| Reprinted from the Middle East Studies
Association Bulletin, Winter 2001 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards). Copyright 2001 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America |
| Women and Men in Late Eighteenth Century
Egypt, by Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot (Modern Middle East Series, No. 18) 199 pages, notes, bibliography, index. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1995. $35.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-292-75180-X Women and Men in Late Eighteenth Century Egypt presents a way of looking at Egyptian history that contrasts with the normative view. While ‘the coming of the West’ paradigms emphasizing a demarcation line between a modern and traditional Egypt continue to hold sway, Marsot illustrates their futility by showing the important continuities that hold the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries together. By so doing, she strengthens the theoretical approach to questions of modernity that broke new ground with her Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge, 1984). What is particularly salient about this book, however, is the social analysis that gives important details about the lives of women and the nature of their relations, particularly in regard to elite and middle-class women. Using archival records that yielded details regarding “women’s commercial and financial transactions and the kinds of property in which they invested” (p. 3), Marsot presents us with the astonishing result that “30 to 40 percent of deeds registered in the last half of the eighteenth century were made out by women” (p. 7). While Middle East women’s history has grown significantly during the last decade and our knowledge of the life of women living in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire is getting richer, Marsot is right in pointing out that historians have yet to become seriously involved in studying waqf and litigation records, and registration of deeds that contain rich details of the property held by women and their various commercial activities: “We discover that women managed large estates, sued in court, and generally involved themselves in the marketplace” (p. 7). This confirms the new outlook on Middle Eastern women, becoming evident through new scholarly production, as active participants in their societies, rather than the passive and secluded picture that has been around for a long time. As active members of their communities, women controlled agricultural land and real estate and held iltizams, were partners in shops, and worked at various jobs like balanas or in bath-houses. Women associated closely together, and there were “normal bonds of friendship among these women, who visited and entertained on a regular basis” (p. 56). While women’s business activities during the late eighteenth century were dependent on male relatives whom they often used as representatives or wakils to transact or register contracts for them, Marsot informs us that the nineteenth century brought about almost total dependency on brothers, fathers, and husbands due to nation-state centralization and structural changes brought about by industrialization. Elite and property-owning women found themselves in a new situation in which they became peripheralized and had to face the growing importance of men: “The rise of the centralized state and of industrial society, in developing a proletariat, altered the family structure and turned the father…into a wage earner,…the most important member of that team.…That process of state building created a different role for women of the middle and upper classes and pushed them to the periphery of the marketplace” (p. 68). Women and Men in Late Eighteenth Century Egypt is a highly recommended book, well written and accessible in style. Amira Sonbol Georgetown University Le Voyage à Smyrne: Un manuscrit d’Antoine Galland (1678), edited by Frédéric Bauden. 335 pages, bibliography, notes, index, maps, and illustrations. Paris: Chandeigne, 2000. 180 FF (Paper) isbn 2-906462-63-2 In Le Voyage à Smyne, Bauden publishes for the first time important studies on Izmir by Antoine Galland, a seventeenth-century French orientalist, most famous for completing the first French translation of the Thousand and One Nights. Galland wrote several studies based on his travels in the Ottoman Empire, among them Smyrne ancienne et moderne and Voyage fait en Levant, which Bauden has edited. By the 1670s, Izmir was one of the most important commercial centers of the empire with a large community of foreign merchants. Bauden supplies an introduction putting this work in its historical context, as well as numerous notes that assist the reader with archaic French terms, Turkish words, and identifying Galland’s sources. Bauden includes all of Smyrne ancienne et moderne, which Galland divided into four parts. The first part recounts his 1678 voyage from Messina to Izmir, where he was sent to discover and acquire ancient medallions and Greek manuscripts. He describes the daily events of this voyage as many other travelers of the period did. In the second part he relates the history of Izmir from its original settlement up to the Ottoman conquest. In the third and longest part, he