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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Transgressive Sanctity: The Abrek In Chechen Culture, Rebecca Gould
Transgressive Sanctity: The Abrek In Chechen Culture, Rebecca Gould
Rebecca Gould
The ancient tradition of the abrek (bandit) was developed into a political institution during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century by Chechen and other Muslim peoples of the Caucasus as a strategy for dealing with the overwhelming military force of Russia's imperial army. During the Soviet period, the abrek became a locus for oppositional politics and arguably influenced the representations of violence and anti-colonial resistance during the recent Chechen Wars. This article is one of the first works of English-language scholarship to historicize this institution. It also marks the beginning of a book project entitled A …
The Man-Made Disaster: Fire In Cities In The Medieval Middle East, Anna Akasoy
The Man-Made Disaster: Fire In Cities In The Medieval Middle East, Anna Akasoy
Publications and Research
Considering the building materials and climatic conditions in the medieval Middle East, fires must have been a major problem. This article provides a first survey of sources which are relevant for studying the impact of fires in urban environments. Evidence can be found, for example, in historiographies such as Ibn Kathīr's The Beginning and the End, or in legal discussions. Most fires mentioned in these sources were caused during riots or war, or by accidents in markets. The article also analyses how far fires fit into the general pattern of discussions around disasters in medieval Arabic literature.