Muslim Dynasties Research Articles

THE CAUCASUS AND ADJACENT REGIONS IN THE COSMOGRAPHY OF FAKHR-I MODABBIR

Among the Muslim texts of the first half of the XIII century, one should highlight the narrative known to researchers as «Shajarai-e ansab-e Mobarakshah-i» («The Tree of the genealogies of Mubarak Shah») or «Bahr al-ansab» («The Sea of genealogies»). This work belongs to the pen of a Persian historian of the late XII - first half of the XIII century. Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn Sa'id or Fakhr-i Moddabir (Mubarak Shah). After the publication of the Persian text of this source, carried out in the first half of the XX century. By Edward Denison Ross, scientists have paid close attention to this work itself, as well as to the biography of its author. However, the most significant attention was focused on those sections of «Bahr al-ansab», where the author described the nomadic Turkic tribes of Desht-i Qipchak, as well as those where Fakhr-i Moddabir outlined the history of the Muslim dynasties that ruled in northern India. Much less attention was paid by specialists to the initial section of the introduction to "Bahr al-Ansab", in which the author proposed cosmography or a description of the world known to people at that time around them. For our part, I would like to understand first of all how, in the author's opinion, this world was arranged, into which regions it was divided, and what place the Caucasus and adjacent lands occupied in it. Here I would like to draw attention to what toponyms associated with the Caucasus Fakhr-i Moddabir mentions and what he reports about them. An equally important task of this study will be to identify the connections of this part of the text «Bahr al-Ansab» with earlier monuments of Muslim geographical and historical literature, which will make it possible to identify borrowings, but also independent reports of Fakhr-i Moddabir regarding the structure of the world known to mankind at that time. We hope that this work will be of interest to specialists in the history of Muslim geographical literature, as well as to researchers of the history of the Caucasus and adjacent regions in the pre-Mongol period.

THE CAUCASUS AND ADJACENT REGIONS IN THE COSMOGRAPHY OF FAKHR-I MODABBIR

Among the Muslim texts of the first half of the XIII century, one should highlight the narrative known to researchers as «Shajarai-e ansab-e Mobarakshah-i» («The Tree of the genealogies of Mubarak Shah») or «Bahr al-ansab» («The Sea of genealogies»). This work belongs to the pen of a Persian historian of the late XII - first half of the XIII century. Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn Sa'id or Fakhr-i Moddabir (Mubarak Shah). After the publication of the Persian text of this source, carried out in the first half of the XX century. By Edward Denison Ross, scientists have paid close attention to this work itself, as well as to the biography of its author. However, the most significant attention was focused on those sections of «Bahr al-ansab», where the author described the nomadic Turkic tribes of Desht-i Qipchak, as well as those where Fakhr-i Moddabir outlined the history of the Muslim dynasties that ruled in northern India. Much less attention was paid by specialists to the initial section of the introduction to "Bahr al-Ansab", in which the author proposed cosmography or a description of the world known to people at that time around them. For our part, I would like to understand first of all how, in the author's opinion, this world was arranged, into which regions it was divided, and what place the Caucasus and adjacent lands occupied in it. Here I would like to draw attention to what toponyms associated with the Caucasus Fakhr-i Moddabir mentions and what he reports about them. An equally important task of this study will be to identify the connections of this part of the text «Bahr al-Ansab» with earlier monuments of Muslim geographical and historical literature, which will make it possible to identify borrowings, but also independent reports of Fakhr-i Moddabir regarding the structure of the world known to mankind at that time. We hope that this work will be of interest to specialists in the history of Muslim geographical literature, as well as to researchers of the history of the Caucasus and adjacent regions in the pre-Mongol period.

