Books by Antonia Bosanquet
Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, 2020
Summary of the views of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya on the conversion of one spouse to Islam while mar... more Summary of the views of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya on the conversion of one spouse to Islam while married to a Jew or a Christian.
Minding their Place: Space and Religious Hierarchy in Ibn al-Qayyim's Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma, 2020
Minding Their Place is the first full-length study of Ibn al-Qayyim’s (d. 751/1350) collection of... more Minding Their Place is the first full-length study of Ibn al-Qayyim’s (d. 751/1350) collection of rulings relating to non-Muslim subjects, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma. It offers a detailed study of the structure, content and authorial method of the work, arguing that it represents the author’s personal composition rather than a synthesis of medieval rulings, as it has often been understood. On this basis, Antonia Bosanquet analyses how Ibn al-Qayyim’s presentation of rulings in Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma uses space to convey his view of religious hierarchy. She considers his answer to the question of whether non-Muslims have a place in the Abode of Islam, how this is defined and how his definition contributes to Ibn al-Qayyim’s broader theological world-view.
Masters thesis, 2012
Masters thesis, published 2012.
Muḥammad Quṭb (b. 1919) is the younger brother of the Islamist i... more Masters thesis, published 2012.
Muḥammad Quṭb (b. 1919) is the younger brother of the Islamist ideologue Saiyid Quṭb. Despite his popularity as a writer and thinker in the Islamic world and his influence on the interpretation of the teaching of his brother, his work has received little attention from western scholars. This study examines his thought by focussing on his theory of feminism as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Islam and the need to counter the threat in order to bring about the rebirth of the religion. It also shows how he develops the teaching of Saiyid Quṭb as well as introducing new concepts not found in the work of his brother.
Book Reviews by Antonia Bosanquet
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 2013
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 2015
Review of M. Hassan Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others. The Salvation Question and Between Heav... more Review of M. Hassan Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others. The Salvation Question and Between Heaven and Hell and Islam, Salvation and the Fate of Others. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 74: 2, 392-394
Papers by Antonia Bosanquet
Religions Journal: Continuing Tradition? Sacralization Practices in the Early Islamicate West and the Influence of Late Antiquity (special issue), 2023
What was ribat in early Islamic Ifriqiya and what was its primary function? The answer often diff... more What was ribat in early Islamic Ifriqiya and what was its primary function? The answer often differs depending on the sources that are used, and whether they focus on the building or the institution more generally. Rather than approaching the question through either of these aspects, this
study will consider the expectations, reflected in textual sources, about the behavior of the murabitun, or the men who inhabited them. Analyzing expectations about the character of the murabitun and the
activities carried out in the ribat offers an insight into how the writer of the text viewed the institution, including its function and significance in early Islamic society. By comparing the expectations reflected in various texts, it is also possible to recognize different views of the ribat building and
institution and to relate these to the historical context or the perspective of the writer. The analysis in this study will focus on the ribat in the Ifriqiyan tradition but will relate some of the developments to the significance of the institution in the wider Islamic Empire and its intellectual tradition.
Religions Journal, 2023
This volume focuses on social-cultural practices that were used to assert or increase the sacral... more This volume focuses on social-cultural practices that were used to assert or increase the sacral significance of a particular space. The term practice is used here to refer to rituals, particularly the visual, audible and olfactory impact of these on their surroundings, and to the commemoration of persons and deeds through material culture, literature and liturgy. Rather than the legend, person or act to which the sacrality of a place is “attributed”, the articles in this volume analyze what processes contributed to the creation of sacrality and how these invoked the attention of participants. For example, how was the construction of a shrine over the grave of an Islamic martyr or religious scholar related to procession or visitation rituals to this shrine and what material, sensory or intellectual devices were drawn on to heighten the religious significance of the rituals and the shrine?
