̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Islam

Endless Stories at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

sjr81 — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:05:11 +0000

Centuries-old Asian and African manuscripts go on display for the first time

Muslims leaving prison talk about the layers of their lives

amb206 — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:55:01 +0000

Dr Ryan Williams has become accustomed to uncomfortable moments. His research into the lived experiences of people in the criminal justice system (CJS) has taken him into high-security prisons to interview people convicted of serious crimes, and to East London to speak to recently released prisoners. All his interviewees were Muslim.

He describes this area of study as highly problematic: “I was working with people who often feel doubly marginalised – as individuals with a criminal record and seeking to rebuild their lives, and as Muslims living in British society and having to fight against stereotypes. You run the risk of bringing genuine harm to people by failing to reflect their complex life realities.”

Williams is based at Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies and at the ̽��ֱ�� of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. An interest in Islam and society took him into a domain usually studied by criminologists. His interviews explored the journeys, values and struggles of people caught up in the CJS. They took place in prisons (including segregation units), probation offices, cafés, mosques and ‘chicken shops’.

In 2017, an independent review by the Rt Hon David Lammy put race equality in the spotlight by highlighting a rise in the proportion of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) young offenders in custody: from 25% in 2006 to 41% in 2016. Lammy stated that his “review clearly shows BAME individuals still face bias – including overt discrimination – in parts of the justice system”.

̽��ֱ��same review drew attention to the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS. Between 2002 and 2016, the proportion of Muslims in the prison population doubled.

“ ̽��ֱ��higher up the CJS you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim,” says Williams. “More than 40% of the prisoners in the high-security prison that I was working in were Muslim.”

While the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS forms the backdrop to Williams’ research, his work looks not at the causes of crime but at the experiences of offenders as they serve their sentences and reflect on their lives. “By asking questions around belonging and how people can lead a good life, we begin to see what might help them in the future,” he says.

Rapport with participants was key. He says: “In effect, they interviewed me to ensure that I wouldn’t reinforce a ‘one-dimensional’ view of them as Muslims.”

As one interviewee remarked: “There’s more to life than the little bits that you read in the paper.” ̽��ֱ��interviewee had observed other people taking an interest in Muslims in prison: “They’re all asking the same questions” about discrimination and radicalisation, and “[I’m] just standing there thinking, like, ‘is that all you want to know?”’

Through his interviews, Williams came to learn how difficult it is for people to put their finger on inequality and discrimination. It was often indirect, found in everyday examples like (says one interviewee) being refused a toilet roll by a member of staff but seeing a white prisoner acquire one with ease. For white Muslim converts, there was a sense that being a Muslim was incompatible with being British – they were seen as ‘traitors’ to their country, reinforcing the view that Islam is a ‘foreign’ religion.

For one interviewee, the rise of Islamophobia was both tragic and laughable. He observed: “It’s really sad. People are scared of Muslims now and it makes me laugh because I think to myself, ‘Hang on a minute, what are you scared of?’” He also pointed out: “Everybody knows a Muslim. You probably work with one. You might live next door to one. Your neighbour’s cool. Your work colleague’s cool.”

Since 9/11, and more so in the wake of recent attacks in London, the term Muslim has become linked with negative associations.

“‘Muslim’ is a badge applied to offenders in a way that masks other aspects of their identity – for example their roles as sons, brothers and fathers. For much of the popular media, it’s a blunt term that hints heavily at terrorism,” says Williams.

Through guided conversations, Williams encouraged his interviewees to talk about the things that meant most to them, sharing their feelings about family, community and society. He explains: “Broadly speaking, my work is about people’s lives as a moral journey – one marked by mistakes and struggle – and how this connects to belonging and citizenship in an everyday sense.”

̽��ֱ��project was sparked by a conversation that Williams had four years ago with a Muslim offender of Pakistani heritage who’d been brought up in the UK. “He said that he felt so discriminated against that he felt he couldn’t live here any longer. To me, that was shocking,” says Williams.

“It made me wonder how the CJS might serve to help people feel like citizens and rebuild their lives. What if we brought the end goal of citizenship into view, rather than focusing exclusively on risk to the public? How would this change how people see themselves and how others see them?”

Williams’ interviews revealed that, for many, learning to be a good Muslim was also tied with being a better citizen, and each had their own way of going about this. “For one person, day-to-day practices of prayer kept them away from crime. For another, for whom crime was less of a struggle, practising zakat (charity) by providing aid to the Grenfell Tower survivors enabled him to fulfil a need to contribute to society,” he says.

He interviewed 44 Muslim men, sometimes interviewing them more than once, and triangulated his data with conversations with prison and probation staff.

“My approach was experiential-based – qualitative rather than quantitative. I didn’t have a set of boxes to fill in with numbers. I used one standard survey tool from research on desistance from crime, but I found it removed richness and detail from people’s complex stories. Participants welcomed the chance to reflect more deeply on their lives.”

