يتناول هذا الكتاب المرحلة التأسيسية المبكرة من تاريخ النقشبندية ويعرض الجدل الذي دار حول العديد ... more يتناول هذا الكتاب المرحلة التأسيسية المبكرة من تاريخ النقشبندية ويعرض الجدل الذي دار حول العديد من المسائل مثل الذكر الصامت والذكر الجهري، الرابطة، الخانقاه، الالتزام بشيخ واحد...
This 1998 booklet studies the development in the early Naqshbandiyya (early 15th century). It ask... more This 1998 booklet studies the development in the early Naqshbandiyya (early 15th century). It asks whether a link can be established between organizational and doctrinal questions. Concerning ritual practice, the techniques of dhikr, rabita, and khalwat are studied, in organization, the shaykh-murid relationship, the khanaqah and the construction of the silsila.
This 1994 study - a paper rather than a true monograph - describes the evolution of the Samanid ... more This 1994 study - a paper rather than a true monograph - describes the evolution of the Samanid military system from an army based largely on volunteers and on drafted men from the countryside to a more professional army with a core of slave soldiers.
Rulers as Authors in the Islamic World. Knowledge, Authority and Legitimacy. Ed. Maribel Fierro, Sonja Brentjes and Tilman Seidensticker. Leiden: Brill, 2024
Analysis of quatrains attributed to the Khwarazmshahs of the Anushteginid dynasty.
Wissenskulturen muslimischer Gesellschaften: philosophische und islamwissenschaftliche Zugänge. Festschrift für Anke von Kügelgen. Ed. Kata Moser and Serena Tolino. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023
A comparative study of conversion narratives from Central Asia. City histories (Bukhara, Samarqan... more A comparative study of conversion narratives from Central Asia. City histories (Bukhara, Samarqand, Balkh and others) are the main sources.
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1991
This 1991 paper is about landholding and systems of patronage as developed by the Naqshbandi shay... more This 1991 paper is about landholding and systems of patronage as developed by the Naqshbandi shaykh Ubaidallah Ahrar in the late 15th century.
Personal Manuscripts: Copying, Drafting, Taking Notes. Ed. David Durand-Guédy and Jürgen Paul. Berlin (de Gruyter), 2023
Ǧung manuscripts from Muslim Central Asia are comparatively numerous, but have not, as yet, been ... more Ǧung manuscripts from Muslim Central Asia are comparatively numerous, but have not, as yet, been studied in sufficient numbers. In this contribution, two such manuscripts are presented, the thesis being that ǧung manuscripts differ strongly among themselves. The two under scrutiny here are personal notebooks containing a great deal of legal content (due to their compilers being active in the judiciary), but many other texts and notes. The latter content refers to the professional and social activities of muftis and qadis outside the judiciary. These and many other ǧung manuscripts contain compilations of legal texts, excerpts, quotes, and drafts of original documents, but these collections have been made within notebooks and thus in manuscripts written in the compiler's own hand and for his own use.
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2021
Comments on Petrushevskii's study on the "soiurgal", a kind of conditional landholding, and analy... more Comments on Petrushevskii's study on the "soiurgal", a kind of conditional landholding, and analyzes its impact on scholarly work in Russian, English, German, French, Japanese and Turkish.
