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Fall 2016 Newsletter Pages.Pdf
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD Newsletter 16 Fall 2016 From the Director As I embark on my term as Interim Director of ISAW, I cannot help being struck by the complex entity that it has come to be in the nine years since its foundation— in eight of which I have had the privilege of participating. We are, by a considerable margin, the smallest of New York University’s many schools; in terms of faculty, if we were a mere university department, we would be a smallish one. But we are active, and excel, in a spread of dimensions that function as essential implementations of our mission that it would be difficult to find paralleled in any academic institution even several times ISAW’s size. One reason that we have been able to do this is that ISAW’s principal components, faculty, doctoral students, associated and visiting researchers, library, digital team, and exhibitions, interact and collaborate. Several of our exhibitions, including the soon-to-open Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity featured on this issue’s cover, have been curated or co-curated by ISAW faculty, research associates, and visiting research scholars; and at least three of our students will be involved in Time and Cosmos during its run. Again, one of our doctoral seminars this fall, “Introduction to Digital Humanities for the Ancient World,” is being team-taught by Tom Elliott, our Associate Director of Digital Programs, our faculty colleague Sebastian Heath, and our librarian, David Ratzan. ISAW is about breaking down imagined barriers not just between ancient civilizations but also between present-day institutional cultures. -
Soviet Central Asia and the Preservation of History
humanities Article Soviet Central Asia and the Preservation of History Craig Benjamin Frederik J Meijer Honors College, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI 49401, USA; [email protected] Received: 23 May 2018; Accepted: 9 July 2018; Published: 20 July 2018 Abstract: Central Asia has one of the deepest and richest histories of any region on the planet. First settled some 6500 years ago by oasis-based farming communities, the deserts, steppe and mountains of Central Asia were subsequently home to many pastoral nomadic confederations, and also to large scale complex societies such as the Oxus Civilization and the Parthian and Kushan Empires. Central Asia also functioned as the major hub for trans-Eurasian trade and exchange networks during three distinct Silk Roads eras. Throughout much of the second millennium of the Common Era, then under the control of a succession of Turkic and Persian Islamic dynasties, already impressive trading cities such as Bukhara and Samarkand were further adorned with superb madrassas and mosques. Many of these suffered destruction at the hands of the Mongols in the 13th century, but Timur and his Timurid successors rebuilt the cities and added numerous impressive buildings during the late-14th and early-15th centuries. Further superb buildings were added to these cities by the Shaybanids during the 16th century, yet thereafter neglect by subsequent rulers, and the drying up of Silk Roads trade, meant that, by the mid-18th century when expansive Tsarist Russia began to incorporate these regions into its empire, many of the great pre- and post-Islamic buildings of Central Asia had fallen into ruin. -
Two Queens of ^Baghdad Oi.Uchicago.Edu
oi.uchicago.edu Two Queens of ^Baghdad oi.uchicago.edu Courtesy of Dr. Erich Schmidt TOMB OF ZUBAIDAH oi.uchicago.edu Two Queens of Baghdad MOTHER AND WIFE OF HARUN AL-RASH I D By NABIA ABBOTT ti Vita 0CCO' cniia latur THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO • ILLINOIS oi.uchicago.edu The University of Chicago Press • Chicago 37 Agent: Cambridge University Press • London Copyright 1946 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1946. Composed and printed by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. oi.uchicago.edu Preface HE historical and legendary fame of Harun al- Rashld, the most renowned of the caliphs of Bagh dad and hero of many an Arabian Nights' tale, has ren dered him for centuries a potent attraction for his torians, biographers, and litterateurs. Early Moslem historians recognized a measure of political influence exerted on him by his mother Khaizuran and by his wife Zubaidah. His more recent biographers have tended either to exaggerate or to underestimate the role of these royal women, and all have treated them more or less summarily. It seemed, therefore, desirable to break fresh ground in an effort to uncover all the pertinent his torical materials on the two queens themselves, in order the better to understand and estimate the nature and the extent of their influence on Harun and on several others of the early cAbbasid caliphs. As the work progressed, first Khaizuran and then Zubaidah emerged from the privacy of the royal harem to the center of the stage of early cAbbasid history. -
Review the Legacy of Nomadic Empires in Steppe Landscapes Of