An individual’s faith journey, argues Williams, cannot be separated from the complex reality they find themselves in. Faith is always interpreted and filtered through our experiences and can help to construe a positive view of what it means to live a life worth living. As one participant observed: “I want to actually do some things now, like goodness, like volunteering, helping people out, helping the vulnerable… God loves that.”

Williams says that as a fellow human being he empathises with this improvised desire to find meaning in life by doing good in the world. He says: “ ̽��ֱ��most profound thing to emerge from my conversations is that leading a good life is hard – and harder for some than for others.”

In April 2018, Williams organised a workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ for frontline staff and volunteers. Probation officer Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen, who attended the workshop, said: “We need Ryan and researchers like him to give us the bigger picture. I believe this would help bring about desired outcomes for service users from BAME backgrounds, which is long overdue.”

Adds Williams: “My contribution is simply to get people to think about the issues in a different way, to facilitate discussion drawing on people’s own strengths and expertise, and then see where it takes us.”

In July 2018, Williams won a Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Award for his work.

Ryan's research has been incorporated into: guidelines on countering prison radicalisation, adopted by the European Commission in 2017; the evidence base for the Lammy Review on equality and implementing its recommendations; a course on the Good Life Good Society, adopted in 2016 in a high security prison. Read Ryan's This Cambridge Life interview here.

̽��ֱ��workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ was funded by the Arts and Humanities Impact Fund, and supported by the School of Arts and Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Lammy Review in 2017 drew attention to inequalities among black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. It also flagged the over-representation of Muslims in prisons. Research by Dr Ryan Williams explores the sensitivities around this topic.

̽��ֱ��higher up the criminal justice system you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim

Ryan Williams

Andy Aitchison

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̽��ֱ��last Muslim King in Spain

sjr81 — Thu, 18 May 2017 08:21:48 +0000

Based on original research, and drawing attention to the connections between the medieval Moorish king Boabdil, and current social and political concerns in Europe today, Drayson presents the first full account in any language of the Moorish sultan of Granada, and head of the Nasrid dynasty.

̽��ֱ��academic’s research has also uncovered a potential mystery regarding the final resting place of the last Muslim king in Spain. Long thought to have died in Algeria in 1494, experts are now hoping to exhume and DNA test what they believe to be the remains of the sultan beneath a derelict mausoleum in Fez, Morocco.

In the ten years before Boabdil’s fall in 1492, his kingdom of Granada was the theatre of one of the most significant wars in European history. ̽��ֱ��sultan’s territory was the last Spanish stronghold of a Muslim empire that had once stretched to the Pyrenees and beyond – including the cities of Barcelona, Pamplona and Cordoba, which had been home to paved roads, street lighting and more than 70 libraries at a time when London and other European cities were backwaters of disease, violence and illiteracy.

“How did Boabdil change the course of Spanish history? Does he now represent what he stood for in the past? And how significant is he as a figure of resistance to the forces of western Christendom?” asked Drayson, who spent three years working on her new book – ̽��ֱ��Moor’s Last Stand: ̽��ֱ��life of Boabdil, Muslim King of Granada.

“That Boabdil was a key figure at a crucial moment in world history cannot be doubted: the current tensions between Islam and the West have their roots in his reign and in the kingdom he lost. Christian posterity has treated him with scorn and pity – viewed from the perspective of the victors. But my account presents the other side of the coin, revealing that issues of violence, tension and compromise between Muslims and Christians were as pressing then as they are now.”

Betrayed by his family and undermined by faction and internal conflict, Boabdil’s defeat at the hands of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (the parents of Catherine of Aragon) symbolised the epoch-changing transition of Granada from Islamic state to Christian territory – a moment which set Spain on course to becoming the greatest power in early modern Europe.

̽��ֱ��Christian victory marked the completion of the long Christian reconquest of Spain and ended seven centuries in which Christians, Jews and Muslims had for the most part lived peacefully and profitably together.

“Five centuries after his death, it’s timely to consider the impact of his defeat then and now,” added Drayson. “Boabdil was a man of culture and war: a schemer, rebel, father, husband and brother. He was a king, yet also the pawn of the Catholic monarchs. I wanted to show why his life matters – and the meanings it now has at this time of extreme tension between the west and the Islamic states.”

̽��ֱ��end of Muslim rule at the heart of Spain came to an end on January 2, 1492 when Boabdil relinquished the keys to the Moorish capital to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. “These are the keys to paradise,” he said before leaving the city with his mother Aixa.

Legend has it that as Boabdil retreated into exile, he turned around for one final, distant look at Granada – sighed, and burst into tears. His mother, betraying little sympathy for her vanquished son, is said to have told him: “You do well, my son, to cry like a woman for what you couldn’t defend like a man.”

̽��ֱ��‘last sigh’ has long been used by historians to belittle and diminish Boabdil’s legacy, ignoring – according to Drayson – the immense sacrifice he demonstrated in saving his people from certain slaughter at the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella’s irrepressible armies which encircled Granada.

