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Excerpts from the Abbreviation

‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Sha‘rānī

in Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs

This section presents excerpts from the English text of The Abbreviation of Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs. ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʻrānī first talks about how he ... More

This section presents excerpts from the English text of The Abbreviation of Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs. ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʻrānī first talks about how he befriended Emir Husām al-Dīn ibn Baghdād and his children. He says he had not accepted any of their gifts, tasted their food or drink, nor worn their clothes, nor used their bedding. He also mentions Muhammad ibn Baghdād, who brought him into the private quarters where his children were and ordered them to kiss his sandals. He then proceeds to explain how mendicants should behave in relation to emirs.Less

Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs

‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Sha‘rānī

in Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs

This section presents the English text of Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs. ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʻrānī begins by emphasizing that his book explains the ... More

This section presents the English text of Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs. ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʻrānī begins by emphasizing that his book explains the conditions under which a mendicant may befriend an emir, and vice versa, as well as the appropriate code of conduct of each toward the other. He declares that he wrote it for “our gullible brethren” among the jurists, mendicants, and emirs. He goes on to enumerate his blessings which Exalted God has bestowed upon him regarding his relationship with an emir. Among such blessings is that he was to agree to befriend only an emir who respects him too much to send him any gifts or alms. The book concludes by discussing the etiquette of mendicants in befriending emirs and vice versa.Less

Reading subtitles: travelling films meet foreign spectators

Dimitris Eleftheriotis

in Cinematic Journeys: Film and Movement

By focusing on subtitles, this chapter maps out and delineates critical positions as they emerge within film theory and ‘world cinema’ in order to investigate their limitations. It proposes an ... More

By focusing on subtitles, this chapter maps out and delineates critical positions as they emerge within film theory and ‘world cinema’ in order to investigate their limitations. It proposes an understanding of ‘foreign spectators’ as characters encountered in the travels of films but explores this metaphor with a shift in point of view away from that of the traveller. It views subtitles as the marks of a journey, imprinted on the bodies of travelling films and read by the spectators that they encounter. The reading involved has a double frame of reference: it is an act of consumption of the literal meaning that the subtitles provide but also a critical and productive act that reads the subtitles as incomplete signs and instigates cultural syncretism and semiotic engagement with the films. The chapter uses Emir Kusturica's Black Cat, White Cat (1998) to posit the engagement of a fictional character, Grga Pitić (played by Sabri Sulejman), with Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (1942) as an idealised and emblematic instance of the ‘foreign spectator’.Less

Mediterranean Troughs, 600–900

David Abulafia

in The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean

By the sixth century, the unity of the Mediterranean had been shattered; it was no longer mare nostrum, either politically or commercially. There have been ... More

By the sixth century, the unity of the Mediterranean had been shattered; it was no longer mare nostrum, either politically or commercially. There have been attempts to show that the fundamental unity of the Mediterranean as a trading space, at least, survived until the Islamic conquests of the seventh century (culminating in the invasion of Spain in 711), or even until the Frankish empire of the incestuous mass-murderer Charlemagne acquired control of Italy and Catalonia. There have also been attempts to show that recovery began much earlier than past generations of historians had assumed, and was well under way in the tenth or even the ninth century. It would be hard to dispute this in the case of the Byzantine East, which had already shown some resilience, or in the case of the Islamic lands that by then stretched from Syria and Egypt to Spain and Portugal, but the West is more of a puzzle. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that some historians observe decline at the same moments as others detect expansion. To this one can sensibly answer that there was enormous regional variation; but the question remains when and whether the Mediterranean lost, and then recovered, its unity. Just as in antiquity the integration of the Mediterranean into a single trading area, and subsequently into a single political area, had taken many centuries, from the Dark Age of the tenth century BC to the emergence of the Roman Empire, so in the era of the ‘Third Mediterranean’ the process of integration was painfully slow. Full political integration was never again achieved, despite the best efforts of invading Arabs and, much later, Turks. The loss by Byzantium of so many of its mainland possessions to the Slavs and other foes did leave the empire with several remarkable assets. Sicily, parts of southern Italy, Cyprus and the Aegean islands remained under Byzantine rule, and the empire drew wealth from gold and silver mines in several of these lands. Even Sardinia and Majorca were under Byzantine suzerainty, but it is unclear whether a functioning network of communication across the Mediterranean still existed. Less

