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 ghība or backbiting, defined as unwelcome statements of fact as opposed to false slander (buhtān). Prohibited by the Qurʾān, the mundane social vice of speaking ill about other people in their absence was a source of great moral concern, with ramifications in discourses of piety, religious ethics, ritual law, and eschatology. Early proponents of the isnād method for the authentication of ḥadīth had to frequently address the ethical quandary that their criticism of transmitters might be tantamount to sinful gossip. I demonstrate that the discourse on ghība stems from a broader ethics of “disciplining the tongue” among the early Muslim renunciants of the so-called zuhd movement. A major work by the Baghdadi scholar Ibn Abī l-Dunyā (d. 281 AH/894 CE), the Kitāb al-Ṣamt wa-ādāb al-lisān or “Book of Silence and Etiquettes of the Tongue” serves as a key point of departure for this study. I examine the traditions, stories and wise maxims on ghība in the context of zuhd, ḥadīth, tafsīr and fiqh sources, as well as their broader reception in pious ethics literature of the ninth and tenth centuries CE. Through close attention to motifs, I argue further that some early Muslim ideas about gossip and slander reflect older traditions of religious thought in late antiquity. The commonalities are evident especially in the Apophthegmata Patrum or Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Resonances can be traced as well through eschatological motifs common to Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian apocalyptic literature and Islamic imaginations of hell, in which the sin of backbiting is met with severe punishments. In contrast to conventional ancient punishment motifs for slander, Islamic eschatology introduces new types of scenes informed by the Qurʾānic metaphor of ghība as eating the flesh of another. Early Muslim ethical discourses thus interpreted a universal moral concern through a combination of inherited traditions and original elements.

This dissertation is a study on piety and religious practice as shaped by the experience of pilgrimage to these numerous saintly shrines in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Timurid Iran and Central Asia. Shrine visitation, or ziyārat, was one of the most ubiquitous Islamic devotional practices across medieval Iran and Central Asia, at times eliciting more zeal than obligatory rituals such as the Friday congregational prayer. This dissertation makes use of a broad source base including city histories, shrine visitation guides, compendiums of religious sciences, court histories, biographies of Sufis, endowment deeds, ethical or moral (akhlāq) treatises, and material culture in the form of architecture and epigraphical data. This work contributes to a better understanding of how Islam as a discursive tradition informed and was informed by the piety and religious practice of medieval Muslims of all classes. It challenges a vision of a monolithic Islamic orthopraxy by showing how the very fabric of Islam in medieval Iran and Central Asia represented both continuity with an Islamic past and a catering to local and contemporary needs.

The aim of this study is three-fold. First, it argues that the forms of ritual prescribed in the Timurid shrine manuals largely coalesced into a coherent program in this period and reflect a vernacular understanding of shrine visitation found in the more scholarly Islamic literature. It also demonstrates how the performance of the physical practices and oral litanies of the ziyārat formed part of the habitus of a pilgrim. Second, the hagiographic stories of the holy dead revered at these shrines represent tangible ideals of pious living for society to imitate. They point to the centrality of esotericism, miracle-working and a rigorous adherence to the Sharia in constructing this template. For example, a major part of the saintliness of Abū Yūsuf Hamadānī, an important saint buried in Samarkand, stems from his extreme religious observance. He is said to have made the Hajj thirty-three times, finished the Qur’an over a thousand times, memorized over seven hundred books on the religious sciences, received over two hundred and sixteen scholars and spent most of his life fasting. On the other hand, the patron saint of this same city, Shāh-i Zinda, is revered for his supernatural powers and his relation to the Prophet Muḥammad. This amplified reverence for the Prophet Muḥammad and his family demonstrates the increasing precedence of shrines of people genealogically linked to the Prophet Muḥammad as objects of veneration by the largely Sunni populations in the Timurid period.

The third and final aim of this dissertation is to provide a map of the actual places of pilgrimage and establish the importance of the “locality” of saints in creating a shared identity and history using the methods of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). It traces the ways that pilgrims would move through their cities to visit the various shrines scattered across the landscape. The journey to some shrines fell well within the normal daily movements of an inhabitant of a particular city, while other journeys proved more arduous, pointing to the possibility of a varied ziyārat experience. While many shrines were presented as single locations, there are instances when a pilgrim is advised to make a circuit of many important shrines in a certain area or of a certain type of holy person (e.g. prophets). The routes and spaces, along with mosques and madrasas, are embedded in a sacred geography of the city.

This dissertation examines the political thought of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201), a Sunni Muslim religious scholar who flourished as a preacher in twelfth-century Baghdad. During this period, Baghdad was the main arena of conflict between the Abbasid caliphs and the Seljuq sultans as both sides competed to exert control over the city. The militarized rule of the Seljuqs also entailed heavy taxation and harsh punitive measures on the populace. Through an intertextual reading of various genres in the Islamic intellectual tradition, this study reconstructs Ibn al-Jawzī’s intellectual response to the shifting political dynamics of the twelfth-century Islamic world.

