Arezou Azad
INALCO Paris, Eurasie, Faculty Member
- University of Oxford, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Faculty MemberUniversity of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education, Faculty Memberadd
- Islamic History, Medieval History, Early and Medieval Islamic Art and Architecture, History of Tantra In India, Vajrayana Buddhism In Tibet, Zoroastrianism, and 30 moreManichaeanism, Oriental Studies, Political History, Central Asia, Central Asian Studies, History of the Islamic World, History of Afghanistan, History of Iran, Abbasid History, Nomads, Islamization, Turks, Sogdiana, Bactria, Samanids, Islamisation, Silk Road Studies, Iranian Studies, Central Asia (History), Umayyads (Islamic History), Medieval Islamic History, Sasanian History, Islamic Archaeology, Turco-Iranian World, Bactria (Archaeology), Archaeology of Central Asia, Kushan history, Sogdian, Religion, and History of Religionedit
- Lauréate Chaire de professeur junior, Institut nationale des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco), Paris Prog... moreLauréate Chaire de professeur junior, Institut nationale des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco), Paris
Programme Director, Invisible East programme, Oxford University
Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Universityedit
Revised edition of the work, edited by Ali Mir-Ansari, Edmund Herzig and Arezou Azad, published in Tehran, Iran.
Earlier edition by 'Abd al-Hayy Habibi, Tehran, 1971.
Earlier edition by 'Abd al-Hayy Habibi, Tehran, 1971.
Research Interests:
This is a critical edition and translation of the medieval local history of Balkh, known as Fada'il-i Balkh ("The Merits of Balkh"), which was completed in 610 Hijri (1214 CE) in Arabic by Shaykh al-Islam Abu Bakr ʿAbd Allāh al-Wa'iz and... more
This is a critical edition and translation of the medieval local history of Balkh, known as Fada'il-i Balkh ("The Merits of Balkh"), which was completed in 610 Hijri (1214 CE) in Arabic by Shaykh al-Islam Abu Bakr ʿAbd Allāh al-Wa'iz and translated into Persian by 'Abd Allah al-Husayni in 676 Hijri (1278 CE). It is the Persian version which survives today and forms the source text for this book. Balkh is one of the most illustrious cities of the Islamicate East, and yet we know very little about life in the city during the first five centuries of Islam (8th-13th centuries CE). The Fada'il-i Balkh, the oldest surviving local history of Balkh, changes that. The work is the sum of its parts, the first being a collection of accounts about the history of Balkh attributed largely to Muslim religious and legal scholars and their chains of transmission.
The second part consists of original descriptions of Balkh’s economic, urban and cultural life. The researcher who wants to know about Balkh’s topography will need to look elsewhere, since in part three, which forms the bulk of the book, we learn about Balkh’s learned Islamic scholars. What makes the account fascinating is the up-close and personal account of each scholar, with intimate details not only of their intellectual ideas and milieu, but also of their personal circumstances, .e.g. their wives, children and servants, how they related to the landscape around them, the city and the region to which they belonged, as well as to the wider Islamicate world of caliphs and sultans.
The detailed commentary and introduction to this new publication gives remarkable and fascinating insights into the self-perception of one erudite man of Balkh. He has left us a social history of the medieval Islamicate East, and this new book brings it to life in ways an English-speaking audience has not yet seen.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Glossary
Editors' Preface
Translation of the Text
1. Translator's preface
2. Introduction
3. Part One
4. Part Two
5. Part Three
Conclusion
Commentary
Other appendices
The second part consists of original descriptions of Balkh’s economic, urban and cultural life. The researcher who wants to know about Balkh’s topography will need to look elsewhere, since in part three, which forms the bulk of the book, we learn about Balkh’s learned Islamic scholars. What makes the account fascinating is the up-close and personal account of each scholar, with intimate details not only of their intellectual ideas and milieu, but also of their personal circumstances, .e.g. their wives, children and servants, how they related to the landscape around them, the city and the region to which they belonged, as well as to the wider Islamicate world of caliphs and sultans.
