Roy Parviz Mottahedeh

This dissertation explores the form, substance and social context of pious exhortations in medieval Islamic history, focusing on ideas about gossip and slander. It is a study on a single concept of enduring significance in Islamic ethics, the notion of...

During the late medieval period, the Ni`matullāhī tarīqah, founded by Shāh Ni`matullāh Walī (d.834/1431), became one of the most widespread Sufi orders in Iran. The present study traces that order's evolution during its formative years, from the late 8th...

How did the rulers try to generate their own loyal retainers in pre-modern Asia? As an attempt to answer the question, the dissertation first focus on the Inner Asian institution of personal guards, who were personally attached and fostered by the ruler...

This dissertation brings the scholarship of “legal realism” to the field of Islamic law by studying the application of law by the muhtasib in early Mamluk Cairo and Fustat (648–802/1250–1400). The muhtasib, best described as an inspector of the markets...

This dissertation studies the concept of sulh , i.e. peacemaking or amicable settlement, in Islamic law. Through a survey of exegetical and legal works dating from the 8th to the 13th centuries C.E., I trace its development as one of the nominate...

There is no modern work devoted to trade relations between the Byzantines and Near Easterners in the central Middle Ages, with the exception of David Jacoby's articles investigating specifically the trade relations between Byzantium and Fatimid Egypt from...

Unraveling the complex dynamics that created and sustained the hegemony of the four principal schools of Sunni Islamic law necessarily requires an appreciation of the schools' historical genesis. This dissertation provides the first comprehensive account...

This dissertation investigates the life and works of Abū al-Qāsim `Abd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072). While the majority of western studies of al-Qushayrī have concentrated almost exclusively on his Sufi legacy and the Risāla, his treatise on Sufism...

This dissertation focuses on how the Marrakech-based Almohads and their independent Muslim rivals in eastern al-Andalus contested spiritual and temporal power. The rulers of Sharq al-Andalus opposed Almohad claims to a divinely granted authority rooted in...