Peter von Sivers
University of Utah, History, Emeritus
- Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History, Department of History, University of Utah. Specializing on early Islamic history.edit
Abstracts of 6th Symposion May 1-4, 2019
Research Interests: Religion, History of Religion, Quranic Studies, Islamic Studies, Islam, and 15 moreTafsir, Quran, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Quranic Exegesis, Religious Studies, Koran, History of Pre-Islamic Arabia, Biography of the Prophet Muhammad, Islamwissenschaft, Etudes coraniques, Estudios coránicos, Coran, Etudes Islamiques, Koran & Koran Exegesis, and Quran and Tafsir Studies
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Voegelin's magisterial account of medieval political thought opens with a survey of the structure of the period and continues with an analysis of the Germanic invasions, the fall of Rome, and the rise of empire and monastic... more
Voegelin's magisterial account of medieval political thought opens with a survey of the structure of the period and continues with an analysis of the Germanic invasions, the fall of Rome, and the rise of empire and monastic Christianity. The political implications of Christianity and philosophy in the period are elaborated in chapters devoted to John of Salisbury, Joachim of Flora (Fiore), Frederick II, Siger de Brabant, Francis of Assisi, Roman law, and climaxing in a remarkable study of Saint Thomas Aquinas's mighty thirteenth-century synthesis.Although "History of Political Ideas" was begun as a textbook for Macmillan, Voegelin never intended it to be a conventional chronological account. He sought instead an original comprehensive interpretation, founded on primary materials and taking into account the most advanced specialist scholarship or science as he called it available to him. Because of this, the book grew well beyond the confines of an easily marketable college survey and until now remained unpublished.In the process of writing it, Voegelin himself outgrew the conceptual frame of a "History of Political Ideas," turning to compose "Order and History" and the other works of his maturity. "History of Political Ideas" became the ordered collection of materials from which much of Voegelin's later theoretical elaboration grew, structured in a manner that reveals the conceptual intimations of his later thought. As such, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to observe the working methods and the intellectual evolution of one of our century's leading political thinkers. In its embracing scope, "History of Political Ideas" contains both analyses of themes Voegelin developed in his later works and discussions of authors and ideas to which he did not return or which he later approached from a different angle and with a different emphasis."The Middle Ages to Aquinas" has withstood the test of time. What makes it still highly valuable is its thoroughly revisionist approach, cutting through all the convenient cliches and generalizations and seeking to establish the experiential underpinnings that typified the medieval period."
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... 6) Bal., 196; al-Ya'qtibi, AIhmad b. Abi Ya'qaib, Tdrikh, ed. MT Houtsma (Leiden, 1883), II, 337; Guy Le Strange, Palestine Under the Moslems (London, 189o), 505. 7) Called... more
... 6) Bal., 196; al-Ya'qtibi, AIhmad b. Abi Ya'qaib, Tdrikh, ed. MT Houtsma (Leiden, 1883), II, 337; Guy Le Strange, Palestine Under the Moslems (London, 189o), 505. 7) Called "Jarijima", Bal. 197. 8) Bal., 198. 9) Ibid. Page 5. TAXES AND TRADE IN THE 'ABBXSID THUGHfR 75 ...
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Von Sivers Peter. Marshall G. S. HODGSON, The venture of Islam : conscience and history in World civilization, vol. I : The classical age of Islam ; vol 2 : The expansion of Islam in the Middle periods ; vol. 3 : The gunpowder empires and... more
Von Sivers Peter. Marshall G. S. HODGSON, The venture of Islam : conscience and history in World civilization, vol. I : The classical age of Islam ; vol 2 : The expansion of Islam in the Middle periods ; vol. 3 : The gunpowder empires and Modern Times.. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 35ᵉ année, N. 3-4, 1980. pp. 516-521
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Part One: The Beginnings 1. The Origins of Government2. The First Civil War and Sect Formation3. The UmayyadsPart Two: The Waning of the Tribal Tradition, c.700-900 4. General5. The Kharijites6. The Mu'tazilites7. The Shi'ites of... more
Part One: The Beginnings 1. The Origins of Government2. The First Civil War and Sect Formation3. The UmayyadsPart Two: The Waning of the Tribal Tradition, c.700-900 4. General5. The Kharijites6. The Mu'tazilites7. The Shi'ites of the Umayyad Period8. The 'Abbasids and Shi'ism9. The Zaydis10. The Imamis11. The Hadith PartyPart Three Coping with a Fragmented World 12. General13. The Persian Tradition and Advice Literature14. The Greek Tradition and 'Political Science'15. The Ismailis16. The SunnisPart Four: Government and Society 17. The Nature of Government18. The Functions of Government19. Visions of Freedom20. The Social Order21. Muslims and Non-Muslims(a) Infidels(b) Muslims as Infidels22. Epilogue: Religion, Government and Society RevisitedBibliography, Abbreviations and ConventionsIndex and Glossary
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Collective volume edited by Metter Bjerregaard Mortensen, Guillaume Dye, Isaac W. Oliver, and Tommaso Tesei (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021)
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La realite historique du Moyen-Orient musulman infirme la theorie du «Despotisme oriental» oppresseur des paysans et auteur de sa propre ruine. En effet, la productivite de l'agriculture irriguee permet un prelevement fiscal qui... more
La realite historique du Moyen-Orient musulman infirme la theorie du «Despotisme oriental» oppresseur des paysans et auteur de sa propre ruine. En effet, la productivite de l'agriculture irriguee permet un prelevement fiscal qui entretient une couche dirigeante urbaine nombreuse et concentree, en laissant aux paysans de quoi se reproduire et produire. Les villes dependent des campagnes pour leur survie, mais il n'y a pas d'integration entre les unes et les autres par le marche. L'administration entreprend des travaux d'irrigation qui donnent aux paysans des moyens d'existence et creent les conditions d'une fiscalite avantageuse. L'equilibre ainsi realise suppose une certaine stabilite demographique dans un espace cultivable peu extensible et une technologie tres peu mecanisee.
