Thesiss

This dissertation explores the complex relationship that people have with shrines in southern Kyrgyzstan from the 1950s to the present. In particular, I look at how people, especially women, identify themselves as Muslims and how their religious beliefs and practices associated …

This dissertation focuses on two generically innovative texts that represent different forms of historical writing in Medieval Europe and the Middle East and situates them in their social, religious, and historical contexts. Where Salimbene's "chronicle" attempted to present the…

This dissertation is a case study in how the spiritual authority of Ahmad-i Jām (c. 1059-c. 1139), also known as Zhanda Pīl or “the Colossal Elephant,” has endured and manifested itself over space and time, from the eleventh century to the nineteenth century. Utilizing a wide va…

In 203/818, 'Ali b. Musa al-Rid[dotbelow]a, eighth Shi`i Imam and heir apparent of the `Abbasid caliph al-Ma`mun, passed away in the Iranian province of Tus. Mashhad, the place of his burial, emerged as a site of visitation during the late tenth century, and assumed increasing i…

In the Levant, (Greater Syria, Arabic al-Sham ), the fifth/eleventh to seventh/thirteenth centuries was a time of great religious enthusiasm. The depredations of Crusader forces, a movement for the revival of Sunnism (ih[dotbelow]ya' al-sunna ), and the political claims of new, …