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Streams of Affection: Water's Role as a Conduit of Emotion in Medieval Islamic Society
Abstract
The eleventh-century poet, philosopher, and traveler Nasir Khusraw (d.1088) conducted a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1046 CE and documented his entire journey across the Islamic world in his travelogue, the Safarnama. According to his prose, his travel was not only through the physical landscapes of the medieval Islamic world but also through the tapestry of human emotion and societal structures of the time. The Safarnama, includes detailed descriptions of cities, caravansaries, and various types of water resources by which the inhabitants of these locations sustained a viable and socially cohesive living environment. Khusraw's narrative serves historians as a medieval work of topophilia because it reflects his emotions and the affectual manifestations of the inhabitants with whom he interacts. His initial impressions of the urban topographies, his treatment of and by others, and his own preconceived and subjective notions and worldviews all paint a picture of a diverse combination of feelings, emotions, and affects in medieval Islamic society. The anecdotal and narrative nature of his Safarnama reveals how water itself, its provision and distribution, serves as a conduit of emotional communication and demonstrates the intimate relationship between humanity and water in the medieval Islamic world. This paper specifically discusses the relationship between human social interaction and water distribution in the medieval Islamic world, according to tenth to twelfth-century Islamic textual sources. Additionally, through an interdisciplinary approach, this paper considers how affect, emotion, and feelings are socially constructed in the medieval Islamic world. How medieval Muslims used water as a communicative tool helps to further understand that water acts not only as a passive vessel of human agency but as an active agent in constructing the social habitus of medieval Islamic societies. I argue that the act of transference of emotion reveals a complexity to understanding affectual communication in the medieval Islamic world. In this ethos, the essential relationship between nature and humanity, one heightened by social and ecological disposition, informs how emotion is conveyed. The research presented in this paper compares Khusraw’s experiences and narratives in relation to water and hydraulics in the built and natural environment of Fatimid Cairo. In doing so, this research contributes a deeper understanding of the emotional landscape of Fatimid Cairo and the larger medieval Islamic world, highlighting the intricate ways in which natural elements, such as water, played a central role in shaping emotional experiences and social interactions in medieval Islamic society.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Egypt
Islamic World
Sub Area
None