Seljuqs And Their Successors

Rising from nomadic origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs and their successor states dominated vast lands extending from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Supported by colour images, charts, and maps, this volume examines how under Seljuq rule, migrations of people and the exchange and synthesis of diverse traditions-including Turkmen, Perso-Arabo-Islamic, Byzantine, Armenian, Crusader and other Christian cultures-accompanied architectural patronage, advances in science and technology and a great flowering of culture within the realm. It also explores how shifting religious beliefs, ideologies of authority, and lifestyle in Seljuq times influenced cultural and artistic production, urban and rural architecture, monumental inscriptions and royal titulature, and practices of religion and magic. It also presents today's challenges and new approaches to preserving the material heritage of this vastly accomplished and influential civilization.

Rising from nomadic origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs and their successor states dominated vast lands extending from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Supported by colour images, charts, and maps, this volume examines how under Seljuq rule, migrations of people and the exchange and synthesis of diverse traditions--including Turkmen, Perso-Arabo-Islamic, Byzantine, Armenian, Crusader and other Christian cultures--accompanied architectural patronage, advances in science and technology and a great flowering of culture within the realm. It also explores how shifting religious beliefs, ideologies of authority, and lifestyle in Seljuq times influenced cultural and artistic production, urban and rural architecture, monumental inscriptions and royal titulature, and practices of religion and magic. It also presents today's challenges and new approaches to preserving the material heritage of this vastly accomplished and influential civilization.

Rising from nomadic origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs and their successor states dominated vast lands extending from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Supported by colour images, charts, and maps, this volume examines how under Seljuq rule, migrations of people and the exchange and synthesis of diverse traditions-including Turkmen, Perso-Arabo-Islamic, Byzantine, Armenian, Crusader and other Christian cultures-accompanied architectural patronage, advances in science and technology and a great flowering of culture within the realm. It also explores how shifting religious beliefs, ideologies of authority, and lifestyle in Seljuq times influenced cultural and artistic production, urban and rural architecture, monumental inscriptions and royal titulature, and practices of religion and magic. It also presents today's challenges and new approaches to preserving the material heritage of this vastly accomplished and influential civilization.

Rising from humble origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs—an empire whose reach extended from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean—dominated the Islamic world from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs examines the roots and impact of this formidable dynasty, featuring some 250 objects as evidence of the artistic and cultural flowering that occurred under Seljuq rule. Beginning with an historical overview of the empire, from its early advances into Iran and northern Iraq to the spread of its dominion into Anatolia and northern Syria, Court and Cosmos illuminates the splendor of Seljuq court life. This aura of luxury extended to a sophisticated new elite, as both sultans and city dwellers acquired dazzling glazed ceramics and metalwork lavishly inlaid with silver, copper, and gold. Advances in science and technology found parallels in a flourishing interest in the arts of the book, underscoring the importance the Seljuqs placed on the scholarly and literary life. At the same time, the unrest that accompanied warfare between the Seljuqs and their enemies as well as natural disasters and unexplainable celestial phenomena led people to seek solace in magic and astrology, which found expression in objects adorned with zodiacal and talismanic imagery. These popular beliefs existed alongside devout adherence to Islam, as exemplified by exquisitely calligraphed Qur’ans and an array of building inscriptions and tombstones bearing verses from the holy book. The great age of the Seljuqs was one that celebrated magnificence, be it of this world or in the celestial realm. By revealing the full breadth of their artistic achievement, Court and Cosmos provides an invaluable record of the Seljuqs’ contribution to the cultural heritage of the Islamic world.

Tabbaa argues that the intense palatial and religious architectural activity of the period was intended to create a royal image of the Ayyubid state while also fostering links between it and the urban population. His study is based on an entirely new evaluation of the architectural and epigraphic aspects of the standing monuments of the period. It presents for the first time full photographic coverage of these monuments, as well as many new plans and other renderings, and pays close attention to monumental inscriptions, correcting and augmenting previous studies. The book utilizes the full panoply of the available literary sources, including topographies, chronicles, travel accounts, and poetry.

From a master historian, the definitive account of history's first terrorists An offshoot of the Ismaili Shi'ite sect of Islam, the Assassins were the first group to make systematic use of murder as a political weapon. Established in Iran and Syria in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they aimed to overthrow the existing Sunni order in Islam and replace it with their own. They terrorized their foes with a series of dramatic murders of Islamic leaders, as well as of some of the Crusaders, who brought their name and fame back to Europe. Professor Lewis traces the history of this radical group, studying its teachings and its influence on Muslim thought. Particularly insightful in light of the rise of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. and in Israel, this account of the Assassins -- whose name is now synonymous with politically motivated murderers -- places recent events in historical perspective and sheds new light on the fanatic mind.

A new understanding of the transformation of Anatolia to a Muslim society in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries based on previously unpublished sources.

Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice brings together the latest research on Islamic occult sciences from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely intellectual history, manuscript studies and material culture. Its aim is not only to showcase the range of pioneering work that is currently being done in these areas, but also to provide a model for closer interaction amongst the disciplines constituting this burgeoning field of study. Furthermore, the book provides the rare opportunity to bridge the gap on an institutional level by bringing the academic and curatorial spheres into dialogue. Contributors include: Charles Burnett, Jean-Charles Coulon, Maryam Ekhtiar, Noah Gardiner, Christiane Gruber, Bink Hallum, Francesca Leoni, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Michael Noble, Rachel Parikh, Liana Saif, Maria Subtelny, Farouk Yahya, and Travis Zadeh.

The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.

The transformation of Islamic architecture and ornament during the eleventh and twelfth centuries signaled profound cultural changes in the Islamic world. Yasser Tabbaa explores with exemplary lucidity the geometric techniques that facilitated this transformation, and investigates the cultural processes by which meaning was produced within the new forms. Iran, Iraq, and Syria saw the development of proportional calligraphy, vegetal and geometric arabesque, muqarnas (stalactite) vaulting, and other devices that became defining features of medieval Islamic architecture. Ultimately, the forms and themes described in this book shaped the development of Mamluk architecture in Egypt and Syria, and by extension, the entire course of North African and Andalusian architecture as well. These innovations developed and were disseminated in a highly charged atmosphere of confrontation between the Seljuk and post-Seljuk proponents of the traditionalist Sunni revival and their main opponents in Fatimid Egypt. These forms stood as visual signs of allegiance to the orthodox Abbasid caliphate and of difference from the heterodox Fatimids. Tabbaa proposes that their rapid spread throughout the Islamic world operated within a system of reciprocating, ceremonial gestures, which conveyed a new and formal language that helped negotiate the gap between the myth of a unified Sunni Islam and its actual political fragmentation. In subject matter and approach, The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival makes original contributions to the study of art, revealing that this relatively neglected sector of medieval art and architecture is of critical importance for reevaluating the entire field of Islamic studies. It challenges the essentialist and positivist approaches that still permeate the study of Islamic art, and offers a historical and semiotic alternative for exploring meaning within ruptures of change.