The geographical scope encompasses urban spaces broadly within the Islamicate West (defined here as extending from today’s Libya to the Atlantic and the Iberian Peninsula). The historical focus is the early Islamic period and the period of late Antiquity preceding and overlapping this. The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring new insights to the study of sacrality and topography by examining how the process of imbuing a space with religious significance interacted with existing memories of sacrality, as well as notions of divine choice that were associated specifically with the religious tradition in question.
Entangled Religions: Muslim Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations, 2022
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) was a well-known theologian and jurist who lived in Mamluk D... more Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) was a well-known theologian and jurist who lived in Mamluk Damascus. He wrote on a variety of topics and his writing has retained, or acquired, relevance for many Muslim readers today. Amongst his works is a legal compendium dedicated to Jews and Christians living under Islamic rule, entitled Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma. Although most of the rulings in Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma focus on relations between non-Muslims and Muslims, or Muslim society, Ibn al-Qayyim also discusses the question of Christian-Jewish marriage and the identity of a child born to a Christian-Jewish couple. This article analyses his teaching on both questions and relates it to the wider intellectual and historical-social context. It argues that Ibn al-Qayyim uses the question of inter-religious marriage and children's religious identity to develop ideas about the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam and to link these to the political status of Jews and Christians in his own historical and social context.
Der Islam, 2023
This special issue arose out of a conference hosted by the RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empi... more This special issue arose out of a conference hosted by the RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies (Universität Hamburg) in March 2021. The conference, entitled "The Umayyads from West to East: New Perspectives" focused on intra-Empire comparison between the Umayyads of the West and the East and on the relevance of various Roman and Late Antique contexts to the conceptualization of Umayyad rule. However, the lens through which most contributors chose to analyze this question, and a recurring topic in the subsequent discussions, was the relevance of transregional Umayyad memory, particularly from the perspective of the Islamic West. The entries in this volume are grouped around this focus, examining different ways in which transregional Umayyad memories influenced, and were influenced by, the culture of the Islamic West.
Der Islam, 2023
In 122/740 an uprising in the Far Maghrib triggered a series of rebellions that eventually ended ... more In 122/740 an uprising in the Far Maghrib triggered a series of rebellions that eventually ended Arab rule over the Islamic West. The event is not of key importance for the historians of the Islamic Empire, and when it is discussed, the focus tends to lie on the uprising's significance for Arab rule in al-Andalus rather than the Maghrib. This study compares the most detailed accounts of the Uprising of 122 by early imperial historians such as al-Ṭabarī and Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam with those of later historians writing in the heartland of the Islamic Empire, such as Ibn al-Athīr and al-Dhahabī, and of historians situated further west, in al-Andalus and the Maghrib. It finds that the presentation of the Uprising of 122 varies depending on the historical context of and the source tradition used by the author in question. It also finds that while the Umayyad and Khārijite actors tend to be presented with a degree of differentiation and from a variety of perspectives, the portrayal of the rebels is more uniform. The rebels, referred to as Berbers in all accounts, are depicted as a monolithic entity displaying a stereotypical set of characteristics that sets them apart from notions of order and propriety that the authors associate with the Islamic Empire. Although its consequences for Arab rule in the West are not explicitly acknowledged by the historians, this comparison of how they depict its actors reveals the Uprising's impact on the historical consciousness, particularly in regard to the inhabitants of the seceded region.
Der Islam, 2023
This special issue arose out of a conference hosted by the RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empi... more This special issue arose out of a conference hosted by the RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies (Universität Hamburg) in March 2021, entitled “The Umayyads from West to East: New Perspectives”. The papers focus on transregional Umayyad memory, particularly from the perspective of the Islamic West. The entries in this volume examine different ways in which transregional Umayyad memories influenced, and were influenced by, the culture of the Islamic West.
