Islamic Frontier Research Articles

A Century of Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads. Rivers of Europe entering the land of the sons of Cain

In 1923, Arthur Kingsley Porter published his ten volumes on Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads. This paper takes its anniversary as a chance to look back to how the narrative constructed around Romanesque art in Iberia, the Way to Santiago, and the impact of the Islamic frontier developed and changed under different international and nationalistic scholarship and their agendas. Hopefully, it can also serve to critically reflect on the modes of current instrumentalization of medieval past in Spain’s public sphere and on the great value of Porter’s lessons on art history.

Calendar Anomalies in Islamic Frontier Markets

This study investigates calendar anomalies in eight Islamic frontier markets. Our sample consists of the daily closing prices of their stock indices for the period of January 2006 to September 2019. The data are categorized with respect to day-of-the-week and month-of-the-year according to both the Gregorian and Islamic calendars. We control for time-varying systematic risk using Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) index as the proxy for the market portfolio and apply Bonferroni correction to reduce the occurrence of false-positive results. We find little support for the proposition that any of the Islamic calendar months generate abnormal returns, bar a slight negative abnormal return during the holy month of Rajab for Kuwait. We find evidence of a small negative Monday effect for the stock markets of Bangladesh and Pakistan and a small positive January effect for the stock market of Morocco. The results support weak-form market efficiency, suggesting that investors in frontier stock markets should not expect to outperform the market on a consistent basis when trading on particular days of the week or months of the year according to the Islamic or Gregorian calendar.

Companions of the Prophet as Anti-Colonial Fighters: The Political Evolution of ʿAlī Tales in Siberia and the Kazakh Steppe

Abstract Tales about the caliph ʿAlī have circulated as popular entertainment throughout the Islamic world since the medieval era. While their meaning to their audiences has varied, on the frontiers of Islam, including in Siberia and the Kazakh steppe, the battles of ʿAlī and other companions of the Prophet against infidels took on special meaning. Among Kazakh nomads under Russian rule, these tales gained broad popularity in the second half of the nineteenth century as the status of Kazakhs as a Muslim community came under threat from changing Russian policies. It was at this time that Kazakh-language ʿAlī tales were composed and published by Muslim publishers in Russia. One of these was the Qiṣṣa-yi Ṣalṣāl, by the Siberian poet Mäulekey Yumachikov, in which the infidels whom ʿAlī and the other companions battle are clearly identified as being Russians, although placed in the earliest period of Islam. This tale enables us to see the political evolution of such tales, which constitute a response to the cultural and political pressures of Russian colonialism.

Stephanie Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad: Sokoto Jihadism and the Islamic Frontier in West Africa

Stephanie Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad: Sokoto Jihadism and the Islamic Frontier in West Africa

Historiography in the Service of the Muftī: Ibn Taymiyya on the Origins and Fallacies of Ziyārāt

AbstractThis essay demonstrates Ibn Taymiyya’s engagement of historiography in iftāʼ. It draws upon fatwās on pilgrimage to Ascalon, travel to shrines of al-Ḥusayn in Ascalon and Cairo, and visits to Jerusalem and Hebron. Ibn Taymiyya weaves sophisticated historical narratives into his legal reasoning against visiting tombs of prophets and Ahl al-Bayt. He exposes lacunas, contradictions and unreasonable assertions in truisms about bodies of prophets and saints and their cults. He argues against ziyāra to such sites, blaming Shīʿīs for spreading the innovation at a particularly vulnerable time for Islam. His attack on notions of the religious merits of Jerusalem and of murābaṭa hinges upon his reconstruction of the history the Dome of the Rock and of the Islamic frontier. History leads him to stress the temporality of territorial definitions and their dependence on context. His argumentation resonates in works of later writers, demonstrating the continuing relevance of his fatwās.

Problematising the Shifting Capitals of Medieval Arran: From Bardhaʿa to Janza in the 10th–12th Centuries

ABSTRACTThe dominant historical narrative for early Islamic frontier zones such as Arran, in the Caucasus, tends to focus on the administrative centres, the capital cities. As this story of development becomes synthesised and simplified, there has been a tendency to understand this process as the decline of one major centre and the rise of another, almost in the sense of city-states. This paper reconsiders the case of the changing capitals of Arran, to understand how urbanism developed in the Caucasus in the early Islamic period and how this gave rise to the situation as observed in the tenth–twelfth century when the region is essentially independent from the core Islamic lands, albeit regularly a vassal state. In doing so, new archaeological evidence is combined with that from existing historical sources, to propose a new model for the urban settlement patterns of the medieval period in the southeastern Caucasus.