The Committee of Grand Ulama: An Organization in the Service of the Prince . . . and the Population

Nabil Mouline and Ethan S. Rundell

in Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia

This chapter describes the creation of the Committee of Grand Ulama, which was the most significant Hanbali-Wahhabi organization that existed. In addition to the committee, the High Council of the ... More

This chapter describes the creation of the Committee of Grand Ulama, which was the most significant Hanbali-Wahhabi organization that existed. In addition to the committee, the High Council of the Magistracy, and the Ministry of Justice were established by King Emir Faysal. The committee became the headquarters of ideological authority in contemporary Saudi Arabia. This chapter also explores the codification of legal norms deduced from sharia (tadwin al-rajih min aqwal al-fuqaha', commonly known as taqnin al-shari'a). It reveals that the Committee of Grand Ulama had a significant role in the religious and political areas of the Saudi monarchy.Less

Translator’s Introduction

‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Sha‘rānī

in Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs

This translator's introduction provides an overview of the Middle East in the sixteenth century, with particular emphasis on the rise of two major powers: the Safavid dynasty in Iran and the Ottoman ... More

This translator's introduction provides an overview of the Middle East in the sixteenth century, with particular emphasis on the rise of two major powers: the Safavid dynasty in Iran and the Ottoman Empire. It also considers the fall of the Mamluk Empire at the hands of the Ottomans led by Selim in 1516. Finally, it discusses the life of ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʻrānī and his involvement in Sufism, along with his writings on Sufi political theology. More specifically, it looks at the two books written by al-Shaʻrānī and dedicated to the relations between Sufi shaykhs and emirs: Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs, completed in December 1544, and The Abbreviation of Advice for Callow Jurists and Gullible Mendicants on Befriending Emirs, completed in May 1562.Less

The Art of a Romantic Trickster

Giorgio Bertellini

in Emir Kusturica

This chapter provides an overview of the political background that has shaped Emir Kusturica's films. Generationally and critically, Kusturica is the most renowned filmmaker associated both with the ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the political background that has shaped Emir Kusturica's films. Generationally and critically, Kusturica is the most renowned filmmaker associated both with the old Cold War's divide and its post-1989 aftermath. His work emerged out of a context that proved to be resiliently unlike any other within the Eastern European bloc. As one of few directors capable of thriving before and after 1989 (and between East and West), Kusturica appears to have adjusted his poetic pitch multiple times, just as critics on both sides of the Iron Curtain have felt compelled to reassess their judgment about his work. In reality, the chapter argues that his productions and activities have revolved around a poetic core that, in a dialogue with pressing historical occurrences, has undergone an expansion in terms of public political engagement and intermedial reach without altering itself.Less

Postmodern Bricolages

Igor Krstić

in Slums on Screen: World Cinema and the Planet of Slums

This chapter focuses on the 1970s and 1980s and illustrates how some of the most celebrated world cinema directors became profoundly affected by postmodern thought and cultural practice, among them ... More

This chapter focuses on the 1970s and 1980s and illustrates how some of the most celebrated world cinema directors became profoundly affected by postmodern thought and cultural practice, among them auteurs like Kurosawa, Brocka or Scola, all of whom have approached the slums of their native countries and cities in their films. The author argues that the cultural and architectural practice of bricolage may serve as a key paradigm that subsumes the otherwise quite disparate styles of these directors. Postmodern concepts and aesthetic strategies such as bricolage – and, by extension, intertextuality, intermediality or hybridisation – put the traditional claims of realist and documentary practices in doubt. Instead, postmodern films, like the chapter’s main example Time of the Gypsies (Kusturica 1989), mix what are apparently contradictory notions, such as magic and realism. However, the chapter also discusses other examples of (predominantly ‘Third-Worldist’) filmmakers who have been trying to preserve and recover the historically inherited, but now vehemently questioned (ethical, social and political) concerns of realist and documentary modes to approach their countries’ social problems, but without turning a blind eye towards the new postmodern realities of increasingly consumer-oriented ‘Third World’ cultures.Less

The Arab rich: “An ugly horse that wins the race is praised for its good looks”

in An Invitation to Laughter: A Lebanese Anthropologist in the Arab World

The author conducted a study to capture the culture of the rich in Lebanon. Some general themes could be detected in relation to those who became rich through their association with emirs. As a rule, ... More