“ ̽��ֱ��fall of Granada was of such magnitude that a mythical story was needed to explain, accept or legitimise the immense upheavals the conquest brought about,” said Drayson.

According to her, Boabdil’s heroism, long repudiated by most historical commentators, is evident in his ability to recognise the futility of further resistance, and the choice he made in rejecting the further suffering, starvation and slaughter of his people. Instead, he bargained for the best terms of surrender possible, rejecting martyrdom and willingly sacrificing his reputation for the greater good.

“ ̽��ֱ��loss of Granada is viewed by modern writers as a prelude to the repression of the Muslim world,” added Drayson. “At a time when Europe is seeking a way of addressing issues of racial and religious intolerance, equality and freedom, we might look closely at the Spanish Muslim society of which Boabdil was the final heir, which successfully tackled some of these problems.

“Today, Boabdil represents a last stand against religious intolerance, fanatical power, and cultural ignorance; his surrender of the city and kingdom of Granada symbolised the loss of the fertile cross-cultural creativity, renewal and coexistence born out of the Muslim conquest of Spain.”

Elizabeth Drayson appears at the Hay Festival as part of the Cambridge Series on Sunday, May 28 at 2.30pm on the Good Energy Stage.

̽��ֱ��history, myths and legends surrounding the last Muslim ruler in Spain – whose surrender ended seven centuries of Islam at the heart of Western Europe – is the subject of a new book and Hay Festival appearance by Cambridge academic Elizabeth Drayson.

I wanted to show why his life matters – and the meanings it now has at this time of extreme tension between the west and the Islamic states.

Elizabeth Drayson

̽��ֱ��Capitulation of Granada by Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz 1882: Boabdil surrenders to Ferdinand and Isabella

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Discarded History exhibition lifts the lid on 1,000 years of medieval history

sjr81 — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 06:07:10 +0000

Discarded History: ̽��ֱ��Genizah of Medieval Cairo opens to the public on April 27 and provides a unique and unparalleled window into the daily life of men, women and children at the centre of a thriving city over the course of a millennium.

From the 9th to the 19th century, the Jewish community of Fustat (Old Cairo) deposited more than 200,000 unwanted writings in a purpose-built storeroom in the Ben Ezra synagogue. This sacred storeroom was called the Genizah. A Genizah was a safe place to store away any old or unusable text that, because it contained the name of God, was considered too holy to simply throw out.

But when the room was opened in the late 19th century, alongside the expected Bibles, prayer books and works of Jewish law – scholars discovered the documents and detritus of everyday life: shopping lists, marriage contracts, divorce deeds, a 1,000-year-old page of child’s doodles and alphabets, Arabic fables, works of Muslim philosophy, medical books, magical amulets, business letters and accounts. Practically every kind of written text produced by the Jewish communities of the Near East throughout the Middle Ages had been preserved in that sacred storeroom.

Dr Ben Outhwaite, Head of the Genizah Research Unit and co-curator of the exhibition, said: “This colossal haul of writings reveals an intimate portrait of life in a Jewish community that was international in outlook, multicultural in make-up and devout to its core; a community concerned with the very things to which humanity has looked for much of its existence: love, sex and marriage, money and business, and ultimately death.

“ ̽��ֱ��Genizah collection is undeniably one of the greatest treasures among the world-class collections at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library. We have translated most of these texts into English for the first time – and most are also going on display for the first time, too. With Discarded History we hope to make this medieval society accessible and recognisable to a modern audience.”

Among the highlights going on display in Cambridge are the earliest known example of a Jewish engagement deed (Shtar Shiddukhin, from 1119), showing the complex legal relations that existed around marriage, the oldest-dated medieval Hebrew manuscript (a Bible from 9th century Iran) and an 11th century pre-nuptial agreement where the groom, Toviyya – who clearly had a bad reputation – was forced to make a series of promises about his future behaviour.

In the presence of witnesses, he declares that he will avoid mixing with the wrong sort, for the purposes of ‘eating, drinking or anything else’. He also states that he will not spend one night away from Faiza, unless she wants him to, and that he will not buy himself a slave girl, unless Faiza agrees.

̽��ֱ��existence of the Cairo Genizah was first brought to the attention of Western scholars by the fearless and intrepid travellers Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson in 1896. ̽��ֱ��twin sisters, devout Presbyterians who had inherited a great fortune, returned to Cambridge from a research trip to Egypt and Palestine. They brought with them a treasure lost for a thousand years: a page from the original Hebrew book of Ben Sira, accumulated along with thousands of other documents in the Ben Ezra Synagogue.

Cambridge lecturer Solomon Schechter was so excited by the sisters’ remarkable discovery that he raised the money to travel to Old Cairo to see for himself what the Genizah held – although not before swearing the twins to secrecy about the nature of their discovery, lest a rival scholar from Oxford be alerted to their existence.