Medieval Worlds, 2022
Although maritime trade along the coast of 4th/10th-century Ifrīqiya has been studied in some det... more Although maritime trade along the coast of 4th/10th-century Ifrīqiya has been studied in some detail, less is known about its development in the 3rd/9th century, when the province was under Aghlabid rule. This is partly due to the nature of the information contained in the Arabic historical and geographical sources on which many studies rely. This paper argues that legal texts are an additional source that can expand our knowledge of trade practices in 3rd/9th-century Ifrīqiya and assist our interpretation of the information contained in historical and geographical sources. Using the information given in the legal sources, it offers new findings about maritime trade in 3rd/9th-century Ifrīqiya and argues that the period of Aghlabid rule was key to the economic development of the province.
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 2021
This article reviews the changing reception of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) Aḥkām ahl a... more This article reviews the changing reception of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma between the fourteenth century and modern times. I argue that the book had little influence on legal discourse about Christian and Jewish subjects under Muslim rule when it was written and during the following centuries. However, after the publication of a printed edition in 1961 and particularly from the 1990s, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma has become an important resource for discussions of non-Muslim minorities in a Muslim state. I attribute the altered reception to a number of factors, including the now changed status of the author and the Ḥanbalite school to which he belonged, and the new relationship between the character of the book and the expectations of its readers. Consideration of the trajectory of Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century is revealing for the insights that it offers into the changing status of Ibn al-Qayyim and the Ḥanbalite legal tradition, and the approach to non-Muslim subjecthood in Islamic legal discourse. It should also encourage caution when using this book as a source for understanding the social or legal history of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the fourteenth century.
Die Welt des Islams, 2021
Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma is a book of regulations about Christian and Jewish subjects of Islamic rule,... more Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma is a book of regulations about Christian and Jewish subjects of Islamic rule, written by the Ḥanbalī jurist and theologian Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350). It is an important resource for historical studies of non-Muslim minorities in the Mamluk period and is often cited as a normative text in present-day Muslim discussions about Muslim-non-Muslim relations. This article gives an insight into the history of the only surviving manuscript of Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma and the unusual process by which the first printed edition was compiled. It shows that the movement of the manuscript was largely a result of Ibn Taymiyya’s and Ibn al-Qayyim’s more general popularity in specific geographic regions than the authority of the text itself, and that individuals’ religious-intellectual interests were decisive for the publication of a printed edition in 1961. It also shows that the unusual editing process impacted on the reliability of the printed editions available today, the majority of which are financed by Saudi institutions.
Conversion to Islam in the Classical Period : A Sourcebook (ed. Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn, Luke Yarbrough), 2020
Conversion to Islam is a phenomenon of immense significance in human history. At the outset of Is... more Conversion to Islam is a phenomenon of immense significance in human history. At the outset of Islamic rule in the seventh century, Muslims constituted a tiny minority in most areas under their control. But by the beginning of the modern period, they formed the majority in most territories from North Africa to Southeast Asia. Across such diverse lands, peoples, and time periods, conversion was a complex, varied phenomenon. Converts lived in a world of overlapping and competing religious, cultural, social, and familial affiliations, and the effects of turning to Islam played out in every aspect of life. Conversion therefore provides a critical lens for world history, magnifying the constantly evolving array of beliefs, practices, and outlooks that constitute Islam around the globe. This groundbreaking collection of texts, translated from sources in a dozen languages from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries, presents the historical process of conversion to Islam in all its variety and unruly detail, through the eyes of both Muslim and non-Muslim observers.
Islamic Law and Society, 2019
This essay analyzes Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) teaching about the legal options open ... more This essay analyzes Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) teaching about the legal options open to a woman who converts to Islam while married to a Jewish or Christian husband. I argue that Ibn al-Qayyim’s preferred position is unusual for the eighth/fourteenth century in which he wrote, although it may derive from Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/ 1328) teaching on the subject. In order to contextualize Ibn al-Qayyim’s view, I summarize the variety of approaches to single-spouse conversion that dominated in the first century AH, and the broad consensus on the topic that developed after this. Although female conversion to Islam has received some attention in historical studies, there has been less focus on the legal discourse surrounding this question. The essay seeks to contribute to this discussion.