The author conducted a study to capture the culture of the rich in Lebanon. Some general themes could be detected in relation to those who became rich through their association with emirs. As a rule, the Lebanese consider the possession of money to be of a higher moral value than the method of making it. The means are less important than the end. This has had a marked effect on the self-image of the rich. While accumulating wealth, a person acquires status and comes to be credited with wisdom, charisma, historic family origin, and above all good looks. The rich Arabs are good tippers but bad contributors to purpose-oriented charities, such as universities, hospitals, research institutions, and the like. In their investment endeavors in Western countries, Arab entrepreneurs are thought to be mysterious, difficult to approach, and to operate in a “wheels-within-wheels” fashion. In seeking to live luxuriously, the rich experience at once comfort and frustration.Less

Friends Indeed or Accomplices in Need?: The Jewish Agency, Emir Abdullah and the Shaykhs of Transjordan, 1922–39

Yoav Alon

in Israel's Clandestine Diplomacies

This chapter discusses a relatively underexplored period in relations between the political leadership of the Yishuv and Transjordan, between 1922 and 1939, one that has traditionally been ... More

This chapter discusses a relatively underexplored period in relations between the political leadership of the Yishuv and Transjordan, between 1922 and 1939, one that has traditionally been overshadowed by the period between 1945 and 1951 and the armed conflict over Palestine. It is argued here that any understanding of the relationship that emerged between Transjordan and the newly declared State of Israel after 1948 has to take account of ties between the Jewish Agency and Emir Abdullah, ties that came to shape both the perceptions and expectations of officials in Amman and Jerusalem. The chapter begins with a preliminary account of the early phase of the relationship between the Jewish Agency and the Transjordanian potentate during the 1920s, outlining the basic attitudes of both sides which came to determine relations in the period under discussion.Less

Regulation

Anna Chadwick

in Law and the Political Economy of Hunger

Chapter 4 analyses the new regulations introduced in the US and in the EU to respond to ‘excessive’ levels of speculation in commodity derivative markets. First, the chapter recalls the events of the ... More

Chapter 4 analyses the new regulations introduced in the US and in the EU to respond to ‘excessive’ levels of speculation in commodity derivative markets. First, the chapter recalls the events of the global financial crisis and relates how concerns about the role that derivatives played in bringing it about have motivated reform. The chapter then outlines the new US and European regulations for over-the-counter derivatives focusing on those provisions with the potential to address concerns about food commodity speculation. After discussing a number of challenges that threaten the regulatory project, the author exposes a number of deeper, structural limitations of the Dodd Frank Act and EMIR-MiFID II reforms. The regulations are revealed to be predicated on a problematic ‘Neoliberal-Neoclassical’ understanding of how financial markets function that fundamentally fails to account for dynamics of price formation in contemporary markets.Less

İstimâlet, Ottoman Methods of Conquest, and the Greek Orthodox Church

Tom Papademetriou

in Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority, and the Greek Orthodox Church in the Early Ottoman Centuries

This chapter addresses methods of conquest in the late Byzantine/early Ottoman period with respect to the Church. At the heart of the analysis is the question of accommodation (istimalet) as seen in ... More

This chapter addresses methods of conquest in the late Byzantine/early Ottoman period with respect to the Church. At the heart of the analysis is the question of accommodation (istimalet) as seen in the cooperation of local bishops with local emirs in Anatolia and the Balkans. This chapter argues that the new rulers based their relationship with local bishops on exploiting local ecclesiastical revenues, and that the bishops demonstrated practical self-preservation in adjusting to the new order, setting a pattern that would continue into the sixteenth century.Less

The Diversion

Michael Lower

in The Tunis Crusade of 1270: A Mediterranean History

In July 1269, King Louis IX of France was planning a campaign in Egypt or the Holy Land. One year later, his fleet landed on Sardinia, and in a war council held on July 13 Louis declared Tunis the ... More

In July 1269, King Louis IX of France was planning a campaign in Egypt or the Holy Land. One year later, his fleet landed on Sardinia, and in a war council held on July 13 Louis declared Tunis the target of the crusade. What happened between July 1269 and July 1270 to send the expedition in this unexpected direction is shrouded in secrecy. By expanding the narrative to incorporate Mediterranean‐wide networks of interaction, this chapter identifies several key turning points: the visit of the Dominican linguist Ramon Martí to Tunis in 1269; the attendance of Tunisian envoys at the baptismal ceremony of a French Jew at Saint‐Denis in October; the arrival of a Mongol embassy in Paris toward the end of the year; and the dispatch of an Angevin envoy to Tunis the following April, a month after Louis had lifted the oriflamme at Saint Denis to launch the campaign.Less