The detailed commentary and introduction to this new publication gives remarkable and fascinating insights into the self-perception of one erudite man of Balkh. He has left us a social history of the medieval Islamicate East, and this new book brings it to life in ways an English-speaking audience has not yet seen.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Glossary
Editors' Preface
Translation of the Text
1. Translator's preface
2. Introduction
3. Part One
4. Part Two
5. Part Three
Conclusion
Commentary
Other appendices
Research Interests:
This book is about a sacred place called Balkh, known to the ancient Greeks as Bactra. Located in the north of today's Afghanistan, along the silk road, Balkh was holy to many. The Prophet Zoroaster is rumoured to have died here, and... more
This book is about a sacred place called Balkh, known to the ancient Greeks as Bactra. Located in the north of today's Afghanistan, along the silk road, Balkh was holy to many. The Prophet Zoroaster is rumoured to have died here, and during late antiquity, Balkh was the home of the Naw Bahār, a famed Buddhist temple and monastery. By the tenth century, Balkh had become a critical centre of Islamic learning and early poetry in the New Persian language that grew after the Islamic conquests and continues to be spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia today.
In this book, Arezou Azad provides the first in-depth study of the sacred sites and landscape of medieval Balkh, which continues to exemplify age-old sanctity in the Persian-speaking world and the eastern lands of Islam generally. Azad focuses on the five centuries from the Islamic conquests in the eighth century to just before the arrival of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, the crucial period in the emergence of Perso-Islamic historiography and Islamic legal thought. The book traces the development of 'sacred landscape', the notion that a place has a sensory meaning, as distinct from a purely topographical space. This opens up new possibilities for our understanding of Islamisation in the eastern Islamic lands, and specifically the transition from Buddhism to Islam. Azad offers a new look at the medieval local history of Balkh, the Faḍā"il-i Balkh, and analyses its creation of a sacred landscape for Balkh. In doing so, she provides a compelling example of how the sacredness of a place is perpetuated through narratives, irrespective of the dominant religion or religious strand of the time.
In this book, Arezou Azad provides the first in-depth study of the sacred sites and landscape of medieval Balkh, which continues to exemplify age-old sanctity in the Persian-speaking world and the eastern lands of Islam generally. Azad focuses on the five centuries from the Islamic conquests in the eighth century to just before the arrival of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, the crucial period in the emergence of Perso-Islamic historiography and Islamic legal thought. The book traces the development of 'sacred landscape', the notion that a place has a sensory meaning, as distinct from a purely topographical space. This opens up new possibilities for our understanding of Islamisation in the eastern Islamic lands, and specifically the transition from Buddhism to Islam. Azad offers a new look at the medieval local history of Balkh, the Faḍā"il-i Balkh, and analyses its creation of a sacred landscape for Balkh. In doing so, she provides a compelling example of how the sacredness of a place is perpetuated through narratives, irrespective of the dominant religion or religious strand of the time.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In his 1990 article, “The Barmakid Revolution in Islamic Government,” Hugh Kennedy discussed the Barmakid legacy in ʿAbbāsid administration, and his work on the Barmakids and related subjects made important contributions to the... more
In his 1990 article, “The Barmakid Revolution in Islamic Government,” Hugh Kennedy discussed the Barmakid legacy in ʿAbbāsid administration, and his work on the Barmakids and related subjects made important contributions to the now-commonplace nuance to the “Islamic rupture” narrative with studies of, and appreciation for, the hybridity and coexistence of pre-Islamic and Islamic practice in the first centuries of caliphal rule. When studying the Barmakids, Kennedy and other scholars of Islamic history have focussed crucially on medieval Arabic source texts, leaving Persian and later Arabic monographs largely untouched. In this chapter, we hope to complement these earlier studies, by introducing some of the fascinating material that comes out of Persian monographs about the Barmakids in particular, that were written from the time of the Samanids to the Muẓaffarids of Iran. Our chapter will show the original and important contribution that the Persian material makes to our understanding of the narratives on the Barmakids across traditions and periods.
