Kāi Tahu me te Hopu Tītī ki Rakiura:

This article examines te hopu tītī ki Rakiura — the customary harvesting of tītī or ‘muttonbirds’ (sooty shearwaters/puffinus griseus) from islands adjacent to Rakiura (Stewart Island), by members of Kāi Tahu — the iwi (tribe) that has traditional authority over the majority of Te Wāhi Pounamu (the South Island of New Zealand). The article illustrates the pre and post-contact importance of te hopu tītī to Kāi Tahu and argues that, because the harvest is now and has always been the sole domain of the iwi, this sets it apart from prevailing settler society narratives whereby indigenous people usually lose out. The article also shows how the harvest did and continues to contribute to Kāi Tahu tribal identity. The author is both Kāi Tahu and an active participant in the tītī harvest as well as a post-graduate history student. This enables him to offer both a unique reading of the archives relating to the harvest as well as access to oral histories and early photographs associated with it.     

Muslim Political Theology Before and After Empire: Shāh Muḥammad Ismāʿīl’s Station of Leadership (Manṣab-i Imāmat)*

ABSTRACT

This essay examines an important yet hitherto unexplored early-nineteenth century Indo-Persian work of Muslim political theology Station of Leadership (Man?ab-i Imāmat; also known as Darājāt-i Imāmat), written by the towering and contentious Sunnī thinker and political theorist from Delhi Shāh Mu?ammad Ismā?īl (d. 1831). In this hugely critical though lesser known of Ismā?īl’s texts, he sought to detail a theory and framework of ideal forms of Muslim political orders and leaders. Man?ab-i Imāmat presents a fascinating example of a text of Muslim political theology composed during a moment marked by a crisis of sovereignty as South Asia gradually yet decisively transitioned from Mughal to British rule. In this essay, through a close reading of Man?ab-i Imāmat, I aim to bring into view a vision of Muslim political thought and understanding of sovereignty that exceed and subvert the modern privileging of a territorial conception of the nation-state as the centerpiece of politics. I show that while tethered to an imperial Muslim political theology that assumed Islam’s superiority over and subsumption of other religious identities and traditions, sovereign power for Ismā?īl indexed not territorial sovereignty but the maintenance of Muslim markers of distinction in the public performance of everyday religious life.     

Vintages of the Sāqī-nāma: Fermenting and Blending the Cupbearer's Song in the Sixteenth Century

Drawing on a rich tradition of anacreontic poetry and taking inspiration from works by Nizāmī and Hāfiz, the sāqī-nāma or “cupbearer's song” emerged as an independent genre in the early sixteenth century and flourished throughout the Persian literary world for the next 250 years. Looking back on the development of the genre, the early seventeenth-century literary historians ‘Abd al-Nabī Qazvīnī and Awhadī Balyānī give contrasting accounts of its formation, but both agree on the significance of the work of Hakīm Partuvī Shīrāzī (d. 928/1520–21). An examination of his sāqī-nāma, together with two other early representatives of the genre by Sidqī Astarābādī (d. 952/1545) and Sharaf Jahān Qazvīnī (d. 968/1561), shows how closely this new genre was tied to the politics and ideology of the new Safavid state and reveals profound structural similarities to the preeminent panegyric genre of the Islamicate world, the qasīda. But once the basic components of the sāqī-nāmā were distilled and taken up by poets outside this socio-political environment, the genre proved to be as protean as the wine symbolism at its core. Cupbearer songs from the end of the century, particularly those of Muhammad Sūfī Māzandarānī (d. 1035/1625–26) and Sanjar Kāshānī (d. 1021/1612), show how the basic elements of the genre could be reconfigured to serve a variety of more personal interests.     