Mughal Heritage in Delhi: Toponymics Manipulation

In the post-colonial world, when new nations one after another gained independence and got out of the colonialists hand, “toponymic games” have become a global phenomenon. The main goal of such manipulations was to return historical justice, to remove associations with the oppressive past from the collective memory of citizens. Post-colonial India was also affected by renaming stir at various levels. Toponyms associated with Muslim dynasties began to undergo changes at the most. Muslim dynasties ruled India from the XIII to the mid XIX century. Over this long period of time, they had a great impact on the history and culture of India. Muslim influence especially affected the capital city of Delhi. This significant historical period is also reflected in the toponymy of the city. The article shows how the names of streets associated with the history of Mughal India are being erased from the map of Delhi and from the memory of the inhabitants of Delhi in recent years (often it’s being done at the initiative of politicians affiliated with the pro-Hindu BJP). Each year the New Delhi Municipal Committee receives more than 300 street and park renaming requests. Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi (which name was changed to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road in August 2015) was the first to be renamed. In an effort to make nice with the Hindu majority, rename claims are on the rise during India’s election campaigns. Nonmuslims say that all the troubles of the country came to the fore as the result of the Muslim invasion. So, the point of street rename is not in the dissonance of toponyms themselves, but in their meaning.

In Remembrance of Saints: The Rise and Fall of an Inner Asian Sufi Dynasty By Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashgari, translated by David Brophy

David Brophy’s translation of this classic East Turkistani hagiography is an extraordinary achievement and a model of the translator’s art. His challenging Chaghatay source text, by Kashgari, is without a doubt the ‘most popular and widely circulating’ (p. xiii) narrative about the Muslim dynasty that ruled a large portion of what is now Xinjiang on the eve of the Chinese conquests. Kashgari was himself a Chinese-allied Muslim elite, and yet he ‘glorifies resistance to non-Muslim rule’ (p. xiv) and, like an eighteenth-century drill rapper, relentlessly calls out China’s Muslim allies as snitches and traitors. While the tale has many diversions and tipsy versified odes to the cupbearer (saqinamas), the heart of it is the dynasty’s struggle against the Chinese and their reviled running-dogs among the non-Muslim Qalmaqs (Kalmyks) as well as among the Muslim Kyrgyz. The typical conflict in Central Asian hagiography is exclusively between Muslims and non-Muslims, so it is notable to find so many Muslim adversaries fighting the heroes here. Indeed, some of the dynasty’s own amirs object to the idea of Muslims fighting Muslims: ‘we are Muslims and our king is a Muslim, and the shariʿa commands that it’s impermissible for Muslims to wage war on Muslims’ (p. 164). A pre-battle fatwā settles the matter: ‘[S]omeone who lends support to the infidels to strengthen their army and increase it therefore belongs to the army of the infidel, i.e. they are an infidel’ (p. 187). Lest the reader think the dynasty goes easy on ‘erstwhile’ co-religionists, the descriptions of warfare are sometimes wildly graphic. One dynast ‘slaughtered a thousand fanatics like sheep and ground grain in a mill driven by their blood’ (p. 43).

Syed Ross Masood and a Japanese Model for Education, Nationalism, and Modernity in Hyderabad

AbstractSyed Ross Masood (1889-1937), grandson of the Muslim modernist Syed Ahmad Khan and former principal of Osmania University, traveled in 1922 from India to Japan as Director of Public Instruction for Hyderabad to assess Japan's educational system. In Japan and Its Educational System, a report published in 1923, Masood concluded that education had been key to Japan's rapid modernization and recommended that Hyderabad follow the country's model of modernization and educational reform: transmit Western knowledge through widespread vernacular education, and focus on the imperial tradition, freedom from foreign control, and patriotic nationalism. Masood sought to use mass vernacular education to create in Hyderabad a nationalist subject, loyal to the ruling Muslim dynasty, who absorbed modern scientific knowledge with its Western epistemic foundations but who remained untainted by Western norms. This study contextualizes and historicizes Masood's attempt to create in Hyderabad a new nationalist subject, focusing on his 1923 report about Japan.

