{"title":"An Issue of Intercultural Communication: An Unknown Letter from the “Sultan of Babylon” to Pope Innocent VIII","authors":"Piotr Tafiłowski","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341608","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the University of Glasgow Library’s copy of Pius II ’s Epistolae familiares (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 16 Sept. 1481), recorded on leaf 1–1v one can find a copy of a letter addressed to Pope Innocent VIII that starts with the heading “Soldanus pontifici Romano pro Restauracione Iunioris filii senioris Turchi”. The letter’s sender, who is referred to in the text as the “Sultan of Babylon”, was the Caliph of Cairo, al-Mutawakkil II (Abdul Aziz ibn Yaʿqub ibn Muhammad). The present text discusses the content of the letter and the issues regarding the question of its authorship. To ensure a comprehensive presentation of the argumentation, the paper not only discusses the content of the letter but also explores the wider context in which it was produced, situating it against the wider history of the Mamluk state and Mamluk diplomacy as well as the late medieval tradition of the exchange of correspondence (both real and fictitious) between the Christian and Muslim worlds. It needs underlining that not only has the content of the letter in question hitherto been substantially unknown to scholars, but the letter is furthermore the first discovered correspondent from an ʿAbbasid Caliph sent to the head of Western Christianity. The paper offers a contribution to research on intercultural communication. The paper comes with three appendices: a transliteration and a translation of the letter and a facsimile of the original record.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"11 12","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shrines Unyielding: Inter-Asian Networks and the Enduring Power of Sacred Spaces","authors":"Ameem Lutfi","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341613","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines modern states’ strategic destruction and patronage of Muslim shrines to consolidate majoritarian power. Drawing on Rian Thum’s notion of shrines as “durable sacred geography,” it conceptualizes shrines as active historical agents embedded in expansive transnational networks. Their extensive sacred geography enables shrines to persist as generative fulcrums that sustain meaning by bridging heterogeneous times and spaces despite tumultuous change. Challenging prevalent views of shrines as passive symbols, the essay delineates how the flexible reassembly of tradition across far-reaching networks empowers shrines to endure as pivotal arenas of ritual contestation from the medieval era into modernity. Their astounding continuity relies on mobilizing expansive geographies to creatively reconfigure tradition across eras.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"12 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In Defence of Arabic Palaeography","authors":"Arianna D’Ottone","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341610","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341610","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Museum Cuficum Borgianum (Rome 1782) is one of Jacob Georg Christian Adler’s works which traditionally mark the birth of Arabic palaeography. Almost a century ago the Russian Arabist Ignatij Kratchovsky considered Arabic palaeography an indispensable branch of knowledge that needed to be acquired. In 2023, however, Arabic palaeography is a discipline at risk. Rarely included in Oriental studies programs, Arabic palaeography is often confused with calligraphy and is absorbed into other fields relating to the study of artefacts, whilst being a philology-based discipline with a historical vocation. This contribution seeks to stress the value of Arabic palaeography as an essential discipline in the curriculum of students and (future) researchers and its potentials to enlarge and deepen historical and art historical research.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"12 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Continuity and Change at Millennial Scale: The Holy Sites of Serindia","authors":"Rian Thum","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341611","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay offers an experiment in chronological boundary crossing as way of addressing questions about continuity and change in Central Eurasia. It analyzes the violent transformations of holy sites in Altishahr (more widely known as Eastern Turkistan or southern Xinjiang), examining the 11th-century transition from Buddhist to Muslim rule alongside the 21st-century efforts of the People’s Republic of China to transform sacred Islamic sites into nationalist showpieces and “Silk Road” tourism sites. This juxtaposition calls into question prevailing understandings of the 11th -century transition as a simple refashioning of existing Buddhist sites into Islamic forms, while also placing current Chinese restrictions on Islamic holy sites in a broader historical perspective. Together, these 11th- and 20th century transformations show that shrines act as cultural arbiters, establishing routes by which change has entered Altishahr and stubbornly preserving not just older meanings, but also older ways of knowing. At the same time, they are places where the dynamics of continuous meaning creation come into clear view—where cultural change itself becomes an explicit part of the narratives that bind people together in supposedly stable identity groups such as religions and nations.