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Differenceand Disabilityin the Medieval Islamic World

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Differenceand Disabilityin the Medieval Islamic World D t h I e F M Outlines the complex significance of bodies in F E the late medieval central Arab Islamic lands E R D Medieval Arab notions of physical difference can feel singularly E I N arresting for modern audiences. Did you know that blue eyes, E baldness, bad breath and boils were all considered bodily ‘blights’, V C Difference and as were cross eyes, lameness and deafness? What assumptions A about bodies influenced this particular vision of physical difference? E L How did blighted people view their own bodies? Through close a I analyses of anecdotes, personal letters, (auto)biographies, erotic n S poetry, non-binding legal opinions, diaristic chronicles and d L in the theological tracts, the cultural views and experiences of disability D A Disabili ty and difference in the medieval Islamic world are brought to life. M I S I Key Features A G Investigates the place of physically different, disabled and C B ill individuals in medieval Islam W I Medieval G Centres on the lives and works of six Muslim men, each L O high lighting a different aspect of bodily difference I G T Addresses broad cultural questions relating to social class, R religious orthodoxy, moral reputation, drug use, male Y L homoeroticism and self-representation in the public sphere D i Islamic G Moves towards a coherent theory of medieval disability n and bodily aesthetics in Islamic cultural traditions Kristina Richardson is an Assistant Professor of History at K r Queens College, City University of New York, and is Marie Curie i s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institut für Arabistik und t World i Islamwissenschaft, University of Münster, Germany. n a L Blighted Bodies . R i Jacket image: a detail of an Ottoman miniature painting from 1595 c h depicting the Martyrdom of Mansur al-Hallaj © CBL T 474.79. a r d Jacket design: McColmDesign.co.uk s o n ISBN 978-0-7486-4507-7 Kristina L. Richardson www.euppublishing.com DIFFERENCE AND DISABILITY IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd i 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iiii 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 DIFFERENCE AND DISABILITY IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD BLIGHTED BODIES 2 Kristina L. Richardson RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iiiiii 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 This book is dedicated to Wednesday, 9 May 2007 © Kristina L. Richardson, 2012 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13 JaghbUni Regular by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4507 7 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 4508 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 6491 7 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7486 6490 0 (Amazon ebook) The right of Kristina L. Richardson to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iivv 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 Contents List of Abbreviations vi List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 ʿĀhāt in Islamic Thought 22 2 Literary Networks in Mamluk Cairo 36 3 Recollecting and Reconfi guring Affl icted Literary Bodies 72 4 Transgressive Bodies, Transgressive Hadith 96 5 Public Insults and Undoing Shame: Censoring the Blighted Body 110 Bibliography 138 Index 157 RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd v 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 Abbreviations BEO Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition EI3 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition GAL Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies JA Journal Asiatique JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society JSAI Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and Islam MSR Mamlūk Studies Review SI Studia Islamica ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft vi RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vvii 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 Figures I.1 (page 2) ‘Battle Scene’. (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975.360, probably Egypt, 8th/14th century. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, New York.) I.2 (page 3) Ibn Zunbul, Kitāb qānūn al-dunyá wa-ʿajāʾibihā min mashriqihāli-maghribihā. (Source: Library of the Topkapı Sarayı Museum, Istanbul, Revan 1638, Egypt or Syria, 1563, fos 118v–119r.) 4.1 (page 104) ‘Prophet Muḥammad Preaching’. (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 55.121.40, Baghdad, late 10th/16th century. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Art Resource, New York.) 5.1 (page 115) ‘Young Prince and Mentor Sitting in Landscape’. (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 13.228.10.2, Indian Deccan, c. 1600. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, New York.) vii RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vviiii 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 Acknowledgements This book began as a graduate seminar paper on al-Jāḥiẓ’s Kitāb al-Burṣān for Professor Michael Bonner’s course on classical Arabic biographical dictionaries. Set on writing a dissertation on slavery, and convinced that a study of disability would have too few primary sources, I put aside my interest in this text. However, the paper did awaken me to the idea of working on a topic that had not been so thoroughly studied as slavery. Encouraged by Dana Sajdi’s fascinating work on a Chester Beatty Library manuscript of an 18th-century Damascene barber’s local history, I leafed through the Chester Beatty manuscript catalogue in the hope of fi nding a singular source on which I could build a similarly interesting study. To my amazement, I stumbled across A. J. Arberry’s entry for MS 3838, Ibn Fahd’s 950/AD 1543 ‘treatise on the affl ictions suffered by famous schol- ars’. Only then did I begin to think a study of disability could be a possi- bility. With the support of the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School and the International Institute, I arranged a visit to the Chester Beatty Library in the summer of 2005. Dr Elaine Wright, curator of the library’s Islamic collections, was of immeasurable assistance during my stay there and granted permission to use a library image as the cover art. My thesis adviser, Dr Kathryn Babayan, introduced me to al-Badrī’s poetry anthology, which quickly led me to the other writers featured in this study. I am immensely grateful for her continued support and mentorship. Support from the National Endowment of the Humanities allowed me to work under the supervision of Dr Monica Green and Dr Emilie Savage- Smith in London in the summer of 2009. These two experts in medieval medical history helpfully introduced me to Latin and Arabic medical lit- erature on balādhur and baldness, which has strengthened Chapters 2 and 5. My current intellectual home, Queens College of The City University of New York, graciously granted me a pre-tenure leave and encouraged my participation in the 2010 Faculty Fellowship Publishing Program. There, CUNY colleagues Brijraj Singh, Al Coppola, JoEllen DeLucia, Ramesh Mallipeddi, Karl Steel and Andrea Walkden generously read and com- mented on various chapters of this work. An ArtSTOR travel grant per- mitted me to visit archives and museums in Damascus. Julie Singer read viii RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vviiiiii 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 Acknowledgements Chapter 2 closely, and usefully suggested ways to reorder the material to emphasise my argument about friendship. Adam Talib offered many keen suggestions and corrections for Chapter 3. Professor Geert Jan van Gelder closely read and helped me revise the introduction. I am extremely grate- ful for the professionalism and eagle-eyed readings of my copy-editor, Ivor Normand. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers of this manuscript for their helpful suggestions, and my incredibly patient editor at Edinburgh University Press, Ms Nicola Ramsey. Living and working in New York City has been an incredible cultural experience. With the library, museum and university partnerships, my work is constantly stimulated with new ideas and discussions with learned colleagues. Annick des Roches, the Islamic art collections manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited me to view specimens and peruse the typed notes on various pieces of artwork at a time when the Islamic wing was closed to the public for renovation. There, I saw 55.121.40 and 1975.360, both of which are featured in this book. I would like to thank Dr Ozgen Felek for her translation of the Ottoman inscription on 55.121.40. And, were it not for my students at Queens College, I would never have looked so closely at representations of disability in visual sources. I thank them for expanding my view. Especial gratitude goes to my godmother Lillie Virginia Ming, who sadly died just before this book went to press, my mother Ann, who wanted us children and raised us fi rmly and lovingly, my father Thomas for his patience and intellectual encouragement, my little sister Kelly, who has aided my writing with an endless supply of pens, ink cartridges, paper and notebooks over the years, and my daughter Cecilia Mae Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. ix RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iixx 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 RRICHARDSONICHARDSON PPRINT.inddRINT.indd x 228/06/20128/06/2012 009:289:28 Introduction By the 9th/15th century, a distinct, stripped-down visual and literary aesthetic had found expression in Egyptian and Syrian art and literature.
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