The question of Ifrīqiya’s economic and cultural integration into the ʿAbbāsid Empire, and the Is... more The question of Ifrīqiya’s economic and cultural integration into the ʿAbbāsid Empire, and the Islamic realm beyond this, has received increasing attention in recent years. However, most of the research has been undertaken by art historians and archaeologists, who have analysed technical and artistic developments in material culture to draw conclusions about artisan mobility, economic exchange and cultural influence in the ninth and tenth centuries.
This paper takes the findings of material culture into account butdraws primarily on textual sources to trace the evolution of trade centres throughout the province of Ifrīqiya. It examines the representation of specific towns as trade hubs in geographical texts between the eighth and the twelfth centuries, thus covering the period before and after the province’s loyalty to the ʿAbbāsid Empire. The changing portrayals of the economic significance of these places is analysed in relation to a number of factors, including the trade routes throughout the region, political and economic relationships, and agricultural and industrial production for local or non-local markets. The relation of these towns to the trade networks and junctions of antiquity is also considered, as part of the larger question of how far the Arab conquest realigned the political-economic axis of North Africa away from a north-south focus and towards a more east-west alignment.
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Books by Antonia Bosanquet
Muḥammad Quṭb (b. 1919) is the younger brother of the Islamist ideologue Saiyid Quṭb. Despite his popularity as a writer and thinker in the Islamic world and his influence on the interpretation of the teaching of his brother, his work has received little attention from western scholars. This study examines his thought by focussing on his theory of feminism as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Islam and the need to counter the threat in order to bring about the rebirth of the religion. It also shows how he develops the teaching of Saiyid Quṭb as well as introducing new concepts not found in the work of his brother.
Book Reviews by Antonia Bosanquet
Papers by Antonia Bosanquet
study will consider the expectations, reflected in textual sources, about the behavior of the murabitun, or the men who inhabited them. Analyzing expectations about the character of the murabitun and the
activities carried out in the ribat offers an insight into how the writer of the text viewed the institution, including its function and significance in early Islamic society. By comparing the expectations reflected in various texts, it is also possible to recognize different views of the ribat building and
institution and to relate these to the historical context or the perspective of the writer. The analysis in this study will focus on the ribat in the Ifriqiyan tradition but will relate some of the developments to the significance of the institution in the wider Islamic Empire and its intellectual tradition.
The geographical scope encompasses urban spaces broadly within the Islamicate West (defined here as extending from today’s Libya to the Atlantic and the Iberian Peninsula). The historical focus is the early Islamic period and the period of late Antiquity preceding and overlapping this. The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring new insights to the study of sacrality and topography by examining how the process of imbuing a space with religious significance interacted with existing memories of sacrality, as well as notions of divine choice that were associated specifically with the religious tradition in question.
This paper takes the findings of material culture into account butdraws primarily on textual sources to trace the evolution of trade centres throughout the province of Ifrīqiya. It examines the representation of specific towns as trade hubs in geographical texts between the eighth and the twelfth centuries, thus covering the period before and after the province’s loyalty to the ʿAbbāsid Empire. The changing portrayals of the economic significance of these places is analysed in relation to a number of factors, including the trade routes throughout the region, political and economic relationships, and agricultural and industrial production for local or non-local markets. The relation of these towns to the trade networks and junctions of antiquity is also considered, as part of the larger question of how far the Arab conquest realigned the political-economic axis of North Africa away from a north-south focus and towards a more east-west alignment.