Research Foci in the History of Science in Past Islamicate Societies

In recent years, numerous changes have emerged in the History of Science of what has traditionally been called the Islamic world. By now, it has become usual to speak of the Islamicate world, albeit more so in Islamic Studies and related historical disciplines. The notion Islamicate wishes to express that the societies rule by Muslim dynasties were multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional and plurilingual. Different Muslim denominations could form majority but also minority groups. The processes of change in the study of the sciences in those societies can be summarized as efforts to pluralize research approaches and to historicize objects, themes, people, institutions and practices. The pluralization of approaches includes the multiplication of (1) modern disciplinary homes for studies of scientific topics dealt with in Islamicate societies, (2) the languages acknowledged as languages of scientific texts such as New Persian, Ottoman Turkish or Urdu worthwhile to analyze, (3) the number of historical disciplines accepted under the umbrella of history of science, (4) the centuries or periods as well as the regions that have been incorporated into the investigation of past scientific knowledge and (5) the recognition that more than a single history can and should be told about the sciences in past Islamicate societies. The process of historicization means, first and foremost, to turn away from macro-units of research (Islam, medieval or Arabic science) to medium- or micro-level units. Historicization indicates, secondly, the turn toward contextualization beyond the analysis of individual texts or instruments. And thirdly, it signifies the integration of features or aspects of scholarly practices that are not limited to the content of a discipline or a text but include layouts, the organization of text production, types of visualizations of knowledge or rhetorical strategies and paratextual elements. My paper reports on trends that I consider relevant for understanding how the field changed over the last decades and how it ticks today. But it does not try to be comprehensive.

Syrians In Marwanid Period

Mervânîler, 983-1085 yılları arasında Kuzey Mezopotamya’da hüküm sürmüş İslam devletlerinden biridir. Bu bölgede, Hulefa-i Raşidin döneminde başlayan İslamlaşma süreci Mervânîler döneminde daha da hızlanmıştır. Mervânîler hâkim oldukları topraklarda Müslüman nüfusun yerleşmesine yardımcı olurken bölgenin kadim sakinleri olan ve Hıristiyanlığa mensup Süryani, Ermeni ve Rumlar’ın yanısıra bölgede az da olsa yaşayan Yahudiler’e dokunmadılar. Aksine daha sonraki Müslüman idarelere örnek teşkil edecek bir hoşgörülü yaklaşım yoluna gittiler. Öyle ki liyakat esasına dayanarak Gayri Müslimler’i Vezirlik, Tabiplik, Vakıf Nazırlığı, Divan Kâtipliği, Arızu’l-Ceyşlik gibi önemli devlet konumlarına getirdiler. Hatta durum öyle oldu ki Mervânîler’in bu uygulamalarda aşırıya gittiğini düşünenler bile oldu. Müslümanlar dışındaki din mensuplarının inanç özgürlüğü, ibadethane açma hürriyeti ve ibadetlerini herhangi bir baskı altında kalmadan yapmaları hususunda azami özen gösterilmiştir. Bu dönemde Mervânîler’in Gayri Müslim tebaasına karşı takındığı en ufak bir olumsuz tavra rastlanmamaktadır. Bizans gibi Hıristiyanlığı resmi din olarak kabul eden devletlerin baskısından bunalan farklı Hıristiyan gruplar Mervânî ülkesindeki özgür ortamdan ötürü bu ülkeye akın ettiler. Süryani patrikliğinin Diyarbakır’a taşınması da bu dönemde gerçekleşen önemli olaylardan biridir.

“Meka” i “tvrda” moć u islamskoj literaturi političkih saveta: Saveti vladarima Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqe i Ibn al-Muqaffe u poređenju s onima koje je dao Machiavelli / “Soft” and “Hard” Power in Islamic Political Advice Literature: Counsels to Rulers by Ibn al-Ṭiqṭ

This article explores how modern leadership theories revolving around the distinction between “soft” and “hard” power are prefigured in medieval Islamic political writing. In particular, it advances a new interpretation of Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā’s al-Fakhrī (On the Systems
 of Government and Muslim Dynasties, 701/1302), focusing on the Arab historian’s narrative about the factors that resulted in the decline of the ‘Abbasid Empire and the rise of the Mongols as a world power. It also discusses Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā’s ideas on good government, drawing
 links to other major Muslim political theorists and historians, notably Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and Ibn Khaldūn. Finally, this study examines Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā’s views on successful and failed leadership in a cross-cultural context through comparison with Niccolò Machiavelli’s Prince.

