Scholars of Islamic numismatics have studied coinage to understand not only the political and economic milieu of historical events but also as a means of expression by their issuing authorities. This paper intends to explore the agency of Fatimid gold coins in the visual construction of authority, ideology and identity through a manner which I venture to call “The Art of Ostentation”. The study attempts to identify the ideological as well as political choices, as expressed in coins, taken by the Musta’lian Tayyibi line of Fatimid Imam-Caliphs (from the advent of the dynasty in 297 AH/909 AD to the death of Manṣūr al-Āmir bi'Aḥkāmi’l-Lāh in 524 AH/1130 AD) in order to convey messages about religious identity, caliphal legitimacy and spiritual authority. Using the collection of Fatimid coins from private collections as well as Norman Nicole’s A Corpus of Fatimid Coins, three aspects of Fatimid coins are closely examined: inscriptions, design, and materiality. An interpretive approach is employed to show how a Sunni and Shi’a theological confrontation played out through objects in circulation by comparing Fatimid and Abbasid coins. The unique contribution of the study will be an examination how the spirit of ostentation endures today through the religio-cultural practices of the Dawoodi Bohra community—who draw their spiritual and cultural roots to the Fatimids—through the minting and dissemination of commemorative coinage to not only mark and honour special religious occasions but further serve as a symbol of their distinct Fatimid identity. The research presented contributes to a larger discussion regarding how to read Fatimid material sources to glean insights about ideological representations, particularly how objects, in relation to the intentions of their makers, were and continue to be received by both figures of authority and the public at large.

This paper offers an analysis of the intricate role of color symbolism in shaping political legitimacy within the Fatimid Empire during the 10th and 11th centuries. Focusing on the significance of white as the official color of the Fatimid regime, it contrasts this choice with the contemporaneous associations of black with the Abbasids and red with the Umayyads. Drawing on a wide array of historical references, including court ceremonies, attire regulations for official khatībs, banners, and religious symbols such as the caliphs' parasol and the Ka'ba’s kiswat, the paper elucidates how color became a potent tool for shaping Fatimid identity and expressing their legitimacy. A central component of this exploration is the examination of the theological justifications for white provided in the fiqh texts of al-Qadi al-Nu'man, which highlight the Fatimid disdain for red associated with the Umayyads and the rejection of Abbasid black, underscoring the ideological rivalry between the two dynasties. Building on Khalil ʿAthamina’s research on the Abbasid black banners and Maribel Fierro’s work on the Umayyad use of red in Andalus, this paper analyzes how the Fatimids' choice of white served as a countersymbol which delineated themselves from their rivals. Furthermore, the paper delves into the contrasting messianic narratives of the Abbasids and Fatimids, revealing divergent interpretations of black banners. While the Abbasids claimed prophesies regarding the rise of such black banners, the Fatimids rejected this symbolism, associating black banners with false claimants, instead prophesying the rise of the true Mahdi from the Maghrib. This ideological divergence highlights the strategic deployment of color symbolism to assert legitimacy and ideological superiority. By contextualizing the discourse within the broader socio-political milieu of the Middle East during this period, this paper sheds light on the multifaceted ways in which color symbolism intersected with power dynamics, religious ideology, and identity construction. Through an analysis of primary sources, including fiqh treatises, court poetry, and historical narratives, it offers a nuanced understanding of how color emerged as a visual lexicon through which political and religious allegiances were articulated and contested.

Artifacts and crafts manifest as intelligent expressions of beliefs, cultures, emotional nuances, and philosophical trends, encapsulating the essence of both the artist and patron's archetypal existence. These creations hold considerable significance within the realm of material sources, often being heralded as 'the intellect of the hand'. Despite the notable scholarly attention directed towards the material sources of the past, research approaches have predominantly gravitated towards philosophy, theology, and literature. Among the various dynasties that governed the medieval Islamic world, the Fatimids, reigning over segments of North Africa and Egypt from 909 A.D. to 1171 A.D., distinguished themselves through their active patronage of the arts. Their contributions encompassed textiles, ceramics, carved wood, ivory, and rock crystal, enduring the test of time. This study endeavors to re-contextualize the tiraz fabrics from the Fatimid period within a historical context, seeking to address the scarcity of primary textual sources from that era. Although Fatimid tiraz fabrics have been subject to considerable scholarly attention, their role as repositories of Fatimid cultural, political, and social history remains underexplored. Employing a hermeneutic approach, this paper endeavors to situate tiraz fabrics against the backdrop of information found in primary and predominantly incoherent secondary sources. It posits that historical references derived from these fabrics may (a) corroborate specific details in historical texts, (b) challenge erroneous assertions made by secondary and modern historians, and, most significantly, (c) fill gaps in the textual sources that persist as enigmas for contemporary historians.

