Panel 070, sponsored byMiddle East Medievalists (MEM), 2011 Annual Meeting
On Friday, December 2 at 2:00 pm
Panel Description
From transnational jihadist movements, to globalized Sufi brotherhoods, to religiously-focused virtual communities and beyond, the subject of networks and networking in the modern Muslim world has received a tremendous amount of attention over the past decade. While the operation of networks and networking has deep historical roots in Muslim societies, the same cannot be said for networks and networking in the context of the pre-modern Muslim world. Deriving as much from pre-Islamic Arab tribal traditions as from wider economic, social, cultural and intellectual structures variously framing citied and rural life in the late antique Near East, the creation, maintenance and perpetuation of networks is widely attested in the medieval Muslim world in particular. Yet despite the generally recognized significance of networks and networking in medieval Muslim societies by scholars working on topics ranging from economic history to religious studies, treatments broaching the subject have remained largely episodic and unconcerned with the wider import of the phenomenon itself.
Focusing on the dynamic of "exchange," this panel looks to address this lacuna. Casting wide topical, temporal, and geographical nets, it looks to capture pertinent examples of the varied ways in which empirically describable networked connections tied multiple actors together into mutually meaningful relationships based on the exchange of things of value. The first paper explores the utility of social network analysis in charting the nature, scope and structures of scholarly exchange within networks of grammarians in the formative period of the Arabic grammatical tradition. The second paper investigates networks of so-called "money-changers" (sayarifa) in eighth-century Kufa in relation to their role in the Shiite movement of the time. The third paper examines the relationship between travel and networks of religious exchange in the life and career of a thirteenth-century Sufi scholar active in Mecca and Cairo, asking what might have been entailed by the high degree of personal mobility of such figures in relation to the development and spread of Sufism across regional boundaries. Plotted near the end of the medieval period, the final paper analyzes the heretofore little explored subject of diplomatic exchange between the Mamluks and the Timurids. Taken collectively, these four papers not only evince the wide-ranging significance of networks and networking associated with exchange within medieval Muslim societies, but in exposing a range of theoretical, methodological, and interpretive issues related to their description, evaluation, and analysis portend the profit to be had in theorizing their operation.
Shiite biographical dictionaries contain a number of entries about individuals with the nickname sayrafi, i.e. “money-changer.” These reports indicate that virtually all of them lived during the lifetime of the sixth and seventh Shiite Imams Ja‘far al-Sadiq (d. 765) and Musa al-Kazim (d. 799), and that they formed a professional network. This paper looks to answer a number of questions regarding these money-changers, namely: How was their network organized? What was their role in Shiite political activities? What was their relation to the Imams? Were they the Imams’ associates, and what was the latter’s attitude toward them? How was the money they raised and possessed used? Finally, why did most of them live in the eighth century?
Although scanty, the sources do answer these questions. Thus, Shiite hadith collections portray them not only as people dealing with money, but as men wielding considerable influence within the Shiite circles of Kufa, being close associates of the two Imams who as their financial agents received donations on their behalf, disposed of the received money, or raised funds for the Imams in case of need. They formed a tight network, where all the members were bound by the obligation of mutual support. Thus, according to some reports, one such sayrafi was able to raise a considerable sum of money through his “friends” upon the Imam’s request. That Kufa had a special quarter called “the market of money-changers” (suq al-sayarifa), is indicative of the organized manner in which they operated.
How was the money raised by these sayarifa used? Some of it went to the settling of inter-community disputes and care for the needy. Some of it, no doubt, was used to promote the Shiite cause in the Caliphate at large. As to why after the time of the Imam Musa the sayarifa disappear from the scene, this is likely because after this period, the Shiite Imams became politically much more invisible than their predecessors and much more closely controlled by the ‘Abbasid caliphs. So even though the profession of money-changing did not disappear in Kufa, they lost their political significance, and hence, do not figure in the sources.
In sum, the paper studies the network of money-changers in eighth century Kufan Shiite circles, which was in charge of collecting and distributing money on behalf of the Imams, and played an important role in the political life of Kufan Shiites.
