Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

I Am A Yakhchal, Scott M. Shafer

Student Publications

A description of the history and function of a traditional Iranian ice house, known as a Yakhchal, as told through the eyes of one such ice house surviving into the present day.

The Coverings Of An Empire: An Examination Of Ottoman Headgear From 1500 To 1829, Connor H. Richardson

Student Publications

This paper investigates the socio-economic and religious implications of hats worn in the Ottoman Empire from the mid-sixteenth century to 1829, when they were all replaced with the legendary fez. It acts as an initial compendium, drawing heavily from primary sources to explain who wore which style of headgear and why.

Off The Edge Of The Map: The Search For Portuguese Influence On The Piri Reis Map Of 1513, Robert S. Bridges

Student Publications

Left tattered after centuries of ware, hidden in the walls of Topkapı Sarayı, the 1513 map of the Ottoman cartographer Hacı Ahmed Muhiddin Piri has not been properly contextualized in light of Portuguese cartography of the time. In the map’s colophon, Piri Reis indicated that he utilized Portuguese charts as his sources for cartographic depictions of India and China. Scholars have not inspected the full range of contemporaneous Portuguese charts that depict the Indian Ocean Basin in light of the Piri Reis map. My contribution is to examine several late 14th and early 15th century Portuguese cartographical sources and references …

Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens In India And Pakistan, 1947-65, Haimanti Roy

History Faculty Publications

Partitioned States offers new perspective in the histories of Partition and its aftermath by connecting it to the long, drawn out and skewed formation of new national entities: India and East Pakistan. The book focuses on the Bengal Partition and locates its narrative within the intersection of long term cross border movement, chronic small-scale violence, the emergence of a document regime, and biased national refugee policies, all of which contributed to the formation of national citizenships in India and East Pakistan.

This book argues that minorities -- Hindus in East Pakistan, Muslims in eastern India -- and the discourse over …

Violence Against Women In Pakistan, Amina Bath

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Mythological History, Identity Formation, And The Many Faces Of Alexander The Great, James Mayer

Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects

Alexander the Great, ruler of Macedonia and conqueror of much of the eastern Mediterranean world in the fourth century BCE, figures prominently in folklore for centuries afterward.  This paper analyzes several stories about Alexander to explore the intersections among history, myth and identity.  By looking at accounts of Alexander written by Jews living in Alexandria in the Roman period, by early Byzantine Christians and by medieval Persian Muslims, I demonstrate that communities from all over the Mediterranean used myths about Alexander to redefine their identity in response to catastrophic changes.

Piracy, Slavery, And Assimilation: Women In Early Modern Captivity Literature, David C. Moberly

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines a hitherto neglected body of works featuring female characters enslaved in Islamicate lands. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many Englishmen and women were taken captive by pirates and enslaved in what is now the Middle East and North Africa. Several writers of the time created narratives and dramas about the experiences of such captives. Recent scholarship has brought to light many of these works and pointed out their importance in establishing what was still a young, unsure, and developing English identity in this early period. Most of this scholarship, however, has dealt with narratives of the …

By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, Something Wicked This Way Comes: Omani Perceptions Of The Supernatural, Jennifer L. Borger

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a student who came to Oman knowing very little about the Arab world or Islam, I can safely say that my knowledge has increased tenfold. Upon entrance to the country in January 2011, I had no idea what my independent research study would end up addressing. Upon first hearing of the concept of the evil eye and all it relates to, my interest peaked. I began to think that this topic was interesting enough to command a month’s attention from me. This all changed during a weekend trip to Salalah, in the south of Oman, which included a lecture …

Dance And Human Rights In The Middle East, North Africa, And Central Asia, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this essay, Islam itself is first examined in order to determine how individual Muslims justify to themselves and to others the banning of dancing in various contexts. Following a brief discussion of Islam as it relates to dance, some of the myriad dance genres and contexts found in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia are discussed. Finally, I consider the many ways in which many Muslims perceive dance, and then describe and analyze the local reactions to dancing in its complexity. This approach elucidates multiple meanings that create a pattern of behavior within specific cultural contexts.

An Army Of Housewives: Women’S Wartime Columns In Two Mainstream Israeli Newspapers, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

At the height of Israel's 1948 war, women's columns in the newspapers Ha'aretz and Ma‘ariv offered readers advice, stories, and letters. They focused on domestic practices such as preparing food, sewing clothes, dressing fashionably and providing comfort. At first glance, they completely ignored the war raging around them. However, this essay shows that the columnists portrayed housewives' roles, no less than men's front-line fighting, as an important part of the nation's wartime effort. The columnists and their responding readers took the housewives' domestic practices, which made them seem so unfit for battle and turned them into a battlefield of their …

Vengeance And The Crusades, Susanna A. Throop

History Faculty Publications

This article demonstrates that the popularity of the idea of crusading as vengeance was not limited to the laity, and, instead of fading away after 1099, the ideology grew more widespread as the twelfth century progressed. The primary aim here is to present the evidence alongside preliminary analysis, reserving further, more detailed interpretation for future publications.

A Look At The Astrolabe, Emily Storrar

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors program.