Muslim Coins as a Commodity and Means of Payment in International and Internal Trade In Volga-Ural Region In 8th- Beginning of 11th cc

The article examines the spread of Muslim Kufic coins in Eastern, Western and Northern Europe, on the territory of Volga Bulgaria, Ancient Rus, the neighbours of Bulgars – ancestors of the Mari, Udmurt, Mordva and other Finno-Ugric ethnicities during the early Middle Ages in the 8th – beginning of the 11th centuries. The research of these coins shows the list of countries and Muslim dynasties the above-mentioned countries had trade relations with and their chronological framework. Coins of Umayyads, Abbasids, Samanids, Buwayhids, Ziyarids, Qarakhanids and other Muslim dynasties were discovered. Ways of Kufic dirhems expansion and their chronological framework are shown. The main role of Khazar Khanate is marked for the time span of 8th – 9th centuries whereas since X century the principal part was played by Volga Bulgaria. American numismatist T. Noonan designated them as Khazar and Bulgar phases of trade of Kufic coins. Bulgar coins, minted in 902–990-s, participated actively in this process. Together they acted as a commodity and medium of exchange, which reflected the scale of trade operations of the early Middle Ages. The study of Muslim Kufic dirhems allowed the author to clear up the role of Khazar Khanate and Volga Bulgaria in the functioning of Great Silk and Volga routes in the 8th – beginning of the 11th centuries.

Sufism in South Punjab, Pakistan: From kingdom to democracy

Sufism, the spiritual facet of Islam, emerged in the very early days of Islam as a self-awareness practice and to keep distance from kingship. However, this institution prospered in the times of Muslim rulers and Kings and provided a concrete foundation to seekers for spiritual knowledge and intellectual debate. Sufism in South Punjab also has an impressive history of religious, spiritual, social, and political achievements during Muslim dynasties. Though, a shift in the governing system, from kingdom to democracy has altered the functions of spiritual institutions from inner purification to divine plan of salvation around the globe. The dramatic convergence of new lines is obvious in Sufi institutions as well; the amalgamation of spiritual teachings and exercises with the propagation of spiritual doctrine and social development. This paper examined the development of Sufism in South Punjab of Pakistan and found a significant shift in Sufi philosophy and the prioritized functions of Sufi institutions with the change of governing system, from spiritual achievements to social well-being and political authority.

Проблема османского сюзеренитета над Черкесией: характер вассальной связи

In the Ottoman imperial system, the principle of vassal connection with the conquered and controlled lands was widely used. The vassal-overlord character of relations with the border states was laid in the early Ottoman period, when the Ottoman sultans gradually conquered the post-Seljuk and Turkmen emirates of Anatolia. The Ottoman regime here was distanced and mediated in nature, since the local Turkic and Muslim dynasties retained a significant part of their former possessions and had the right of almost unchallenged administration in hereditary possessions. Thus, the vassal principle came from the internal organization of the Ottoman state and at the same time reflected the urgent political need to co-opt numerous regional (Turkic, but not Ottoman; non-Turkic) elites. The political and legal connection of the Circassian state-like formations (“principalities”, “possessions”, “societies”, “tribes”) with the Ottoman state dates back to the last third of the XV century.

Iconography of the Gift: Diplomacy and Imperial Self-Fashioning at the Ottoman Court

Over the course of the sixteenth century, countless gifts were exchanged between the sultans of the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid shahs of Iran, two of the most powerful Muslim dynasties of the ea...