Al-Fārābī’s Cave: Aristotle’s Logic and the Ways of Socrates and Thrasymachus

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric al-Fārābī harmonizes Plato and Aristotle in terms of philosophic education by ordering Aristotle’s eight logical works onto Plato’s famous image of the cave. He represents the way out of the cave with Aristotle’s four logical works of ascent (Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, and Posterior Analytics) and the return into the cave through Aristotle’s four logical works of the descent (Topics, Sophistical Refutations, Rhetoric, and Poetics). Al-Fārābī’s image of ascent and descent also alludes to Socrates’ conception of protreptic education in Book VII of the Republic. In essence, protreptic education consists in the Socratic art that freely turns the soul from the images and political interpretations of things to being itself. In this essay I argue that for al-Fārābī the four logical works of ascent guide the soul to free itself from its habituations so as to contemplate real beings, particularly the good of one’s own soul and the souls of one’s fellow citizens. Yet the ruler needs to use the arts of “descent,” as demonstrated by Thrasymachus, in order to rule the city well. The way of Socrates consists of the logical methods used to come to possess knowledge of being, while the way of Thrasymachus comprises the methods of persuasion to habituate citizens and protect the philosophic quest for the truth. Al-Fārābī, I conclude, combines the way of Socrates and the way of Thrasymachus in order to show that both ways are useful and necessary for good governance.     

Lives of Frankish princes from al-Ṣafadī’s biographical dictionary,al-wāfī bil-wafayāt

This article endeavours to bring to the English reader unpublished historical sources about Frankish figuers in the fourteenth century biographical dictionary al-Wāfī bil-wafayāt. This work, one of the largest biographical dictionaries in the history of the genre in Arabic, was written by Khalīl b. Aibak ?alā? al-Dīn, al-?afadī who was born in 1297 to a Mamluk father and a respected amir of the Mamluk military troops in ?afad. This article analyse nine biographies of Frankish historical figures and endeavours to answer the question: how original were al-?afadī’s biographies on Frankish princes?     

Writing the History of the “Persian Arabs”: The Pre-Islamic Perspective on the “Naṣrids” of al-Ḥīrah

Modern scholarship on Arabs in the pre-Islamic period has focused on Rome's Arab allies—the so-called “Jafnids” or “Ghassānids,” with much less attention paid to Persia's Arab allies, the so-called “Na?rid” or “Lakhmid” dynasty of Arab leaders at al-?īrah in Iraq. This article examines select pre-Islamic sources for the Persian Arabs, showing that even with the meager evidence available to us, and the lack of archaeological material, it is possible to draw a relatively complex portrait of the Persian Arabs. This article situates the Persian Arabs as important figures in some key themes and phenomena of late antiquity, such as the growth of Christian communities, the conflict between Rome and Persia, and the struggle for influence in the Arabian peninsula.     

The Influence of Ibn Sīnā on al‐Ghazzālī in Qur'anic Hermeneutics

Al‐Ghazzālī criticized Muslim philosophers in general and Ibn Sīnā in particular in a number of matters notwithstanding, he was deeply influenced by philosophy and Ibn Sīnā's views as to some issues. Of the contexts in which al‐Ghazzālī is under the clear influence of Ibn Sīnā are the interpretations of some Qur'ānīc chapters and verses which are related to the demonstration of the existence of God and the explanation of some divine attributes and names. In many of his works, al‐Ghazzālī reproduces Ibn Sīnā's interpretation of the verses in harmony with the ontological proof. One can observe Ibn Sīnā's influence on al‐Ghazzālī in relation with the hierarchy of beings, too. However, the context in which Ibn Sīnā's influence is most obvious is the interpretation of the 35^th verse of the Sūrah Nūr. Ibn Sīnā's interpretation of the terms occurring in this verse as symbols of the human faculties exercised a profound impact on the thought of al‐Ghazzālī, which manifests itself in his interpretation of the verse in Mishkāt al‐Anwār. Another of such contexts is the topic of human psychology and the interpretations of the verses related wherewith. Immensely influenced by the psychological views of Ibn Sīnā, al‐Ghazzālī adopted Ibn Sīnā's notion of the simultaneous creation of soul and body, interpreting some Qur'ānic verses in harmony with this notion. This article is intended to illustrate that al‐Ghazzālī, who is opposed to the blind imitation of any school of thought, did not make a wholesale denouncement of the views of philosophers; on the contrary, he made an extensive use of Ibn Sīnā's ideas in conformity with his general attitude of benefiting from all schools of thought.     

