?Adud al-Dawla (d. 983), a Persian Shi?i tribal leader, entered Baghdad in 979 and was appointed the Amir al-?Umara, prince of princes, by the Sunni ?Abbasid caliph al-Ta?i (r. 974-991). ?Adud al-Dawla arose from the Daylamites, an isolated tribe in the isolated mountains of northern Iran. But, as the Buyid ruler in Baghdad, he attempted to use every means at his disposal to claim authority to rule, whether it meant drawing upon Arab, Persian, Sunni, Shi?i, or pre-Islamic Zoroastrian symbols. Scholars of Buyid history have overwhelmingly focused on the Persianate aspects of Buyid claims to authority and legitimacy, such as their adoption of the title “Shahanshah” and their forged genealogy linking the Buyid dynasty to the pre-Islamic Sasanid shahs. However, what has been ignored is the creative ways in which the Buyids sought to Arabize this Persian past for a heterogeneous audience made up of Persian and Arab Muslims. For example, ‘Adud al-Dawla claimed that the Daylamites were actually a lost Arab tribe and not Persian at all. Further, while claiming the pre-Islamic Persian title of Shahanshah and descent from the Sasanids, ‘Adud al-Dawla emphasized the Arab heritage of these Sasanid ancestors, chosing a Sasanid shah as his predecessor (Bahram Gur) who was best known for being raised by the Arab Lakhmid tribe and for winning his throne backed by an Arab army. Finally, while ‘Adud al-Dawla visited the ancient Persian city of Persepolis, the inscriptions that he left to commemorate his royal glory were in Arabic, not Persian. Finally, he also patronized the work of the famous Arab poet al-Mutanabbi, in which al-Mutanabbi highlighted Arab feelings of alienation in a Persian environment. These creative ways that the Buyids sought to claim legitimacy and authority through Arabizing their Persian heritage have been ignored by modern scholars. These Buyid appeals do not fit neatly into the conceptual categories that are typically used to define religious and ethnic identity in this era. Using Buyid-sponsored historical texts, such as the Kitab al-Taji of Abu Ishaq al-Sabi and the Tajarib al-Umam of al-Miskawayh, along with panegyric poetry written by al-Mutanabbi and carvings left at Persepolis, this paper will explore the ways in which ?Adud al-Dawla embodied the spirit of a tenth-century Islamic world that was only just becoming predominately Muslim and grappling with the influx of converts with a motley assortment of pre-Islamic identities.

In the period following the collapse of the Mongol Ilkhanate and the emergence of the Turkmans and Timurids as the Ilkhans’ successors in Iran and Iraq, the city of Baghdad came under the authority of the Jalayirids, one of a handful of short-lived 14th century dynasties claiming to be the legitimate successors to the Chinggisid Mongols. Although Baghdad was the primary city under Jalayirid rule, it was also a center of opposition and resistance to the Jalayirid sultans, particularly during the reign of Sultan Ahmad b. Shaykh Uvays (r. 1382-1410). Through an examination of narrative sources written for the Jalayirids, Timurids and Mamluks, this paper illustrates how the local notables of Baghdad were able to maintain control over the affairs of their city by challenging the authority of the Jalayirid sultans. The a‘y?n carried on organized resistance by appealing to alternative sources of military power (i.e. rival amirs and dynastic rulers), while couching their opposition in terms of justice and piety. The paper thus is an attempt to reconsider the history of the post-Mongol 14th century through the lens of the interests and actions of the urban elites, rather than from the perspective of the sultans and the amirs, which is most thoroughly represented in the narrative sources for the period.

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed a great displacement of populations across the Muslim-Christian frontier in the Iberian Peninsula and across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Maghrib. The arrival of Andalusis in the Maghrib was especially influential. As elite immigrants they competed successfully for scholarly and administrative positions on the basis of their cultural capital. The encounter between Andalusis and Maghribis, furthermore, exerted long-term influence on the articulation of cultural identities in the western Mediterranean and, as Ramzi Rouighi has argued, on the historiography of the Maghrib as a whole (Rouighi 2011, 116-119). Andalusi identity itself, especially as later preserved in the Maghrib, was, in many ways, forged in this encounter (the need for definition arising with displacement). Coming from an illustrious participant – exiled for several years to the Maghrib – Ibn al-Khat?b’s works shed much light on this process. This paper explores how Ibn al-Kha??b’s historiographical perspective informed an Andalusi vision of the history of the western Mediterranean and how it articulated an Andalusi identity vis-à-vis the Maghrib, where it became deeply rooted. Through an examination of Ibn al-Kha??b’s epistolary, biographical, and historiographical work, and considering his own experience of exile and encounter in the Maghrib, I argue that Ibn al-Kha??b was both illustrative of a larger trend whereby Andalusis argued for their cultural value as a displaced community in the Maghrib and a crucial actor in articulating and informing the long-term historiographical perspective on the history of the Maghrib (and al-Andalus’s place in it). This is clearly attested by a foundational work for the history of al-Andalus: al-Maqqar?’s Naf? al-??b, a seventeenth-century text based on Ibn al-Kha??b’s own works, which was central to nineteenth and twentieth-century retellings.

“Book-Burning in Islamic Cordoba” The burning of the multi-volume work of the eastern scholar al-Ghazali (d. 1111) titled Ihya `Ulum al-Din (The Revival of the Religious Sciences) in Cordoba in 1109 is cited in most modern accounts of Almoravid rule as evidence of how Almoravid rulers patronized Maliki jurists and judges and of how “rigid” and “doctrinaire” those scholars were in their interpretation of law. The paper situates the book-burning in more specific political context with reference to evidence from biographical dictionaries as well as chronicles to challenge assumptions about the ideological meaning of the act as an expression of Maliki hostility to al-Ghazali’s work, the Shafi`i “school” of law, and Sufism. Looking at the burning of Ihya `Ulum al-Din in light of book-burnings that took place in Cordoba in earlier decades further complicates our understanding of the symbolic meaning of the act and reveals continuities as well as changes in the practice of rule in the Islamic West and the manipulation of symbols. Three incidents of book-burning took place in Islamic Cordoba: one in 961, one between 1001 and 1002, and the third in 1109. Each book-burning took place at a significant turning point in the history of rule in al-Andalus and the books chosen for public burning were not the same in each case. The book-burnings were inspired by political interests that were more complicated than simple statements of a particular ruler’s religious legitimacy and had symbolic meaning beyond the demonstrated rejection of content. The paper will provide insight into the transitions from caliphal to Amirid to Almoravid rule in al-Andalus and between one ruler and another by considering book-burning as a political (as distinct from ideological) symbol, situating the book-burnings in the structuring of each regime's rule and the politics of the individuals involved as evident in biographical dictionaries. Analysis of the first two burnings will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the third as an echo of previous enactments of legitimacy and as an act of power played out among and between individuals claiming religious and political authority.