Research Interests:
In his 1990 article, “The Barmakid Revolution in Islamic Government,” Hugh Kennedy discussed the Barmakid legacy in ʿAbbāsid administration, and his work on the Barmakids and related subjects made important contributions to the... more
In his 1990 article, “The Barmakid Revolution in Islamic Government,” Hugh Kennedy discussed the Barmakid legacy in ʿAbbāsid administration, and his work on the Barmakids and related subjects made important contributions to the now-commonplace nuance to the “Islamic rupture” narrative with studies of, and appreciation for, the hybridity and coexistence of pre-Islamic and Islamic practice in the first centuries of caliphal rule. When studying the Barmakids, Kennedy and other scholars of Islamic history have focussed crucially on medieval Arabic source texts, leaving Persian and later Arabic monographs largely untouched. In this chapter, we hope to complement these earlier studies, by introducing some of the fascinating material that comes out of Persian monographs about the Barmakids in particular, that were written from the time of the Samanids to the Muẓaffarids of Iran. Our chapter will show the original and important contribution that the Persian material makes to our understanding of the narratives on the Barmakids across traditions and periods.
Research Interests:
What is Islamization? Is it about converting to the faith of Islam, or joining a Muslim culture? The verdict on this question is still undecided, and we will probe it through a study of a medieval local history of Balkh, known as... more
What is Islamization? Is it about converting to the faith of Islam, or joining a Muslim culture? The verdict on this question is still undecided, and we will probe it through a study of a medieval local history of Balkh, known as Fadāʾil-i Balkh. The text was completed in 610/1214 in Arabic by Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr ‘Abd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muhammad b. Dāwūd al-Wā’iz and translated into Persian by ʿAbd Allāh al-Husaynī in 676/1278, and it is the latter version that survives and forms the source text for my presentation here.
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While we know from historical texts that authorities in pre‑Mongol Iran and Central Asia issued letters of protection (amān‑nāma), no original has survived. In this article, we introduce one newly purchased document at the National... more
While we know from historical texts that authorities in pre‑Mongol Iran and Central Asia issued letters of protection (amān‑nāma), no original has survived. In this article, we introduce one newly purchased document at the National Library of Israel catalogued as Ms.Heb.8333.86 and dated 562/1167, which refers to an act of protection (ḥimāyat)—or rather, its reversal. This is the closest we get to an actual documentary reference in Persian to an act of protection in the pre-Mongol period, and the document, therefore, merits closer study. The document offers an alternative history of protection far from the centres of power, at a very local level in the Ghūrid domains of today’s Central Afghanistan and northern India, and the survival of the document offers clues as to the longevity of acts of protection and their archival value. The study, by extension, highlights the dynamism of reciprocal loyalties between citizens and administrative officials in local communities.
Khurasan in the seventh and eighth centuries was a conglomeration of topographies, economic, social and politico- administrative networks and institutions, as well as peoples of diverse religious and ethno- linguistic backgrounds. The... more
Khurasan in the seventh and eighth centuries was a conglomeration of topographies, economic, social and politico- administrative networks and institutions, as well as peoples of diverse religious and ethno- linguistic backgrounds. The area is too large, and our knowledge of seventh– eighth- century Khurasan too patchy for a synthetic study of its economy and ecology. Instead, one aspect, in particular, shall be investigated:#the extent to which economic and ecological concerns motivated the early Muslim conquest and rule of Khurasan.
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This chapter offers an extract from the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, a 12th-century local history of Balkh, that sheds light on how "conversion" to Islam is treated in the text.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The conquest of Balkh in 708–9 marked the beginning of the Umayyad caliphate’s control over the lands that are today Afghanistan.1 Some of the people of Afghani¬stan rebelled against the new Damascus-based overlords. Others joined the... more
The conquest of Balkh in 708–9 marked the beginning of the Umayyad caliphate’s control over the lands that are today Afghanistan.1 Some of the people of Afghani¬stan rebelled against the new Damascus-based overlords. Others joined the mili¬tias that in 749 enabled the rival ‘Abbasid caliphs to take over from the Umayyads. By the ninth century, the city of Balkh was being canonized as the Dome of Islam and its Muslim intellectuals memorialized as saints with sanctuaries deeply in¬tertwined with the Islamic identity of their city of burial. How could the Islamic caliphate become so firmly embedded in classical and late antique Afghanistan’s thousand-year-old civilization within the relatively short time span of a hundred and sixty years? What strategies did the Muslim conquerors use to establish their authority in Afghanistan and maintain an economically viable and politically sus¬tainable engagement? These questions guide this chapter’s investigations, which serve to test the conversion models proposed by Nehemiah Levtzion, Richard Bul¬liet, and Richard M. Eaton for neighboring parts of the Islamic world.
