SECTION 1: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK SECTION 2: GENEALOGY, TITULATURE AND PROPAGANDA SECTION 3: CEREM... more SECTION 1: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK SECTION 2: GENEALOGY, TITULATURE AND PROPAGANDA SECTION 3: CEREMONIES AND RITUAL PERFORMANCES SECTION 4: LEGITIMATION OUTSIDE THE CITY
This chapter explores the relationship between religion and empire, focusing on the empires of th... more This chapter explores the relationship between religion and empire, focusing on the empires of the Islamic world while also alluding to Sasanian Persia, the Byzantine Empire, Latin Christendom, and the European colonial empires which occupied the same geographic space in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After exploring the notions of “empire” and “religion,” it will consider associations between power and the sacred, expressed in many societies via cosmologies in which rulers were assumed to play a pivotal role in maintaining a harmonious social order. It will then explore the status rulers held in relation to dominant beliefs or confessional faiths, ranging from headship of a religious community to divine rights to rule, and how this was supported from the material and ideological perspectives in urban centers and across the countryside. The chapter concludes with a brief look at religious movements as a form of resistance to such hegemonic imperial structures.
The Articulation of Power in Medieval Iberia and the Maghrib, 2014
This chapter explores how the Marīnid sultans expressed their authority to their subjects, especi... more This chapter explores how the Marīnid sultans expressed their authority to their subjects, especially those living beyond Fes, their capital city, during their first century of rule. The construction of palatine cities and madrasas were important marks of Marīnid authority in urban space but, as a dynasty ruling over a large rural tribal population, the Marīnids also needed to express their power and authority beyond the city. The chapter begins with analysis of the textual image of kingship presented in Marīnid chronicles and then considers how that image was disseminated to the population. It looks at Marīnid military progresses (ḥarakāt) between their fortresses and towns and Marīnid military engagements in the rural environment and shows how they used a number of symbols of monarchy, from the historically resonant Qurʾān of ʿUthmān to generic items such as drums and banners to make their power manifest.
In keeping with other world religions, Islam had a universalist profile from the outset. Although... more In keeping with other world religions, Islam had a universalist profile from the outset. Although the caliphate, a universalist religiopolitical institution, ceased to actually govern more than a small portion of the Islamic world quite early on, the expansion of Arabic as a lingua franca and centripetal religious impulses such as the annual pilgrimage and the search for knowledge (talab al-‘ilm) undertaken by scholars created a startlingly well-integrated society which transcended the political boundaries of the time.1 Although this society was primarily an elite one, the umma, the universal community of all Muslims, existed in the imagination of Muslims from every walk of life.
... Frontier between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Centuries AMIRA K. BENNISON Introduction ... The ... more ... Frontier between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Centuries AMIRA K. BENNISON Introduction ... The frontiers of this sphere were the northern thughur or marches in the Iberian Peninsula and theSahara, the vast frontier between the Mediterranean world and sub-Saharan Africa. ...
North Africa was for generations a preserve of Francophone scholarship, with English writing on t... more North Africa was for generations a preserve of Francophone scholarship, with English writing on the area a rara avis. The situation has changed somewhat in recent years, and as a result British and American styles of constructing problematics and forging solutions have begun to penetrate the field. The present volume represents a special issue (itself growing out of a conference held in 1998) of The Journal of North African Studies, issued at the same time as the book in 2001. This format for publication leads one to ask why: Does its release as a book enhance the journal publication and does it have benefits for the world of learning and for readers more broadly, rather than just for publishers? In this case, one can give an affirmative, if slightly qualified, response to that question. There can be no doubt that such a publication will bring the book’s contents to people who would not normally see the journal and thus to a wider readership. Moreover, the collection of studies pres...