Vernacular as a space: writing in the Deccan

ABSTRACTThis is not an essay about mysticism in the Deccan. The aim is neither to track the movement of holy men and cults into the Deccan, nor the expansion of their networks and the creation of sacred geographies; this essay is also not about the comparative textual and spiritual discourses of saints from different sects. Instead, the attempt here is to suggest that every geographical region had a complex world of religious domains and of life-worlds in which multiple faith-agencies were active, catering to different audiences. There were some spiritual agencies that were part of larger ‘global’ networks, and others which were ‘local’ or vernacular. The term ‘vernacular’ is a description not necessarily limited to the discursive language used. This vernacular life-world was shaped by a several factors, natural and cultural: geographical realities, shared political and historical memories. Even if such a vernacular region, in this case, the Deccan, was a part of an ‘Islamic frontier’ politically and spiritually, certain vernacular traditions such as the Marathi literary spiritual movement cannot be easily accommodated within such a model of frontiers, contact zones and interfaces. This essay considers literary and spiritual practices in the northern Deccan from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, primarily in the Marathi language, to demonstrate a spatial and conceptual character that was not just linguistic.

Ali Anooshahr. The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam. A comparative study of the late medieval and ea

Ali Anooshahr. The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam. A comparative study of the late medieval and ea

Book Review: Ali Anooshahr, The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Book Review: Ali Anooshahr, <i>The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods</i>

Ali Anooshahr, The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods. (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History, 9.) London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp. ix, 196.

Ali Anooshahr, <i>The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods</i>. (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History, 9.) London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp. ix, 196.

Corrigendum * Correction notice for the review of The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam

Corrigendum * Correction notice for the review of The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam

Ali Anooshahr, The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History (New York: Routledge, 2009). Pp. 208. $140 cloth.

Ali Anooshahr, The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History (New York: Routledge, 2009). Pp. 208. $140 cloth.

Fraxinetum: An Islamic Frontier State in Tenth-Century Provence

The primary focus of this article is a reconsideration of Fraxinetum as an Islamic frontier state in tenth-century Provence. Traditional scholarship about Fraxinetum has interpreted the Muslim presence in Provence within the context of piracy. The interpretation of Fraxinetum as a pirate base centers largely on the interpretation of primary documents and the replication of the arguments of the Latin chroniclers within modern scholarship. Seeking to challenge the view that the Muslims in Francia were merely bandits, through a reassessment of primary sources and an analysis of some nontextual evidence, this article demonstrates that Fraxinetum was the political, military, and economic center of an Islamic frontier state in Provence that was populated largely by ghāzīs or mujāhidīn (Islamic frontier warriors) from al-Andalus. Reconceptualizing Fraxinetum as an Islamic frontier state should not be understood to mean that Muslim activity in Provence was centrally administered, but intends to convey that jihād , as well as certain economic motivations, played a crucial role in this frontier military settlement and, as such, needs to be adequately understood. This will allow scholars to comprehend more fully the nature of Fraxinetum, providing additional insight into the Muslim presence in Provence, and contributing to the understanding of the phenomenon of Islamic frontier states more broadly during the tenth century.

Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist state, 1989-2000

This volume investigates the objectives, activities and a decade of success and failure by Islamist military officers and civilians to create the first Islamic government in Africa after the coup d'etat by Brigadier Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir. It describes and analyses the role played by Hasan al-Turabi in the Sudan, the world and the revolutionary government from its relative isolation on the frontiers of Islam and the margins of the Arab world. It follows the activities of this ideological and activist leader of the revolution who used his influence as a charismatic Muslim scholar to precipitate an Islamic revolution until his downfall and expulsion from government in 2000 by those who he had hoped to mould to his Islamist ideologies.

War and Boundaries in Afghanistan: Significance and Relativity of Local and Social Boundaries

This paper endeavours to describe and analyse notions and practices of locality, of local boundaries and of social boundaries before and during the recent war in Afghanistan. Has the war led to decisive changes in these notions and practices? Since the present turmoil in Afghanistan is conceived of by a large group of the combatants as a gihad, the question also arises whether notions of the Islamic frontier, the line between ddr al-isldm and ddr al-harb, also become relevant. Which local and social limitic structures have resisted the war? Is the war fought along those boundaries? Or have there been structural changes? In fact the war has brought about new real (i.e. physically observable) boundaries, as well as eliminating old ones. Outside the country and even outside the Asian continent, Afghan boundaries have been expanded and narrowed again. In the refugee camps of Pakistan or Iran, and in European, American and Australian suburbs people became more conscious of local and social identities and differences were sharpened, levelled or re-defined,

Islam, gender and urbanisation among the Mafa of north Cameroon: the differing commitment to ‘home’ among Muslims and non-Muslims

