Abbasid Court Research Articles

Women and Power in Early Islamic History: Jawari of the Abbasid Court (786-861 AD)

<em>The significant presence of jawari owned by the caliphs of Islam became a phenomenon during the early period (170 AH/ 786 AD-247 AH/861 AD) of Abbasid rule. This article aims to examine why the early Abbasid rulers (786-861 AD) "kept" many jawari in their palaces and whether they had relations with all of them. Through a historical and sociological approach, the findings of this study indicate that the large number of jawari owned by the Abbasid caliphs during the early period was closely related to the advancements (economic, social, and political) achieved by the Abbasids at that time; the acceptance of slavery in Islam, territorial expansion (futuhat), the growth of economic trade sectors, the flourishing of entertainment in society, and the influence of Ctesiphon. Furthermore, the ownership of a large number of jawari did not necessarily indicate strong sexual desires of the caliphs; rather, it primarily served as a symbol of power, as evidenced by the fact that only individuals with significant authority typically possessed numerous jawari. This was also supported by a strong tradition of rewarding enslaved individuals as gifts, and the fact that not all Jariyah were intimate with their masters.</em>

Khālid al-Kātib in the Biographical Tradition

Abstract Khālid al-Kātib is the author of more than 500 love poems and was associated with several notables of the Abbasid court, including Ibrāhīm b. al-Mahdī. Male-male love is a major theme in Khālid’s poetry and akhbār. Abū Tammām figures prominently in the biographical anecdotes about Khālid, both as an admirer and an adversary. Khālid’s akhbār in Kitāb al-Aghānī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād, and other sources provide insights into his relationships with his contemporaries while leaving open many questions about life, love, and poetry in Abbasid Baghdad.

On the concept of leadership and the office of Leader of the Zoroastrians (hu-dēnān pēšōbāy) in Abbasid Zoroastrianism

AbstractLike many other religions, Zoroastrianism frequently restructured its priestly organization during its long history, largely because of the environmental changes to which it was exposed. A major shift in status – from being the state religion in the Sasanian Empire to holding only a minor position in the early Islamic period – challenged the Zoroastrian hierarchy of authority. The Abbasid state provided Zoroastrianism with an opportunity to initiate a new office, which was calledhu-dēnān pēšōbāy“Leader of the Zoroastrians”. This article is the first to deal with this office in detail and scrutinizes the concept of leadership (pēšōbāyīh) in Sasanian and Abbasid Zoroastrianism. It sheds some light on the priestly structure of Zoroastrianism in this period and investigates the position of the office within the overall religious organization. It re-examines, moreover, evidence for the officiating Zoroastrian theologians in this office at the Abbasid court in Baghdad. Finally, it searches for the parallels between this office and that of the East-Syrian catholicos and the Jewish exilarch.

The economic impact of the slave girl Shaghab in the Abbasid era (295 - 321 AH / 907-933 AD)

This study aimed at shedding light upon the cultural heritage of Mrs. Shaghab during the second Abbasid era in the reign of her son, Caliph Al-Muqtadir Billah. The study showed the magnificent role of this impact and the state of the Abbasid court that it became as a result of this impact of the lady. This impact had seen the great influence of what Mrs. Shaghab had become administratively and her owning of the special administrative system of regulating the affairs and conditions of the Abbasid court according to her wishes and aspirations. Then it also showed the great cultural contribution in the field of construction and urbanization and its general and great benefit to the public in building hospitals and doing charity works and good deeds. It also explained the great economic impact of Mrs. Shaghab, which was represented by the large amounts of money and property of her own, which were varied, including lands and money, and the numerous ways of obtaining them. As it revealed the impact of these funds on various areas of spending, which had sometimes reached lavishness which Mrs. Shaghab was greatly characterized with.

