Download The Islamic World at IMC in Leeds 2015

The Islamic World at IMC in Leeds
2015
In view of current international
developments, there is an insatiable quest
for knowledge about the medieval roots of
Islam. The Islamic World features widely
on the programme.
1. The Early Islamic World
Historians and Arabists currently exploring Early islamic History are more and more convinced that the
significant breaks with the past were not so much the mission of Muhammad (d. 632) and the 7th-century
foundation of the Muslim Empire as the transformation of that empire after 750. With this recognition
new approaches have been fostered with which to think about the nature of the earliest Muslim empire –
often in a comparative world historical perspective – as well as to think about the development of the
religion of Islam itself.
This year six sessions have been organized to create a forum for mutual exchange and debates about the
different shifts inside law, land, religion, writing etc, in the Islamic heartlands.
The sessions are sponsored by CASAW – The Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World which
sponsors the network: The Early Islamic World. The network investigates current research into the
origins of both Arab ethnic identity and the religion of Islam, c.500-c. 750 CE. The are organized by Ann
R. Christys, Independent Scholar, Leeds and Andrew Marsham, School of Literatures, Languages &
Cultures, University of Edinburgh.
The Early Islamic World, I: Umayyad Rule, Law, and Religion [Session No: 133]
The Early Islamic World, II: Provinces and Frontiers – Syria and the West [Session
No: 233]
The Early Islamic World, III: Provinces and Frontiers – Arabia [Session No: 333]
The Early Islamic World, IV: Provinces and Frontiers – Syria, Iraq, and the
East [Session No: 533]
The Early Islamic World, V: Writing, Administration, and Taxation [Session No:
633]
The Early Islamic World, VI: Iberia [Session No: 733]
READ BEFORE TAKING PART:
Rituals of Islamic Monarchy. Accession and Succession in the
First Muslim Empire
By Andrew Marsham
Edinburgh University Press 2009
ISBN-10: 0748625127
ISBN-13: 978-0748625123
II. Power & Institutions in Medieval Islam & Christendom
This strand of 5 sessions explores the themes of memory, historiography, and
identity from a comparative perspective. The sessions have been organised by the
Power and Institutions in Medieval Islam and Christendom research project
(PIMIC) . Papers in the sessions
examine the political, social, and cultural use of history writing and the
active role of authors in constructing narratives and transforming the past
to renew the present. By focusing on examples of history writing from
Ottonian Saxony, 12th-century Damascus and the Carolingian world, the
three papers explore different expressions of institutional memory,
construction of community identities and representation and
renegotiation of the past across the medieval world. Power & Institutions
in Medieval Islam & Christendom (PIMIC), I: (Re)Writing the Past –
Memory and Political Culture in East and West [Session No: 525]
explore historiography across the Islamic and Anglo-Norman worlds.
Morris argues that political and doctrinal pressures on early Islamic
historiography have distorted our picture of the Umayyad royal court,
obscuring its Arabian roots. Hitt will examine the transmission of social
norms and ideals within L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, a 13thcentury biography of William Marshal, an exemplar knight and courtier.
Kennedy will ask whether the sultan could be considered an Islamic
political institution in the 10th century. These papers will consider the
conclusions that can be drawn from comparatively examining
historiographical sources across Islam and Christendom. Power &
Institutions in Medieval Islam & Christendom (PIMIC), II: Comparative
Approaches to Historiography in Medieval Christendom and
Islam [Session No: 625]
examine a variety of power concepts in Medieval Europe and the Middle
East and their flexibility in theory and practice. They explore different
ways in which the power held by the sultans, kings, chieftains and lords
was negotiated. By examining such diverse phenomena as spatiality and
the power of memory in 12th- and 13th-century Castile, the principles of
constructing ‘hierarchies among equals’ in 13th-century Christendom and
the appropriation of sacred objects and spaces in 13th- and 14th-century
Islamic protests, they inquire how far we can go in comparing power
across cultures in the medieval world. Power & Institutions in Medieval
Islam & Christendom (PIMIC), III: Power in Practice – Reproducing and
Negotiating Medieval Rulership [Session No: 725]
focuses on the building, negotiations and uses of diverse forms of canon
law in different institutional, cultural, and historical contexts. The aim is
to analyse the relationship between different instances of authority and
power in both the Byzantine and the Medieval World. Following a
chronological order, the first paper analyses the institutional identity of
the Papacy during the Lateran Council of 649, the second paper studies
the canonical questions of Byzantine bishops in the 12th century, and the
third paper examines marriage dispensations in the diocese of
Quattrocento Florence from a socio-legal perspective. Power &
Institutions in Medieval Islam & Christendom (PIMIC), IV: Power,
Institutions, and Canon Law in Byzantine and Medieval Contexts [Session
No: 825]
assess to which extent the making of law was (or not) embedded in the
practices themselves which it tried to regulate or from which it took
origin. Furthermore, it takes into account the influence of lawyers, their
cultural milieu and professional activity, and their attitude towards preexisting laws and customs. The contributors will present different
perspectives on law making in different socio-cultural frameworks by
tackling the broad themes of warfare and the control of violence in
specific examples from Feudal, Roman and Islamic law. Power &
Institutions in Medieval Islam & Christendom (PIMIC), V: Controlling
Violence in the Middle Ages [Session No: 1025]
READ MORE:
Power & Institutions in Medieval Islam & Christendom (PIMIC), Consejo Superior
de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid . It represents an
international network of Universities in Madrid, Rome, Paris, London and
Edingburgh.