Eren Tasar, Allen J. Frank, Jeff Eden (eds.), From the Khan's Oven. Studies on the History of Central Asian Religions in Honor of Devin DeWeese, 2022
Out of the sources relevant for the history of Central Asia after the Mongols, from the 13th cent... more Out of the sources relevant for the history of Central Asia after the Mongols, from the 13th century to the 19th and beyond, and in particular as far as the history of organized Sufism goes, there cannot be many which Devin DeWeese has not seen and worked with.* But there may be shades of intensity. One of the literary genres which perhaps have not succeeded in drawing his attention is the compilation of drafts, models, copies and so forth of official documents and correspondence which often go together with texts of a more private character, the inshāʾ collections. They are well-known for the pre-Mongol period and in fact, they form one of the most important types of non-narrative sources for the Seljuq and Khwārazmian periods, largely the long 12th century, and for Mongol rule in Iran as well.1 But there are a number of collections produced in Transoxiana during the sixteenth and later centuries. One of the manuscripts which would certainly merit more attention is kept at St. Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, under the shelf number A-210. It has been described in the Short Catalog produced by Miklukho-Maklai long ago, but remains underused.2 In the catalog, it is described as "a collection of official documents and private correspondence as well as of specimens for the editing of the latter", and we are also told that the manuscript includes excerpts from earlier, Timurid, compilations of inshāʾ, and in particular the Nāma-yi nāmī made by Khwāndamīr and the Ruqaʿāt of Jāmī.3 I have myself given a brief outline of the manu
Himaya is one of the words Arabic has for "protection". The article discusses the famous 1956 art... more Himaya is one of the words Arabic has for "protection". The article discusses the famous 1956 article by Claude Cahen and goes beyond it in several ways.
Exploring Written Artefacts. Objects, Methods, and Concepts. Edited by Jörg Quenzer. Berlin (de Gruyter) 2021, 563-581, 2021
Among the personal notebooks from nineteenth-century Central Asia, the manuscript NLR PNS 561 (Na... more Among the personal notebooks from nineteenth-century Central Asia, the manuscript NLR PNS 561 (National Library of Russia, Persian-New Series), kept at Saint Petersburg, occupies a special position. It is a multilayered manuscript with two main layers from the 1870s and the 1920s-1930s, respectively. In the second layer in particular, the manuscript is both a multi-script and a multigraphic artifact. Some parts of this layer are quite likely autographs of a leading Bukharan intellectual, Abdarrauf Fitrat (1885-1938). This paper is a detailed description of the manuscript that also assesses the ascription of discrete manuscript sections to Fitrat as autographs.
Charles Melville (ed.), Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1999
Published in 1999, this short paper is a brief discussion of three manuscripts containing letters... more Published in 1999, this short paper is a brief discussion of three manuscripts containing letters written by the Juvayni brothers, Shams al-Din Muhammad and Ata Malik.
The Cambridge World History of Violence, vol. 2, edited by Matthew Gordon, Richard Kaeuper, Harriet Zurndorfer, 2020
A brief study of certain aspects of violence and violent behaviour in medieval Iran off the battl... more A brief study of certain aspects of violence and violent behaviour in medieval Iran off the battlefield.
Transregional and Regional Elites - Connecting the Early Islamic Empire, Hannah-Lena Hagemann, Stefan Heidemann (eds), 117-146, 2020
Taking a passage inal-Iṣṭakhrī as its starting point, this paper presents the Fārs rural elites c... more Taking a passage inal-Iṣṭakhrī as its starting point, this paper presents the Fārs rural elites called mulūk and ahl al-buyūtāt. It argues that these families weret he dominant influencei nt he province, controlling manys ources of revenue (includingo verseas trade routes and agricultural taxes).The main bodyo f the paper is as tudyo fo ne representative of such af amily, Muḥammadb. W ā ṣ il al-Ḥanẓalī al-Tamīmī.H is pedigree can be traced for moret han four centuries , from earlyI slamic times to the 11 th century.F inally, the paper discusses earlier scholarship on this figure, showing serious misrepresentations.
Entscheiden und Regieren. Konsens als Element vormoderner Entscheidungsfindung in transkultureller Perspektive. Ed. Linda Dohmen and Tilmann Trausch, 2019
A brief look at the culture and practices of giving and taking advice in Seljuq Iran.
Florian Zemmin, Johannes Stephan and Monica Corrado (eds): Islam in der Moderne, Moderne im Islam. Eine Festschrift für Reinhard Schulze zum 65. Geburtstag. Leiden (Brill)., 2018
This article takes a look at a very influential article published by Carl Heinrich Becker in 1914... more This article takes a look at a very influential article published by Carl Heinrich Becker in 1914. It identifies Becker's sources and tracks some of its impact. The article also tries to embed Becker's study into the broader context.
