Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

Sufism At The Service Of Ḥadīth Commentary: Re-Framing Al-Kalābādhī'S Baḥr Al-FawāʾId In Fourth-Tenth Century Transoxiana, Fadhil Yunus Alsagoff

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī’s (d. 380/990) understudied ḥadīth commentary, the Baḥr al-fawāʾid al-mashhūr bi-maʿānī al-akhbār. The first Anglophone study of the text as a whole, this thesis situates itself within the emergent literature on ḥadīth commentaries and challenges the prevailing scholarly tendency to reduce Sufi-authored commentarial texts to the ishārī method of interpretation and to treat them solely as repositories of Sufi themes. This thesis argues that, contrary to current perceptions of the text as primarily a work of Sufism, the Baḥr al-fawaʾid is first and foremost a work of ḥadīth commentary, its main intent being to …

Documenting Death: A Question Of Sovereignty In The Cairo Geniza, Thomas Adkins

Theses and Dissertations

How can death offer a case study for the question of sovereignty in eleventh to thirteenth century Egypt as it was performed by sovereigns, officials, and subjects alike, and, in this context, how can the documentary practices preserved in the Geniza be understood as an instrument to perform sovereignty? This thesis uses death as a case study in the same way that scholars of the medieval Islamic world have studied taxation, administration, and ceremonials to understand sovereignty as it was performed by the state, officials, and subjects. This performance of sovereignty by each implicated actor left a rich documentary trail, …

The Narrative Legacy Of Shajar Al-Durr In Arabic Literature, Mary Evelyn Quinlan

Theses and Dissertations

The story of the life of Shajar al-Durr (d. 1257) has been retold many times in Arabic literature in a variety of genres and mediums. In the pre-modern era, Shajar al-Durr’s biography appeared in the works of Ibn Wāṣil, Abū al-Fidāʾ, Al-Maqrīzī, and Ibn Taghrībirdī as well as the popular epic Sīrat Baybars. Many others have written about her since the 19th century, including Qadriyya Ḥusayn and Jurjī Zaydān. Writers of her biography used varying degrees of narrativization to create a story that served their needs, whether that was chronicling the history of 13th century Egypt or promoting contemporary ideological …

Landscaping The Exotic And The Ancient Through Picturesque: Reconsidering The Impact Of David Roberts’S Egypt And Nubia, Sophie Cooke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers David Roberts’s use of picturesque art for imperial Britain and analyzes the ways Egypt and Nubia played an influential role in the cultural transmission of ancient Egypt. By confronting both antiquity and modernity, his Egyptian landscapes are evidence of how Western picturesque artworks influence historical narratives.

Parallel Concepts Found In The Thousand And One Nights And Sufi Hagiography, Walaa Kamal Emam Kamel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that The Thousand and One Nights functions as more than mere populist entertainment; rather, it constitutes a literary corpus imbued with Sufi mystical epistemologies that reflect the spiritual quests and Sufi concepts evident in hagiographical traditions. Through discourse and intertextual analysis of two Nights stories, “The City of Brass” and “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” alongside Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, this study demonstrates how shared rhetorical strategies—specifically David Pinault’s Leitwörter analysis and L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience concept—reveal a narrative and rhetorical emphasis on the metamorphosis of the self from worldly attachment toward …

Ottoman Wikālas In Cairo: Islamic Architecture Beyond The Mosque, Yumna Moussa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces one of the largest architectural typologies in Cairo: the wikāla, a type of urban caravanserai unique to Egypt. Estimated to have reached more than five hundred buildings by the 18^th century, the wikāla was the building of choice for most patrons in Ottoman Cairo. This study initially investigates the evolution of commercial architecture within the Islamic city. It then explores the defining architectural features of Cairene wikālas built between the 16^th and 18^th centuries—their plans, decorative/iconographic programs, and urban distribution—based on waqfiyyas, chronicles, travelers’ accounts, and photographic archives. Since many of …