The history of the town of Mokolo, in the heart of the land of the Mafa (in northern Cameroon), exhibits a specific pattern of urbanisation that seems characteristic of Islamic frontier zones generally in Africa. The town was founded as a settlement for converted slaves towards the end of the nineteenth century by Fulbe chiefs who regularly raided the area. Since that time urbanisation has largely gone hand in hand with Islamisation. It has involved, therefore, a marked change of identity for Mafa converts in the town, with drastic consequences for their relationship with their areas of origin in the mountains. The article emphasises, moreover, that the implications of Islamisation/urbanisation differ along gender lines. Although for both men and women the Muslim community in town provided specific forms of social security, the motives for migration, and the ways men and women were included in the urban community, differed sharply. In the 1980s, owing to political changes at the national level, the pressure to convert to Islam decreased throughout northern Cameroon. Since then the number of migrants to town who do not convert has increased rapidly. Mokolo used to be a Muslim town. In the 1990s, however, it has become more and more a Mafa town, and thus symbolises the revival of Mafa ethnicity as a truly region-wide force.

Ribāṭs in Mecca during the medieval period: a descriptive study based on literary sources

The Islamic institution of the ribāṭ appears to have made its initial appearance along the North African coast, in what is today Tunisia, during the second/eighth century. In the first phase of its development, the ribāṭ was essentially a fortress located at a sensitive point along the Islamic frontier, garrisoned by pious individuals who envisaged their vocation as participation in the jihād, the defence of the lands of Islam against external foes.

The naming of the frontier: ՙAwāṣim, Thughūr, and the Arab geographers

The Arabic geographical literature of the Middle Ages used several terms to indicate limits and frontiers, includingāfāq, ḥudūdandtukhūm. For the external frontiers of Islam itself the term most commonly used wasthughūr(sg.thaghr). And among these it was the Arab-Byzantine frontier, which to some was the frontierpar excellence, which came closest to having a nomenclature peculiar to itself. In this essay I wish to demonstrate that this nomenclature, and the picture which we have of this region, do not derive from administrative history so much as from a series of superimpositions made by medieval writers on geography and related subjects. I intend to follow Professor Wansbrough's lead, by showing the consequences of the ‘use by many of the same (limited) sources of information’. I also wish to emphasize that differences over how things are to be named reflect conflicts over who is to have power over them.

Blood Partnership in Theory and Practice: the Expansion of Muslim Power in Dar Al-Kuti

This article examines the institution of blood partnership, first theoretically, and then with reference to northern Equatorial Africa and Dar al-Kuti, a Muslim slave-raiding and slave-trading state. Contemporary anthropologists described blood partnership schematically as the exchange of blood and of conditional curses between two individuals or groups for the purpose of guaranteeing co-operation. They also suggested that blood partnership created bonds analogous to kinship. Blood alliances were concluded almost exclusively between parties who were not related genealogically, and promoted security, co-operation and long-distance trade. They were particularly important among societies outside highly centralized states, where they provided the ideology and mechanism for wider action embracing unrelated groups. Northern Equatorial Africa was just such an area, and, in the nineteenth century at least, blood pacts were very common. The article looks at blood partnership in the region generally, pointing out how foreigners, Muslims as well as Europeans, adopted the institution as a means of allying themselves with local leaders. Muslim penetration of the region is examined, and the infiltration of thezaribasystem of the southwestern Sudan into Ubangi-Shari (in what is now the Central African Empire) is outlined. The second half of the article deals specifically with Dar al-Kuti. Oral testimony and written evidence are combined to present a picture of blood partnership among the Banda, the most important non-Muslim people included in the state. The analysis is then extended to show how Muslims in the region, mainly the Runga from the Chad basin, led by Kobur and then by al-Sanusi, used blood pacts to foster their political and economic ambitions among non-Muslim peoples south of the Islamic frontier.

The Islamic Frontier in Southwest India: The Shahīd as a Cultural Ideal among the Mappillas of Malabar

The only really unique feature of the Mappilla outbreaks which occurred in Malabar District during the period of British rule was that each attack was conducted as a kind of suicidal jihād, in which the Mappillas involved intentionally sought to become shahīds or martyrs for the faith. No other South Asian Muslims who took part in protest movements to achieve goals similar to those which underlay the Mappilla attacks resorted to suicidal jihāds as a means of coercion. Yet no satisfactory explanation has ever been given to account for the Mappillas' peculiar militancy. Modern scholars have generally ignored the question, while the few British officials who tried to answer it usually argued, or implicitly suggested, that the attacks represented the inherent fanaticism of Islam. This explanation is, of course, vitiated by the very uniqueness of the Mappillas' suicidal ritual.