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This paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of Islam on families in eighth-century rural Ṭukhāristan (modern-day northern Afghanistan), at the periphery of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Tukhāristan lay in... more
This paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of Islam on families in eighth-century rural Ṭukhāristan (modern-day northern Afghanistan), at the periphery of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Tukhāristan lay in the ancient region of Bactria, which became the land and city of Balkh after the Islamic conquests of the early seven hundredsad. My analysis is based on a fascinating corpus of legal documents and letters, written in Bactrian and Arabic in the fourth to eighth centuriesad, which were discovered, edited and translated relatively recently. Scholars of Central Asia have tended to discuss the region's early Islamic history within a politico-military framework based on chronicles and prosopographies written in Arabic and/or adapted into Persian centuries after the Muslim conquests. Such narrative sources describe an ideal state defined by genres of Islamic historiography, and come with the usual menu of distortions, simplifications and exoticisms. The...
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Chapter in Nile Green (ed.), From Sufis to Taliban: Trajectories of Islam in Afghanistan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Research Interests:
This paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of Islam on families in eighth-century rural Ṭ ukhāristan (modern-day northern Afghanistan), at the periphery of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Tukhāristan lay in... more
This paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of Islam on families in eighth-century rural Ṭ ukhāristan (modern-day northern Afghanistan), at the periphery of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Tukhāristan lay in the ancient region of Bactria, which became the land and city of Balkh after the Islamic conquests of the early seven hundreds AD. My analysis is based on a fascinating corpus of legal documents and letters, written in Bactrian and Arabic in the fourth to eighth centuries AD, which were discovered, edited and translated relatively recently. Scholars of Central Asia have tended to discuss the region's early Islamic history within a politico-military framework based on chronicles and prosopographies written in Arabic and/or adapted into Persian centuries after the Muslim conquests. Such narrative sources describe an ideal state defined by genres of Islamic historiography, and come with the usual menu of distortions, simplifications and exoticisms. The documents under review, on the other hand, were written to serve immediate and practical uses; the evidence they offer is devoid of rhetoric, recording aspects of life and social groupings to which we would otherwise have no access. This paper argues that during the transition to Islamic rule (c. AD 700–771), Bactrian and Islamic administrative systems co-existed, and significantly affected family life and marriage traditions. Specifically, it is suggested that the early ʿAbbāsid tax system eclipsed the age-old practice of fraternal polyandry here: more by default than by design.
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This is a biographical sketch of the great Edmund Bosworth that highlights not only his works but the man behind them.
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Alexander Ludvigovich Kuhn (1840–88) was a Russian Orientalist of German-Armenian descent. The most important period of his activity was his service in Central Asia where on behalf of the Turkestan Governorate-General he collected... more
Alexander Ludvigovich Kuhn (1840–88) was a Russian Orientalist of German-Armenian descent. The most important period of his activity was his service in Central Asia where on behalf of the Turkestan Governorate-General he collected manuscripts, archives and other materials, joining the military campaigns to Kītāb of ShahriSabz, Iskanderkul, Kokand and Khiva. A large number of the manuscripts were sent back to St. Petersburg to the Imperial Public Library, but some never left Kun's possession until they were donated to the Asiatic Museum after his death. Kun was also in charge of the compilation of the famous “Turkistan Albums”—a major collection of photos testifying to the different nationalities and customs that made up the populations of Central Asia. Until now, Kun's biography has been little known to us. The article takes a look into the personal archive of Kun, and describes the man and his motivations and desires.
Research Interests: Archival Studies, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Central Asian Studies, Manuscript Studies, Central Asia (History), and 24 moreBiography, History of Collections, Central Asian History (Area Studies), Central Asia, Cultural History of Russia, Orientalism, History of Collecting, Manuscripts, Islamic Manuscripts, Archival Research, History of Russia, Museum Collections (Research), Turkestan, Russian Orientalism, 19th Century Imperial Russian Turkestan, Khanate of Khiva, History of Central Asia, Waqf in Central Asian Khanates of Bukhara and Khiva, Samarqand, Russian orientalism in Central Asia, Russian orientalism in Persia and Central Asia, Khanate of Khiva, Russian Turkestan, and Turkestan Colony Russia
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Historians and analysts of current affairs alike are interested in the role that women have played in Islam, including the extent to which women were the agents and creators of Islamic mysticism. We still know surprisingly little about... more
Historians and analysts of current affairs alike are interested in the role that women have played in Islam, including the extent to which women were the agents and creators of Islamic mysticism. We still know surprisingly little about premodern learned women, particularly from the eastern Iranian world. This article describes one female mystic, Umm ʿAlī, who flourished in ninth-century Balkh and has so far eluded modern scholarship. A historiographical study of her provides insight into how the representations of mystical women changed over time. From the earlier sources, we learn that Umm ʿAlī applied creative and interesting strategies that provided her access to the highest sources of learning. Umm ʿAlī’s case also allows for some tentative conclusions on the importance of pedigree, and the practice of strategic marriages that connect local power-holders with the ʿulamāʾ.