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Timurid Regions and Moghulistan through the Eyes of a Ming Diplomat: An Annotated Translation of the Xiyu fanguo zhi and Selected Poems by Chen Cheng (1415)","authors":"茸 范","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341607","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article investigates the fifteenth-century Ming diplomat Chen Cheng’s travel accounts by situating them against the backdrop of Islamic and Mongol history. The first part of the article presents Chen Cheng’s travels and his reports in the context of Ming-Timurid relations and comprehensively studies the existing editions of Chen’s writings. The second part of the article provides a complete, critical, and annotated translation of Chen’s travel narrative, the Xiyu fanguo zhi , and a selection of his poems that describe the Timurid and eastern Chaghatayid regions through which the ambassador traveled. The translation is based on the text from Chen’s personal literary collection, the Chen Zhushan wenji , which has not yet been adequately utilized in English scholarship. Incorporating information from contemporary sources, the annotated translation contextualizes Chen’s accounts in Islamic history of Western and Central Asia. Finally, the article supplements the translation with a biography of Chen Cheng and information extracted from his itinerary.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"12 9","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Time as Method","authors":"Serkan Yolaçan","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341612","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"12 8","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Museum Cuficum Borgianum Velitris (pp. 32–37)","authors":"Jacob Georg Christian Adler","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341609","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"12 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135875107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Crimean Khan Şahin Giray (1777–1783): The First Modernizer of the Islamic World and his Image in Imperial and Minority Perspectives","authors":"Golda Akhiezer","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341603","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The last Tatar khan in the Crimean Peninsula, Şahin Giray, lived during the period that saw the annexation of this Ottoman suzerainty by the Russian Empire. He is the first recorded Muslim ruler in history who tried to introduce a program of modernization based on contemporary European models, and his reforms concerned all spheres of Tatar society. In spite of his collaboration with the Russian Empire, Russian historiography is generally critical toward this khan and skeptical regarding his reforms. The Ottoman historians saw Şahin as a traitor, therefore his achievements were ignored in their writings. A completely different approach regarding Şahin Giray and his innovations can be found in a little-known Jewish-Karaite chronicle, presenting an additional cultural-historical dimension from the perspective of minorities. The purpose of the present article is to analyze political and socio-cultural factors of these distinctions between the imperial standpoint and minority perspective.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48986974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Do You Not Bow before Heaven?’: The First Qing- Durrānī Encounter, the Tributary Non-relationship, and Disorder on a Shared Frontier","authors":"J. Eijk, Timur Khan","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341605","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341605","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In 1763, Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī sent an embassy to the Qianlong emperor. The envoy caused offence by refusing to prostrate himself. Still, the Qing court fêted his embassy. It seemed the beginning of a promising relationship, but the two empires never had contact again. The Qing court presented the embassy as a tributary mission, but in the pragmatic world of Qing frontier policy, contact with the Durrānīs was deliberately avoided. Why did no relationship develop? This attitude stemmed from Qianlong’s distrust of Central Asian rulers, and his understanding of the Afghans not as a tributary, but a rival imperial power.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41539797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rural Administration, Tax-Farming, and the mutadarriks in Egypt from the Late 14th to the Early 16th Centuries","authors":"D. Igarashi","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341602","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper focuses on the category of Egyptian provincial officials called mutadarrik who emerged in the late 14th century, to understand the relationship between the government and rural areas, and the state of rural society in late medieval Egypt. After the mid-14th century, the iqṭāʿ land system underwent a major transformation. Amidst repeated plagues, declining agricultural production, rampant political instability, and the rise of Arab tribes in the provinces, the financial and local administrations of the Mamluk Sultanate underwent a substantial process of restructuring. This paper shows that the emergence of the mutadarrik was closely related to these changes in the administration as well as in rural society.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49539436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}