Upon arrival in Cairo, the Chief Rabbi of Egypt gave Schechter permission to take whatever he liked. Schechter declared that he ‘liked all’, and shipped almost 200,000 manuscripts back to Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��material that arrived in Cambridge, packed in wooden crates, dates from a period when 90 per cent of the world’s Jews lived in Islamic lands. ̽��ֱ��broadly tolerant regime under which they lived contrasted with the usually harsher treatment meted out to Jews in Western Europe. ̽��ֱ��documents paint a picture of economic stability and social growth. Cheques for goods ranging from wax candles to lemon sherbet pay testament to the variety and richness of the 200,000 documents in Cambridge’s possession – almost all of which have been conserved to avoid any further damage to the priceless collection.

“Women and children are invisible in most archives – especially those from medieval times,” added Outhwaite. “But through our collections, myriad individual voices can be heard through children’s copy books, prenuptial agreements and books of magic spells.

“A broad brush picture of the medieval Middle East as a crucible of cruel oppression or, conversely, an interfaith utopia does not do justice to the eye-level history recorded in these sources. Life, for the culturally rich and socially conscious citizens of the medieval Middle East, was more complicated, sophisticated and interesting than that.

“ ̽��ֱ��Cairo Genizah speaks vividly of the community’s links to other lands and other faiths. Its fragile contents, brown with age when Schechter acquired them, give us a picture of life that includes piracy and human trafficking to the intimate drama of domestic life. We can read about ancient cures for headaches and see school teachers complain bitterly about children’s unruly behaviour, just as they do today. It’s this richness that makes the Genizah unique.”

Discarded History: ̽��ֱ��Genizah of Medieval Cairo opens to the public on April 27, 2017 and runs until October 28, 2017. Entry is free.

Treasures from the world’s largest and most important collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts – chronicling 1,000 years of history in Old Cairo – have gone on display in Cambridge today for a six-month-long exhibition at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Myriad individual voices can be heard through children’s copy books, prenuptial agreements and books of magic spells.

Ben Outhwaite

A Brush With History

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Cambridge lecturer Solomon Schechter among thousands of Genizah fragments in his office after their transportation from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo.

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Beyond the harem: ways to be a woman during the Ottoman Empire

amb206 — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Ottoman women shopped. They didn’t just shop; they also ran businesses, owned property and, on occasion, stormed buildings to stage protest meetings. Not only did they flirt and dance – and infuriate their husbands with demands for the latest fashions – but they exerted genuine political and economic power. And they did all this much more visibly than is often assumed.

In Ottoman Women in Public Space, a group of scholars of the Middle East and the Islamic world turn their attention to a neglected topic: what life was actually like for women at the height of an empire that lasted for 600 years (right up until the turn of the 20th century) and, at its most powerful, stretched eastwards from present-day Hungary, southwards to the religious centre of Mecca, and westwards around the southern Mediterranean to the bustling port of Algiers.

Edited by Dr Kate Fleet and Ebru Boyar (Faculty of History and Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies at Newnham College), Ottoman Women in Public Space is a collection of essays by specialists based in five countries and from a range of academic disciplines. In drawing on sources that span from court records to poetry, the contributors challenge the notion that female life was confined to the sequestered spaces of the harem and the hamam (traditional Turkish bath).

̽��ֱ��conventional narrative places Ottoman women firmly in the domestic sphere and fails to see how visible they were outside the home, either in the mahalle (neighbourhood) or beyond. Female lives, viewed in modern western terms, were undoubtedly proscribed. But scholars are now exploring the extent to which women were publically visible, whether they were members of the elite sampling the delights of the pleasure gardens of great cities or peasants labouring in the fields.

Why have women been missing from histories of the Ottoman empire – and why have narratives about females centred on the seclusion of the harem? As Boyar and Fleet explain, women’s voices are absent in records which were almost exclusively produced by men. When female voices are heard, they are mediated through a male narrator. It’s a universal reality, they point out, that a large proportion of women – those who are older or of low status – have long been effectively ‘invisible’ in public.

How visible a woman was, where she was free to go and what she was able to do, depended largely on who she was. ̽��ֱ��mobility of noble women was more constricted than that of poor women. In the countryside, female labour was essential to agriculture. An 19th-century engraving of harvesting in Bulgaria shows two women at work. With a child on her lap and a whip in her hand, the younger woman drives a horse and threshing sledge over the crop to separate the grain from the chaff.

In cities the most visible of all women were the thousands of slaves who ranged from poor serving girls to powerful concubines. In a chapter devoted to the extremes of visibility, Fleet writes: “While women were positioned at various points along the trajectory of visibility … slave women moved through the whole gamut of visibility from physical invisibility and seclusion at one end of the spectrum to total exposure on the market place, a level of display unthinkable for any other Ottoman woman, at the other.”