describes Izmir as it was in 1678. In the fourth part he lists 166 ways in which the French and the Ottomans differ. Voyage fait en Levant is a collection of three letters written to Pierre Cureau de la Chambre in 1679 and 1680 by Galland, who was again traveling in the Levant. Baudent supplements Smyrne with the portions of these letters that discuss Izmir. Galland describes Izmir’s antiquities and natural history in some detail. Bauden claims that Galland’s work will become the most important source for the study of Izmir at the end of the seventeenth century. While it will probably not replace Ottoman sources, it will be especially valuable for historians who study foreign merchant communities in Izmir or French views of the Ottoman Empire. Galland provides a great variety of information about the foreign merchants at Izmir, including the names of the leading men and their accomplishments, as well as characteristics of merchants of different nationalities. He dislikes the English merchants resident there because they drink excessively. In contrast, his description of the Ottoman administration of Izmir deals more with deprivation and pronunciation of titles than with individuals. The one exception is that Galland provides more information concerning the Ottoman customs official at Izmir, doubtless because he had acquired some firsthand knowledge of him. Galland’s list of ways that the Turks and the French are opposites is the most interesting section. From these aphorisms we learn as much, or more, about seventeenth-century Frenchmen and their views, as about the Turks at Izmir. Many of these statements deal with rather superficial differences, but as a whole they reveal what behaviors Galland believed characterized each group. While the sources and accuracy of his information on the Ottomans may be suspect, there is no question that we can learn much about the development of French views of the East from studying this work. Christine Isom-Verhaaren North Central College Schiavi Musulmani nell’Italia Moderna, by Salvatore Bono. 595 pages. Naples, Italy: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane, 1999. L70,000 (Paper) ISBN 88-8144-883-8 Schiavi Musulmani covers the neglected story of Muslim slaves in Italy from about 1500 to 1830. These slaves, overwhelmingly males from North Africa, came into Italy mostly as prisoners of war or through piracy. The vast majority of these men ended up as galley slaves, usually limited to 30 percent of the crew for security reasons. With death rates of between 4 to 6 percent in normal years, the majority of the galley slaves died as slaves; a few were ransomed by their families, even fewer managed to escape. Bono’s careful look at an amazing range of sources suggests that in the period from 1500 until 1700 somewhere between 90,000 and 120,000 Muslim slaves flowed into Italy. Galley slaves tended to be in ports, and most of these men, usually called ‘Turks’ regardless of their actual ethnicity, lived in places like Genoa, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples, and Palermo. Venice, facing the Ottoman empire in a continuous relationship of war and trade, tended to exchange prisoners or sell them, rather than use Muslims as galley slaves. Christian slaves were held in Algiers, Tunis, and elsewhere, and ransoming them was a lucrative business for North African rulers. Muslim slaves in Italy occasionally were able to write letters back home in Turkish or Arabic. Exchanges of people and news made the owners of these slaves—governments or the papacy—careful to avoid excessive mistreatment. Perhaps the most interesting parts of this book concern how the Muslim slaves became a prison community that nevertheless interacted with Italian society. The slaves of Livorno, about three-thousand in 1616, were the first in Italy to have their own mosque. Other Italian states were forced to concede this right if they wanted their own people in North Africa to enjoy freedom of worship. Large communities of slaves had an elected leader, called by the Italians the papasso. This elder negotiated other liberties—the right to have a cemetery, send letters, and engage in petty trade for spending money, usually by selling tobacco. When slaves appeared outside their prisons they often had to wear distinctive hats or colors, or more typically, they were still in chains. A few slaves converted to Christianity, but this act did not result in freedom. Some elderly slaves obtained their freedom after many years of service and some chose to remain in Italy. Since many Christian prisoners and wage laborers worked beside the Muslim slaves in the galleys or on public works, there were opportunities for cultural exchange. Bono does not pay enough attention to how fads about things ‘Turkish,’ whether in dress, music, smoking, or other activities, may have resulted from the presence of so many Muslim slaves in Italy. The Braudelian sweep of Schiavi Musulmani commands respect, and this relatively forgotten episode in world history has found its first general historian. Steven Epstein University of Colorado Armenians and Russia (1626-1796): A Documentary Record, annotated and translated by George A. Bournoutian. (Armenian Studies Series 2) 511 pages, index, glossary, biographical notes. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001. $45.00 (Cloth) isbn 1-56859-132-2 Armenians and Russia is the companion volume to Bournourtian’s Russia and the Armenians of Transcaucasia, 1797-1889: A Documentary Record (1999). Included in this study are 440 documents, 400 of them dealing with eighteenth-century Armenia, especially eastern Armenians’ relations and correspondence with Russians and the Russian government. The translated documents are from collections published previously by S. Glinka, A. Berzhe, A. Tsagareli, Giwt Aghaneants and G. Ezev’, A. Hovhannisyan, V. Parsamyan, H. Khach’atyran, and V. S. Pùtùridze, and were originally written in Armenian, Russian, Georgian, Persian, French, German, and Latin. The documents presented here also include myriad terms in Arabic and Turkish. The translated documents not only demonstrate the great philological skills of the translator (knowledge of nine languages or more!), but also the painstaking work of establishing the chronology of dates in four calendars: the Julian, Arab lunar, Armenia religious, and Georgian. The documents begin with the first known document written in 1626, thirteen years after the beginning of Tsar Michael Romanov’s reign (1613-45); and the last one was written on 15 November 1796, nine days after Catherine the Great’s death. Readers will find valuable the fifty-five-page commentary appended to the documents in which the translator attempts to work many of the documents into a coherent narrative while cross-referencing them in footnotes with extensive clarifications and addenda. The commentary provides much information about an often neglected but significant region and people at crucial periods of their history. The translator provides four maps, six pages of dynastic chronologies, four pages of glossary terms, and forty pages of valuable biographies of the main personages appearing in the documents. This reviewer disagrees with Bournoutian that the evidence of the documents “clearly indicates that the Armenians of Karabagh began their struggle for self-determination long before the last two decades of the 20th century” (p. 426). More evidence than is presented in these documents will have to be proffered, analyzed, and argued to validate that assertion. The scholarly community is indebted to Mazda Publishers for making available such valuable studies and research tools. Robert Olson University of Kentucky Sveto Gora i Hilandar u Osmanskom carstvu XV-XVII vek [Mount Athos and Hilandar in the Ottoman Empire, 15th-17th Centuries], by Aleksandar Fotic. 498 pages, index, bibliography, photographs, tables, illustrations, maps, facsimiles, glossary. Belgrade: Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2000 (Paper) ISBN 86-7179-030-4 It would be a misfortune to confuse Fotic’s extensive study of Hilandar during the Ottoman period with the wave of coffee table commemorative books published in the last few years to celebrate the eight-hundred-year anniversary of the Serbian orthodox monastery's foundation. The author has revised his doctoral thesis into a beautifully produced study of this important symbol of Serbian national identity which, given the topicality of the subject, deserves serious consideration. Thematically, Fotic deals largely with the question of Ottoman conquest of the Mount Athos region, the evolving status of the ecclesiastical community within the empire, the nature of Ottoman administrative presence among the various Orthodox clergy, and the fiscal resources administered by Hilandar used to support the monastery’s operations. Though some of these topics have been explored separately in the context of the survival of the Greek Orthodox church under sultanic control, the specific relationship between the Hilandar monastery and the Ottoman state is not as well understood and plays a role in the emergence of the modern Serbian nation state. For example, the author draws a parallel between the patronage of medieval Serbian notables like the Brankovic family and the interest of Serbia’s early modern royalty in reviving the importance of Hilandar as part of a distinct national ethnic identity. The real value of this book is the exploration of the Ottoman documents contained in the monastery. Through the Hilandar Research Library in Columbus, Ohio, many of the medieval Slavonic manuscripts have been made available to scholars. Nevertheless, the Ottoman correspondence dealing with the administrative minutiae of the facility has remained largely unexamined. The publisher’s willingness to reproduce copies of some of these documents as well as extensive catalogued tables of the holdings makes this book an important resource for research and a must-order for libraries. There are, nevertheless, weaknesses in Fotic’s work―both theoretical and practical. If the strength of Sveto Gora i Hilander lies in the introduction of new Ottoman material found in Hilandar to augment the considerable work already based on Slavic and Greek sources, the author fails to build on this foundation with additional Ottoman sources, other than a limited sampling of defters from the Basbakanlik archives in Istanbul. This is a disconcerting problem when the strongest theme of the work is the difficulty of the survival of Serbian Orthodoxy under Ottoman rule. At a more functional level, the publication of this book in Serbian with only a short summary in English limits the audience to a very restricted set of specialists. These quibbles aside, Fotic’s book is a fine example of the tradition of Oriental scholarship that had existed in Yugoslavia and is now being revived in institutes in Belgrade and Sarajevo. Michael Robert Hickok Air War College Friends and Rivals in the East: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century, edited by Alastair Hamilton, Alexander H. de Groot, and Maurits H. van den Boogert. (Publications of the Sir Thomas Browne Institute, No. 14) 258 pages, index. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2000. $87.00 (Cloth) ISBN 90-04-11854-3 Friends and Rivals in the East consists of nine revised papers (from a conference held in Leiden in January 1999) and an introduction by Hamilton which briefly summarizes the papers and their arguments. While the primary thrust here is Anglo-Dutch commercial, military, and diplomatic competition, the volume also proposes to emphasize elements of Anglo-Dutch solidarity in the Levant and the roles of Levantine officials and locals. The contributors employ primarily British, Dutch, and French archival sources; two contributors, however, regularly cite Turkish language sources. Of the nine contributions, five (those by Jonathan Israel, Rhoads Murphey, Colin Heywood, Sonia Anderson, and Merlijn Olnon) focus on the seventeenth century after 1620; two (Elena Frangakis-Syrett and van den Boogert) cover the eighteenth; one (Ben Slot) addresses the period 1623-1766; and one (de Groot) the period 1785-1829. The volume benefits from the use of footnotes but suffers from the absence of maps and the substitution of a brief “Abbreviations” page for a full bibliography. This volume serves as an interesting set of case studies aimed primarily at an audience of scholars of the Middle East and Europe. Some articles which include contextualizing introductions, such as de Groot’s piece on the careers of dragomans in Istanbul, are quite suitable for use in undergraduate classes. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the assembled essays is their collective illumination of the flexibility, mutability, and seat-of-the-pants decisionmaking quality of ground level diplomatic realities in the Levant. While national policies framed the activities of Dutch and English agents, those policies were often subverted by the opportunism and pragmatism of individuals. Successful commercial activity transcended the formal boundaries of state policy. Frangakis-Syrett, for example, illustrates the conflicting interests of manufacturers and merchants in eighteenth-century Izmir and cooperative moneylending practices among competing European nations. Olnon, in a study on the nature of avania exactions notes, as do various of the other contributors, the ways in which the interests of consuls were often at odds with the interests of their country’s merchants. Anderson, writing on the “Smyrna fleet” of 1693, shows the ways that European agents in Aleppo adapted to the vagaries of war and official regulations; the Dutch consul and English factors traded to Livorno “in French ships, in the names of Italian merchants, with their ladings insured by other English factors (p. 114).” At the Porte, as Heywood suggests, diplomats were not always diplomatic and hostilities were not limited to cross-state rivalries. Essays by de Groot and van den Boogert demonstrate the ways in which dragoman families provided a type of social, economic, and political cement for commercial activity despite the vagaries of European alliances and changing diplomatic personnel. The collection does not truly meet its objective of bringing out the “role of the Ottoman world,” but it does provide a wealth of detail on commercial relations. The reader may employ Friends and Rivals in the East to assess the validity of the conclusion posed by Murphey on regulatory frameworks and merchant activity: “[I]n this period concepts such as corporate identity and loyalty were as alien to merchants as notions of national interest or the obligation to serve national priorities (p. 38).” Palmira Brummett University of Tennessee The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History, by Peter Jackson. (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) 367 pages, maps, appendices, genealogical tables, glossary, bibliography, index. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999. $64.