Anthropological Study on the Shia Muslims in Mysore City

India is a great nation which is an origin of a pure culture as well as a destination for people from around the world with various cultures and religions. India is the home to all the religions and religion minorities therefore; it is a very good area of research in terms of anthropological and social studies. The following study is concentrated mainly on the Shia Muslims in Mysore city. It has also a historical look upon formation of cultural identity of Shias in India. During the reign of the Arab traders, they introduced Islam into the South Indian state of Karnataka almost as soon as the faith was initiated in Saudi Arabia. Along with their faith, Muslims brought many products to the country. The Islamic presence and power in the state reached its greatest heights during the reigns of Hyder Ali and his son Tippu Sultan. Though killed by the British in 1799, Tippu Sultan was one of the only national leaders to defeat the British troops in battle and many Indians consider him a hero. The internal structure of Indian Muslims as a religio-ethnic group was quite complex. Shias Islam has deep-rooted influence in present and history of India from North to South with various Shia Muslim dynasties ruling Indian provinces from time to time.

Negotiating Muslim–Christian Relations in Kenya through Waqfs, 1900–2010

ABSTRACTWaqfs provided socio-economic security for the progeny of endowers and for other social welfare causes. Being thus guaranteed socio-economic well-being, these beneficiaries were antithetical to ruling elites in Muslim dynasties and Christian colonial powers, which led to the establishment of policies and institutions to control waqfs and check their growing influence. This development was not only counter to normative precepts but also set minority Muslims in predominantly Christian societies at odds with non-Muslim states. To what extent did civil policies and judgements influence waqfs? How did Muslims negotiate the secular state constructs vis-à-vis waqf practices? How did secular state control of waqfs influence the dynamics of Christian–Muslim relations? This discussion, based on ethnographic research in Kenyan coastal areas, employs two theoretical frameworks – Asad's ‘Islam as a discursive tradition’ and Scott’s concept of ‘symbolic (ideological) resistance’. The article draws mainly on the perspective of the Muslim minority in Kenya and argues that state control of waqfs in Kenya did not only interfere with normative practices but also partly laid the ground for the present-day economic and political marginalization and exclusion of Muslims, leading to suspicion and ambiguous relations with their Christian compatriots.

Anthropological Perspective Study on the Muslims in Mysore City-India (Case study Shia Muslims)

<p>India, because of including a collection of religions and religious minorities altogether in itself, especially in this modern era, is a remarkable case of study and consideration. This study also, as an anthropological research and in order to get familiar with the religious identity of Muslims and Shias of Mysore in particular, has played its role. This project is a case study about the Shia Muslims in Mysore; it has also a historical look upon formation of cultural identity of Shias in India. During the reign of the Arab traders, they brought Islam into the South Indian state of Karnataka almost as soon as the faith was initiated in Arabia. Along with their faith, Muslims brought many products to the region. The Islamic presence and power in the state reached its greatest heights during the reigns of Hyder Ali and his son Tippu Sultan. Though killed by the British in 1799, Tippu Sultan was one of the only national leaders to defeat the British in battle and is still considered a hero for many Indians. The internal structure of Indian Muslims as a religio-ethnic group was quite complex. Shias Islam has deep-rooted influence in present and history of India from North to South with various Shia Muslim dynasties ruling Indian provinces from time to time.</p>

Race, slavery, and Islamic law in the early modern Atlantic: Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti's treatise on enslavement

This paper examines one of the earliest intellectual works to directly address the intersecting issues of race and slavery that emerged with the rise of the plantation system that took root in the early modern Atlantic. I examine the works of a Muslim scholar, Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti, who himself was enslaved, and I examine his use of scholarly traditions and innovative thoughts on the origins of race by Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldoun to author a resounding critique of not just race-based slavery, but the entire practice of enslavement as he experienced it in the realms of the Moroccan caliphate of Ahmad al-Mansur. The latter's Caliphal aspirations were aimed at rivalling the Ottoman Empire, whose westward expansion had recently been curtailed. Within this context, Ahmad Baba's rulings served as a critique of the Sa`dis claim to just rule as a Muslim dynasty. This paper aims to bring discussions of race and slavery in the Muslim world into larger discussions about the emergence of slave-based agricultural economies in the West and suggest the importance of Islamic law in our study of the early modern Atlantic.