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Von Sivers Peter. Invading the Village Common: the Origins of Algeria’s Modern Rural Crisis, 1870-1914. In: Terroirs et sociétés au Maghreb et au Moyen Orient
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Preface Abbreviations Note on pronunciation Map of the growth of the Ottoman Empire to 1683 Part I. Rise of the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1566: 1. The Turks in history 2. The first Ottoman Empire, 1280-1413 3. Restoration of the Ottoman... more
Preface Abbreviations Note on pronunciation Map of the growth of the Ottoman Empire to 1683 Part I. Rise of the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1566: 1. The Turks in history 2. The first Ottoman Empire, 1280-1413 3. Restoration of the Ottoman Empire, 1413-1451 4. The apogee of Ottoman power, 1451-1566 5. The dynamics of Ottoman society and administration Part II. Decentralization and Traditional Reform in Response to Challenge: 6. Decentralization and traditional reform, 1566-1683 7. New challenges and responses, 1683-1808 8. Ottoman society, administration, and culture in the age of decentralization and traditionalistic reform, 1566-1808 Map of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1683-1924 Bibliography: Ottoman history to 1808 Index.
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analysis to the non-economic benefits in spite of the fact that there is little hard evidence available. Does the training provide important supportive services such as health care and child care? Apparently operating under a... more
analysis to the non-economic benefits in spite of the fact that there is little hard evidence available. Does the training provide important supportive services such as health care and child care? Apparently operating under a cultureof-poverty hypothesis, the authors are curious whether programs improve &dquo;personal attitudes&dquo; and remedy &dquo;incomplete societal acculturation.&dquo; Nothing is said about the possible negative non-economic benefits such as heightened discouragement and lowered self esteem when, after having completed the training program, the individual is still unable to obtain a good job. In doing the study, the authors are forced to deal with the existing data. These data, as the authors note, are either inadequate, especially in terms of good control groups, or virtually nonexistent, as in the case of non-economic
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Le Moyen-Orient et l'Afrique du Nord représentent des cas classiques de régions où, avant l'époque contemporaine, les classes dirigeantes préféraient bâtir leur fortune sur les impôts, la rente foncière ou le commerce plutôt que... more
Le Moyen-Orient et l'Afrique du Nord représentent des cas classiques de régions où, avant l'époque contemporaine, les classes dirigeantes préféraient bâtir leur fortune sur les impôts, la rente foncière ou le commerce plutôt que sur la production agricole. L'Algérie ne fait pas exception. Tirer profit du dry-farming était trop risqué dans un climat à pluviométrie irrégulière et l'agriculture irriguée avait des rendements si élevés qu'il n'était pas évident que la mise en valeur directe par la classe dirigeante fut plus avantageuse que la taxation des producteurs indépendants. Avec la colonisation française au xixe siècle, l'Algérie devient un pays où des entrepreneurs ruraux font leur apparition. Mais, comme on sait, ils constituent un groupe sous l'égide de l'élément capitaliste de la classe dirigeante française plutôt qu'une couche supérieure indigène.
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This essay is dedicated to the memory of Karl-Heinz Ohlig (1938-2024), friend and spiritual fellow traveler, both of us growing up in post-World War Koblenz, Germany. The paper will be presented at the Inarah Symposium in Trier, Germany,... more
This essay is dedicated to the memory of Karl-Heinz Ohlig (1938-2024), friend and spiritual fellow traveler, both of us growing up in post-World War Koblenz, Germany. The paper will be presented at the Inarah Symposium in Trier, Germany, on May 3, 2024, and will be published in a future Inarah volume. In the course of my work on the book manuscript on Islamic origins I discovered the "Arabian Heresy," knowledge of which in my judgment is critical for the understanding Islam. Surprisingly, the role of this so-called heresy has remained largely unexplored in most Islamic scholarship.1 I caught a first glimpse of this "heresy" when I studied the Chronicle of Seert which dates to the ninth-eleventh century but cites excerpts from earlier authors. It mentions a synod of bishops of ca. 570-590 which condemned a doctrine according to which both body (jasad) and soul (nafs) are mortal but rise together in the Resurrection.2 No other document mentions this synod which-to judge from the context-was probably an East Syriac assembly in Mesopotamia.3 The doctrine, according to the Chronicle, was current already at the time of Origen (ca. 185-ca. 253) who sought to replace it with his "much worse" doctrine of the spirit (rūḥ)4 going (dakhala) from one body to another. The propagators of the doctrine of the mortal body and soul during Origen's time around 244-248 were Arab Christians in Roman Syria.5 Nothing is known about these Christians, but there is little doubt that their doctrine of the death of body and soul is rooted in the pre-exilic Hebraic tradition, which thus survived in the Near East with the update of a Christian Resurrection.6 Most Christian theologians in the 200s subscribed to what is called the anthropology of the immortal soul resting with Jesus or God after death and eventually reuniting with the old but transfigured body in the Resurrection, as envisioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.7 A century later, the-what one may call-"oblivion" doctrine of resurrection was still around on the popular level. Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 265-339) castigated it as a "strange doctrine" refuted by
