This article reflects on Sanjay Subrahmanyam's article on early modern cosmopolitan-ism entitled ... more This article reflects on Sanjay Subrahmanyam's article on early modern cosmopolitan-ism entitled " The Hidden Face of Surat: Reflections on a Cosmopolitan Indian Ocean Centre, 1540-1750, " and suggests that the cosmopolitan space was a political space where competing ideas of sovereignty clashed with each other. Therefore, the article argues that the study of political ideas and competing forms of constitutional programs should accompany the focus on lifestyle preferences of early modern cosmopo-lites when we study cosmopolitanism.
Royal Holloway, London This article provides a contextual analysis of the assassination attempt o... more Royal Holloway, London This article provides a contextual analysis of the assassination attempt on the Timurid ruler Shāhrukh's life on 21 February 1427 in Herat. According to the contemporary Timurid chroniclers, Aḥmad-i Lur, a Ḥurūfī by profession, tried to kill Shāhrukh. Having survived the attack with light injuries, Shāhrukh reacted harshly and executed many of those who were accused of conspiring against him. During the interrogations, many other intellectuals who professed as a method of inquiry the ‘ilm-i ḥurūf (the science of letters) were also accused of participating in the conspiracy. In this article, I treat the assassination attempt as a moment of crisis in Timurid politics, study it in relation to the transformation of the intellectual landscape towards the mid-fifteenth century, and provide an in-depth textual and contextual analysis of the historiographical sources as well as the writings of those intellectuals who left a first-hand testimony of the subsequent interrogations. After a close scrutiny of the available evidence, I demonstrate that the interrogations of those intellectuals who practiced the science of letters predated the assassination attempt, and I argue that the assassination attempt was just an episode, albeit an important one, in Shāhrukh's attempts to control and regulate the emerging public sphere in Iran and Central Asia.
This article reflects on Sanjay Subrahmanyam's article on early modern cosmopolitan-ism entitled ... more This article reflects on Sanjay Subrahmanyam's article on early modern cosmopolitan-ism entitled " The Hidden Face of Surat: Reflections on a Cosmopolitan Indian Ocean Centre, 1540-1750, " and suggests that the cosmopolitan space was a political space where competing ideas of sovereignty clashed with each other. Therefore, the article argues that the study of political ideas and competing forms of constitutional programs should accompany the focus on lifestyle preferences of early modern cosmopo-lites when we study cosmopolitanism.
Royal Holloway, London This article provides a contextual analysis of the assassination attempt o... more Royal Holloway, London This article provides a contextual analysis of the assassination attempt on the Timurid ruler Shāhrukh's life on 21 February 1427 in Herat. According to the contemporary Timurid chroniclers, Aḥmad-i Lur, a Ḥurūfī by profession, tried to kill Shāhrukh. Having survived the attack with light injuries, Shāhrukh reacted harshly and executed many of those who were accused of conspiring against him. During the interrogations, many other intellectuals who professed as a method of inquiry the ‘ilm-i ḥurūf (the science of letters) were also accused of participating in the conspiracy. In this article, I treat the assassination attempt as a moment of crisis in Timurid politics, study it in relation to the transformation of the intellectual landscape towards the mid-fifteenth century, and provide an in-depth textual and contextual analysis of the historiographical sources as well as the writings of those intellectuals who left a first-hand testimony of the subsequent interrogations. After a close scrutiny of the available evidence, I demonstrate that the interrogations of those intellectuals who practiced the science of letters predated the assassination attempt, and I argue that the assassination attempt was just an episode, albeit an important one, in Shāhrukh's attempts to control and regulate the emerging public sphere in Iran and Central Asia.
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2021
As I write this essay, the forty-fourth US President Barack Obama's autobiography titled A Pr... more As I write this essay, the forty-fourth US President Barack Obama's autobiography titled A Promised Land is the best-selling book in Germany, in both the German and the English editions. This is his second autobiographical work, following Dreams from My Father in 1995. Given Obama's prominent place in our modern political culture, this is hardly surprising, but today's publishers seem to have no specific criteria for deciding whose life and career are worthy of an autobiography. Any moderately successful individual from any walk of life can publish an autobiography today. The popularity of the genre is certainly related to the extreme glorification of individual and personal success in modern society, but it also shapes how we view premodern self-narratives: as a window into an intellectual's individuality and Bildung. This essay questions this convention and explores the opportunities that self-narratives embedded in literary and narrative sources present to histori...