Feudal villains or just rulers? The contestation of historical narratives in eastern Xinjiang

Focusing on representations of the Muslim dynasty that exercised power locally under the Qing dynasty until 1930 in the oasis of Qumul in eastern Xinjiang, this article challenges the binary notions of ‘official’ versus ‘unofficial’ discourse by looking at the production of historical knowledge on the ground. Versions of local histories are communicated both in censored publications and in informally transmitted oral narratives, which are not independent realms but in constant dialogue with each other. Produced at the interface of the oral and the written, these representations are laden with contradictions and ambiguities, portraying the Muslim dynasty sometimes as feudal exploiters, at other times as models of good governance. It will be shown how historical knowledge is produced at the junctures of the oral and the written, and of official and unofficial discourses.

Review: The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, 1722–1856: Its Evolution in an Aesthetic and Social Context, by Banmali Tandan

The architecture of Oudh, and particularly its capital city of Lucknow—legendary for its magnificence and the refinement of Indo-Islamic high culture under its rulers, the nawabs of Oudh—is the subject of Banmali Tandan's The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, 1722-1856: Its Evolution in an Aesthetic and Social Context. Starting in the thirteenth century in northwestern India, the region known as Oudh came under the rule of a sequence of Delhi-based Muslim dynasties. By the late sixteenth century the area became part of the mighty Mughal empire. In 1722 Saadat Khan, a Shi'a nobleman from Persia who was employed by the Mughal emperor, was appointed Subahdar (governor) of Oudh. From 1722 to 1856, these rulers and their successors came to be known as the nawabs of Oudh.While putatively remaining loyal to the Mughal emperor, Saadat Khan worked to consolidate his position and assert control over his domain by undertaking campaigns against the largely Hindu landlords of Oudh. These semi-independent feudal barons were not entirely suppressed. They were forced to pay tax on a regular basis even as their hereditary rights to their lands remained undisturbed. Some of the landed chieftains would become Nawabi courtiers and officials. Despite the Nawabi overlordship, most continued to grow in strength under Nawabi rule. Their belief that they were independent rulers of their domain was signaled by the construction of numerous mud-forts in their lands during this period. After his death in 1739, Saadat Khan's nephew and son-in-law Safdar Jang (1739–1753) succeeded him as governor.At this time Oudh had grown to be a rich province; one that yielded vast revenues, estimated in the 1750s to be twice that of the Mughal empire at its zenith. As governor, Safdar Jang resided in the Mughal capital of Delhi or Shahjahanabad, but also in the cities of Faizabad and Lucknow in Oudh. When Asafuddaula (1775–1797) became nawab of Oudh, he made Lucknow his permanent capital in 1775. Safdar Jang's successor Shujauddaula (1754–1775) came into conflict with the East India Company and was defeated by the latter (in 1764, in Buxar and 1765 in Jajmau) While Oudh was informally independent of the Mughal emperor before 1765, after this date, through treaties and other agreements, it was progressively shaped by the control of the East India Company. The influence of European architectural styles on the local architecture was increasingly evident after the 1770s, and these Indo-European and even Indo-Islamic buildings have come under much criticism. In 1856 the British deposed Wajid Ali Shah, the last nawab, and annexed Oudh, making this once vibrant independent region just one part of the global possessions of the expanding British empire.This is the context and background to Banmali Tandan's ambitious book. In it the author examines a vast terrain as well as a great number of diverse buildings and other elements of the built environment. In doing so, he explores the architectural patronage of the nawabs and their courtiers—including Europeans, Muslims, Hindus, and Jains—in Oudh in the changing political climate of over a century and a quarter of nawabi rule. This book is the author's second on the subject. According to the author, they can be read independently. However, this book builds on The Architecture of Lucknow and Its Dependencies, 1722–1856: A Descriptive Inventory and an Analysis of Nawabi Types (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 2001) and is the product of the perusal of a greater array of sources and intensive fieldwork.Throughout this book Tandan shows a strong commitment to observing and describing the built environment: spatial and living arrangements, gender segregation, response to tropical climate, materials, native building technologies, construction details, finishes, and stylistic and spatial genealogies. The book also discusses an impressive range of secular and sacred building types. Many of the buildings have been documented and drawn by the author, a valuable resource for future scholars.According to the author,

Jonathan Miran . Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa . Bloomington : Indiana University Press . 2009 . Pp. xiv, 380. $75.00.

