Among scholars of Medieval Christianity, it is virtually a cliché to say that the sermon functioned as a "mass medium" of the communication and transmission of culture within society. Despite fulfilling a comparable role in Islam, scholars have yet to explain the cultural impact…
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This is a study of the problematic relationship between language, grammar, and logic in the linguistic thought of Abu Sa`id al-Sirafi (d. 979), the judge and grammarian. It offers an analytical study of the first seven chapters of his famous work on grammar, Sharh[dotbelow] Kita…
This dissertation examines the traditions attributed to early Muslim women that are quoted in classical Quran commentaries, and studies their literary functions within such works. Traditions of this type are diverse in literary form, as well as in the exegetical topics that they…
A diachronic perspective spanning from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries, this comparative and interdisciplinary study analyzes the literary images of the river Nile that appear in the most significant texts of Arabic travel and geographical literature. Among the numerous ge…
This dissertation examines the relationship between the medieval Sunni Islamic theory of the caliphate and the debate over the revival of the caliph in Egypt between the abolition of the Ottoman caliph by Ataturk in 1924 and the failure of the General Conference for the Caliphat…
A survey of Muslim, Christian and Jewish pilgrim accounts from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries shows methods and themes common to most medieval writing about religious travel. Most accounts are self-conscious; all aim to shape the reader's sense of self. Some accounts are…
While a number of texts written in a variety of languages in medieval Iberia have been described as frametales, such as Don Juan Manuel's El Conde Lucanor (Castilian, 1335), to this date there has been no academic study of the medieval Iberian frame tale as a unified tradition c…
The thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries mark a turning point in the history of relations between Muslims, Christians and Jews living in the Iberian peninsula and its environs. As the so-called wars of reconquista brought practically all of Muslim al-Andalus under the rule …
This dissertation examines the concept of contagion in Muslim and Christian thought during the Medieval and Early Modern periods, focusing on materials produced in Iberia and North Africa. Alternating between Muslim and Christian scholarship, it identifies debates in both tradit…
The history of early medieval Spain can be nearly impenetrable to modern scholars. Relatively little textual evidence dated before 1000 C.E. exists and those sources are rarely contemporary to the events they describe. Luckily early medieval Christian Iberia left behind artistic…
This dissertation examines the role of architectural patronage, production, and documentation in the formulation of a new polity under the Sharqi sultans of Jaunpur (796-884/1394-1479). At the center of this inquiry is the Atala Mosque, the first monumental structure built under…
The 711 Muslim invasion of Visigothic Iberia was spearheaded by an asymmetric martial paradigm known as al-ghazu , which originated in pre-Islamic Arabia. The assimilation of the ghazu and its subsequent dominance of the Iberian military culture shaped the martial ecumene of gen…
The midrash Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer is a rabbinic composition of fifty-four chapters that has influenced Scriptural exposition since the medieval era, and provides a variety of traditional and innovative interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, which are frequently organized accordin…
This is a study of two compilations that originated in western Iran before the Mongol conquest. The research contributes to the ongoing discussion of the organization and preservation of knowledge in literate societies. The Muh[dotbelow]ad[dotbelow]arat a1-udaba' wa-muh[dotbelow…
Islamic law is manifestly concerned with the categorization and regulation of human actions, including bodily movements, verbal utterances, and material circumstances affected by human activity. In addition to these "exterior" dimensions, Muslim jurists also assume that human ac…
This dissertation concerns the stylized carto -ideographs--specifically representations of the world--that illustrate medieval Islamic geographical manuscripts. There are hundreds of cartographic images scattered throughout the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turk…
The Old Testament story of Joseph is common to the Christians, Muslims, and Jews of medieval Spain, and each group drew upon its own and other exegetical traditions to produce literary versions of the biblical tale. After the expulsion of the latter two groups, several Hispanic …
In the mid-1250s, King Louis IX founded one of the first hospitals for the permanently disabled in western Europe which became known as the Quinze-Vingts because of the three hundred blind residents and sighted guides that he intended it to house. This foundation occurred in Par…
Frame drums are percussion instruments comprised of one or two membranes stretched over a light and shallow frame or hoop. Iconographical and literary sources reveal the widespread use of two different types of frame drums in the medieval Iberian Peninsula: a round version with …