This dissertation argues that Ibn al-Jawzī adopted an ameliorative approach to politics and emphasized the values of piety and religious knowledge as the hallmarks of ideal Islamic rulership. To ensure that the ruling authorities govern based on piety and the sharīʿa, Ibn al-Jawzī envisions a greater role for religious scholars in the political sphere. His ideal ruler is one who devotes himself to the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, adheres to Islamic legal and ritualistic precepts, and consults with scholars. These ideals depart from the dominant political discourses of his time that prioritize the ruler’s ability to maintain societal order, regardless of his moral and religious qualities. Yet Ibn al-Jawzī’s emphasis on piety and knowledge did not steer his political thought towards the radical ideologies upheld by certain fringe groups such as the Khārijites. Instead, he pursues an ameliorative approach to politics that aims at mediatory, moderate, and pragmatic reform. This approach is best represented by the preacher who uses his rhetorical skills to tame the arbitrary nature of power and guide the ruler towards righteous rule. It also comes across in Ibn al-Jawzī’s juristically prudent effort to protest against dismal political situations without overtly sanctioning the act of rebellion against a ruler who rules unjustly and impiously.

A study of Ibn al-Jawzī’s political discourses points towards a new reading of the history of Islamic political thought that, rather than focusing solely on Muslim thinkers who promulgated the principle of “might is right,” takes into account as well diverse and competing approaches to power. It sheds light on the various creative ways in which Muslim intellectuals utilized writings to effect social and political reform.

In the tenth century, a confluence of two unrelated events shaped the Twelver Shia community in Baghdad: the Occultation of the Twelfth Imam in 939/329 and the takeover of Baghdad in 945 by the Buyid princes, who were largely tolerant towards their Shia subjects. Twelver intellectual life flourished during this era, led by the exegetes who are the subject of this dissertation. Chief among them were al-Shaykh al-Tusi and al-Sharif al-Murtada, who - along with many of their contemporaries - comprised a "Baghdad school" of Twelver intellectuals. This dissertation analyzes the Qur'anic commentaries (tafsir) written by this core group of medieval Twelver exegetes, most of whom lived and wrote in Baghdad, although others - such as al-Ayyashi - remained on the margins.

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 a new messianic interpretation of the caliphate. Instead, they articulated a vision of legitimacy linked to earlier Sunni forms, and connected their rule more closely to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad than any previous Andalusī dynasty had done. One minted coins that included the name of the Abbasid caliph, and another received official permission from the Abbasids to rule as governor of al-Andalus. This dissertation examines the written sources, coins and architecture produced in the courts of Andalusī and Almohad rulers to explore how they legitimated their authority. It argues that the conflict among these Muslim rivals in many ways superseded their battles against Christians. The Almohads saw anyone—Muslim, Christian or Jewish—who did not submit to their rule and their conception of Islam as infidels, and said that jihad against non-Almohad Muslims was more important than jihad against Christians. Nevertheless, later Arabic sources attempted to cast the conflict between the independent rulers of al-Andalus and the Almohads as part of a broader Christian-Muslim clash. The alliances Andalusī rulers made with Christian kings, and, in some cases, their Christian roots, made their religious allegiance to Islam suspect. This attitude has continued in modern scholarship as well. This dissertation instead argues that the independent rulers of al-Andalus and their Almohad counterparts were engaged in a broader debate, common to the wider Islamic world, about what constituted righteous Islamic authority. As the population of the territories ruled by Muslims became majority Muslim, new groups began to gain power, eroding the primacy of the Arab caliphate. Like their Persian and Turkic contemporaries to the east, the Berber and Andalusī rulers of the Islamic west struggled to negotiate between the caliphal ideal of Islamic unity and the increasingly decentralized political world they encountered. Analyzing the conflicts among these rivals illuminates the questions that animated the Islamic world as new spiritual and political forms were emerging.

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 of the emergence and early development of a Sunni legal school (madhhab fiqhī), drawing on new evidence from a range of hitherto unstudied primary sources. Through a reconstruction of the socio-political, intellectual, and textual history of the Shāfi'ī school during its formative stage in ninth-century Egypt, my study identifies the factors that contributed to the emergence and success of Shafi'ī doctrine; traces how this doctrine was propagated and re-interpreted, and from where it derived its authority; and explores the intimate connection between writing and thought in Islamic legal discourse. The dissertation concludes that the innovative legal hermeneutic of Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi'ī (d. 204/820), which enshrined normativity in a clearly demarcated canon of sacred sources, played a crucial role in the transformation of Islamic law from a diffuse oral tradition into a written legal science.