Dancing Boys, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The informal, and occasionally formal, institution of the dancing boy--the term used by most Western writers in their descriptions of the Islamic world--has been attested for centuries by European observers throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, as well as the Indian subcontinent and throughout the Islamic areas of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and the southern Philippines. These individuals have been called by a variety of names: bachchec [batcha], literally "child" in Persian and some Turkish languages, luti (itinerant performer), raqqas (dancer) in many regions, kocek (little) and tavsan (rabbit) in Ottoman Turkey, khawal in …

Beloved, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The "beloved" forms a central literary concept, highly developed during the medieval Islamic period and still popular in our own times, in the urbanized societies of the Middle East and Central Asia. Encountered throughout the literatures of Persian, Ottoman, and Chaghatay (Uzbek) Turkish, Urdu, and Arabic, among others, this concept manifests itself through highly charged, homoeroticized images and metaphors. The beloved is characterized through such highly eroticized and theatrical tropes of wanton allurement as disheveled locks, torn garments, intoxication symbolized by a wine cup in hand, and appearing at the bedside of the feverish lover. (See, for example, the poems …

The Tear That Does Not Mend: A Review Of 'Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India And Independence', Haimanti Roy

History Faculty Publications

Academic attention on Indian Independence and Partition has hitherto been focused mainly on the political and the "sheer teleology to the climax in August 1947 when British power was formally transferred." Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence, in the view of its editors as well as its contributors, is an attempt to examine other developments, no less momentous, during this period. The book, which is a collection of 12 essays by different authors dealing with various aspects of the Partition of 1947, attempts, as the title suggests, to document the "trauma" and find the "continuities" following "freedom."

Iran, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

As the locale for one of the oldest continuing cultural, linguistic, and ethnic entities, Iran provides archaeological evidence for dance portrayed on Mesopotamean pottery dated to 5000 BCE (Zoka', 1978). Evidence for continuing choreographic activity is documented in the historical writings of foreigners, from biblical times to ancient Greece to the Persian and Ottoman empires. Iconographic artworks showing dance also exist, such as silver objects from the Sasanian period (224-650 CE) and Persian miniatures from the twelfth century. Iran is, and most likely has always been, a place of immense ethnic and linguistic diversity, a continental crossroad open to influences …

Afghanistan, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

A very conservative Islamic country, Afghanistan lies on the eastern edge of the Middle East, to the west of Pakistan and India. Afghanistan is at the confluence of Iranian, Central Asian, and Indian cultural currents, and most groups within Afghanistan have ethnic ties across the borders. Indian elements are the least felt, but the rhythmic footwork of some solo dancing is highly reminiscent of classical Indian traditions. A variety of ethnic and linguistic groups, each with its own choreographic tradition, reflects Afghanistan's enormous cultural diversity. Its dance traditions, however, are scarcely documented. As in most Islamic countries, dancers are paid …

Danse Du Ventre, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Danse du ventre (also called belly dance or danse orientale) most probably derived its name from one or both of two sources: (1) a corruption of the Arabic raqs al-baladi, meaning "dance from the countryside," and (2) a reference to the highly developed movement articulations of the torso and abdomen, which are the most characteristic movement practices of this widespread dance genre. Arabs outside Egypt often call it raqs al-sharq ("Oriental dance") or raqs al-misri ("Egyptian dance"), underscoring the widespread notion that this dance tradition originated in ancient Egypt. No historical documentation exists for the origins of …

Arabian Peninsula, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The regional dances of the vast but sparsely populated peninsula that includes Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and emirates, and Yemen are--due to political, religious, economic, and other reasons of access--among the least studied. Historically, the gulf region is one of the most ancient marketplaces, with traders from India, Mesopotamia, Africa, and the Arabian hinterland meeting here for centuries. Influences from all these groups may be discerned in the dancing.

Kurdish Dance, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The Kurds are a nomadic people whose homeland (Kurdistan) and population (of some 10 million) are now divided among mountainous rural regions of Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia; small numbers live in Israel and the Republic of Georgia, (and a separatist movement is headquartered in Paris, France). They speak an Iranian (a Persian) language, and some believe them to be the descendants of the ancient Medes. Without a state of their own, the Kurds place great importance on such cultural forms and identity markers as dancing.

Lebanon, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In many respects, Lebanon is unique among the Arab states of the Middle East, and this uniqueness is reflected in its dance traditions, particularly in the number of professional performances given. Lebanon is a country more urban than rural, although most residents of Beirut, its capital, have some village relations or associations. Because the nation is small, no village is more than a few miles from Beirut or from such urban centers as Sidon or Tripoli. Lebanon's population is highly educated, and nomads (bedouins) account for only a miniscule percentage. The country's many religious groups and sects--mainly Christian and Islamic--seem …

Cross-Cultural Encounters: Past And Present, David R. Blanks

Faculty Book Chapters

This collective volume is the result of the Second Annual Conference on Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Mediterranean held at the American University in Cairo, 5-7 May, 1996. The contributors, David R. Blanks, John Victor Tolan, Nabil I. Matar, John Rodenbeck, Thabit Abdullah, E.M. Sartain, Omaima Abou-Bakr, and Nadia M. El-Cheik, take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from sociology, anthropology, political science, history, and literature, in medieval their examination of past attitudes, in particular images of the 'Other' in medieval Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, in order to trace the origins of modern stereotypes. The essays are divided into three …

0064: Marshall University Oral History Collection, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

Tape recordings and transcripts of oral interviews with residents in the West Virginia-Ohio-Kentucky Tri-State region regarding such topics as farming, schools, health care, folk customs, and many others related to life in this Appalachian region.

To view materials from this collection that are digitized and available online, search the Marshall University Oral History Collection here.