Slaves crossed private/public boundaries. Vital to the smooth-running of the home behind closed doors, they were also a marker of public respectability. A hand-coloured portrait (late 16th century) of a lady walking to the baths accompanied by her slave shows both dressed to impress. ̽��ֱ��slave’s presence signalled that the lady being accompanied was legitimately out in public and under the close protection of her family.

As commodities, slaves were bought and sold, traded and transported. “ ̽��ֱ��visibility of slaves on the market varied from complete exposure in public slave markets to the more private display within a slave dealer’s house, or presentation of a slave dealer within the konak (residence) of a potential buyer,” writes Fleet. An English visitor to Istanbul at the end of the 16th century described its slave market: “They sell many Christian slaves of all sects and adge, in manner as they sell thier horses, looking them in the eyes, mouth, and all other parts.”

At the other end of the social spectrum, and with more agency at their disposal but less mobility in public spaces, wealthy women devised numerous ways to make their presence felt without jeopardising their reputations: they used perfumes; they appeared on balconies, briefly visible to passers-by; sweet sounds of their voices carried into the street. Their bodies may have been covered as they negotiated public spaces, but they walked with a sway of their hips and used tokens as a secret language to convey messages of love.

Male control of women was underpinned by notions of moral rectitude but women were out and about much more than has previously been thought. They were (at least sometimes) visible to the gaze of foreign observers, curious about a culture so seemingly exotic. In the collection of the Correr Museum in Venice is an illustrated travel manuscript showing scenes of Istanbul in the late 17th century. Among them is a delightful sketch of a group of women enjoying an outing in a boat rowed by three handsome oarsmen sporting splendid black moustaches.

Notions of honour ran deep in Ottoman society. Boyar writes: “ ̽��ֱ��desire to protect women’s honour had less to do with women than it did with concern with the well-being of society as a whole, for an immoral woman meant an immoral society.” Women could be seen in public but how they behaved, and how they were perceived, was of paramount importance. For women to be seen visiting the graves of their relatives, or shines of holy personages, was acceptable; for women visiting a cemetery to be seen drinking and eating with unrelated men was not.

Women’s lives were controlled not just by the state, argues Boyar, but also by “an imagined moral community” with the “power to label a woman as honourable or dishonourable as it thought fit, leaving the woman concerned with no recourse to this judgment”. However, social perceptions of respectability were fluid – and varied across time and space. An Anatolian visitor to Cairo was shocked to see the wives of high-ranking men riding on donkeys. His reaction was coloured by the practice elsewhere for prostitutes to be punished by being displayed on donkeys.

It was within the intimacy of the mahalle (neighbourhood) that the question of reputation was most potent. “For a woman to be labelled a prostitute had significant ramifications for it left her exposed without the protection of either family, society or the state,” writes Boyar. “She was seen as challenging the imagined moral community and as seeking to build a life outside its boundaries and control.” On one hand condemnation could mean ruin, on the other marginalisation could be empowering. Brothels were everywhere. Not only did prostitutes have access to public spaces but, as an integral part of society, they were sometimes invited to important celebrations and took part in street processions.

By the turn of the 20th century, the Ottoman empire was crumbling. Its demise had opened up new opportunities for women to enter public spheres. As Boyar writes: “Their progress and the speed of change in both the level of their participation and the acceptance of their new position owed much to the dire circumstances that the empire found itself in in that period and to certain changes, in particular the emergence of the press and the development of female education.”

Unsurprisingly, so profound a societal change was by no means unopposed. As late as 1915, a regional governor expressly forbad women discussing the government to “create demoralisation with their lying and inaccurate words and gossip”. But even this condemnation of female gossip shows how much women were present and how their voices were heard in the Ottoman public space.

With this new volume, Fleet and Boyar and their contributors lift the lid on many thousands of lives previously marginalised by academic histories.

Ottoman Women in Public Space is published by Brill.

A new volume of essays looks afresh at women’s lives during the 600 years of the Ottoman empire. ̽��ֱ��book challenges the stereotypes of female lives confined to the harem and hamam – and reveals how women were surprisingly visible in public spaces.

̽��ֱ��desire to protect women’s honour had less to do with women than it did with concern with the well-being of society as a whole, for an immoral woman meant an immoral society.

Ebru Boyar

History Library, Sofia ̽��ֱ��

Engraving of threshing near Ogosta, Bulgaria, second half of the 19th century

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Bringing Berber empires into focus as contributors to Islamic culture

amb206 — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:55:03 +0000

Towards the end of the 12th century, a Berber prince called Ya‘qub al-Mansur ordered a hospital to be built in the city of Marrakesh. ̽��ֱ��building has not survived but a description of it lives on. According to a contemporary report, al-Mansur “chose the best spot and ordered the builders to do their finest work including carving and decoration. He ordered perfumed and fruit-bearing trees to be planted within and installed flowing water to all the rooms in addition to four pools at the centre, one made of white marble. He then ordered rich furnishings of wool, cotton, silk and skins”.