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, the present study makes a more holistic account of his life, taking into consideration his wider scholastic interests and the socio-political landscape of Nishapur, the city in which he lived. The various narratives of his life, as variously reported in the historical records, are brought together in order to more fully expose the horizon of his historical moment. Special attention is paid to the urban factionalism and eventual persecution that wracked Nishapur, as both of these historical phenomena directly affected al-Qushayrī.

The central focus, however, is on his scholastic identity and the related traditions with which he engaged. While significant mention is made of his contribution to hadith and Shāfi`ism, the central focus of this study is on the confluence of three especially influential traditions: Sufism, Ash`arī theology, and Qur'ānic exegesis. Al-Qushayrī's social network of teachers is delineated for each of these traditions, with shared linkages carefully mapped across the course of his life. His view of pedagogy and perpetuation is investigated as well. For his work in Ash`arism and scriptural commentary, his textual legacy and his role in continuing each tradition is also given.

As to textual analysis, while the Risāla receives ample consideration, greater attention is paid to his other major work, the Latā' if al-ishārāt ("Subtleties of the Signs"), a commentary of the Qur'ān written at the same time. The commentary is studied and characterized and its textual genealogy is traced against relevant sources. Finally, cases from the Latā' if al-ishārāt are presented where the intersection of these various scholastic traditions are most evident.

This multivalent approach brings forward the nuanced and interwoven texture of al-Qushayrī's life, in specific, and demonstrates the constructed nature of tradition, in general.

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 the tenth to the twelfth centuries. The purpose of the present research is to fill in this gap in scholarship. The movement of commodities, the merchants who traded them, and the routes that these merchants used to travel between the Islamic Near East and the Byzantine Empire in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries are the focus of this dissertation.

In order to address these issues, we employ a tripartite approach: making full use of the sources, such as Arabic geographies and Byzantine saints' lives, which have previously been only partially studied; consulting other written sources that have not been used at all, such as medicinal writing in Arabic and Greek and belles-lettres works in Arabic; and investigating the relationship of objects that moved via non-economic means, such as diplomatic gifts and booty, to commodities. Based on our findings, we present observations concerning the nature of Byzantine-Islamic trade, the role of the Byzantine provinces in long-distance trade, and the role of Byzantium in the trade between northern Europe and the Islamic Near East.

Our findings show that in the ninth and early tenth centuries, the Byzantine Empire was an exporter of silk and expensive objects to the Islamic markets; it imported luxury objects in return; and the merchants from Islamic lands did not penetrate the Byzantine provinces. By the eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire exported textiles of different types as well as vessels, utensils, and foodstuffs; and merchants from Islamic lands were present in Byzantine provinces such as western Asia Minor and Bithynia. The turning point seems to have been sometime in the mid- or late tenth century. We also observe that the gift exchanges and looting (noneconomic exchanges), which took place between Byzantium and the Islamic Near East, were economic phenomena: gifts were used as promotional items to increase demand of the item in question, and looted items were sold back to the looted party for profit.

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 contracts of Islamic law and one of the institutionalized methods for dispute resolution alongside qadā' ‘adjudication’ and tahkīm ‘arbitration’. I also examine the role of sulh in two different settings: the Ottoman qādī courts from the 16th to the 18th centuries C.E. and the venues for dispute resolution in the American Muslim community today.

Although sulh is commanded by the primary sources of Islamic law, it is adjudication by qādī that dominated juristic attention and contemporary studies of Islamic law. Qadā' appears as the preeminent avenue for channeling disputes according to the sharī`ah whereas sulh a mechanism operative only within the informal, private settings of Muslim social life. I find that this focus on adjudication has obscured not only the significance that Islamic law accords to sulh, but the fact that its scope extends unto the context of the courtroom. The Ottoman court records illustrate that sulh had played a considerable role in the Ottoman justice system in various jurisdictions throughout the empire during the period studied.

Although they were in favor of settlements arrived at through mutual compromise, jurists were concerned to ensure that they were equitable and in harmony with other Islamic principles. Thus, they debated when judges should encourage sulh and when he should proceed to adjudicate, and scrutinized sulh contracts to ensure they did not contravene rules on ownership and transfer of property. They also created a new role for sulh as a contract: it not only functions to terminate an existing dispute, but also to avert future conflict by regulating the use of property in neighborly and communal settings. And as the American Muslims attempt to reconcile the dual legal frameworks governing their lives in the United States today, one secular and one Islamic, and explore the alternatives provided by Islamic law for dispute resolution, their legal discourse shows that the ideals of sulh continue to rank high in the eye of the Muslim individual as well as community at large.

