Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World PDF Author: Adam J. Silverstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World PDF Author: Adam J. Silverstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.

The Sublime Post

The Sublime Post PDF Author: Choon Hwee Koh
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300280459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A history of the postal system that once connected the Ottoman Empire Before the advent of steamships or the telegraph, the premier technology for long-distance communication was the horse-run relay system. Every empire had one—including the Ottoman Empire. In The Sublime Post, Choon Hwee Koh examines how the vast Ottoman postal system worked across three centuries by tracking the roles of eight small-scale actors—the Courier, the Tatar, Imperial Decrees, the Bookkeeper, the Postmaster, the Villager, Money, and the Horse. There are stories of price-gouging postmasters; of murdered couriers and their bereaved widows; of moonlighting officials transporting merchandise; of neighboring villages engaged in long-running feuds; of bookkeepers calculating the annual costs of horseshoes, halters, and hay; of Tatar couriers and British travelers sharing drunken nights at post stations; of swimming with horses across rivers; and of hiding from marauding bandits in the desert. By weaving together chronicles, sharia court records, fiscal registers, collective petitions, appointment contracts, and imperial decrees from the Ottoman archive, this study of a large-scale communications infrastructure reveals the interdependence of an empire and its diverse imperial subjects. Koh traces this evolving interdependence between 1500 and 1840 to tell the history of the Ottoman Empire and its changing social order.

Non-Muslim Provinces under Early Islam

Non-Muslim Provinces under Early Islam PDF Author: Alison Vacca
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107188512
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This book explores the Christian caliphal provinces of Armenia and Caucasian Albania as part of the larger Iranian cultural sphere.

Collective Liability in Islam

Collective Liability in Islam PDF Author: Nurit Tsafrir
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108498647
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Provides a close analysis of theʿAqila, a group collectively liable for blood money payments, in Islamic law and history.

The Logic of Law Making in Islam

The Logic of Law Making in Islam PDF Author: Behnam Sadeghi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700909X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This pioneering study examines the process of reasoning in Islamic law. By analyzing rulings from the Hanafi school, the author interrogates whether sacred law operated differently from secular law, why laws changed, and how different cultural and historical settings impacted on the development of legal rulings. The result is a fascinating overview of the evolution of Islamic law and the role of its jurists.

Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia

Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia PDF Author: Michal Biran
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520298756
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Chinggis Khan and his heirs established the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world, extending from Korea to Hungary and from Iraq, Tibet, and Burma to Siberia. Ruling over roughly two thirds of the Old World, the Mongol Empire enabled people, ideas, and objects to traverse immense geographical and cultural boundaries. Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia reveals the individual stories of three key groups of people—military commanders, merchants, and intellectuals—from across Eurasia. These annotated biographies bring to the fore a compelling picture of the Mongol Empire from a wide range of historical sources in multiple languages, providing important insights into a period unique for its rapid and far-reaching transformations. Read together or separately, they offer the perfect starting point for any discussion of the Mongol Empire’s impact on China, the Muslim world, and the West and illustrate the scale, diversity, and creativity of the cross-cultural exchange along the continental and maritime Silk Roads. Features and Benefits: Synthesizes historical information from Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Latin sources that are otherwise inaccessible to English-speaking audiences. Presents in an accessible manner individual life stories that serve as a springboard for discussing themes such as military expansion, cross-cultural contacts, migration, conversion, gender, diplomacy, transregional commercial networks, and more. Each chapter includes a bibliography to assist students and instructors seeking to further explore the individuals and topics discussed. Informative maps, images, and tables throughout the volume supplement each biography.

Female Religiosity in Central Asia

Female Religiosity in Central Asia PDF Author: Aziza Shanazarova
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009386352
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Through revealing the fascinating story of the Sufi master Aghā-yi Buzurg and her path to becoming the 'Great Lady' in sixteenth-century Bukhara, Aziza Shanazarova invites readers into the little-known world of female religious authority in early modern Islamic Central Asia, revealing a far more multifaceted gender history than previously supposed. Pointing towards new ways of mapping female religious authority onto the landscapes of early modern Muslim narratives, this book serves as an intervention into the debate on the history of women and religion that views gender as a historical phenomenon and construct, challenging narratives of the relationship between gender and age in Islamic discourse of the period. Shanazarova draws on previously unknown primary sources to bring attention to a rich world of female religiosity involving communal leadership, competition for spiritual superiority, and negotiation with the political elite that transforms our understanding of women's history in early modern Central Asia.

Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire

Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire PDF Author: Anne F. Broadbridge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108636624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
How did women contribute to the rise of the Mongol Empire while Mongol men were conquering Eurasia? This book positions women in their rightful place in the otherwise well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire. Examining the best known women of Mongol society, such as Chinggis Khan's mother, Hö'elün, and senior wife, Börte, as well as those who were less famous but equally influential, including his daughters and his conquered wives, we see the systematic and essential participation of women in empire, politics and war. Anne F. Broadbridge also proposes a new vision of Chinggis Khan's well-known atomized army by situating his daughters and their husbands at the heart of his army reforms, looks at women's key roles in Mongol politics and succession, and charts the ways the descendants of Chinggis Khan's daughters dominated the Khanates that emerged after the breakup of the Empire in the 1260s.

Christianity in Fifteenth-Century Iraq

Christianity in Fifteenth-Century Iraq PDF Author: Thomas A. Carlson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107186277
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Reveals a religiously diverse pre-industrial society in the Middle East, broadening studies of global Christianity and challenging Islamic history's exceptionalism.

Agents of the Hidden Imam

Agents of the Hidden Imam PDF Author: Edmund Hayes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108834396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Offers fascinating insights into the careers of the first leaders of Twelver Shiʿism: agents who claimed to speak for the 'hidden Imam'.