Arabic Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri (by Ryan Lynch)

Ryan Lynch’s Arabic Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri offers a new analysis of the famous history Kitāb Futūḥ al-buldān (The Book of the Conquest of Lands) by the 3rd/9th century Abbasid scholar Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al- Balādhurī (d. ca. 279/892). Lynch handles the source well, supporting his own close reading of the text with a wealth of references to offer nuanced insight into the purpose, context, and content of this seminal source on early Islamic governance. His core thesis is that Balādhurī composed his text as a handbook for the Abbasid court officials who had been struggling to balance the court budget, collect provincial taxes, and keep the imperial administrative system running in a politically-distraught time. Although Lynch’s argument is not entirely new, his study, which is based on an admirably detailed analysis of Balādhurī’s work, will most likely serve as the standard reference book in the field.

Review: Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri, by Ryan J. Lynch

Review: <i>Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri</i>, by Ryan J. Lynch

On the theoretical legacy of Abū ‘l-H. asan al-Māwardī

The article examines some aspects of the theoretical legacy of Abū ‘l-Ḥasan al-Māwardī, a medieval Islamic theologian and jurist. This prominent scholar, who lived a long and eventful life, wrote a number of works that left a noticeable mark in the political and legal thought of Islam. Al-Māwardī also wrote several significant treatises in Islamic theology and Jurisprudence. Among them are works devoted to commenting on the Qur’ān — Nukat wa’l-‘uyūn [Tafsīr al-Māwardī], ’Amthāl al-Qur’ān, as well as a treatise on Prophethood — ’A‘lām al-Nubuwwa. Another important but still insufficiently studied treatise of al-Māwardī on Jurisprudence is called Kitāb al-Ḥāwī al-kabīr fī fiqh madhhab al-Imām al-Shāfi‘ī. It is generally accepted that al-Māwardī‘s essay called al-’Iqnā‘ made him famous in his lifetime. This legal guide to the Shafi‘i law certainly strengthened the professional authority of al-Māwardī as the leading Shafi‘i faqih and apparently contributed to the growth of his political influence in medieval Baghdad. Despite the merits and recognition of al-Māwardī as an authoritative connoisseur of Islam, his creative search was not limited to writing works on religious topics. Al-Māwardī ‘s obvious interest in scientific disciplines was, in particular, confirmed in several studies on philology. He wrote at least two works on this subject: namely, ’Amthāl wa’l-ḥikam and Kitāb fī al-naḥw. However, the scholars who study the heritage of al-Māwardī deal mainly with his socio-political works. Al-Māwardī was known as a gifted and experienced diplomat who repeatedly acted as a mediator in solving complex political problems. As an adviser for many years at the Abbasid court, al-Māwardī composed several works on the theory of state and governance, such as al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya, Qawānīn al-wuzarāʾ wa- siyāsat al-mulūk, as well as Tashīl al-naẓar wa-ta‘jīl al-ẓafar fī ’akhlāq al-malik wa-siyāsat al-mulk etc. These works, diverse not only in content, but also in genre, mainly reflect the essence of political processes of that time.

Gendering Emotions: Ṭarab, Women and Musical Performance in Three Biographical Narratives from ‘The Book of Songs’

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.

Samāǧaperformances in third/ninth-century Abbasid courts

AbstractLiterary sources from the Abbasid period record few descriptions of courtly masquerades and plays calledsamāǧa, which closely resemblesumozheplays from eighth-century China. On the basis of thesesamāǧadescriptions, the present paper argues that it is possible to understand howsamāǧaplays were carried out. Moreover, I argue thatsamāǧaperformances were a Central Asian custom imported to the Abbasid court with the establishment of the Turkish corps, and that its disappearance after the caliphate of al-Muʿtaḍid signals a substantial shift in the nature of the Turkish presence in the Abbasid heartland, marked by the establishment of themamlūksystem.

Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32), edited by Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, and Letizia Osti

Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32), edited by Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, and Letizia Osti

THE INFLUENCE OF ABBASID EMPIRE AND COMMUNITY NEEDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ḤADĪTH LITERATURE AND ISLAMIC PROPHETOLOGY

AbstractAt the time of Abbasid Empire, the Caliph’s court seems to give serious attention in safeguarding the prophethood of Muḥammad and supporting the development of ḥadīth literature. Not only had the Muslims scholar, his own Caliph also produced a work on Islamic Prophetology. Caliph al-Ma’mūn (d. 218/833) has been documented as one of the Abbasid Caliph that produced a work known as Risāla fī Aʿlām al-Nubuwwa. In fact, the Abbasid ruler were also identified as participating in ḥadīth discourse and praising for the ḥadīth colloquy. This actions clearly exhibit the court’s patronage of ḥadīth discourse. In his account, Ibn al-Samʿānī records that al-Manṣūr (d. 158/775), al-Rashīd (d. 193/809) and al-Ma’mūn (d. 218/833) were among the Abbasid Caliphate’s supporters who extolled the ḥadīth colloquium. This study aims to explore the Abbasid’s court and community influence on the development of ḥadīth discourse and Islamic Prophetology. The study is qualitative in nature, in which the researcher employed both critical and analytical analysis on Islamic sources related to the subject. It is indeed an arduous task to sift the enormous amount of Islamic sources, thus, this study is focuses on works produced within the ninth century as its parameter of study. The study in its finding confirms that the Abbasid court appears as playing significant role to safeguarding the prophethood of Muḥammad and expanding ḥadīth literature. The study also ascertains salient evidences bearing witnesses to Muslim and non-Muslim encounters concerning the prophethood of Muḥammad that contribute to the development of Islamic discourse on the subject.

Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32). By Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy and Letizia Osti. Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts 102.

Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32). By Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy and Letizia Osti. Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts 102.

Ibn Tulun: his lost city and great mosque

Ahmad ibn Tulun (835-84), the son of a Turkic slave in the Abbasid court of Baghdad, became the founder of the first independent state in Egypt since antiquity, and builder of Egypt's short-lived third capital of the Islamic era, al-Qata'i' and its great congregational mosque. After recounting the story of Ibn Tulun and his successors, architectural historian Tarek Swelim presents a topographic survey of al-Qata'i', a city lost since its complete destruction in 905. He then provides a detailed architectural analysis of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, which was spared the destruction and is now the oldest surviving mosque in Egypt and Africa, from the time of its completion until today. Rare archival illustrations and early photographs document the changing appearance and uses of the mosque in modern times, while extraordinary 3D computer renderings take us back in time to recreate its architectural development through its early centuries. Plans, drawings, and maps complement the history, while striking modern color photographs showcase the elegant simplicity of the building's architecture and decoration.This definitive and generously illustrated book will appeal to scholars and students of Islamic art history, as well as to anyone interested in or inspired by the beauty of early mosque architecture.

A Restricted Gaze: The Ornament of the Main Caliphal Palace of Samarra

This essay examines the architectural ornament of Samarra’s Main Caliphal Palace, also known as the Dar al-Khilafa, in light of the context in which it was seen. First, it offers a partial reconstruction of the architectural ornament in one section of the palace, its Audience Hall Complex, based on unpublished documentation from the archive of Ernst Herzfeld, who excavated the site in 1912–13. In the second part, Herzfeld’s findings are interpreted in light of the function of the space as the locus of official audiences at the Abbasid Court. The analysis suggests that in certain portions of Samarra’s Main Caliphal Palace ornament was carefully planned in conjunction with its architectural frame and can even be seen to further the ideological aims of the palace’s patrons. By encouraging the viewer to glance but remaining partly to completely hidden from sight from most palace guests, the decorations of the Audience Hall Complex reinforce the sense of hierarchy and restricted access that informed the way Abbasid caliphs were presented to the public.