Al-Mansur was a powerful caliph – a Muslim leader during the Almohad empire when the second of several Berber dynasties presided over a vast tract of land stretching across southern Spain (al-Andalus) and north Africa (the Maghrib). His splendid hospital with its sparkling water and refreshing greenery may have been inspired by simmering rivalry between the Almohads and the Ayyubid dynasty who had founded an impressive hospital in Cairo – an institution described by a returning pilgrim as “a palace, goodly for its beauty and spaciousness”.

In her latest book, ̽��ֱ��Almoravid and Almohad Empires, Dr Amira Bennison (Faculty of Asian and Middle Studies) gives a vivid account of two centuries of Berber history (1050-1250) in which dynasties shaped by the tough life of mountain and desert emerged to create their own distinctive identities. ̽��ֱ��first of its kind in English, her narrative takes the reader deep into a medieval Islamic world often regarded as ‘parochial’ in its cultural output and ‘ephemeral’ in its positioning many miles from the Islamic powerhouses of the Middle East.

Arabic literature portrays the Berbers as rebellious and awkward. ̽��ֱ��word Berber originates from ‘barbarian’, a term used for a people who fiercely resisted domination from the outside. But, as so often happens, resistance was coupled with assimilation. ̽��ֱ��Arabic forces moving eastwards across North Africa to bring Islam to the ‘barbarians’ became progressively more Berber in character. A succession of powerful dynasties sprang from tribal societies who made their living from farming and herding. These empires forged their own interpretations of Islam and made their own individual marks on the history of Islam in the western Mediterranean.

̽��ֱ��Almoravids and their successors the Almohads controlled vast tracts of land together with a network of settled and nomadic communities speaking dozens of languages. ̽��ֱ��Almoravids laid claim first to the western Maghrib (present day Morocco) and then crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain where they took al-Andalus, a chunk of southern Spain which had been under Islamic rule for several centuries already. Under the Almohads, this empire extended its reach eastwards into what is now modern Tunisia. ̽��ֱ��late 12th and early 13th centuries saw a Berber empire of unprecedented ambition and scale.

̽��ֱ��jewels in the crowns of these empires were the cities of southern Spain (Cordoba, Granada and Seville) and Morocco (Marrakesh, Fes, Rabat) where successive caliphs sought to improve the urban environment for their subjects and to make an enduring impression on centres of political and religious power. ̽��ֱ��Berber elite became important patrons of engineers, artists and craftsmen and, in doing so, promoted the development of trade and technology across the region – and stimulated architectural masterpieces that continue to impress.

In Seville, the Torre del Oro (Tower of Gold) on the Guadalquivir River was built by the Almohads as part of a system designed to protect the city. Constructed from ashlar (dressed stone) and mortar, the 12-sided building was originally faced in gleaming limewash – which may be a clue to its name. A chain connecting the Torre del Oro to a second tower across the river could be drawn to deny access to the port. In Cordoba, the quadrangular Calahorra tower is also thought to be an Almohad structure designed to deter, defend and endure.

In Marrakesh, it was an Almohad caliph who built the famous Kutubiyya mosque, doubling the size of an earlier building and reconfiguring its layout. Inside its square minaret, soaring 77 m into the air, was a ramp said to allow the muezzin to ride a mule up to the

top to make the call to prayer. ̽��ֱ��tower incorporates the multi-lobed horseshoe arches that are one of the most striking features of the architecture of al-Andalus. But elements of the mosque, including its massive prayer hall and offset minaret, are uniquely Almohad in character – as was the incorporation of mechanical devices to reveal an elaborate pulpit and wooden screen for the weekly Friday prayer.

Empires rise and fall. In the 1220s, the Almohads began to lose their grip on the reins of power. By 1250, they had lost much of their territories to smaller Islamic monarchies and sultanates but in the previous two centuries the Almoravids and Almohads had established impressive administrative and judicial systems. ̽��ֱ��two dynasties had contributed to the Islamisation of a huge sweep of north-west Africa – and had brought the Berbers into what Bennison describes as the “fractious family of great Islamic peoples”.

Bennison’s motivation in writing her latest book is to place the Berbers alongside the Arabs, Persians and Turks as major contributors to the story of Islamic civilisation. In researching subject matter which ranges from the nature of tribal affiliations to the position of women, she has immersed herself in the lived experience of an era that is often tantalisingly difficult to capture. Her scholarship, not just in the history and languages of the Maghrib but also in its cultural expression, enables her to offer a glimpse of the flavours and textures of a colourful world often overlooked.

̽��ֱ��Almoravid and Almohad Empires by Amira Bennison is published by Edinburgh History of the Islamic Empires.

̽��ֱ��Almoravid and Almohad empires flourished in the western Mediterranean of the 11th and 12th centuries. Despite controlling vast tracts of land, these Berber dynasties are little known in the English-speaking world. In her latest book, Dr Amira Bennison looks at the rise and fall of Berber empires that made a lasting contribution to the history of Islamic culture.