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13th-century local history from Balḵ in eastern Khorasan, with a collection of biographies of Balḵ’s early Islamic scholars and mystics. It differs from many other local histories of medieval Islamic cities in that it comprises a mix of... more
13th-century local history from Balḵ in eastern Khorasan, with a collection of biographies of Balḵ’s early Islamic scholars and mystics. It differs from many other local histories of medieval Islamic cities in that it comprises a mix of historical, topographical, and prosopographical information, covering six centuries from the advent of Islam to the late 12th century.
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The article describes the Fada'il-i Balkh—a thirteenth-century local history of Balkh, in eastern Khurasan— and sets its historiographical elements within the wider context of Islamic historiography through a source critical study. The... more
The article describes the Fada'il-i Balkh—a thirteenth-century local history of Balkh, in eastern Khurasan—
and sets its historiographical elements within the wider context of Islamic historiography through a source critical
study. The author also uses the Fada'il-i Balkh in order to tackle the question of the relationship
between the proliferation of Arabic and Persian local histories in the tenth and eleventh centuries and the
contemporary changes in urban identities that occurred as local autonomy increased and the control of the
caliphate weakened.
and sets its historiographical elements within the wider context of Islamic historiography through a source critical
study. The author also uses the Fada'il-i Balkh in order to tackle the question of the relationship
between the proliferation of Arabic and Persian local histories in the tenth and eleventh centuries and the
contemporary changes in urban identities that occurred as local autonomy increased and the control of the
caliphate weakened.
Research Interests:
Book Review : Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity. Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe, ca. 250–750 Edited by Nicola di Cosmo & Michael Maas. 18 x 26 cm. xxxvii +504 pp, 48 b&w pls and figs. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-107-09434-5. Price: £105.00more
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The Excellence of the Arabs, an edition and translation by James Montgomery, Peter Webb, and Sarah Bowen Savant, enriches the Library of Arabic Literature, and the growing corpus of translations of books from Arabic into English. It is a... more
The Excellence of the Arabs, an edition and translation by James Montgomery, Peter Webb, and Sarah Bowen Savant, enriches the Library of Arabic Literature, and the growing corpus of translations of books from Arabic into English. It is a true delight to read and allows scholars and a wider public to appreciate works like it in their full expression and passion. This new translation is glossed with valuable annotations on names, places, and terms of the art in a glossary (236-276), and indexes of Qurʾānic verses and general entries (284-297). The work offers answers to one of the fundamental questions of Islamicate self-reflection: what does it mean to be an Arab?
https://readingreligion.org/books/excellence-arabs
https://readingreligion.org/books/excellence-arabs
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Book Review of: Samarqand et le Sughd à l’époque ʿabbāsside: Histoire politique et sociale. By Yury Karev. Studia Iranica. Cahier 55. Paris: PEETERS PUBLISHERS, 2015. Pp. 372. ISBN: 978-2-910640-41-5. 40.
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The Islamic world produced some of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages, including a number of remarkable female scholars. Arezou Azad examines who these women were and why their place in history has been neglected.
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London: Conflict, Security and
Development Group, King’s College, 2003
Co-authors:
Anthony Goldstone, Alexander Mayer-Rieckh, Tanja Hohe, Antonia Potter, Caitlin Reiger, Edward Rees, Craig Wilson
Development Group, King’s College, 2003
Co-authors:
Anthony Goldstone, Alexander Mayer-Rieckh, Tanja Hohe, Antonia Potter, Caitlin Reiger, Edward Rees, Craig Wilson