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/14th century to the end of the Safawīd period, when Shāh Ni`matullāh's descendents relinquished their role as hereditary leaders of the order. In particular, it focuses on the process of the tarīqah's institutionalization, and how it evolved from a small circle of disciples into a specialized and hierarchically organized entity with its own distinct practices, beliefs, and institutions. It suggests that this was a gradual and ongoing process, and that the tarīqah underwent significant changes in the centuries following Shāh Ni`matullāh's death, in terms of doctrine, organization, and even sectarian affiliation.

Section One discusses the various biographies of Shāh Ni`matullāh and how those sources reflect the attempts of that shaykh's successors to institutionalize his charisma. In particular, it demonstrates how the later shaykhs of the tarīqah were able to mold and redefine the order's past, adapting it to their own ends. Section Two explores various factors that are indicative of the tarīqah's development during the 9th/15th century. These include the crystallization of a distinct initiatic chain, based on the principle of hereditary succession, around Shāh Ni`matullāh's descendents in the region of Yazd; the expansion of the tarīqah's network of followers and their integration into the Ni`matullāhī biographical tradition; the development of distinctive Ni`matullāhī beliefs and practices, and the manner in which those beliefs were articulated over time by the leadership of the order. Section Three examines the dynamics of the Ni`matullāhī relationship with the Safawīds, accounting for their comparative success at a time when organized Sufism as a whole was decline in Iran. In particular, it focuses on the intense politicization of the leadership of the order during the 10th/16th century and on their gradual adoption of Ithnā-`Asharī Shiism, the state religion of the Safawīds.

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, with a special emphasis on the special emotional bond between ruler and personal servitors; and, second, the influence of this Inner Asian institution on the empire-building processes in East and West Asia. For the rulers of a tribally based society, it was a paramount concern to secure a loyal force which was detached from any tribal affiliations or local interest. I demonstrate that many successful examples of steppe rulers created personal guards from servile and foreign elements. I also analyze a special mechanism, called a tie of fosterage, which the steppe empires established to generate loyalty from the personal adherents.

In addition, the dissertation aims, in an effort to overcome the regionally structured format of Turco-Mongol history, to locate the significance of the Inner Asian politico-military institution of personal guards and of its evolution in sedentary societies, such as Persia and China, in the larger context of Eurasian history. For this purpose, I examine the Inner Asian tradition of personal guards in widely scattered regions from the Middle East to East Asia and throughout an extended length of period from the sixth to the fourteenth century. I juxtapose and compare the Inner Asian tradition of personal guards with other institutions based on Central Asian guards in the Tang, the Yuan, the Abbasid, and the Buyid dynasties and seek correlations and similarities among those systems.

Despite the divergence stemming from the different local contexts, my analysis shows that there was a strong influence from the Inner Asian tradition of personal guards on the imperial systems of the neighboring sedentary societies. With the study of the institution of personal guards, I attempt to show the interconnected nature of the imperial systems in Inner Asia, Persia, and China. At the same time, by demonstrating the steppe influence, my analysis suggests a corrective viewpoint to the current unbalanced images of nomad-sedentary cultural interactions.

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 and public spaces in general, was a legal official charged with “commanding right and forbidding wrong” and who would patrol the streets of the marketplaces and enforce “laws” whenever he encountered a violation.

Drawing upon the lessons of the legal realists, this dissertation takes at its starting point that Islamic laws were not applied in a formalistic fashion. As is the case in legal systems generally, there is an intellectual step between the “law on the books” and the “law in action,'” with much room for discretion, consciously or not, on the part of the implementer of the law—whether judge, muhtasib, or other—in this step. Beginning with these premises, this dissertation asks questions such as: How was the relevant law determined by the muhtasib in any given case? What were the factors influencing the muhtasib when applying law and making decisions? What was the relationship between the legal text and the context of daily life? And, most generally, how did the legal system function in that period?

The goal of this dissertation is to examine as many of the muhtasib's actions in early Mamluk Cairo and Fustat as can be gleaned from the historical sources, and come to general conclusions about the determination and application of law and the factors and conditions that accompanied these processes. The dissertation covers six substantive areas of the Mamluk-era muhtasib's actions and decision-making—(1) morality, health, safety, and public order; (2) religious endowments (waqf) and property; (3) weights and measures; (4) prices, currency, and taxation; (5) Muslim religious practice; and (6) Jews and Christians.

This dissertation shows that the muhtasib was a hybrid official, at the same time part of the traditional legal system but also responsible for carrying out the policy orders of the Sultan. As such, the position of the muhtasib contained the possibility of both supporting the legitimacy of a divine system while also bending to meet the particular needs of the day. This dissertation will hopefully advance our understanding of the Mamluk legal system, and in particular the position of muhtasib within it, as well as suggest new methods to study Islamic legal systems generally.