يتناول هذا الكتاب المرحلة التأسيسية المبكرة من تاريخ النقشبندية ويعرض الجدل الذي دار حول العديد ... more يتناول هذا الكتاب المرحلة التأسيسية المبكرة من تاريخ النقشبندية ويعرض الجدل الذي دار حول العديد من المسائل مثل الذكر الصامت والذكر الجهري، الرابطة، الخانقاه، الالتزام بشيخ واحد...
This 1998 booklet studies the development in the early Naqshbandiyya (early 15th century). It ask... more This 1998 booklet studies the development in the early Naqshbandiyya (early 15th century). It asks whether a link can be established between organizational and doctrinal questions. Concerning ritual practice, the techniques of dhikr, rabita, and khalwat are studied, in organization, the shaykh-murid relationship, the khanaqah and the construction of the silsila.
This 1994 study - a paper rather than a true monograph - describes the evolution of the Samanid ... more This 1994 study - a paper rather than a true monograph - describes the evolution of the Samanid military system from an army based largely on volunteers and on drafted men from the countryside to a more professional army with a core of slave soldiers.
Rulers as Authors in the Islamic World. Knowledge, Authority and Legitimacy. Ed. Maribel Fierro, Sonja Brentjes and Tilman Seidensticker. Leiden: Brill, 2024
Analysis of quatrains attributed to the Khwarazmshahs of the Anushteginid dynasty.
Wissenskulturen muslimischer Gesellschaften: philosophische und islamwissenschaftliche Zugänge. Festschrift für Anke von Kügelgen. Ed. Kata Moser and Serena Tolino. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023
A comparative study of conversion narratives from Central Asia. City histories (Bukhara, Samarqan... more A comparative study of conversion narratives from Central Asia. City histories (Bukhara, Samarqand, Balkh and others) are the main sources.
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1991
This 1991 paper is about landholding and systems of patronage as developed by the Naqshbandi shay... more This 1991 paper is about landholding and systems of patronage as developed by the Naqshbandi shaykh Ubaidallah Ahrar in the late 15th century.
Personal Manuscripts: Copying, Drafting, Taking Notes. Ed. David Durand-Guédy and Jürgen Paul. Berlin (de Gruyter), 2023
Ǧung manuscripts from Muslim Central Asia are comparatively numerous, but have not, as yet, been ... more Ǧung manuscripts from Muslim Central Asia are comparatively numerous, but have not, as yet, been studied in sufficient numbers. In this contribution, two such manuscripts are presented, the thesis being that ǧung manuscripts differ strongly among themselves. The two under scrutiny here are personal notebooks containing a great deal of legal content (due to their compilers being active in the judiciary), but many other texts and notes. The latter content refers to the professional and social activities of muftis and qadis outside the judiciary. These and many other ǧung manuscripts contain compilations of legal texts, excerpts, quotes, and drafts of original documents, but these collections have been made within notebooks and thus in manuscripts written in the compiler's own hand and for his own use.
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2021
Comments on Petrushevskii's study on the "soiurgal", a kind of conditional landholding, and analy... more Comments on Petrushevskii's study on the "soiurgal", a kind of conditional landholding, and analyzes its impact on scholarly work in Russian, English, German, French, Japanese and Turkish.