A succession of powerful dynasties sprang from tribal societies who made their living from farming and herding. These empires forged their own interpretations of Islam and made their own individual marks on its history.

Amira Bennison

Shrine in Tinghir, southern Morocco

Bursting orchards and gifts of gold coin

̽��ֱ��Almoravid and Almohad Empires benefits from dozens of translations (from originals in Arabic) taken from historic sources. Together they bring the era alive. An account of the city of Fes lists a staggering array of buildings and businesses: “There were 782 mosques, 42 ablution buildings, 80 water fountains, 93 baths, 472 water mills, 89,236 residential homes, 17,041 apartments, 469 funduqs, 9,280 shops, two state-controlled covered markets … 3,094 textile workshops, 47 soap-making workshops, 86 tanneries, 116 dyers, 12 iron and copper smelting workshops, 11 glass-making workshops, 135 limekilns, 1,170 bread ovens, and 400 stones for making paper, all in the city.”

Town and country were closely interconnected as were the settled and nomadic communities. Fertile plains supplied the foodstuffs needed to fill the markets that stretched from the Sahara to southern Spain. ̽��ֱ��town of Gafsa (in present day Tunisia) is described as having extensive orchards bursting with “many date palms and olive trees and other superior fruits such as apples with a fine aroma, pomegranates, citron medicus (utruj), bananas, dates including a type called al-kasbā … and more pistachios than anywhere else which are conveyed all over Ifriqiya, the Maghrib, al-Andalus and Egypt.”

Trade routes across land and sea brought access to luxury goods of all kinds. Details of a gift from an Almoravid amir (prince) to his cousin and senior amir make a bold statement about opulence and ownership: “25,000 dīnārs in gold coin … 70 horses of which 25 had gold-decorated bridles, 70 swords of which 20 were decorated with gold and 50 undecorated, 20 sets of spurs embellished with gold, 150 excellent male and female mules, 100 bleached (maqṣūra) turbans, … 100 cloaks, 200 hooded outer robes (burnūs)… 1,000 lengths [of cloth] the colour of pomegranate seeds … 200 linen shawls of different colours and types, 252 tailored gowns (jubba) from fine woollen cloth,70 hooded capes of fine woollen cloth, 7 large flags including one embroidered banner, 20 virgin slave girls, 151 eunuchs/servants, and too much cattle, livestock, wheat and barley to mention.”

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Lines of Thought: Communicating Faith

sjr81 — Fri, 27 May 2016 14:43:49 +0000

As part of its 600th celebrations, the ̽��ֱ�� Library has made a series of six films – one for each of the six themes explored in Lines of Thought – with the latest film: Communicating Faith taking a close look at some iconic religious treasures across all the major faiths including Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

̽��ֱ��oldest item in Communicating Faith is a text for prayer, the so-called Nash Papyrus. Dating from the second century before Christ, the fragments on display in Cambridge contain the Ten Commandments and until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it was the oldest surviving manuscript of any part of the Hebrew Bible.

However, one of the oldest and perhaps the most valuable items in the Library’s collections – and perhaps one of the stars of Lines of Thought – is a recovered text called the Codex Zacynthius.

Codex Zacynthius is a parchment book where the leaves have been scraped and rewritten (a palimpsest). What they rewrote was an 11th or 12th century text from the gospels, but underneath it is a very early text of the gospel of St Luke. This very early undertext was first deciphered in the 19th century. It’s now possible, using modern imaging techniques, to get a much more precise image of what this book would have looked like when it was written in the 6th or 7th century. Work will continue on the codex when the exhibition comes to an end in September.

̽��ֱ��translation of religious texts has always been central to the transmission of faith across barriers of religion and culture, but could be a perilous activity. William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament ultimately cost him his life. His pioneering translation survived, however. In 1611, the team of Cambridge scholars and theologians tasked with helping to prepare the text of the authoritative King James Bible drew heavily on Tyndale’s work.

Will Hale, who curated Communicating Faith, said: “Our copy of Tyndale’s New Testament was printed in Antwerp in 1534. Translating the Bible was an act of heresy at the time according to the mainstream church who thought the one true translation was the Vulgate into Latin and only the church had the right to interpret it to the people. Tyndale felt that even the ploughboys at the plough should be able to recite scripture in their own language. And of course, for his pains, he was strangled and burnt as a heretic two years after this translation was published.

“Today’s academics are exploiting digital technology to unearth new secrets from documents penned in antiquity. Cutting-edge multispectral imaging allows us to read texts erased from a seventh-century manuscript of the Gospel of Saint Luke, whilst dispersed collections of fragments of manuscripts from a Cairo synagogue are being painstakingly reunited in the digital realm.”

Some of the world’s most important religious texts are currently on display in Cambridge as part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s 600th anniversary exhibition – Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World.

For his pains, Tyndale was strangled and burnt as a heretic two years after this translation was published.