Maritime Trade And Imperial Ambitions: Yemeni Politics And Trade In The Indian Ocean World (626/1228-858/1454), Beck Sjostedt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of Yemen, particularly under the Rasūlid dynasty (626/1228-858/1454) in the medieval Indian Ocean trade. I argue that the Rasūlids attempted to create an “imperial maritime space” wherein Yemen would be the imperial core, and the western Indian Ocean and Red Sea the subjugated peripheries. While the Rasūlids managed to organize state power towards their imperial project via diplomacy, military and naval expansion, and a robust and efficient bureaucracy, they never fully realized their goal of creating a thalassocratic empire in the western Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, medieval Yemen played a significant role in the political, social, …

“Perfect Hearts And Pure Pages”: The Transmission And Recitation Of The Qur’An In Mamluk Cairo—The Shāṭibiyya As A Case Study, Jonathan Hearn

Theses and Dissertations

The Ḥirz al-Amānī wa-Wajh al-Tahānī of Abū al-Qāsim b. Fīrruh al-Shāṭibī (d. 590/1193) became one of the most widely studied texts associated with the recitation of the Qur’an. A didactic versification of Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī’s (d. 444/1053) Kitāb al-Taysīr fī al-Qirāʾāt al-Sabaʿ, the Shāṭibiyya was composed in Ayyubid Egypt and transformed the discipline of the variant readings (qirāʾāt). Despite its popularity and acknowledged impact upon the discipline, the Shāṭibiyya remains a relatively untapped resource for understanding the Qur’an in its recited form. This thesis studies the recitation of the Qur’an in Mamluk Cairo through the Shāṭibiyya, …

Local And Transregional Networks Of Women In Late Medieval Mecca And The Mamluk Empire, Mona Hafiz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the local and transregional networks of women in Mecca during the ninth/fifteenth century, as represented in the biographical dictionaries of al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497), Ibn Fahd (d. 885/1480), and al-Fāsī (d. 832/1429). It combines qualitative and quantitative methods in order to analyze the family, knowledge, and travels networks of women in late medieval Mecca and the Mamluk empire. It argues that Meccan women’s social and intellectual roles extended beyond their families, to other families, scholars, and regions. Simultaneously, the thesis focuses on Mecca as a central node in the networks that tied together different regions of the Mamluk …

Judaism, Conversion, And The Limits Of Christian Orthodoxy: The Jewish Identities Of Joseph Wolff And Michael Solomon Alexander As Detailed In Their Memoirs And Missions To Palestine, Michael Iodice

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Jewish identities of the Anglican missionaries Joseph Wolff and Michael Solomon Alexander by examining their conversion memoirs and evangelical missions to Palestine. It argues that they used Protestant biblical exegesis to emphasize their Jewish heritage and its importance in Christian prophecy.

Unfolding Remembrance: Folding Islamic Principles Into Pondering Machines, Hind Al Saad Al-Kuwari

Theses and Dissertations

Principles of early Islamic art can be surveyed as a precursor to Western computational art. Though produced in different historical and cultural contexts, Islamic art and computational art are connected by underlying structures—arithmetic, harmony, and the concept of the Infinite.

Islamic developments in knowledge, like algebra, contributed to mathematics and mechanics—the building blocks of contemporary technology. Returning to Islam’s traditional harmony between religion and science, my creative practice constructs machines as an act of worship (ʿibadah), folding Islamic principles into the medium of computation.

Selected verses from the Quran are used as the core of each automaton (self-operating machine). Their …

The Incoherence Of Orientalists, Sarah Zaid Alafifi

Theses and Dissertations

Orientalism, the Western practice of fetishizing cultures, extends beyond mere misrepresentation of the “other;” it epitomizes the underlying structures of colonialism and imperialism, infiltrating everyday life and eroding the moral fabric of Islamic society.

This thesis analyzes colonial control through the exercise of political power and the production of knowledge, investigating key events related to Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and the narratives of resistance that emerged in opposition to it.

Through the lens of this 18th-century expedition, the study examines how Western knowledge systematically contributed to the dismantling of Islamic systems of knowledge. Select phrases from Colonial-era printed proclamations are extracted …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Interpretatio Islamica And The Unraveling Of The Ancient Sabian Mysteries, Maurice Hines

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis makes some bold claims about the identity of the Qur’anic Sabians (Ṣābi’ūn) and their symbiotic relationship with various Near Eastern religions including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Thrice mentioned in the Qur’an, they clung to an ancient religion - or perhaps the most ancient – that spanned the entire Eastern hemisphere and provided not only the structural foundations of human civilizations, but also their religious, philosophical, and intellectual foundations. However, their creed had undergone a variety of changes over time including a shift in the conception of God from a personal to a transcendent deity, the worship …