Muḥammad Quṭb (b. 1919) is the younger brother of the Islamist ideologue Saiyid Quṭb. Despite his popularity as a writer and thinker in the Islamic world and his influence on the interpretation of the teaching of his brother, his work has received little attention from western scholars. This study examines his thought by focussing on his theory of feminism as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Islam and the need to counter the threat in order to bring about the rebirth of the religion. It also shows how he develops the teaching of Saiyid Quṭb as well as introducing new concepts not found in the work of his brother.
study will consider the expectations, reflected in textual sources, about the behavior of the murabitun, or the men who inhabited them. Analyzing expectations about the character of the murabitun and the
activities carried out in the ribat offers an insight into how the writer of the text viewed the institution, including its function and significance in early Islamic society. By comparing the expectations reflected in various texts, it is also possible to recognize different views of the ribat building and
institution and to relate these to the historical context or the perspective of the writer. The analysis in this study will focus on the ribat in the Ifriqiyan tradition but will relate some of the developments to the significance of the institution in the wider Islamic Empire and its intellectual tradition.
The geographical scope encompasses urban spaces broadly within the Islamicate West (defined here as extending from today’s Libya to the Atlantic and the Iberian Peninsula). The historical focus is the early Islamic period and the period of late Antiquity preceding and overlapping this. The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring new insights to the study of sacrality and topography by examining how the process of imbuing a space with religious significance interacted with existing memories of sacrality, as well as notions of divine choice that were associated specifically with the religious tradition in question.
This paper takes the findings of material culture into account butdraws primarily on textual sources to trace the evolution of trade centres throughout the province of Ifrīqiya. It examines the representation of specific towns as trade hubs in geographical texts between the eighth and the twelfth centuries, thus covering the period before and after the province’s loyalty to the ʿAbbāsid Empire. The changing portrayals of the economic significance of these places is analysed in relation to a number of factors, including the trade routes throughout the region, political and economic relationships, and agricultural and industrial production for local or non-local markets. The relation of these towns to the trade networks and junctions of antiquity is also considered, as part of the larger question of how far the Arab conquest realigned the political-economic axis of North Africa away from a north-south focus and towards a more east-west alignment.
Antonia Bosanquet, University of Hamburg
In a well-known anecdote recounted by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, the Arab conquerors of the region that came to be called Ifrīqiya are told by its inhabitants that olives are their main source of wealth. Olive oil, they tell him, is sold across the Mediterranean in exchange for gold and silver. However, historians and geographers describing the region three centuries later make almost no reference to Mediterranean purchase of olive oil, although Ifrīqiya is now cited as the main supplier of olive oil for Egypt.
This paper examines the shift in trade patterns in Ifrīqiya between the early Arab conquest and the end of Aghlabid rule. I consider how trade routes, markets and areas of agricultural production developed in response to the changing political power structures and economic relations. The main sources for my investigation are the texts of Arab geographers and the legal texts of the ninth and tenth century. The information that these texts offer on the changing trade patterns between the ninth and the eleventh century can be related to broader questions about Ifrīqiya’s relation to the rest of the ʿAbbāsid Empire and the social and economic reorientation of North Africa following the Arab conquest.
widely read authors of the Islamic world. Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma is a collection of rulings (aḥkām) relating to the Jews and Christians living as protected subjects (ahl al-dhimma) of the Abode of Islam. My thesis begins with an introduction to the book, including a short history of the manuscript and printed editions and an overview of the work’s content, structure and authorial method. The overview is based on the premise that, although also a compendium of legal rulings, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma should primarily be seen as conveying Ibn al-Qayyim’s personal argument about the place that the Jew or Christian should occupy in the Abode of Islam.
In addition to situating Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma in its historical and intellectual context, this study examines the content of the work through the analytical category of space, and the relation of space to religious difference. It analyses Ibn al-Qayyim's division of the Abode of Islam into spaces that are exclusive to Muslims or non-Muslims and spaces that may be accessed by all religious groups. A further question is how Ibn al-Qayyim's teaching about the use of space reflect concepts of identity, power and religious supremacy.
My analysis of these questions is assisted by the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre and Martina Löw, and by the insights of Frederik Barth on the construction and role of boundaries as a means to identity formation.
The RomanIslam Center, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), looks from a comparative perspective at empires and transcultural processes with a focus on North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.