Ṭūsī Reloaded: Ismāʿīlī Paths of Sufi Wayfaring and Sufi Paths of Ismāʿīlī Apophaticism

Much ink has been spilled on the tumultuous life and works of Na?īr al-Dīn ?ūsī. This paper re-evaluates his connections with Sufism and Ismā?īlism, and challenges the reduction of the former to a late interest, and the latter to an early affiliation abandoned in the wake of the Mongol invasion. The paper argues that Sufi and Ismā?īlī themes, sources, and ideas are in an organic interpenetration in ?ūsī’s works throughout his career. While his early Ismā?īlī eschatology has a fundamentally Sufi nature, his late Sufi treatise adopts the key components of Ismā?īlī negative theology of the divine nature. The case of ?ūsī illustrates that the Ismā?īlī double negation was preserved in Iran and Central Asia, and put into creative interactions with Sufism in the thirteenth century.     

Origin Narratives and the Making of Dynastic History in al‐Dīnawarī's Akhbār

This article takes the reader on a journey into the historical writing of the ninth century Muslim historian al‐Dīnawarī (d. 895) and examines the motives behind composing his al‐Akhbār al‐?iwāl. The themes and narrative arrangements of this work give insight into al‐Dīnawarī's historical agenda that demonstrates his interest in royal histories that exemplify the rise and fall of nations, dynasties, and powerful rulers. Al‐Dīnawarī's emphasis on specific episodes and events demonstrates that only certain ethnic groups whose political legitimacy derives from a respectable and prominent origin can bring about political and social stability. By dealing with these sociopolitical concerns, this article also sheds new light on the intellectual discourses and political crises that dominated Islamic society during the eighth and ninth centuries and the way al‐Dīnawarī reacted to these challenges.     

IN THE FOLDS OF TIME: RASHĪD AL‐DĪN ON THEORIES OF HISTORICITY

By focusing on Rashīd al‐Dīn's (d. 718/1318) historiographical oeuvre and here in particular his “History of the World,” this article challenges the usual approach to his Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles) and argues that his was a deeply pluralistic enterprise in a world with many centers, tremendous demographic change, high social mobility, and constantly shifting truth‐claims in an ever expanding cosmos, to which Rashīd al‐Dīn's method, language, and the shape of his history were perfectly adaptable. This article introduces the notion of “parallel pasts” to account for Rashīd al‐Dīn's method. By placing the Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh and its author in their historical and intellectual context, this article also argues that this method is not restricted to Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography: His historiographical work ought to be seen as part of his larger theological and philosophical oeuvre into which the author placed it consciously and explicitly, an oeuvre that is, like Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography, pluralist at heart, and that could be as easily classified as “theology” or “philosophy” as “historiography.”     

Holy Figures Portrayed in the Edinburgh Fragment of Rashīd al-Dīn’s World History

This paper has two purposes. One is to look carefully at the way that the stories of Sālih and Samson are told in the Edinburgh fragment of Rashīd al-Dīn’s World History and its accompanying illustrations, and the messages that these convey. The second is to explore the interplay of text and image in what might be termed “the Moses cycle” and to consider the motivation for the unusual textual and pictorial emphasis on Moses. Several aspects of the cycle are analyzed: Moses as an antetype of Rashīd al-Dīn himself, the impact of the Qur’anic text and Moses as a precursor of the Prophet Muhammad.     

Yaḥyā Dawlatābādī’s Contribution to Persian Poetic Modernity

In 1912, Ya?yā Dawlatābādī composed two poems, the form of which diverged greatly from the canonical rules of tradition. Both poems were based on syllabic meters. Critics and historians of modern Persian literature have given these poems little consideration, and discussed them merely from the point of view of metrics. When compared to the great modernist endeavors in the poetry of the time, these pieces were judged severely, or altogether disavowed. This paper aims to show that, beyond mere metrical audacity, Ya?yā Dawlatābādī’s syllabic poems were in fact innovative. As the article argues, they were born out of the same quest for fresh poetic forms that induced contemporaneous modernists to create new, individualized poetic patterns.     

Saʿdi-ye Shirāzi and Bono Giamboni in Dialogue: A Comparative Approach to Temperance

This article presents a study of two coeval works on morals: the first belongs to the classic Persian tradition, the Golestān (The Rose Garden) by Sa?di (Shirāz 1210–91 or 1292); the second, Il libro de’ vizî e delle virtudi (Book of Vices and Virtues) by Bono Giamboni (Florence 1240–92), belongs to the first didactic prose in vernacular Italian. The study will specially concern the theme of temperance ????? qanā?at, central to both Islamic and Christian morals. An analysis is made of passages dedicated to this theme in both texts, also through comparative observations, in order to identify the approach characteristic to each work.