Following Muhammad is a scholarly, but not academic, book directed atthe general reading public. ... more Following Muhammad is a scholarly, but not academic, book directed atthe general reading public. Written by a religious studies scholar with anevident sympathy for Islam, it seeks to address western prejudices about Islam by presenting a clear, concise, and accessible picture of the faith incontext. Although the author explores Islam’s historical evolution, his primaryfocus is to balance this with insights into how Muslims themselvesunderstand their religion in contemporary as well as historical times.Although primarily directed toward non-Muslims, whose essentialistmedia-driven assumptions about Islam are constantly lamented by Ernst,it is also of interest to the Muslim reading public as a refreshing departurefrom standard accounts of Muslims and Islam. Although not a textbook,it could be profitably used as a text for discussion in a variety ofcourses.Two key issues to which Ernst returns repeatedly are, first, the erroneouswestern tendency of assuming that fundamentalists are the ...
Dr Amira K. Bennison is Deputy-Chair of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge,... more Dr Amira K. Bennison is Deputy-Chair of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, and Senior Lecturer there in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. She is a graduate of Harvard, Cambridge and London universities' and served as a Special Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Dr Bennison has published widely on the medieval and early-modern Maghreb. Her books include Jihad and its Interpretations in Pre-Colonial Morocco (2002), and the edited volume, Cities in the Pre-modern Islamic World: The Urban Impact of Religion, State and Society (with Alison L. Gascoigne, 2007).
Islam is the world’s fastest growing faith but it is one of the least well understood. It traces ... more Islam is the world’s fastest growing faith but it is one of the least well understood. It traces its heritage from ancient Semitic sources through Judaism and Christianity, and is therefore part of the Abrahamic monotheistic tradition. Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last prophet in a line which includes Jesus, Moses and the other Judaic prophets whose exploits are recorded in the Torah and Bible. His message is therefore not essentially different to that of earlier prophets but a reminder of the original Abrahamic message corrupted over time by the practitioners of Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad received God’s message in a series of revelations in the early 7th century AD. These revelations in rhyming Arabic prose are gathered together in the Qur’an in order of length rather than the order that they were received. They include historical, legal, didactic and eschatological material which forms the basis for Islamic law and ritual practice. The relationship between prophet...
A theoretically rich, nuanced history of Islam and Islamic civilization with a unique sociologica... more A theoretically rich, nuanced history of Islam and Islamic civilization with a unique sociological component This major new reference work offers a complete historical and theoretically informed view of Islam as both a religion and a sociocultural force. Uniquely comprehensive, it surveys and discusses the transformation of Muslim societies in different eras and various regions, providing a broad narrative of the historical development of Islamic civilization. This text explores the complex and varied history of the religion and its traditions. It provides an in-depth study of the diverse ways through which the religious dimension at the core of Islamic traditions has led to a distinctive type of civilizational process in history. The book illuminates the ways in which various historical forces have converged and crystallized in institutional forms at a variety of levels, embracing social, religious, legal, political, cultural, and civic dimensions. Together, the team of internation...
This article approaches the notion of an Islamic social contract from the perspective of the Berb... more This article approaches the notion of an Islamic social contract from the perspective of the Berber inhabitants of the Maghrib and their concern that the state should be just, with a particular focus on the period between 1050 and 1250 when the region was ruled by two successsive indigenous imperial regimes, the Almoravids and the Almohads. It explores the gradual implantation of ideas of Islamic statehood in the region, their intersection with earlier indigenous beliefs and social practices, and the “naturalization” of Islamic philosophical ideas developed in the ?Abbasid East and al Andalus in the very different environment of the Maghrib. Two ideas of particular salience to the discussion are the Almoravid idea of a M?lik? “Commander of Truth or Law,” the am?r al-?aqq, and Almohad references to a utopian perfect city or polis, al-mad?na al-f??ila, in the context of their recognition of their spiritual father, Ibn T?mart, as the mahd?.
