Middle East Archive
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Religious and Scientific Duality of Thought: How Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazili Set the Agenda for Medieval Scholastic Debates
Posted on May 17, 2012 | No CommentsIbn Rushd’s response to al-Ghazili ’s rather specious use of logic introduces the differentiation of religious and “scientific” or philosophical truths: an important, necessary, and previously unarticulated distinction which reverberated in the cathedrals and universities of Europe and which remains relevant for contemporary thinkers faced with similar dilemmas. -
Azodi Hospital and University in Shiraz (10th – 14th Century AD)
Posted on May 17, 2012 | No CommentsHospitals have a long history throughout the history of medicine. First hospitals are originated from Persia in ancient times in the Sassanid Dynasty (2nd to 6th century AD). -
Jerusalem in Medieval Christian Thought
Posted on April 29, 2012 | No CommentsIn the prophetic tradition, the dwelling of God is understood as a spiritual one. Yet, in spite of the expressed manner in which Jerusalem was called The Holy City, an element of imperfection remained. -
The Massacre at Acre–Mark of a Blood-thirsty King?
Posted on April 24, 2012 | No CommentsThe Christian forces in the Holy Land during the mid-to-late-1100s had, for many years, requested assistance to maintain their dwindling and increasingly challenged control in the Holy Land, but no help came. The tenuous rule of Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, in the mid-1180s, led to further internal conflict. -
Singers and Soldiers: Slavery in Early Abbasid Society
Posted on April 11, 2012 | No CommentsIndividuals of slave descent led significant households in Baghdad and Samarra, the capitals of the Abbasid caliphate, the second great empire of the Muslim world. -
Islamic astronomy
Posted on March 26, 2012 | No CommentsAlthough the story of how Greek astronomy passed to the Arabsis comparatively well known, the history of its transformation by Islamic scholars and subsequent retransmission to the Latin West is only now being written -
The albinism of Timur, Zal, and Edward the Confessor
Posted on March 6, 2012 | No CommentsAt least three historical characters, and one biblical one, are frequently referred to as albinos. Two of them, Edward the Confessor and Timur, were real people, one being a King of England and the other the most powerful of the medieval Tartar rulers; the third is a figure in Persian legend, Zal. -
New book examines the role of Arab doctors in the history of medieval medicine
Posted on March 6, 2012 | No CommentsA leading medical historian has acknowledged the extent of Western medicine’s debt to medieval Arab doctors in a new book. -
Arabic sources show extreme weather hit medieval Baghdad
Posted on February 27, 2012 | No CommentsThe research, published in Weather, analyses the writings of scholars, historians and diarists in Iraq during the Islamic Golden Age between 816-1009 AD for evidence of extreme weather in Iraq, including snowfalls and hailstorms in Baghdad. -
The art of medicine: Female patients and practitioners in medieval Islam
Posted on February 19, 2012 | No CommentsDiseases specifically affecting women that are discussed in medieval Arabic literature largely concern the reproductive organs, complications before and after childbirth, lactation, and child-rearing. -
From Jerusalem to Malta: the Hospital’s character and evolution
Posted on February 10, 2012 | No CommentsIn 1113 Girardus secured an important papal privilege which recognized the Hospital's independence; its members were considered to be in some sense technically religious and they were given the power to elect their own ruler. -
Muslim City Life during the Era of the Great Caliphs
Posted on February 8, 2012 | No CommentsBaghdad and many other cities in this Islamic world were international melting pots that attracted entrepreneurs and intellectuals of many languages, ethnicities, and faiths, including Jewish astrologers and Christian doctors. -
Sacred Kingship among the Peoples of the Steppes
Posted on February 8, 2012 | No CommentseurThe vast belt of the Steppes, located between the Hungarian plains and the Great Wall of China, runs along the southern edge of the Eurasian arboreal zone. Starting in the 1st millenium B.C. this region has been inhabited by Iranian, Hunnish, Turkish and Mongol mounted nomads who, at various times, unified a large portion of the Steppes into a single empire. -
The Iranian Factor in Byzantium during the Reign of Heraclius
Posted on January 25, 2012 | No CommentsA tripartite formula for the structure of Byzantine history has been suggested and generally accepted-Roman political institutions, Greek cultural elements, and the Christian religious faith, representing Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem respectively. -
Images of Civil Conflict: One Early Muslim Historian’s Represenation of the Umayyad Civil War Caliphs
Posted on January 24, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis examines the ninth-century Baghdadi scholar al-Tabari and his narrative representation of the three civil war caliphs of the Umayyad era (661-750 CE).
