Rulers as Authors in the Islamic World

Maribel Fierro, Ph.F. (1985), Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo, is Research Professor at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). She has published on the political and intellectual history of the Medieval Islamic West, including co-editing Ibn Hazm of Cordoba. The Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker (Brill, 2012).Sonja Brentjes, Ph.D. (1977), Visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), is a historian of science who has published on mathematical sciences at courts and in madrasas; cross-cultural exchange of knowledge, mapmaking and historiography. She is the author of Teaching and Learning the Sciences in Islamicate Societies (800–1700) (Brepols, 2018). Tilman Seidensticker, Ph.D. (1983), is Professor at Hamburg University, Cluster of Excellence 'Understanding Written Artefacts'. He has published on Ancient Arabic poetry and Arabic manuscripts and is author of Islamismus - Geschichte, Vordenker, Organisationen (Munich, 5th ed. 2023).

• List of FiguresList of TablesNotes on ContributorsIntroductionMaribel Fierro, Sonja Brentjes and Tilman SeidenstickerPart 1 The Early Period1 Rulers as Authors: ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the Other Twelver ImamsTeresa Bernheimer2 Eloquent Exchange: Asceticism and Shirāʾ in the Poetry of Qaṭarī b. al-FujāʾaAdam Gaiser3 A ‘Rediscovered’ Letter of the Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717–720)Caliphal Authorship and Legal Authority in al-Risāla fī l-fayʾSean W. Anthony4 Abbasid Rulers and Their Standing as AuthorsLetizia OstiPart 2 Caliphs and Messianic Figures5 Zaydī Rulers as Authors: A Quest for LegitimacyMaher Jarrar6 The Caliph al-Qādir bi-llāh and the Qādirī CreedLivnat Holtzman7 Do Caliphs Write? The View from the Islamic WestMaría Luisa Ávila † and Maribel Fierro8 Authority, ijāzāt and Politics: Caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh’s Kitāb Rūḥ al-ʿārifīn (7Th/13th Century, Baghdad)Angelika Hartmann †9 The Pen and the Sword: The Case of the Sudanese Mahdi (1844–1885)Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk and Robert S. KramerPart 3 Emirs and Sultans10 Entre l’épée et le calame : Abū l-Fidāʾ, prince et savant ayyoubideAnne-Marie Eddé11 The Quatrains of Toghrïl III. Some Reflections about the Literacy and Culture of the SaljuqsDavid Durand-Guédy12 Royal Quatrains: Rulers of the Anūshteginid Line of Khwārazmshāhs as PoetsJürgen Paul13 Rulers as Authors in 13th-Century Yemen: the Oeuvre of al-Ashraf ʿUmarPetra Schmidl14 Non-caliphal Rulers and Their Writings in the Islamic West (2nd–9th/8th–15th Centuries)Maribel Fierro15 Legitimating Sultanic Rule in Arabic, Turkish and Persian—Late Mamluk Rulers as Authors of Religious PoetryChristian MauderPart 4 The Great Empires: Timurids-Mughals, Ottomans, Safavids16 The Ottoman Ruler Poet Sultan Süleyman I, His Third Divan, and His Reception beyond the Palace WallsChristiane Czygan17 The Power of Poetry in the Ottoman ContextFatma Sinem Eryılmaz18 Timurid-Mughal Philosopher-Kings as Sultan-ScientistsMatthew Melvin-Koushki19 Shah Ṭahmāsp and the Taẕkira: A Sixteenth-Century Ruler’s Justification of His PoliciesPhilip BockholtIndex