Eren Tasar, Allen J. Frank, Jeff Eden (eds.), From the Khan's Oven. Studies on the History of Central Asian Religions in Honor of Devin DeWeese, 2022
Out of the sources relevant for the history of Central Asia after the Mongols, from the 13th cent... more Out of the sources relevant for the history of Central Asia after the Mongols, from the 13th century to the 19th and beyond, and in particular as far as the history of organized Sufism goes, there cannot be many which Devin DeWeese has not seen and worked with.* But there may be shades of intensity. One of the literary genres which perhaps have not succeeded in drawing his attention is the compilation of drafts, models, copies and so forth of official documents and correspondence which often go together with texts of a more private character, the inshāʾ collections. They are well-known for the pre-Mongol period and in fact, they form one of the most important types of non-narrative sources for the Seljuq and Khwārazmian periods, largely the long 12th century, and for Mongol rule in Iran as well.1 But there are a number of collections produced in Transoxiana during the sixteenth and later centuries. One of the manuscripts which would certainly merit more attention is kept at St. Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, under the shelf number A-210. It has been described in the Short Catalog produced by Miklukho-Maklai long ago, but remains underused.2 In the catalog, it is described as "a collection of official documents and private correspondence as well as of specimens for the editing of the latter", and we are also told that the manuscript includes excerpts from earlier, Timurid, compilations of inshāʾ, and in particular the Nāma-yi nāmī made by Khwāndamīr and the Ruqaʿāt of Jāmī.3 I have myself given a brief outline of the manu
Himaya is one of the words Arabic has for "protection". The article discusses the famous 1956 art... more Himaya is one of the words Arabic has for "protection". The article discusses the famous 1956 article by Claude Cahen and goes beyond it in several ways.
Exploring Written Artefacts. Objects, Methods, and Concepts. Edited by Jörg Quenzer. Berlin (de Gruyter) 2021, 563-581, 2021
Among the personal notebooks from nineteenth-century Central Asia, the manuscript NLR PNS 561 (Na... more Among the personal notebooks from nineteenth-century Central Asia, the manuscript NLR PNS 561 (National Library of Russia, Persian-New Series), kept at Saint Petersburg, occupies a special position. It is a multilayered manuscript with two main layers from the 1870s and the 1920s-1930s, respectively. In the second layer in particular, the manuscript is both a multi-script and a multigraphic artifact. Some parts of this layer are quite likely autographs of a leading Bukharan intellectual, Abdarrauf Fitrat (1885-1938). This paper is a detailed description of the manuscript that also assesses the ascription of discrete manuscript sections to Fitrat as autographs.
Charles Melville (ed.), Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1999
Published in 1999, this short paper is a brief discussion of three manuscripts containing letters... more Published in 1999, this short paper is a brief discussion of three manuscripts containing letters written by the Juvayni brothers, Shams al-Din Muhammad and Ata Malik.
The Cambridge World History of Violence, vol. 2, edited by Matthew Gordon, Richard Kaeuper, Harriet Zurndorfer, 2020
A brief study of certain aspects of violence and violent behaviour in medieval Iran off the battl... more A brief study of certain aspects of violence and violent behaviour in medieval Iran off the battlefield.
Transregional and Regional Elites - Connecting the Early Islamic Empire, Hannah-Lena Hagemann, Stefan Heidemann (eds), 117-146, 2020
Taking a passage inal-Iṣṭakhrī as its starting point, this paper presents the Fārs rural elites c... more Taking a passage inal-Iṣṭakhrī as its starting point, this paper presents the Fārs rural elites called mulūk and ahl al-buyūtāt. It argues that these families weret he dominant influencei nt he province, controlling manys ources of revenue (includingo verseas trade routes and agricultural taxes).The main bodyo f the paper is as tudyo fo ne representative of such af amily, Muḥammadb. W ā ṣ il al-Ḥanẓalī al-Tamīmī.H is pedigree can be traced for moret han four centuries , from earlyI slamic times to the 11 th century.F inally, the paper discusses earlier scholarship on this figure, showing serious misrepresentations.
Entscheiden und Regieren. Konsens als Element vormoderner Entscheidungsfindung in transkultureller Perspektive. Ed. Linda Dohmen and Tilmann Trausch, 2019
A brief look at the culture and practices of giving and taking advice in Seljuq Iran.
Florian Zemmin, Johannes Stephan and Monica Corrado (eds): Islam in der Moderne, Moderne im Islam. Eine Festschrift für Reinhard Schulze zum 65. Geburtstag. Leiden (Brill)., 2018
This article takes a look at a very influential article published by Carl Heinrich Becker in 1914... more This article takes a look at a very influential article published by Carl Heinrich Becker in 1914. It identifies Becker's sources and tracks some of its impact. The article also tries to embed Becker's study into the broader context.