SECTION 1: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK SECTION 2: GENEALOGY, TITULATURE AND PROPAGANDA SECTION 3: CEREM... more SECTION 1: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK SECTION 2: GENEALOGY, TITULATURE AND PROPAGANDA SECTION 3: CEREMONIES AND RITUAL PERFORMANCES SECTION 4: LEGITIMATION OUTSIDE THE CITY
This chapter explores the relationship between religion and empire, focusing on the empires of th... more This chapter explores the relationship between religion and empire, focusing on the empires of the Islamic world while also alluding to Sasanian Persia, the Byzantine Empire, Latin Christendom, and the European colonial empires which occupied the same geographic space in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After exploring the notions of “empire” and “religion,” it will consider associations between power and the sacred, expressed in many societies via cosmologies in which rulers were assumed to play a pivotal role in maintaining a harmonious social order. It will then explore the status rulers held in relation to dominant beliefs or confessional faiths, ranging from headship of a religious community to divine rights to rule, and how this was supported from the material and ideological perspectives in urban centers and across the countryside. The chapter concludes with a brief look at religious movements as a form of resistance to such hegemonic imperial structures.
The Articulation of Power in Medieval Iberia and the Maghrib, 2014
This chapter explores how the Marīnid sultans expressed their authority to their subjects, especi... more This chapter explores how the Marīnid sultans expressed their authority to their subjects, especially those living beyond Fes, their capital city, during their first century of rule. The construction of palatine cities and madrasas were important marks of Marīnid authority in urban space but, as a dynasty ruling over a large rural tribal population, the Marīnids also needed to express their power and authority beyond the city. The chapter begins with analysis of the textual image of kingship presented in Marīnid chronicles and then considers how that image was disseminated to the population. It looks at Marīnid military progresses (ḥarakāt) between their fortresses and towns and Marīnid military engagements in the rural environment and shows how they used a number of symbols of monarchy, from the historically resonant Qurʾān of ʿUthmān to generic items such as drums and banners to make their power manifest.
In keeping with other world religions, Islam had a universalist profile from the outset. Although... more In keeping with other world religions, Islam had a universalist profile from the outset. Although the caliphate, a universalist religiopolitical institution, ceased to actually govern more than a small portion of the Islamic world quite early on, the expansion of Arabic as a lingua franca and centripetal religious impulses such as the annual pilgrimage and the search for knowledge (talab al-‘ilm) undertaken by scholars created a startlingly well-integrated society which transcended the political boundaries of the time.1 Although this society was primarily an elite one, the umma, the universal community of all Muslims, existed in the imagination of Muslims from every walk of life.
... Frontier between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Centuries AMIRA K. BENNISON Introduction ... The ... more ... Frontier between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Centuries AMIRA K. BENNISON Introduction ... The frontiers of this sphere were the northern thughur or marches in the Iberian Peninsula and theSahara, the vast frontier between the Mediterranean world and sub-Saharan Africa. ...
North Africa was for generations a preserve of Francophone scholarship, with English writing on t... more North Africa was for generations a preserve of Francophone scholarship, with English writing on the area a rara avis. The situation has changed somewhat in recent years, and as a result British and American styles of constructing problematics and forging solutions have begun to penetrate the field. The present volume represents a special issue (itself growing out of a conference held in 1998) of The Journal of North African Studies, issued at the same time as the book in 2001. This format for publication leads one to ask why: Does its release as a book enhance the journal publication and does it have benefits for the world of learning and for readers more broadly, rather than just for publishers? In this case, one can give an affirmative, if slightly qualified, response to that question. There can be no doubt that such a publication will bring the book’s contents to people who would not normally see the journal and thus to a wider readership. Moreover, the collection of studies pres...
Following Muhammad is a scholarly, but not academic, book directed atthe general reading public. ... more Following Muhammad is a scholarly, but not academic, book directed atthe general reading public. Written by a religious studies scholar with anevident sympathy for Islam, it seeks to address western prejudices about Islam by presenting a clear, concise, and accessible picture of the faith incontext. Although the author explores Islam’s historical evolution, his primaryfocus is to balance this with insights into how Muslims themselvesunderstand their religion in contemporary as well as historical times.Although primarily directed toward non-Muslims, whose essentialistmedia-driven assumptions about Islam are constantly lamented by Ernst,it is also of interest to the Muslim reading public as a refreshing departurefrom standard accounts of Muslims and Islam. Although not a textbook,it could be profitably used as a text for discussion in a variety ofcourses.Two key issues to which Ernst returns repeatedly are, first, the erroneouswestern tendency of assuming that fundamentalists are the ...
