Volume 90, Issue 1

Abstract: There is hardly any evidence suggesting that the singing contest of Sāmarrā’ deals with traditio . Music is mainly performance, and the significance of improvisation allows the singer, male or female, to assume a key position. Regardless of the school, Arab Music of the 9th century is characterized by the aemulative event, especially in the form of competition and contest.

Abstract: This paper deals with three inter-related topics: the origins of Black military slavery, the legacy of David Ayalon and Islamic military slavery in the broader context of world history. The first Black military system emerged in ninth-century Aghlabid Ifrīqiya, but its heyday and demise took place in eleventh- through twelfth-century Fatimid Egypt. Black military slavery was mostly outside the mainstream of David Ayalon’s work on Islamic military slavery, but it should be integrated into the study of both medieval Islamic military history and slavery. When viewed from the perspective of world history, Islamic military slavery and its Black component are part of a global experience of arming slaves and the transformation of slaves to soldiers.

Abstract: During the Spanish Reconquista, a number of Mālikī jurists wrote responsa that declared the Mudéjar ‘ulamā’ to be illegitimate holders of communal authority. Some contemporary scholars have characterized these writings as representing fanatical trends within Islam that privilege Islamic precepts over humanitarian concerns. By placing the jurists’ works in the context of research on the Mudéjars, it is shown that their views were motivated more by pragmatic defensive measures than by religious concerns. For the jurists, the period from the seventh to the thirteenth century is a turning point. Beginning then, jurists become less willing to tolerate the Mudéjar ‘ulamā’ and more likely to demand their immigration to Islamic territory. I show that this position is tied to a weakening of Islamic political power and a consequent concern on the part of the jurists to more actively promote defensive measures. I show that the jurists’ new rulings were not rote enforcements of tradition but actually went against established legal opinion to deal with the new political reality.

Abstract: One of the most delightful and interesting features of Islamic miniature painting in the Persian-speaking world is the appearance of hidden faces and figures in the background of compositions, which usually consist of rocky outcrops, tree roots or boulders. Scholars have provided different reasons for this feature, from narrative enhancement to the artists’ creativity and imagination. Although accepting these reasons as valid, this paper proposes an additional raison d’être – that is, the original viewing context of the majlis where wine and opium consumption were part of the entertainment, as both textual and visual evidence demonstrates. Based on first-hand accounts of users of psychoactive substances as well as psychological studies on their effect on creativity and visual perception, I argue that opium and wine consumption caused a perceptional shift that rendered the hidden figures even more entertaining than they would have been in a sober state of mind.

Abstract: In light of the dichotomous representation of the relationship between Islam and the West, the life and work of Ignaz Goldziher appears to be an utter anachronism. By applying the methodologies of Protestant biblical criticism to the study of Islamic traditions, the Hungarian scholar of Islam and secretary of the liberal Jewish community in Budapest became a crossroads of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Personally driven by a Jewish reform agenda, he became a founding father of modern studies on Islam. The article analyzes the complex historical and political context in which Goldziher developed the field of Islamic studies. In order to understand the origin of modern images of Islam, the article suggests putting the rise of the discipline of Islamic studies into the context of nineteenth century movements of religious reform.