ISSN 10193316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2009, Vol. 79, No. 5, pp. 473–479. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2009. Original Russian Text © A.A. Chibilev, S.V. Bogdanov, 2009, published in Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2009, Vol. 79, No. 9, pp. 823–830. Review Information about the impact of nomadic peoples on the landscapes of the steppe zone of northern Eurasia in the 18th–19th centuries is generalized against a wide historical–geographical background, and the objec tives of a new scientific discipline, historical steppe studies, are substantiated. DOI: 10.1134/S1019331609050104 The Legacy of Nomadic Empires in Steppe Landscapes of Northern Eurasia A. A. Chibilev and S. V. Bogdanov* The steppe landscape zone covering more than settlements with groundbased or earthsheltered 8000 km from east to west has played an important role homes were situated close to fishing areas, watering in the history of Russia and, ultimately, the Old World places, and migration paths of wild ungulates. Steppe for many centuries. The ethnogenesis of many peoples bioresources were used extremely selectively. of northern Eurasia is associated with the historical– Nomadic peoples affected the steppe everywhere. The geographical space of the steppes. The continent’s nomadic, as opposed to semisedentary, lifestyle steppe and forest–steppe vistas became the cradle of implies a higher development of the territory. The nomadic cattle breeding in the early Bronze Age (from zone of economic use includes the whole nomadic the 5th through the early 2nd millennium B.C.). By area. Owing to this, nomads had an original classifica the 4th millennium B.C., horses and cattle were pre tion of its parts with regard to their suitability for set dominantly bred in northern Eurasia. -
Contemporary Islam Merryl Wyn Davies Series Editor How We Know
Contemporary Islam Merryl Wyn Davies series editor How We Know 1 2 How We Know Ilm and the Revival of Knowledge Edited by Ziauddin Sardar Grey Seal London 3 First published 1991 by Grey Seal Books 28 Burgoyne Road, London N4 1 AD, England Copyright 1991 Ziauddin Sardar and contributors All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers or their appointed agents. British Library Cataloguing In Publication How we know: ilm and the revival of knowledge. - (Contemporary Islam) 1. Sardar, Ziauddin 11. Series 181.07 IBSN 1-85640-0204 Acknowledgements With the exception of 'The Science Dimensions of Ilm' and 'Reformist Ideas and Muslim Intellectuals', which appeared in modified versions in, respectively, The Listener (25 January 1990) and Today's Problems, Tomorrow's Solutions edited by Abdullah Omar Naseef (Mansell: London, 1988), all other articles were originally published in Inquiry. 4 Contents Contributors vi I Introduction: A Preface to al-Ghazali 1 2 Illuminating Ilm 10 3 The Civilization of the Book 24 4 Studying Islam Academically 40 5 Education as Imperialism 58 6 What Makes a University Islamic? 69 7 The Science Dimensions of Ilm 86 8 Limits to Information 97 9 Re-Educating the Muslim Intellectual 112 10 Reformist Ideas and Muslim Intellectuals 130 Index 145 5 Contributors Munawar Ahmad Anees lectures at the Mara Institute of Technology, Shah Alam, Malaysia. He is the author of Guide to Sira and Hadith Literature in Western Languages and Biological Futures: Ethics, Gender and Technology. -
Title Change of Suspension Systems of Daggers and Swords in Eastern
Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Title Eurasia: Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia Author(s) Kageyama, Etsuko Citation ZINBUN (2016), 46: 199-212 Issue Date 2016-03 URL https://doi.org/10.14989/209942 © Copyright March 2016, Institute for Research in Humanities Right Kyoto University. Type Departmental Bulletin Paper Textversion publisher Kyoto University ZINBUN No. 46 2015 Varia Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia: Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia Etsuko KAGEYAMA ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on changes in the suspension systems of daggers and swords in pre- Islamic eastern Eurasia. Previous studies have shown that scabbard slides were used in the Kushan and early Sasanian periods to suspend a sword from a bearer’s waist belt. This method was later replaced by a “two-point suspension system” with which a sword is suspended by two straps and two fixtures attached on its scabbard. Through an examination of daggers and swords represented in Central Asian art, I consider the possibility that the two-point suspension system became prevalent in eastern Eurasia in connection with the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia from the second half of the fifth century through the first half of the sixth century. KEYWORDS: Hephthalites, Sogdians, Central Asia, bladed weapons, Shōsō-in Etsuko KAGEYAMA is Associate Fellow at Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties. * This paper is based on my article published in Japanese: E. Kageyama, “Change of sus- pension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia: Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia”, Studies on the Inner Asian Languages 30, 2015, pp. -
Bait Al-Hikmah Pada Masa Dinasti Abbasiyah Skripsi
UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA BAIT AL-HIKMAH PADA MASA DINASTI ABBASIYAH SKRIPSI RISA RIZANIA 0806467231 FAKULTAS ILMU PENGETAHUAN BUDAYA PROGRAM STUDI ARAB DEPOK JULI 2012 Bait Al-Hikmah..., Risa Rizania, FIB UI, 2012 UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA BAIT AL-HIKMAH PADA MASA DINASTI ABBASIYAH SKRIPSI Diajukan sebagai salah satu syarat untuk memperoleh gelar Sarjana Humaniora RISA RIZANIA 0806467231 FAKULTAS ILMU PENGETAHUAN BUDAYA PROGRAM STUDI ARAB DEPOK i Bait Al-Hikmah..., Risa Rizania, FIB UI, 2012 ii Bait Al-Hikmah..., Risa Rizania, FIB UI, 2012 iii Bait Al-Hikmah..., Risa Rizania, FIB UI, 2012 iv Bait Al-Hikmah..., Risa Rizania, FIB UI, 2012 KATA PENGANTAR Bismillahirrahmanirrahim... Assalamu‟alaikum Warahmatullah Wabarakatuh... Alhamdulillahirabbil‟alamin. Rasa syukur penulis haturkan ke hadirat Allah „Azza Wa Jalla atas nikmat dan anugrah-Nya yang tak terhitung sehingga penulis dapat menyelesaikan skripsi ini. Shalawat serta salam semoga selalu tercurahkan kepada teladan kita semua, baginda Nabi Muhammad Shallallahu „Alaihi Wasallam (The Greatest Inspiration in the World), beserta para sahabat, tbabi‟in wa thabi‟at. Juga doa bagi kita semua sebagai umatnya, “semoga Allah memberi pengampunan di hari akhir kelak”. Skripsi ini menuntut kerja keras, ketahanan, dan komitmen yang tinggi. Ujian yang menghampiri, tidak hanya perkara pikiran, fisik, dan materi, tetapi juga hati. Karena itulah para pejuang skripsi ini sering dikaitkan dengan kondisi yang disebut “kegalauan tingkat tinggi”. Semuanya tidak mungkin dilalui, kecuali dengan dukungan dari banyak pihak. Maka, dalam rangkaian kalimat yang sederhana dan singkat ini, penulis ingin menyampaikan rasa terima kasih yang sebesar-besarnya kepada semua pihak yang berperan dibalik mahakarya pertama ini. Terima kasih kepada Prof. Dr. der Soz. Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri selaku Rektor Universitas Indonesia; Dr. -
The Socioeconomics of State Formation in Medieval Afghanistan
The Socioeconomics of State Formation in Medieval Afghanistan George Fiske Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 George Fiske All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Socioeconomics of State Formation in Medieval Afghanistan George Fiske This study examines the socioeconomics of state formation in medieval Afghanistan in historical and historiographic terms. It outlines the thousand year history of Ghaznavid historiography by treating primary and secondary sources as a continuum of perspectives, demonstrating the persistent problems of dynastic and political thinking across periods and cultures. It conceptualizes the geography of Ghaznavid origins by framing their rise within specific landscapes and histories of state formation, favoring time over space as much as possible and reintegrating their experience with the general histories of Iran, Central Asia, and India. Once the grand narrative is illustrated, the scope narrows to the dual process of monetization and urbanization in Samanid territory in order to approach Ghaznavid obstacles to state formation. The socioeconomic narrative then shifts to political and military specifics to demythologize the rise of the Ghaznavids in terms of the framing contexts described in the previous chapters. Finally, the study specifies the exact combination of culture and history which the Ghaznavids exemplified to show their particular and universal character and suggest future paths for research. The Socioeconomics of State Formation in Medieval Afghanistan I. General Introduction II. Perspectives on the Ghaznavid Age History of the literature Entrance into western European discourse Reevaluations of the last century Historiographic rethinking Synopsis III. -
De-Persifying Court Culture the Khanate of Khiva’S Translation Program
10 De-Persifying Court Culture The Khanate of Khiva’s Translation Program Marc Toutant Despite the expansion of Turkish-speaking populations and the efforts of several Turko-Mongol dynasties to promote the use of Chaghatai Turkish after the thir- teenth-century era of the Mongol Empire, Persian remained a favored language all over Central Asia in chanceries and belles-lettres till as late as the nineteenth century.1 Only a small proportion of the literature created in Central Asia was in Chaghatai Turkish (hereafter simply called Turkish), and Persian was the ma- jor medium of learned expression in all parts of the region, as Devin DeWeese’s chapter 4 in this volume reminds us. And as Alfrid Bustanov’s chapter 7 shows, even in distant Tatar villages of the Russian Empire, where there were no native speakers of Persian, the classics of Persian ethical literature were widely copied in local madrasas, where some students even tried to compose their own literary works in Persian. Nevertheless, the status of Persian as lingua franca did not remain unchal- lenged in Central Asia. Over the course of the fifteenth century, cultural patronage under the Timurid rulers brought about the composition of numerous Turkish texts in diverse fields of learning. At the court of the last great Timurid ruler, Husayn Bayqara (r. 1469–70, 1470–1506), one of the most important corpora of Central Asian Turkish literature was written by Mir ‘Ali Shir Nawa’i (1441–1501). Albeit largely based on Persian models, the works of Nawa’i can be regarded as an attempt to forge a culture that was specific to his Turkophone audience. -