Travel, and the constellation of effects associated with it, has been one of the most persistent features of Islamic history. Yet, while the subject of travel and its effects in the medieval Islamic world has been treated before, as Shawkat Toorawa has recently noted it have neither been well theorized nor effectively modeled in relation to its actual extent and significance. Taking note of this observation, this paper examines the relationship between travel and networks of religious exchange in the thirteenth century. Utilizing the case of the well-traveled Sufi scholar Ibn al-Qastallani (d. 1287) as a means of posing questions about the ways in which travel intersected with the development of transregional networks in the central and western Islamic lands, it asks what might have been entailed by the high degree of personal mobility enjoyed by figures such as Qastallani in relation to the development and spread of Sufism and its institutions at the beginning of the Later Middle Period?
Hailing from a Sufi family from Andalusia, Qastallani was a born in Cairo and made his career in the bustling religious milieu of the Haramayn. Eventually exiled from the Hejaz on account of bitter disputes obtaining between him and another émigré Sufi, he traveled widely though Iraq and Syria, eventually returning to Cairo where he took on the directorship of the prestigious Dar al-Hadith al-Kamiliyya. In analyzing the networks of religious exchange fostered by Qastallani’s travels, two textual artifacts in particular are brought to the fore in this paper. The first is Qastallani’s account of his Sufi initiations, the Irtifa‘ al-rutba bi-libas wa-l-suhba, a Sufi equivalent of the mashyakha, or curriculum vitae, so often produced by medieval hadith transmitters. The second is a number of lengthy certificates of audition found in five manuscript copies dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of an influential Sufi manual composed by one of Qastallani’s teachers, the ‘Awarif al-ma‘arif of ‘Umar al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234), certificates which reveal that Qastallani transmitted the text to a long line of North African, Egyptian, and Syrian students at the famous Sa‘id al-Su‘ada’ Khanaqah in Cairo. A thorough evaluation of these materials paints a telling picture of how processes of reception, dissemination, and religious exchange were made possible through mechanisms of travel and, in turn, how such processes were related to the development and spread of Sufism and its institutions during a key historical period.
Diplomatic exchange in the late medieval Muslim world was a very complex process whose every step is of great significance for understanding the relationships which obtained between two powers. Medieval scholars themselves understood the importance of such exchanges and wrote treatises intended for envoys and emissaries, such as those of Ibn al-Farr?? (d. 425/1034), the Kit?b rusul al-mul?k or al-?Abb?s? (708/1308), the ???r al-uwal f? tart?b al-duwal. Indeed, the role of the embassy was of great importance far beyond the letters it brought. Through examining the diplomatic relationships obtaining between the Mamluks and Timurids in the fifteenth century, this paper defines and evaluates the complex diplomatic conventions governing such exchanges. In doing so, it adduces a telling example of how transregional networks of exchange operated during a key period in Islamic history.
Mamluk chronicles often mention the arrival and departure of embassies to or from Cairo, but we also possess many copies of letters kept in various munš???t. The existence of such letters adds greatly to our knowledge of the embassies. The case of diplomatic exchange between these two dynasties is particularly telling. After a long diplomatic struggle (828–39/1424–36) concerning the sending of the Timurid kiswa, the new Mamluk sultan, ?aqmaq (r. 842–57/1438–53) finally accepted Š?h Ru?’s request, and from that point forward the frequency of diplomatic exchange between the two dynasties grew exponentially. These exchanges are documented in a manner which allows us to reconstruct the reception of Timurid embassies in the Mamluk capital in great detail.
In charting the relationships which obtained between the Mamluks and Timurids, this paper evaluates a heretofore untapped corpus of unedited letters (BnF ms.ar.4440), documents which shed a great deal of light on the information found in the chronicles. When set alongside the chronicles, these letters allow us to more readily define the position of the envoys and their mission, evaluate the nature of their reception, understand the importance of embassies in the eyes of the Mamluks, and explicate the ceremonial particular to the exchange of gifts. As an understanding of the chancery practices used in the writing of letters is critical to evaluating the status of the correspondence which determined the convention of the exchange, the paper will focus on the diplomatic protocol included within the letters. In evaluating these materials, the paper offers a model for the study of networks of exchange of the period.
