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2021
https://brill.com/view/journals/wdi/61/4/wdi.61.issue-4.xml
Die Welt des Islams
Introduction: Challenges from "The Periphery"? – Salafi Islam Outside the Arab World. Spotlights on Wider Asia2020 •
Co-authored with Philipp Bruckmayr (University of Vienna). This is a conceptual introduction to a special themed issue of Die Welt des Islams on Salafī Islam and Salafism outside the Arab World, with separate case studies on Azerbaijan, Cambodia, the Pashtun Borderland and Indonesia. In this introduction, the two guest-editors of this issue provide an up-to-date overview of the research on "Salafī Islam/Salafism", with a focus on the attempts to conceptualize and systematize the phenomena under investigation. A revised conceptual framework is proposed that is aimed at advancing the heuristics in this particular field of study.
Brill, Die Welt des Islams, International Journal for the Study of Modern Islam.
Review of Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh (eds.): Sufism East and West. Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019. 297 pp., ISBN 978-90-04-39391-2.2021 •
https://brill.com/view/journals/wdi/61/2/wdi.61.issue-2.xml
Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia Vol 24
Some New Readings of Chorasmian Inscriptions on Silver Vessels and Their Relevance to the Chorasmian Era2018 •
The article represents an attempt to read and analyze five of eleven inscriptions in Old Chorasmian language written in cursive Chorasmian script. These inscriptions are incised on silver vessels which were mostly found in the Kama region of the district of Perm in Russia. The article is divided into sections. Its first section presents a list of the material discussed and the status quaestionis of the article, introduces the variations of the Chorasmian script throughout time. The second section is devoted to the analysis of the words which are recurrent in the inscriptions and to the definition of the formular-ies used in the inscriptions under scrutiny. The third section provides tentative reading of inscriptions on five vessels kept in the Hermitage museum. It is here assumed that some of the Chorasmian inscriptions indicate that the vessels were votive offerings to Nanaia and probably to other deities. The fourth and last section of the paper focuses on the indications of weight attested on silver vessels and on the related chronology. It is shown that the value of the unit of weight (ZWZN /stēr/) on most of the vessels (c. 3,6-3,7 grams) corresponds to the silver standard weight used in the coinage of the Chorasmian king Shaushfarn and his less prominent predecessor Shyat. Consequently, it is assumed that the Chorasmian silver vessels were labeled and probably produced during Shaushfarn's reign about the mid-8th century AD. Since four inscriptions with indication of weight are dated according to the Chorasmian Era (years from 700 to 723(?) of this era), this observation supports the author's opinion that this indigenous era started towards the mid-1st century AD. FOR THE WHOLE TEXT PLEASE INQUIRE AUTHOR AT pavlvslvria(at)gmail.com
Stefanovich Petr S., "The Grand Retinue" Phenomenon in Northern and Eastern Europe in the 10-12th Centuries // Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia. Vol. 26 (2020), Issue 2, pp. 437-451
"The Grand Retinue" Phenomenon in Northern and Eastern Europe in the 10-12th Centuries2020 •
The author summarizes evidence of large professional armies in the service of the rulers of early medieval polities in Northern and Eastern Europe. Following František Graus, the author refers to that institution as “grand retinue” (Czech velkodružina, German Staatsgefolge). The rulers maintained these troops mainly by paying in cash collected as tribute from the populace. The late 10th-early 11th-century Poland and the “North Sea Empire” of Cnut the Great (1016-1035) provide the most compelling evidence on the grand retinue. In the 10-11th centuries Rus’, the princes also had armies of military servants, referred to as otroki (a Slavic word) or – more specifically – grid’ (term borrowed from Old Norse). Such troops played a major role during the emergence of the centralized political framework, but have disappeared or degenerated as early as the 12th century. Rus’ian records describe them as prosperous in the 11th century and show their decline during the 12-13th centuries. I interpret the Rus’ian “grand retinue” as an institution based on Scandinavian models, a result of the “transfer of knowledge” that occurred in Northern and Eastern Europe during the 10-11th centuries.
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Revenue Farming Reconsidered: Tenurial Rights and Tenurial Duties in Early Modern India, ca. 1556-18182018 •
The meaning of land revenue farming in Indian history has eluded consensus. Some view it as an administrative aberration indicating weak state control, while others see it as a strategy for consolidating authority. This essay traces the historical development of iqṭāʻ and ijārah, two Perso-Arabic terms frequently translated from the sources as ‘revenue farming estate’. I then suggest that existing perspectives do not capture the broader structure and significance of various entitlements to land revenue. Instead, I suggest that entitlements be schematized according to how regularized the right was, whether it was permanent, and how duty-bound the right holder was. In this formulation, revenue farm refers to a complex of rights and duties secured by contract in which a sovereign transferred the temporary exploitation of a holding for rent in ad- vance. It was one of four tenurial complexes under which entitlements fell, the others being estates from bureaucratic assignment, hereditary occupation or possession by grant/gift, and tributary or chieftaincy.
In the 19th century, Turcophone communities of the Ottoman Empire displayed a keen interest in European fiction. This study questions whether translating European works was simply linguistic substitution or rather had intrinsic dimensions such as cultural appropriation. It also investigates the reciprocity of literary production, and offers some observations on how translation influences and inspires " the making of literature ". The methods used are mainly based on statistical interpretation of bibliographic data and comparative sociological analysis. Turkish works printed in Arabic, Armenian and Greek alphabets are the objects of investigation. The findings demonstrate that translation in the Ottoman mind is actually an active literary appropriation primarily due to differences in the criterion of " modern fiction " from European standards where the differences are exaggerated by the Ottoman notion of translation, lending the translator liberating space and opportunity to interfere with the original text. Moreover, the inter-mingling between the oral and print cultures that obscures the definition of literary genres adds another level of complexity. It is also revealed that the millets of the Empire affected each other's choice and taste resulting in a web of interactions that exhibit the literary market and literary " canon " of the period.
This is a draft of the article. To cite, please use the following details: Piela, Anna (2015) Online Islamic Spaces as Communities of Practice for Female Muslim Converts Who Wear the Niqab. Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World, Volume 13, Issue 3, pp. 363 –382. This article focuses on online narratives of female converts to Islam who wear or plan to wear the niqab. There is little discussion in research literature about motivations leading to adoption of the niqab or experiences of women who wear it. Instead, the discourse on niqab has been sensationalised by tabloid media which construct it as a symbol of otherness and separation from the host culture and, recently, one of radicalisation. This begs the question: why are some converts drawn to it despite negative reactions to the niqab by some Muslims and non-Muslims. Using a mix of narrative analysis and grounded theorising, I examine online discussions in which converted women argue why they wish to wear the niqab, often in contradiction to other Muslims’ views. I draw from Rambo’s conversion model (1993) and Lave and Wenger’s concept of communities of practice to illuminate the process whereby participants learn about Islam and the niqab through social interaction. Keywords: niqab, conversion, Internet, online forums, gender
Zoltan Szombathy
Serena Tolino
Bettina Gräf
Rainer Brunner