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-521-40477-0 Students of the Mongol Empire and its successors have long appreciated Jackson’s contributions to our understanding of the Mongol impact on the eastern Islamic world, especially Iran. Now, Jackson has turned his attention back to where, in a sense, it all began, the Delhi Sultanate in India. The seed for this study is Jackson’s Cambridge PhD thesis, “The Mongols and India, 1221-1351” (1977). In the present work, Jackson extends the dates to 1210 and 1398 respectively and broadens the scope to include the general political and military history of the Delhi Sultans. He has mined a tremendous number of mostly Persian narrative texts, many available only in manuscript, as well as epigraphic and numismatic sources, to provide a detailed yet lucid history of the Sultanate. After a short background chapter on the establishment of Muslim rule in South Asia, The Delhi Sultanate is separated into two halves around the pivotal reign of Ala al-Din Khalji (1296-1316). Within each half Jackson presents an overview of the time period and the sources available, followed by thematic chapters dealing with the nobility, internal administration, and relations with Mongols (to the northwest) and Hindus (everywhere). While at times this approach leads to repetition, Jackson has highlighted several key issues, including the role of ghulams or slave-soldiers in the service of the sultans and their comparison with the Mamluks in contemporary Egypt. He clarifies Juzjani’s use of the term ‘Turk’ as frequently designating Turkish ghulams rather than as an ethnic designation (see appendix I). Some of Jackson’s best sections are, not surprisingly, those dealing with the Mongol threat to India, especially the relations of Delhi with the Chaghadayid ulus, surely the least studied of Chinggis Khan’s successor states. But the author also provides fascinating, though cautious, conclusions regarding the Sultans’ relations with the Hindu population of South Asia, both as rulers and, in the south, as adversaries. The Delhi Sultanate is richly detailed, not a quick overview. As with any title dealing with medieval Indo-Muslim history, the reader should be prepared for place names to fall like the proverbial monsoons, though the numerous maps aid in remaining properly oriented. Genealogical tables also help keep track of the numerous rulers and princes. Those who work with manuscript sources will find Jackson’s clarifications of various Persian phrases and titles and his etymological discussions of names and terms useful. Some may complain about Jackson’s decision to end with Timur’s conquest, thus not covering the entire history of the Delhi Sultanate down to the rise of the Mughals. Also, the author gives limited attention to social and religious history, in particular the roles of prominent Sufi saints. To be fair, however, the latter have already been studied in great detail by others. What was lacking until now was a comprehensive overview of the Delhi Sultanate’s political history. Jackson has filled this void admirably and, in so doing, has provided a tremendous resource for students exploring questions of social, religious, or even economic history. William Wood Point Loma Nazarene University A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, by Şevket Pamuk. (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) 276 pages, maps, notes, tables, appendices, photographs, bibliography, index. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000. $69.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-521-44197-8 The present volume (already published in Turkish in 1999) has grown out of the author’s chapter commissioned for the first English-language Ottoman economic and social history published in 1994. Based on an impressive body of literature stretching from works on numismatics to studies on social and economic history, it is the first monograph that attempts to paint Ottoman monetary history “on a large canvas,” “to transcend the compartmentalized approach” and to “emphasize the linkages between the history of the Eastern Mediterranean…and those of Europe and South Asia” (p. xvii). In studying his subject, Pamuk identifies five periods: 1) 1300 to 1477: the period of relative monetary stability of the emerging state, based on the silver akçe as the main Ottoman currency, 2) 1477 to 1585: the era of fiscal and economic strength, characterized by the use of gold, silver, and copper coinage, 3) 1585 to 1690: the period of fiscal crisis and monetary instability, which witnessed the largest debasement of the akçe to date, the disappearance of the akçe, and the widespread circulation of foreign (debased) coinage, 4) 1690 to 1844: the establishment and the relative stability of the new (silver) kurus until the 1780s, followed by monetary crisis and debasement, and 5) 1844 to 1918: the era of a new bimetallic system of the silver kurus and the gold lire, which saw the integration of the Ottoman economy into the world markets, as well as external borrowing and commercial banking. Throughout the book the author successfully demonstrates that these periods more or less coincide with the major trends in Ottoman economic history. For this reader, the most interesting chapters are the ones that deal with the empire’s monetary and economic policy, the price revolution, the Ottoman monetary crises, and governmental responses. Based heavily on Halil Sahillioglu’s and Mehmet Genç’s life-long research in the Ottoman archives and their ideas, and in some instances on the author’s own archival studies, these chapters provide the English reader with a welcome reassessment of Ottoman fiscal policy and refute some of the long-held views concerning Ottoman economic passivity and decline. In discussing Ottoman monetary policy Pamuk emphasizes the existence of multiple monetary zones within the empire and provides further evidence about Ottoman administrative flexibility and pragmatism, as