This book retrieves the recent past of the Eritrean island port of Massawa and its hinterland between approximately 1800 and 1910. As suggested by the title, Jonathan Miran explores and reconstructs the contexts and meanings of urban identity in a changing cosmopolitan space. A historical lieu de métissage, Massawa rose to commercial prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century as a center of Red Sea trade connecting the African and the Arab coasts. Focusing on the rise and consolidation of the town's mercantile and religious elites, the author convincingly shows that “being Massawan” in this period became closely identified with Islam and with proximity to Arab culture and history. Chapter one traces the evolution of local government under the Balaw Na'ibs, a local Muslim dynasty of Ottoman vassals that controlled the Eritrean coast until the arrival of the Egyptians in 1813. Under Egyptian rule (1831–1841, 1846–1849, and 1865–1885) the political influence of the na'ib governors declined. In the meantime the introduction of steamship navigation in the Red Sea after the 1830s and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 initiated far-reaching changes in Red Sea trade while opening the way for the Italian colonization of Eritrea (1885–1941). The commercial transformation of Massawa in relation to its hinterlands and forelands is addressed in chapter two, which provides context on the structural changes that affected the regional and global economy and on Egyptian and Italian policies of centralization. Chapter three discusses some of the ramifications of Massawa's economic “revolution” and concentrates on the commercial and urban worlds of its coastal society. The histories of Arab and Indian entrepreneurs who capitalized on the trade boom make particularly fascinating reading. Equally absorbing is the discussion of the social and spatial geography of Massawa and of its expanding conurbation on the coast. Chapter four elaborates on Islam and urban identity in order to illustrate what Miran calls “Massawa's paradigmatic Islamic character” (p. 215). The author introduces the reader to the Sufi orders (and the families associated with them) that promoted an Islamic revival in the nineteenth century, particularly among the Tigre-speaking population of Eritrea's lowland region. The politicization of these orders is analyzed with reference to Italian colonial policies, and some attention is also devoted to Muslim practices and institutions. In the last chapter Miran makes an argument for “being Massawan” by exploring the social world of notable families and their sources of authority. The emphasis is on Muslim identity and the Arabization of the town's elites as a sign of social status prompted by the wealth and influence of merchants originally from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula.

The Position of Siyar on Free Trade. A Historico-Legal Analysis

This article examines how siyar can improve economic relations within and among Muslim States by liberalising and increasing trade. The notion of siyar historically presupposed strong trade relations within the Muslim community where Muslims and specific categories of non-Muslims from all parts of the Muslim world and beyond could trade anywhere with little or no restrictions. However, over quite a long period the development of siyar was stalled. In this light, a rather historical approach is chosen by the author. The article will first discuss what siyar is and what its role was in regulating the economic relations of the early Islamic State. The approach taken by siyar towards “free trade” as evidenced by the practices of the early Islamic State is introduced. A caveat has to be constructed that the concept of free trade as practised at that time must not be understood in exactly the same way as the term free trade that underscores the present day GATT/WTO system. While barriers to trade were erected not only by the early Islamic State but also by other States at that time, this research will aim to reach a conclusion as to whether a freer trade was and is desired by siyar. The article will look at the practices of later Islamic States, i.e. the Muslim dynasties which were established towards the end of the Abbasid period and thereafter, followed by a brief analysis of regulation of internal and external trade by the Ottoman Empire. Such discussions will include consideration whether the practices of those dynasties were consistent with what had been recommended by siyar. Finally the article looks at the challenges to reviving siyar trade rules following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of many separate Muslim-nation States in the twentieth century.