Where the Middle Ages Begin
Cutting and Running from the (Medieval) Middle East: The Mises-hors-scène of Kingdom of Heaven’s Double DVDs Richard Burt 15 | 2007 : Le Moyen Âge mis en scène : perspectives contemporaines Abstract “There is no escaping the parallels with our time, when leaders who try to make peace are admired, but their efforts are subverted by […]
Modern discourse often casts science and religion as bitter enemies. But if you were to rewind roughly 12 centuries, you would find at least one worldview in which the two domains were considered symbiotic.
When Muslim armies came out of Arabia in the 630s and 640s, Christian writers of the time saw it a sign that the Apocalypse had come.
Muslim-Christian theological synthesis, beginning in the Umayyad period and culminating in eleventh century Fatimid Egypt, will be explored through the particular lens of Coptic-Christian clerical and lay efforts to appropriate the Arabic cultural language as a means of religious survival and dialogue with Muslim apologists.
In this paper I am going to look at the ways in which contemporary concerns have shaped historians’ depictions of Medieval Iberian societies, and how that distant past is now used by politicians.
In 1271, Kublai Khan founded the Bureau of Islamic Astronomy in Peking, which operated alongside the long-established Chinese Astronomical Bureau.
This article explores the career of queen Sayyida Hurra, she was the political and religious leader of Sulayhid Yemen, which was an extremely rare occurrence and privilege for a woman in Fatimid times
Bodies, Saracen Giants, and the Medieval Romance: Transgression, Difference, and Assimilation explores the treatment of the bodies of three Saracen giants in the romances of Roland and Vernagu (c. 1330), Sir Beues of Hamtoun (c. 1330), and The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1513-42)
What separates this brief work from that of previous historians is that it focuses on the formation and changes of papal policy in regards to the Eastern Orthodox Church during the First Crusade, exclusively.
A policy of coexistence among the Peoples of the Book was pursued by Abd al-Rahman III as such an existence was conducive to economic prosperity. To pursue these ends, the Jewish community was tolerated and protected, while the muwallads, mozarabs and Christian principalities were managed through violence and enforced cooperation within the Iberian Peninsula.
The aim of this research is to contextualise and chart, as far as possible, the complex iconography of the dragon in the medieval Islamic world, by interrogating the many factors, contexts and contingencies that helped to shape and transform it.
The Dragon and the Storm The Saracen anti-knight in Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata Cam Lindley Cross University of Chicago, March 8 (2011) Abstract When Peter the Venerable commissioned Robert of Ketton to translate the Qur’an in 1142 CE, under the title Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, it was with done for the express purpose of refuting Islamic doctrine […]
That Melodious Linguist: Eloquence and Piety in Christian and Islamic Songbirds Cam Lindley Cross University of Chicago, December 8 (2010) Abstract “Birds,” writes Albertus Magnus, “generally call more than other animals. This is due to the lightness of their spirits.” Although Albertus here employs “lightness” (levitas) as a technical term, the broader valences of the word […]
During the medieval period, the main aim of the crusades was recovery of the Holy Land. However, this changed in the fifteenth century for various reasons.
The study aims at shedding light on plagues and epidemics that hit Egypt during the Mameluke period through describing the plague disease and the plagues and epidemics that hit Egypt, and their social and economic effects on the Egyptian society, The study is based on some historical sources contemporary of the Mameluke period, especially the book “Al-Suluk li-marifatiduwal Al-muluk” by Al Maqrizi.
The battle of Lepanto, which took place on the 7th of October 1571, was the greatest naval battle of oar driven vessels in the history of the Mediterranean1. It was then that the mighty Ottoman navy suffered its first and utter defeat in a direct confrontation with Christian forces, joined in the Holy League. Its purpose was to help Venice in the defence of Cyprus, stormed by the Ottoman troops in July of 1570, but to no avail, as on the 3rd of August 1571 the island was taken by the Ottomans.
Abu ‘l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr (1145-1217) was not an exceptional man. As a relatively ordinary, middle-aged Muslim, Ibn Jubayr was neither the first nor the last to leave Al-Andalus to perform the hajj. Admiring kings only from afar, the closest that Ibn Jubayr came to royalty were encounters with imperial tax collectors. Paradoxically though, it is precisely Ibn Jubayr’s lack of distinction that helped earn him repute throughout the Islamic world in his time. It also makes him the ideal subject of the present study.
Avicenna (980 – 1037 AD) known as the prince of physicians in the west was one of the most prominent Persian thinkers, philosophers, and physicians. Owing to his interests in cardiology, he authored considerable works on different aspects of cardiology.
Lecture by Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad, American University in Cairo
How did a Muslim mini-state emerge on the southern coast of France in the tenth century?
I’m the one who saved you the trouble of sending an invitation!
A number of contemporary or near-contemporary Arabic texts leave no doubt that a massacre did take place, but they contain no evidence of large-scale carnage of the town’s population that was any greater than that which took place in cities and towns such as Antioch, Caesarea or Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān.
The following research delves into the organizational structures of the luxurious harems of Medieval Abbasid and Ottoman Empires; comparing the two different empires’ harems within the political, economic, and social spheres that the royal women lived in.
In 632, the death of the Prophet Muhammad was met with confusion, as he died without naming a successor; nor did he leave a blueprint detailing how political rule should take shape after his death
This paper argues that the beloved Mardi Gras beignet, eaten in advance of the Lenten fast, derives from deep-fried pastries used to break the Ramadan fast by medieval Muslims living in Spain.
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