Will Hale

Lines of Thought: Communicating Faith

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Detail from the Codex Zacynthius

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Media fuelling rising hostility towards Muslims in Britain

sjr81 — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 13:46:18 +0000

̽��ֱ��findings, drawn from research developed across the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and presented to journalists, politicians and lawmakers, as well as representatives of faith communities, found Britain’s Muslim communities – fragmented and often uncomfortable with the media – to be ill-equipped to counter negative narratives with more balanced reporting.

“Can we have freedom and security at the same time?” said Roxane Farmanfarmaian, lead scholar on the ESRC project and principal at the Centre of the International Studies of the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA). “And how do we balance the right to speak and think freely with the protections necessary for a life without fear?

“In January 2015, the attack on Charlie Hebdo brought into focus how vulnerable the relationship is between free speech and the security of the societies in which we live. Fulfilling its responsibilities to its citizens, the government enacted laws to suppress extremist activity, clamp down on radicalisation and protect British values. This included ‘vocal opposition to British values’. Does this mean protecting a key universal right has in fact restricted it?”

̽��ֱ��Rt Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Home Office Minister on the Counter-Extremism Strategy, highlighted the significance of the research for government and his intention to share it with officials across government, including immigration ministers and ministers within the Department of Media, Culture and Sport.

Roundtable attendees discussed ways to protect freedom of speech in religious contexts, promote integration, and further the successes of multiculturalism. ̽��ֱ��discussion developed ten points for joint action by policymakers and the media. These range from appointing a celebrity role model as a Muslim Media Relations officer, to creating community relations reporters in minority communities (see below).

These points, and the findings, were reported as part of growing coverage on the worrying rise in media interpretations of Islamophobia, public disaffection and Islamic community isolation in ̽��ֱ��Independent and al-Jazeera Online English.

̽��ֱ��Roundtable was organized by CIRMENA, in partnership with Cambridge’s the Woolf Institute and the Centre of Islamic Studies, and made possible through the support of an ESRC Impact Acceleration Action Programme Grant..

A Home Office network, as part of the Government’s Counter-Extremism Strategy linking individuals and groups standing up to extremism in their communities, will draw on findings from this research.

Ten recommended action points:

To stem the slide toward an increasingly divided society, establish a consulting forum led by media and government to facilitate professional communications practices for mosque leaderships, neighbourhood centres, charities, schools and other minority group institutions. ̽��ֱ��goal: to enable them effectively to promote, and publish more balanced narratives about their communities.
Appoint a well-recognized figure (for example, a celebrity role model) as a Muslim Media Relations Officer to encourage contextual awareness and media education surrounding minority group issues and perspectives; the position would be responsible for representing the multiple viewpoints necessary to serve as an effective spokesperson for the Muslim community as a whole. ̽��ֱ��Muslim Media Relations Officer would be a member of the consulting forum (see above).
Encourage media employment of ‘community relations’ reporters as specialist correspondents (much like political, financial and health editors), to improve the balance in reportage on faith and other minority affairs. ̽��ֱ��remit should include, 1. Improving domestic awareness of counter-narratives, 2. Bettering understanding of how global events shape British responses to local communities, 3. Enhancing comprehension of the connections between local (diaspora) communities and their countries of origin, including the sharing of discourses, entertainment preferences and ideological attitudes.
Build media resources within minority communities that actively encourage capacity building, and that can provide tools, such as media training programmes. ̽��ֱ��goal: to engage community members, especially youths, in developing skills for effective media planning, and interaction.
Encourage trusts, foundations and other civil society and mainstream opinion-forming organizations to partner with and include Muslim and other minority representatives, especially women.
Actively support all affirmative engagement with majority community values through positive role models the Muslim community can identify with.
Promote opportunities for Muslim role models to provide inspiration to minority groups, including youth and women.
Support British media productions (drama series, soap operas, documentaries, films, talk shows, game shows, reality TV and other entertainments) that feature minority figures and local minority group issues. ̽��ֱ��goal: to raise the competitive edge of British output vis-à-vis the consumption needs of this audience, and increase the visibility of British, over country-of-origin, media offerings.
Encourage clear definitions of radicalisation (as terminology) to be circulated within the law enforcement and security agencies, and put in place guidelines to protect individuals from agency profiling.
Assign minority group coverage to non-minority reporters and editors, so as to broaden awareness and avoid ‘ghettoisation’ of minority coverage. Develop and promote context-sensitive awareness and language use among staff.

Mainstream media reporting about Muslim communities is contributing to an atmosphere of rising hostility towards Muslims in Britain, according to a ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge/ESRC Roundtable held at the House of Lords.

̽��ֱ��attack on Charlie Hebdo brought into focus how vulnerable the relationship is between free speech and the security of the societies in which we live.

Roxane Farmanfarmaian

https://www.flickr.com/photos/amash/7474723888/in/photolist-covUZN-d35S6o-47KZgR…

Freedom of Speech by Ahdieh Ashrafi via Flickr

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