Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta

20/09/2022

New article alert!

Ibn Aʿtham al-Kufi is one of the most underrated early ʿAbbasid historians. his multivolume history in Arabic circulated in medieval Persian translation, but now it’s comparatively obscure & overlooked. today we have an exciting addition to Aʿthamology!

Andrew McLaren offers a reading of the isnads in the history and references to its author in other texts to argue that Ibn Aʿtham died around the year 320/932, rather than the guestimated date of either 204/819–20 or 314/926–27, as found in previous scholarship.

the article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:

This article is an attempt to settle the debate about the floruit of the largely obscure Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī and the date of the composition of his history. The standard death date given for him, 314/926–27, was recently revealed to be scholarly guesswork, and more than one scholar has argued in...

14/09/2022

New article alert!

Dehydration is dangerous: “it is the very availability of water which decides over life and death” —Xu Jing (1123). but what do we know about the logistics of medieval voyages on the Indian Ocean? Elizabeth Lambourn’s article brings together Arabic & Chinese sources & shipwreck archeology to examine potable water provisioning, with an eye on the physical needs of crew and storage capacity of ships. [shown here: torpedo jar from Belitung shipwreck, made 9th cent Iran/Iraq]

as always, UW articles are open access. you can read, download, & share this one here:
https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/article/view/uw30lambourn

27/06/2022

New article alert! The Prophet’s Mosque in Medina was once lined with mosaic. The inscriptions (now lost) reveal a lot about Abbasid legitimacy, the fate of Umayyad inscriptions, & the history of Medina. Interested in their content? Check out the new article by Harry Munt! the article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here: https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/article/view/8598

06/05/2022

don't forget! UW has issued a CfP for a thematic dossier on Gender as a Category of Analysis for the Study of the Medieval Middle East. abstracts are due on 1 Jun 2022 for publication in 2023. please share full announcement here: https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/announcement/view/486

08/04/2022

New Article Alert! an impoverished father in medieval Egypt needed to remove his daughter from her late mother’s family & turned to a judge for help. Check out Lev Weitz's new article “The Long Arm of the Provincial Law” abt his petition: https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/article/view/uw30weitz

01/04/2022

New Article Alert! Praising infidels for drinking wine and uprooting Islam? To learn how to read such antinomian Persian poems, check out Matthew Thomas Miller's new article “The Poetics of the Sufi Carnival.”
As always, open access: https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/article/view/uw30mmiller

03/02/2022

CfP for a thematic dossier in UW 2023: Gender as a Category of Analysis for the Study of the Medieval Middle East

We are soliciting original research articles that use gender as an analytical lens through which to view any aspect of the medieval Middle East, expansively defined to include all geographies with prominent Muslim political, religious, or social presences between the rough parameters of 500 and 1500 CE. By insisting upon gender as a category of analysis, we harken back to Joan Scott’s landmark Gender and the Politics of History (1988), and, in that spirit, we want to be explicit that this is not a call for articles that simply include or even focus on women. Instead, we seek work that analyzes the way notions of masculinity and femininity – as well as related social constructs co-constituted with discourses of s*x, s*xuality, and/or embodiment – organized cultural, political, religious, spatial, or economic norms, practices, or relationships in historical context. We encourage approaches that denaturalize or problematize gendered categories, such as women, men, etc., by analyzing them intersectionally with race, ethnicity, religion, age, and socio-economic or legal status. Articles that seriously grapple with gender theoretically or conceptually as it pertains to the medieval Middle East are also welcome. We are open to research from any discipline or interdisciplinary formation, and we are committed to assembling a diverse roster of authors.

For more information: https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/announcement/view/486

Gender as a Category of Analysis for the Study of the Medieval Middle East Posted on Feb 3, 2022 We are soliciting original research articles that use gender as an analytical lens through which to view any aspect of the medieval Middle East, expansively defined to include all geographies with promin...

02/02/2022

Welcome to the new page for al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, the peer-reviewed, open-access journal of the Middle East Medievalists! Like MEM, we define the medieval Middle East expansively: all geographies with prominent Muslim political, religious, or social presences between the rough parameters of 500-1500 CE. We already have an exciting slate of articles getting ready for publication in 2022: an article on Persian qalandarī poetry, another on the inscriptions of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, and yet another on an Arabic document from the Fayyūm in Egypt. We will publish each article when ready rather than waiting for MESA, so follow this page to make sure you don’t miss anything!