Waqf In Transition: Tracing Local Institutional Change During The British Mandate In Palestine, Zachary Murray

Theses and Dissertations

The British Mandate’s actions of state-building in Palestine were informed by a Zionist-Western modernist envisioned past of Palestine. This state-building ideology was embedded within much of the bureaucracy of the Mandate’s system and infringed on numerous Palestinian institutions such as Waqf. Waqf was disenfranchised in particular through the implementation of urban development programs, like town planning and archaeological regimes, which sought to support the British-Zionist recasting of Palestine.

This thesis aims to show how the British’s ideology of Palestine informed the Mandate’s internal polices and actions which infringed on the rights of waqf. This was done through two axes of …

Reinterpreting Medieval Islamic Autobiography: The Case Of Al-SakhāWī’S Irshād (1428/831 Ah - 1497/902 Ah), Maha Shawki

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis research aims to contribute to the study of medieval Arabic autobiographies by examining the autobiography of one of fifteenth-century Mamluk scholars, Muḥammad Ibn ʿabd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī (1428/831 AH - 1497/902 AH).

The objective of this research is to understand more about the art of writing an autobiography during the late Mamluk period and how it relates to broader Islamic tradition. This will be done by considering al-Sakhāwī’s autobiography in the context of other similar concurrent texts written during the late Mamluk period to detect possible links and investigate how a medieval autobiography can be shaped by the character …

The National Interest And The Roots Of American-Saudi Diplomacy, Oliver B. Wiegel

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the beginnings of diplomacy between the United States and Saudi Arabia during the interwar years and World War II. It explores how national interest was decided upon, how oil companies affected American foreign policy, and the American government’s strategic interest in Saudi oil reserves.

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

A New Synthesis: Saudi Salafism And The Contested Ideologies Of Muhammad Surur, Ahmad Kindawi

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis examines the life and thought of Muhammad Surer Zayn al-Abidin, the Syrian ideologue and founder of an influential Islamist trend within the Sahwa (Awakening) movement in Saudi Arabia. In the highly politicalized Saudi Islamist scene of the early 1970s, Surur came up with a unique synthesis: an amalgam of the political awareness of the Muslim Brotherhood in seeking political reform and the implementation of an Islamic order and the religious thought of Wahhabis. Under the influence of Surer's ideas, a new group appeared, al-Sureriyya, which had a significant impact on Saudi Islamic activism, becoming the main group within …

The Impact Of Ethnic Cleansing And The Eurocentric International System On The Entrance Of The Ottoman Empire Into The Great War, 1878-1914, Parker Lake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the reasons for the Ottoman Empire’s entrance into the First World War. It claims that the Empire’s decision was rooted in the failure of the European international system to uphold its diplomatic agreements and the resulting refugee crisis in the Balkans caused by Russian imperialism.

The Integration History Of Kuwaiti Television From 1957-1990: An Audience-Generated Oral Narrative On The Arrival And Integration Of The Device In The City, Ahmad Hamada

Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to compose an account of television history in Kuwait, one that focuses on its integration into society and is told from the audience's perspective and experience. This study represents a cultural alternative to the overwhelmingly national, institutional, and biographical focus that accompanies television history works in Kuwait and the Arab world.

The narrative is gathered and generated through the individual oral stories of 25 Kuwaitis over the age of 50, who generally represent the six geographical districts of Kuwait. Through their oral stories, the narrators examine the different areas in which television has integrated itself into society …

Claiming The Mad, Samar Nour

Theses and Dissertations

Mental asylums in Egypt during the colonial period.

A History Of The Missionary Activities Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In The Near East, 1884-1929, Rao H. Lindsay

Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the Protestant penetration into the Near East, Jacob Spori was sent to Constantinople in 1884 to open a mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Turkey. Spori and later his companion, Joseph M. Tanner, preached first to the Europeans of Constantinople, then projected their efforts down into the major cities of Palestine. Among the German colonists, the missionaries found several valuable converts, most of whom emigrated to Utah.

Ferdinand F. Hintze gained the title "Father of the Armenian Mission" through his extensive preaching tours throughout the interior of Asia Minor. He found …