My presentation will contribute to the study of Islamic textiles by reappraising textual sources in light of the recent abundance of work on the material history of these textiles. There have been many recent studies of the material history of Islamic textiles by scholars such as Patricia Blessing, Corinne Mühlemann, Eiren L. Shea, Amanda Phillips, among others. At the same time, however, textual research into Islamic textiles has been sorely lacking. The landmark study remains R. B. Serjeant’s Islamic Textiles (1972), although Stillman and Stillman’s Arab Dress (2003) is an important contribution. My work will update these classic texts by combining an analysis of historical texts in the context of recent work on preserved textiles done by art historians. For this presentation, I will present on textile, cloth, and dress and they present themselves primarily in the fatwa collection of the Mamluk-era jurist: Zakariya al-Ansari (d. 926/1520). It situate al-Ansari’s discussions of textile objects with discussions in other legal texts including hisba-manuals and legal commentaries. This presentation will hope to show the relevance of legal sources to the study of material culture and everyday life.

The concept of ‘restricting the permissible’ (taqyīd al-mubāḥ) (hereafter called RTP) refers to the ability of Muslim rulers to restrict acts that Islamic law permits to prevent a social harm and secure a public benefit. Since the late nineteenth century, this concept has been used to justify the state’s restriction of legally permissible acts such as slavery, polygyny, and child marriage. Its pervasiveness in the modern period raises a set of questions regarding the origins of the concept and the reasons for its growth. Despite these questions, no academic work has studied RTP’s origins and historical development. My paper identifies seventeenth-century Ottoman legal debate over the permissibility of tobacco as an early instance in which jurists discuss RTP. The introduction of tobacco into the Ottoman Empire ca. 1600 provoked a series of reactions by political authorities, many of whom restricted the consumption of tobacco on the grounds that it caused public disorder. Many jurists issued legal opinions condemning the use of tobacco as a violation of the sharīʿā (hereinafter: prohibitionists) because of its subversion of social norms and harmfulness to the body. But others disagreed, accusing prohibitionists of overgeneralizing the harms of tobacco. In response, some prohibitionists contended that even if, for the sake of argument, one were to concede its permissibility, as some tobacco supporters claimed, smoking would remain prohibited due to the sultanic restriction. Their response sparked a new debate over the issues to which the sultan can apply RTP. While a few tobacco supporters contended that prohibitionists did not understand the principle, I argue that neither group rejected the right of the ruler to RTP. This ‘misunderstanding’ was not a juridical disagreement over the concept itself. My findings show that the jurists agreed on the administrative privilege of the ruler to restrict the permissible but disagreed over whether the ban against tobacco was based on public good (maṣlaḥa) or if an accidental property could temporarily prohibit the performance of a permissible act. On the smoking issue, the Ottoman sultan recognized his administrative role. He made sure not to ignore the sharīʿa or work against it. Rather than establishing legal preponderance, the sultan framed tobacco consumption as a fire hazard that was of administrative concern. This paper sheds light on the diversity of juristic positions regarding the valid exercise of political power, the scope of the ruler’s legal jurisdiction, and the relationship between political and religious authorities.

This paper explores the role of medieval Islamic talismanic mirrors in apotropaic and therapeutic practices targeting the evil eye (al-‘ayn, the Eye in Arabic), the belief in the capacity of the gaze of envious individuals to inflict harm, misfortune, and even death on others. This paper investigates mirrors bearing inscriptions that hint at their use for averting or curing the effects of the Eye and contextualizes these inscriptions with analysis of contemporaneous amuletic and talismanic artifacts whose inscriptions declare their efficacy against the Eye more explicitly. The mirrors are particularly relevant to affliction by the Eye, a threat associated with vision, yet little is known about how they were intended to operate. In addition to comparative analysis with other medieval artifacts, this paper will trace the use of such mirrors to late antique precursors, highlighting enduring conceptual associations between mirrors, vision, and the Eye. The traditional function of a mirror, to facilitate gazing at one’s reflection, is complicated by the design of some medieval talismanic mirrors bearing Arabic inscriptions covering the entirety of their reflective surfaces. This paper will investigate the content of these inscriptions, their relationship to the act of gazing into the mirrors, and why such an act might have been considered a remedy for the Eye. Attributed to Iran or Anatolia between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, two copper mirrors from the Louvre in Paris (AA 273, MAO 161) have not previously been analyzed in the context of the Eye yet feature Qur’anic quotations from suras al-Falaq (113:5) and al-Qalam (68:51) on their reflective surfaces, the only two Qur’anic verses which refer to the Eye. Despite their inscriptions, the mirrors could produce a partial reflection; the Qur’anic verses would be superimposed over any image produced, allowing the user to see the verses written across their own face. The unique ability of reflective surfaces to combat malignant gazes is further demonstrated by a range of late antique parallels, from apotropaic mirrors unearthed in excavations to the tale of the gorgon Medusa beheaded with the aid of a mirrored shield. This analysis suggests that while the primacy of vision in the operation of the Eye has long been accepted, medieval Islamic mirrors inscribed in Arabic provide material evidence of the active role of vision not only in casting the Eye, but also in warding off or removing its pernicious effects.