Dr Amira K. Bennison is Deputy-Chair of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge,... more Dr Amira K. Bennison is Deputy-Chair of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, and Senior Lecturer there in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. She is a graduate of Harvard, Cambridge and London universities' and served as a Special Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Dr Bennison has published widely on the medieval and early-modern Maghreb. Her books include Jihad and its Interpretations in Pre-Colonial Morocco (2002), and the edited volume, Cities in the Pre-modern Islamic World: The Urban Impact of Religion, State and Society (with Alison L. Gascoigne, 2007).
Islam is the world’s fastest growing faith but it is one of the least well understood. It traces ... more Islam is the world’s fastest growing faith but it is one of the least well understood. It traces its heritage from ancient Semitic sources through Judaism and Christianity, and is therefore part of the Abrahamic monotheistic tradition. Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last prophet in a line which includes Jesus, Moses and the other Judaic prophets whose exploits are recorded in the Torah and Bible. His message is therefore not essentially different to that of earlier prophets but a reminder of the original Abrahamic message corrupted over time by the practitioners of Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad received God’s message in a series of revelations in the early 7th century AD. These revelations in rhyming Arabic prose are gathered together in the Qur’an in order of length rather than the order that they were received. They include historical, legal, didactic and eschatological material which forms the basis for Islamic law and ritual practice. The relationship between prophet...
A theoretically rich, nuanced history of Islam and Islamic civilization with a unique sociologica... more A theoretically rich, nuanced history of Islam and Islamic civilization with a unique sociological component This major new reference work offers a complete historical and theoretically informed view of Islam as both a religion and a sociocultural force. Uniquely comprehensive, it surveys and discusses the transformation of Muslim societies in different eras and various regions, providing a broad narrative of the historical development of Islamic civilization. This text explores the complex and varied history of the religion and its traditions. It provides an in-depth study of the diverse ways through which the religious dimension at the core of Islamic traditions has led to a distinctive type of civilizational process in history. The book illuminates the ways in which various historical forces have converged and crystallized in institutional forms at a variety of levels, embracing social, religious, legal, political, cultural, and civic dimensions. Together, the team of internation...
This article approaches the notion of an Islamic social contract from the perspective of the Berb... more This article approaches the notion of an Islamic social contract from the perspective of the Berber inhabitants of the Maghrib and their concern that the state should be just, with a particular focus on the period between 1050 and 1250 when the region was ruled by two successsive indigenous imperial regimes, the Almoravids and the Almohads. It explores the gradual implantation of ideas of Islamic statehood in the region, their intersection with earlier indigenous beliefs and social practices, and the “naturalization” of Islamic philosophical ideas developed in the ?Abbasid East and al Andalus in the very different environment of the Maghrib. Two ideas of particular salience to the discussion are the Almoravid idea of a M?lik? “Commander of Truth or Law,” the am?r al-?aqq, and Almohad references to a utopian perfect city or polis, al-mad?na al-f??ila, in the context of their recognition of their spiritual father, Ibn T?mart, as the mahd?.
This two-day interdisciplinary conference aims to take a fresh look at how Muslims negotiated the... more This two-day interdisciplinary conference aims to take a fresh look at how Muslims negotiated the internal diversity of Islam in various spatial and temporal settings since ca. 1250. Bringing together historians, art historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and scholars of comparative literature and Islamic studies who work on Islamic communities all across the globe, our aim is to analyse how Muslim travellers, scholars, state officials and migrant workers made sense of radically different forms of practical piety and religious thought they encountered while being on the move.
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Papers by Amira Bennison
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