well as about the limits of Ottoman centralizing capabilities and intentions. This is all well in line with studies that underline similarly flexible governmental strategies with regard to other spheres of administration and economic life, and demonstrate the changing dynamics of power balances between Istanbul and local forces. A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire is a well-structured, easy-to-read reference work, an excellent summary of the available scholarship that, one hopes, will generate new research in the Ottoman archives. It should be a recommended reading for all students interested in the economic history of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans during the Ottoman period. Gabor Agoston Georgetown University Studies in Safavid Mind, Society, and Culture, by James J. Reid. 427 pages, appendices, index. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2000. $45.00 (Cloth) ISBN 1-56859-089-X Studies in Safavid Mind, Society, and Culture suggests that idealist history of the most fanciful kind has not yet been exorcised from Iranian history. Arguing against “naturalist materialism,” and what he calls the backward reading of history from a twentieth-century psychological viewpoint, Reid proposes an approach to Safavid history that understands the human mind from the vantage point of the era itself (p. xii). At the heart of this quest for “existential social history” is an endless discussion, spread out over several chapters, about the meaning of terms such as taifa, tabaqa, and uymaq. As one might expect, these are found to be fluid. His “metaphysical” approach leads the author to adduce sources from the poet Sa`di ( thirteenth century) to eighteenth-century chronicles that narrate sixteenth-century events, indiscriminately and at random, as if they constitute primary evidence for the Safavid period. In his attempt to show Safavid society to be different yet dynamic, Reid piles up Persian sources to demonstrate that, in contrast to modern times, Safavid trade had a spiritual quality, that Safavid texts are filled with newly developed irony and evince a trend toward greater individualism. What he delivers, however, is mostly static fancy of the type that Orientalists have long been accused of concocting. Yet unlike traditional Orientalism, Studies in Safavid Mind, Society, and Culture is not grounded in solid philology, frequent references to the work of Gerhard Doerfer notwithstanding. More serious is the disingenuous way in which Reid takes on colleagues, dead and alive, attacking them with innuendo and slander rather than engaging them in a debate. Minorsky emerges as “racist.” Minorsky’s “continuators” remain anonymous, but Reid warns us that reading them only leads to false conclusions (p. xiii). Lambton and Tapper are summarily dismissed for failing to understand the meaning of tribe and clan. Arcane sources are invoked to make points, while the most basic secondary literature is ignored. Poorly organized, filled with off-putting jargon and often tedious to read, the book otherwise abounds in sweeping statements that are based on the flimsiest of evidence and that range from the puzzling to the incomprehensible and the erroneous. Much of this confusion could have been avoided with additional use of non-Persian sources, in casu European travelers. The reason for their absence is nowhere explicated, though one presumes that outside sources are somehow less pure than Persian ones, as if the latter do not suffer from their own crippling biases. An unexplained exception is made for Chardin, but the information he offers is rarely marshaled so that one learns more from Chardin on the Safavid underworld than from reading the seventy-five pages Reid devotes to the topic. This rancorous work wants to be a probing analysis of Safavid social history, but in reality does little more than pontificate. Acknowledgements are conspicuously absent from the introduction, and there is no evidence that anyone read the manuscript critically before it was accepted for publication. Missed opportunities such as this are a shame in a field that cries out for solid scholarship. Rudi Matthee University of Delaware The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in al-Andalus, by Janina M. Safran (Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs 33) 272 pages, notes, bibliography, index. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. $19.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-932885-24-1 The Second Umayyad Caliphate is a welcome addition to a small but growing group of monographs, in English, integrating Andalusi history within the broader context of the medieval Islamic world. Until quite recently, it has been common (at least in the United States) to treat the history of al-Andalus very generally, either covering an extensive period or concentrating on interfaith relations in the medieval peninsula. In contrast, Safran sets Abd al-Rah$mân III’s claim to legitimacy firmly within the framework of contemporary Islamic political dialogue. The book’s main title confirms the connection with the first Umayyad Caliphate in Syria, while the subtitle indicates Safran’s approach to her topic. She examines the multiple ways in which caliphs and their chroniclers articulated legitimacy and power in words, ceremony, and architecture. These themes are important, and coincide with recent trends in other areas—for example, Paul Cobb’s book on the continuity of Umayyad identity in Syria after 750, and Didi Ruggles’s study of the meaning of Andalusi gardens and palaces.