This article provides an account of the transfer of power from the Jalayirids to the Qara Qoyunlu... more This article provides an account of the transfer of power from the Jalayirids to the Qara Qoyunlu in ʿErāq al-ʿArab (Iraq) and the religio-political history of the Qara Qoyunlu dynasty with a particular focus on the reign of Shāh Mohammad b. Qara Yusof, the Qara Qoyunlu ruler in Baghdad between 1411/814 and 1433/836. Contemporary historians accused Shāh Mohammad of unbelief and apostasy. The article argues that the reports on his conversion to Christianity might be an indication for the existence of a form of Islamic piety that involved the veneration of Jesus. Unlike the veneration of ʿAli b. Abi Tāleb and his descendants, the veneration of Jesus among the Turkmens of the fifteenth century is an understudied topic. This article is a contribution to the debate on the issue of the so-called “Turkmen religiosity,” which is often considered the wellspring of non-mainstream religious movements in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2018
This article problematizes the use of messianic discourse in the articulation of political sovere... more This article problematizes the use of messianic discourse in the articulation of political sovereignty in the early fifteenth century Timurid context. It argues that the concept of condominium was among the alternatives that the Timurid authorities considered in order to formulate a novel constitutional framework for the Timurid Empire after the death of Timur, and in specific political circumstances especially in Fars, messianic and condominial principles of sovereignty conflated. To further this argument, the article focuses on one particular case, the Timurid historian Muʿīn al-Dīn Naṭanzī, who formulated the concept of condominial sovereignty, in which both Shāhrukh and Iskandar appear as equal sovereign with messianic prerogatives. Naṭanzī’s concept of condominial messianism was connected to Iskandar’s unique formulation of condominial sovereignty through his coinage. This article further argues that too many religio-political concepts are used interchangeably in secondary lite...
By focusing on the works and intellectual network of the Timurid historian Sharaf al Dīn 'Alī... more By focusing on the works and intellectual network of the Timurid historian Sharaf al Dīn 'Alī Yazdī (d.1454), this book presents a holistic view of intellectual life in fifteenth century Iran. İlker Evrim Binbaş argues that the intellectuals in this period formed informal networks which transcended political and linguistic boundaries, and spanned an area from the western fringes of the Ottoman State to bustling late medieval metropolises such as Cairo, Shiraz, and Samarkand. The network included an Ottoman revolutionary, a Mamluk prophet, and a Timurid occultist, as well as physicians, astronomers, devotees of the secret sciences, and those political figures who believed that the network was a force to be taken seriously. Also discussing the formation of an early modern Islamicate republic of letters, this book offers fresh insights on the study of intellectual history beyond the limitations imposed by nationalist methodologies, established genres, and recognized literary tradit...
There is a consensus among the historians of the Timurid Empire that after the death of Timur, Sh... more There is a consensus among the historians of the Timurid Empire that after the death of Timur, Shāhrukh did not become the sovereign of the entire Timurid polity until the early 820s/1418s. He eliminated Mīrzā Iskandar b. ʿUmar-Shaykh, the governor of Fārs, in 817/1414-15 and Qaydu b. Pīr Muḥammad in 821/1418, and subsequently installed his own sons to various appanages, which were erstwhile distributed among other sons of Timur, Jahāngīr, ʿUmar-Shaykh, and Mīrānshāh. This chapter discusses Mīrzā Iskandar's intellectual and political program in light of his relationships with two of his contemporaries, Shāh Niʿmatullāh Walī and Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī. It then discusses the significance of his interaction with the two figures in the context of Timurid politics after Timur's death. First, Mīrzā Iskandar and then, Shāhrukh in the first half of the fifteenth century were aware of the philosophical and theological components of the constitutional crisis in the Islamicate world. Keywords: Mīrzā Iskandar; political program; Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī; Shāhrukh; Timurid
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2018
This article reflects on Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s article on early modern cosmopolitanism entitled “... more This article reflects on Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s article on early modern cosmopolitanism entitled “The Hidden Face of Surat: Reflections on a Cosmopolitan Indian Ocean Centre, 1540-1750,” and suggests that the cosmopolitan space was a political space where competing ideas of sovereignty clashed with each other. Therefore, the article argues that the study of political ideas and competing forms of constitutional programs should accompany the focus on life-style preferences of early modern cosmopolites when we study cosmopolitanism.
Gayet açık ki Alan Mikhail sadece yöneticilerin ve seçkin kahramanların 'tarihi yaptığını' varsay... more Gayet açık ki Alan Mikhail sadece yöneticilerin ve seçkin kahramanların 'tarihi yaptığını' varsayan modası geçmiş bir 'büyük adam' tarihçiliğini çok kaba bir şekilde hâlâ uyguluyor. Böylece kahramanı Sultan Selim’i 16. yüzyılın ana aktörlerinden olan ve eylemleriyle 'dünyayı değiştiren' Kolomb, Martin Luther ve Niccolò Machiavelli ile karşılaştırıyor.
Turkish translation: How to write fake global history
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Turkish translation: How to write fake global history