The Crusade Begins

Michael Lower

in The Tunis Crusade of 1270: A Mediterranean History

King Louis IX of France departed on the Tunis Crusade in March 1270. The campaign was beset with challenges from the outset. Louis had contracted with the Genoese for an expeditionary fleet, but they ... More

King Louis IX of France departed on the Tunis Crusade in March 1270. The campaign was beset with challenges from the outset. Louis had contracted with the Genoese for an expeditionary fleet, but they were two months late delivering the boats. Bored and drunk crusaders rioted in the streets of Aigues‐Mortes as they waited out the long delay. When the crusade did set sail, it made for Cagliari on Sardinia rather than the Near East. Shocked by their arrival, the Pisan garrison that controlled the city at first refused the crusaders entrance inside its walls. At a council of war held on the king’s warship Montjoie, the decision to divert the crusade to Tunis was announced to a stunned rank and file. A peaceful port city was about to move from the periphery to the center of the history of the crusades.Less

Global Markets, National Toolkits: Extraterritorial Derivatives Rule-Making in Response to the Global Financial Crisis

Matthew Gravelle and Stefano Pagliari

in Governing the World's Biggest Market: The Politics of Derivatives Regulation After the 2008 Crisis

A key trend that has characterized implementation of the international agenda to regulate derivatives has been the emergence of a number of disputes over the territorial scope of regulation, as ... More

A key trend that has characterized implementation of the international agenda to regulate derivatives has been the emergence of a number of disputes over the territorial scope of regulation, as different countries have sought to extend their regulatory oversight over firms and markets that are not legally domiciled in their jurisdiction. What explains the emergence and continuation of these extraterritorial measures in the regulation of global OTC derivatives markets? This chapter addresses this question by exploring the “regulatory land grab” that has characterized the rules introduced in the United States and the European Union to regulate foreign dealers, CCPs, and trading venues. This chapter will argue that the different degrees of extraterritoriality that have emerged in the post-crisis agenda reflect the challenges that regulatory authorities have faced to implement the new prudential agenda in a manner that addresses the highly internationalized nature of derivatives markets.Less

Power Plays from the Fringe: East Asian Responses to Derivatives Regulatory Reform

Yu-wai Vic Li

in Governing the World's Biggest Market: The Politics of Derivatives Regulation After the 2008 Crisis

Implementation of global derivatives reforms and the extraterritorial application of US and EU regulations in East Asia have generated political interplays unfolded at inter-state and domestic ... More

Implementation of global derivatives reforms and the extraterritorial application of US and EU regulations in East Asia have generated political interplays unfolded at inter-state and domestic levels. Leading jurisdictions such as Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong have exercised “power-as-autonomy” in an attempt to push back and delay the reform agendas spearheaded by global standard-setting bodies and the leading powers. Through leveraging the influence of Asian-based foreign dealers and exploiting the transatlantic disagreements, the Asian authorities have gained some rule-making autonomy in introducing derivatives reforms in local markets. This, however, was also driven by a competitive dynamic between individual Asian jurisdictions to promote the growth of domestic derivatives markets, which experienced dramatic growth in the post-crisis years. This resulted in market rules that do not reconcile and are somewhat inconsistent with each other, making the Asian regulatory landscape more uneven and fragmented along jurisdictional lines.Less

Arab Self-Determination and the Rise of the Modern State

Malik R. Dahlan

in The Hijaz: The First Islamic State

This chapter covers Arab self-determination: as a wide Arab national self-determination movement that engages a worldview with the new international order imposed by WW1. It covers Arab Nationalism: ... More

This chapter covers Arab self-determination: as a wide Arab national self-determination movement that engages a worldview with the new international order imposed by WW1. It covers Arab Nationalism: The Great Arab Revolt of 1916; The British Alliance with the Arab Nationalist Movement; The Kingdom of Hijaz declaration of Arab independence; French and German outlook on Arab statehood; The era of the League of Nations; The Mandate System and Its Legal Challenges; Arab Representation in the Paris Peace Conference; San Remo conference and finally; the collapse of the Hijazi–British alliance.Less