[56] Safran’s volume has two parts: the first examines how the Umayyad caliphs themselves articulated claims to the title through their political and military actions, as well as in their proclamations, letters, inscriptions, and speeches, and also in their architectural and ceremonial displays. Safran analyzes the patterns of linguistic and visual rhetoric, particularly references to military victories, defense of the faith, and support for orthodoxy. She draws parallels between these themes and similar manipulation of language and architecture in Abbasid and Fatimid propaganda. There could perhaps have been an even broader discussion here of rhetorical strategies, self-representation, and claims to authority in the Islamic tradition. The second half looks at how Andalusi historians described and interpreted the Umayyad caliphate. According to Safran, Andalusi historiography both “grew out of and expanded caliphal ideology” (p. 115). She demonstrates how historians writing in the Umayyad period presented contemporary caliphs, and how they revised earlier history, particularly recasting Abd al-Rahmân I, in the eighth century, to model Abd al-Rahmân III in the tenth century, thus emphasizing the continuity and legitimacy of their dynasty. Chroniclers even used shifting descriptions of the Andalusi landscape to reflect the transition from early difficulties and discord to the peace and prosperity of the caliphal period. This is a fascinating analysis, and a very good book, but not without some flaws. One difficulty with Safran’s two-level approach is that it assumes a clear differentiation between the voices of the caliphs and those of the chroniclers who recorded their words. This seems a problematic distinction. To add further complication, the few Umayyad histories that survive are almost all preserved in the works of much later authors. Despite a well-established tradition of quoting earlier authors in later histories, any possibility of subsequent revision compromises an argument that turns on contemporary language. More discussion of sources and methodological issues would be helpful. The articulation of legitimacy is also presented as an exposition without an audience. It would be illuminating to learn more about the reception of this message, and perceptions of the caliphate by those outside the Umayyad court. Olivia Remie Constable University of Notre Dame The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire, by John E. Woods. (rev. and exp. edition) 343 pages, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1999. $45.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-87480-565-1 Two rival Turkmen dynasties, the Aqquyunlu and the Qaraquyunlu, dominated the history of Iran and eastern Anatolia during much of the period that separated the decline of Mongol rule and the rise of the Safavids. Under the leadership of Uzun Hasan (1453-78) the Aqquyunlu overcame their local rival and became a regional power that nurtured imperial ambitions and challenged two powerful neighbors: the Ottomans and the Mamluks. In Woods’ words, “many scholars of this period have tended to view the Aqquyunlu either as an obstacle to Ottoman eastward expansion or as a prelude to the establishment of an Iranian ‘national state’ by the Safavids” (p. 9). Two goals are stated for this study: 1) to establish an accurate chronological narrative of political events of this period, and 2) to elucidate some of the major structures and processes underlying the political history of the Aqquyunlu (pp. 10-11). The author has succeeded in producing a comprehensive and dense study of the ethnic, religious, and political changes that took place in Iran and in eastern Anatolia during this period. The Aqquyunlu is a revised and expanded version of the original work.[57] It surpasses the standard features of a revision (update of the critical apparatus and of the bibliography) and includes an extensive rewriting (particularly of the first and last chapters) or a recasting of some sections, without altering the main themes or conclusions contained in the original edition. These enhancements have improved the text of an already excellent scholarly work. Although more than twenty years have passed since its first publication, The Aqquyunlu remains the standard work on the subject. This new edition is an added guarantee that it will remain so for decades to come. It is to the credit of Woods to have taken the time and exerted the effort to enhance the original edition. Credit is also due to The University of Utah Press for enabling students of medieval Middle Eastern history to have access to an improved hard copy version of a valuable resource. Adel Allouche Yale University |
| [56] Cobb, White Banners: Contention in ‘Abbasid Syria, 750-880 (State University of New York Press, 2001); and D. Fairchild Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). [57] Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976 |
|
|
