken to be a modern and western phenomenon, were also typical of medieval Islamic societies. By pitting these high rates of divorce against the Islamic ideal of marriage,Yossef Rapoport radically challenges usual assumptions about the legal inferiority of Muslim women and their economic dependence on men. He argues…

Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World is a collection of articles authored by the students and colleagues of Norman Itzkowitz. The contributors include Engin Deniz Akarli, Karl K. Barbir, Cornell H. Fleischer, Jane Hathaway, Cemal Kafadar, Metin Kunt, Rudi Paul Lindner, Heath W. Lowry, Scott Redford, Vamik D. Volkan, and…

Looks at the emergence of Shiism as a distinct communal identity within Islam.

The Charismatic Community examines the rise and development of Shiite religious identity in early Islamic history, analyzing the complex historical and intellectual processes that shaped the sense of individual and communal religious vocation. The…

Since 2007, five volumes of the collection of Modarressi's early (pre-1979) Persian articles have been published. These include volumes entitled Ijtima'iyat, Qummiyat, Sanadiyat, Kitabiyat, and Tarikhiyat. Having access to these reprints is most welcome given the fact that most of the articles…

Imarets have long been recognized as one signature institution of the Ottoman Empire. These public kitchens were typically located in mosque complexes or multi-structured complexes, which included some or all of the following buildings: mosque, medrese, mekteb, tomb, caravansaray, sufi tekke (or tekye) , hospital,…

Leor Halevi, B.A. 1994

Winner of MESA’s 2007 Albert Hourani Award

Winner of the American Academy of Religion 2008 Award for Excellence in the category of Analytical-Descriptive studies

Winner of Phi Beta Kappa Society’s 2008 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award

Power, Faith, and Fantasytells the remarkable story of America's 230-year relationship with the Middle East. Drawing on a vast range of government documents, personal correspondence, and the memoirs of merchants, missionaries, and travelers, Michael B. Oren narrates the unknown story of how the United States has interacted with this…

A selection of articles addressing those fundamental questions that define the agenda for the Jewish state in the 21st century. Among the authors one can find key figures in the Israeli public dialogue, such as Ruth Gavison, Yoram Hazony, Michael Oren, Amnom Rubinstein, and Natan Sharansky.

The first…

The heat of the Negev desert is captured in this collection of three novels by author-diplomat-historian Michael Oren. In House of Bondage, an escaped murderer holds a young woman hostage. “In The Maestro of Yerucham”, a Russian violinist finds a girl he believes to be the heir to his talents. In Sand Devil, the adolescent son of a…

Ehud R. Toledano, Ph.D. 1979

This groundbreaking book reconceptualizes slavery through the voices of enslaved persons themselves, voices that have remained silent in the narratives of conventional history. Focusing in particular on the Islamic Middle East from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, Ehud R. Toledano…