Karakhanid Khanate Karakhanids Took Over Transoxania in 999 and Completed Their Conquest of Khotan MICHAL BIRAN Seven Years Later
1 Karakhanid Khanate Karakhanids took over Transoxania in 999 and completed their conquest of Khotan MICHAL BIRAN seven years later. Being orthodox Sunni The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Hanafi Muslims, the Karakhanids met with little opposition in Transoxania, and they The Karakhanid Khanate was the first Muslim stressed their loyalty to the Abbasid caliph Turkic dynasty that ruled in Central Asia, in Baghdad as a major component in their c.955–1213. The designations Karakhanids legitimacy. From the outset, however, the (Qarakhanids; Chinese: Halahan, the black empire was bifurcated, and the western khan, or prestigious khans) or Ilak-khanid (prince- entitled Boghra (camel) Kara Khaqan and khans) are modern constructions derived ruling from Samarqand, was answerable to from the titulature on the dynasty’s coins. his eastern counterpart, who bore the title Contemporaneous literary sources usually Arslan (lion) Kara Khaqan, and ruled from refer to the Karakhanids as al-Khaqaniya Balasaghun (in Kirgizstan) and Kashgar. Var- (the Khaqan, or supreme ruler, house), al- ious other members of the ruling clan held muluk al-khaniyya al-atrak (the khanal kings lesser titles and appanages. The Karakhanid of the Turks) or Al-i Afrasiyab (the house of hierarchy was akin to a game of “musical Afrāsiyāb, the king of Turan in the Persian chairs,” as aspirants moved up the ranks while epos, the Shahnama), and as Heihan or Dashi changing their honorifics and sometimes in Chinese. even their fiefs. In consequence, tracking Historical information on the Karakhanids the careers of the dynasty’s rulers is a rather is extremely sketchy due to the lack or non- daunting task. -
Silk Road and Buddhism in Central Asia
SILK ROAD AND BUDDHISM IN CENTRAL ASIA 1ARCHANA GUPTA, 2ARADHANA GUPTA, 3AKANKSHA GUPTA 1School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India 2Work as Librarian in Jawahar Navodaya Vidhyalaya, India 3School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India E-mail: [email protected] Abstract- The Silk Route is the ‘Ancient International Trade Road’ that spread from China to Italy existed from second century BC to fifteenth century AD. Although it was known for trade which carried silk, paper and other goods between East and West through India, China and Central Asia. It also became a channel of transmission of art, architecture, culture, religion, philosophy, literature, technology etc to different countries in Asia and beyond. One of the important religions that transmitted through Silk Road was Buddhism which developed in India. It is interesting to note that Silk Road turned as the springboard of Buddhism to spread it from India to Central Asia. The Buddhist Religion originated in India. Through Buddha’s enlightenment and with his teachings, it became one of the most important “World Religions” in past. It was the first religious philosophy which transmitted along this trade route from India to China through Gandhara which is recognized in modern time northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. After long Centuries Islam began and it followed the same Silk route and replace Buddhism from some places. Judaism and Christianity also followed the Silk route for spread their ideology & philosophy. The proposed Article intends to examine the role of Silk Road in the spread of Buddhism from India to Central Asia. -
The Mongols in Iran
chapter 10 THE MONGOLS IN IRAN george e. lane Iran was dramatically brought into the Mongol sphere of infl uence toward the end of the second decade of the thirteenth century. As well as the initial traumatic mili- tary incursions, Iran also experienced the start of prolonged martial rule, followed later by the domination and rule of the Mongol Ilkhans. However, what began as a brutal and vindictive invasion and occupation developed into a benign and cultur- ally and economically fl ourishing period of unity and strength. The Mongol period in Iranian history provokes controversy and debate to this day. From the horrors of the initial bloody irruptions, when the fi rst Mongol-led armies rampaged across northern Iran, to the glory days of the Ilkhanate-Yuan axis, when the Mongol- dominated Persian and Chinese courts dazzled the world, the Mongol infl uence on Iran of this turbulent period was profound. The Mongols not only affected Iran and southwestern Asia but they also had a devastating effect on eastern Asia, Europe, and even North Africa. In many parts of the world, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas in particular, the Mongols’ name has since become synonymous with murder, massacre, and marauding may- hem. They became known as Tatars or Tartars in Europe and Western Asia for two reasons. Firstly, until Genghis Khan destroyed their dominance, the Tatars were the largest and most powerful of the Turco-Mongol tribes. And secondly, in Latin Tartarus meant hell and these tribes were believed to have issued from the depths of Hades. Their advent has been portrayed as a bloody “bolt from the blue” that left a trail of destruction, death, and horrifi ed grief in its wake.