The current article deals with the forms of local rule at Balkh in the Seljuq and post-Seljuq per... more The current article deals with the forms of local rule at Balkh in the Seljuq and post-Seljuq period up to the Mongol invasion. At all times we observe relatively high degrees of regional autonomy, in which local rulers were far more than "governors". Balkh was a regional state, or "minimal beylik", at times included within larger imperial structures and at others continuing more on its own. Military manpower was frequently provided by Turkish nomads (Ghuzz), who are seen throughout the period as a powerful regional force. Urban notables (aʿyān) played a decisive role in local rule, in particular the qadis, who judged according to sharia rules, and the raʾīs, in charge of fiscal and administrative affairs. Besides these office holders the sayyids must also have been important , alongside other Muslim scholars, mostly Hanafi. Balkh therefore is another example for the amīr-aʿyān system, as has been described in detail for other Iranian cities of the Seljuq period. In the post-Seljuq era the situation continues but becomes more unstable. Hereditary lines of emirs emerge again and again, but the sources do not offer a clear picture of the chronological and prosopographic details. The paper draws on general historiography, the extant city history and other narrative and non-narrative sources, as well as numismatic evidence.
English translation of Aubin's 1970 article "Eléments pour l'étude des agglomérations urbaines da... more English translation of Aubin's 1970 article "Eléments pour l'étude des agglomérations urbaines dans l'Iran médiéval" with short introduction and some comments. Aubin's article outlines a research agenda which is still very much up-to-date.
Alptegin (d. 352/963), a military slave commander under the later Sāmānids, is also reported to b... more Alptegin (d. 352/963), a military slave commander under the later Sāmānids, is also reported to be the founder of the Ghaznavid state. In this article, narratives about him are analyzed in two parts: first, the reports about him in the earlier sources are examined, and in the second part, the focus is on the Alptegin stories in Niz ̣ām al-Mulk's Siyāsat-nāma. The article shows that the figure in the Siyāsat-nāma is not meant to represent the " historical " Alptegin, but that the author, by telling stories about Alptegin, discusses serious problems which occurred within the relationship between a ruler and his most powerful retainers. In particular, Alptegin is represented as the typically loyal servant who stays loyal even if his lord treats him without due respect, and the stories also show that revolt in such cases was the normal reaction. Factual accuracy therefore is not on the agenda of the author, and it would be wrong to expect it.
Khvaja Baha' al-Din Naqshband (1318-1389), representative of the Central Asian "Khvajagan" Sufi c... more Khvaja Baha' al-Din Naqshband (1318-1389), representative of the Central Asian "Khvajagan" Sufi current, came to be accepted as the eponymous founder of the Naqshbandiyya.
Baba Sammasi was one of the early Khwajagan through whom the initiatic chain of Baha al-Din Naqsh... more Baba Sammasi was one of the early Khwajagan through whom the initiatic chain of Baha al-Din Naqshband was traced.
Encyclopedia of Islam-Three, 2015-1, 43-45, Jan 2015
Atsiz (r. 1127-1156) was bent on safeguarding and expanding his influence among the nomads living... more Atsiz (r. 1127-1156) was bent on safeguarding and expanding his influence among the nomads living between the Syr Darya and the Qaraqum; and he was prepared to challenge Sanjar the Great Seljuq for the sultanate as soon as an opportunity arose.
Dihqan was the term for a member of a class of lesser nobles in Sasanid and early Muslim Iran, fo... more Dihqan was the term for a member of a class of lesser nobles in Sasanid and early Muslim Iran, for local lords in Iran and Transoxiana, and for a peasant in modern Persian, Tajik, and the Central Asian Turkic languages.
Paul, J. (2018). Neguin Yavari: The Future of Iran's Past: Nizam al-Mulk Remembered. xxiv, 275 pp... more Paul, J. (2018). Neguin Yavari: The Future of Iran's Past: Nizam al-Mulk Remembered. xxiv, 275 pp. London: Hurst, 2018. £40. ISBN 978 18490 4820 0. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 81(3), 550-551. doi:10.1017/S0041977X18001131
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