The Remuneration of a Court Companion in Theory and Practice: A Case Study

This study follows the financial adventures of Abū Bakr al-Ṣūlī (d. 335/947) as he served at the court of three Abbasid caliphs in various capacities over thirty-eight years. In hisKitāb al-Awrāq, chronicles covering this period, al-Ṣūlī frequently refers to payments he himself or his colleagues had received as regular salaries, occasional presents, or inheritances, and he describes in some detail the physical appearance of material gifts and the circumstances in which they were given. Al-Ṣūlī wrote the last part of his chronicles at the end of his life, residing in Basra, living in reduced circumstances after he had left the court. Especially in the part of the book which records the reign of al-Rāḍī (r. 322/934-329/940), al-Ṣūlī recollects his prosperity as court companion at the time and contrasts it with his present worries. Based on the information provided by al-Ṣūlī, different components of a courtier’s income and the sources they are extracted from are identified and discussed in the broader context of the financial dynamics at the Abbasid court, disclosing a complicated network of affiliations, loyalties and patronage defied by an ever increasing financial crisis for the central power in Baghdad.

Book review: Crisis and continuity at the Abbasid court : formal and informal politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32), written by Maaike Van Berkel, Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, Letizia Osti

Book review: Crisis and continuity at the Abbasid court : formal and informal politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32), written by Maaike Van Berkel, Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, Letizia Osti

A curious and delicate correspondence: the Burhān of Ibn al-Munajjim and the Jawāb of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq

An important collection of ninth-century apologetic texts in Arabic consists in the Burhān of one Ibn al-Munajjim, in which he attempts to construct a proof of Muhammad's prophethood, and separate responses by the Christian scholars Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and Qusṭā ibn Lūqā. Although Zilio-Grandi and Samir's recent monograph Una corrispondenza islamo-cristiana sull'origine divina dell'Islam (Turin, 2003) focuses exclusively on the Ibn al-Munajjim–Qusṭā exchange, the present article argues that, in the form in which the texts have been preserved, Ibn al-Munajjim's Burhān is addressed to Ḥunayn, who responds to it directly. An analysis of Ḥunayn's Jawāb (a) explicates his strategy in responding to the Burhān, and (b) suggests that the Jawāb is a carefully constructed unity (rather than a few paragraphs of personal response with an appended ‘true religion’ apology). The article concludes that interreligious apologetic could be a delicate and potentially dangerous matter for Christian scholars at the Abbasid court of al-Mutawakkil and his successors.

Early Islam—Monotheism or Henotheism? A View from the Court

This article employs sources produced by people who worked at the Abbasid court in order to expose a tension in early Islamic society between two systems of sacrility. An emerging monotheism was promoted by pious elders (mashāyikh) and ascetics (nussāk), which gave power and authority to one absolute deity, Allāh. The court, and most members of society, favored an older system, henotheism, which championed the sacrility of leadership archetypes, the king, sultan, saint, and master-teacher, while tolerating the emerging new sacredness of the One. The latter system enjoyed familiarity since ancient times in the Near East and vested nearly all leadership roles in society with a measure of sacred power and authority, hence adding to the stability of Abbasid hierarchy. Here, I examine three major practices at the court for generating sacrility, including praise hymns (madīh) in honor of great men, palace space-usage and architecture, as well as bacchic culture, which all privileged the caliph and his subordinates. The implications of symbol usage extend far beyond the court since underlings appropriated it in seeking rank and status by emulating their superiors.

Women, Power, and the Eleventh and Twelfth Century Abbasid Court

AbstractThis paper focuses on the actions of a select number of elite women attached to the Abbasid court of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, addressing the differences not only in the actions of Abbasid and Saljùq women, but in the overall coverage by the medieval historians. Elite women of both households played key roles in the events surrounding the Abbasid bid to reenter the political arena as well as the ensuing chaos that followed. The question at the center of this work is how elite women were able to take advantage of the porous nature of the political arena. In the end, this study shows that whereas Saljùq women were successful in this endeavor, their Abbasid counterparts were all but written out of the narrative. An analysis of marriage alliances, attempts to maintain one's status, and succession crises support this contention, and reinforce the argument that we must readdress our notions of power, and strive to incorporate the lives of more women into the larger political narrative for this period.

Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages (review)

Reviewed by: Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages Robyn Cadwallader Farmer, Sharon and Carol Braun Pasternack , eds, Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages ( Medieval Cultures, 32), Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003; paperback; pp. xxvii, 354; RRP US$24.95; ISBN 0816638942. Consideration of gender and difference in medieval literature is a fast developing and fruitful field of study. Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack have obviously considered carefully some of the ways in which such scholarship can most effectively advance. They are clear about the purposes of this collection of essays: to move beyond a study of binary gender difference to examine the further complexities that arise from the encounter with social status, religion and sexuality. One of the most striking features of the eleven essays in this book is the range of subject matter and breadth of scholarship covered within this theme. The colour and variety of the medieval world are strongly evident through detailed scholarship [End Page 227] and argument, and the reader sees familiar patterns shot through with difference and complexity. This is particularly evident in Part One, 'Differing Cultures, Differing Possibilities', which explores the ways in which gender paradigms were subverted or expanded in the first millennium through a variety of cultures. Daniel Boyarin's excellent essay provides an appropriate opening to the collection through his study of the encounter of early western Christian and rabbinic Jewish interpretations of Genesis 1 and 2 with Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of the Phallus, thereby alerting the reader both to some of the earliest sources of medieval gender systems and to the contingent nature of contemporary theory. Everett K. Rowson's 'Gender Irregularity as Entertainment' takes us to Baghdad to explore the ways in which the rigid gender structures of the Abbasid court were subverted by both male and female cross-dressers, creating a complexity in which gender intersected with behaviour, role and social status. In 'Reconfiguring the Prophet Daniel', Kathryn M. Ringrose considers the tensions between binary and multiple constructs of gender evident in the study of the eunuch as a possible third gender in Christian Byzantium. Using interpretations of Daniel from the fourth and tenth centuries, Ringrose demonstrates the ways in which this Old Testament figure could be understood as both holy man and court eunuch, and the complexity of gender categories which changed across time where several cultural traditions intersected. A somewhat similar dynamic of tension and change is explored in Pasternack's precisely argued essay 'Negotiating Gender in Anglo-Saxon England' which examines the influences on gender subjectivity of the introduction of Christian dogma to the elite pagan culture of Anglo-Saxon England. Succinctly enunciating the theme of Part Two, 'Discourses of Domination', Mathew S. Kuefler's 'Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth Century France' explores the ways in which the devaluing of sodomy as effeminate and perverse was used as a means of social and political control. A similar means of domination is considered in "Because the Other Is a Poor Woman She Shall Be Called His Wench": Gender, Sexuality, and Social Status in Late Medieval England' by Ruth Mazo Karras, who looks at the intersection of gender and social status in the light of a discourse which enforces control by branding any sexually deviant woman a whore. In her study of a smaller community – that of the Cistercian order – Martha G. Newman extends the boundaries of existing scholarship by examining the influence of social and literary status, rather than gender, on spiritual expression. A fascinating finale to this section – and a timely theoretical proposition for both east and west – is Michael Uebel's 'Re-Orienting [End Page 228] Desire: Writing on Gender Trouble in Fourteenth-Century Egypt'. Uebel looks at the ways in which the Christian West differentiated itself from the Muslim Orient by demonizing Saracen gender and sexuality. Part Three, 'Individual Choices, Strategies of Resistance', considers the ways in which the individual can resist domination. Farmer's 'Manual Labor, Begging, and Conflicting Gender Expectations in Thirteenth-Century Paris' returns us to a rereading of the Genesis creation stories and to the story of Jehanne of Serris to argue that gender binaries were complicated through intersections with...