Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History
Concubines and Courtesans contains sixteen essays that consider, from a variety of viewpoints, enslaved and freed women across medieval and pre-modern Islamic social history. The essays bring together arguments regarding slavery, gender, social networking, cultural production (songs, poetry and instrumental music), sexuality, Islamic family law, and religion in the shaping of Near Eastern and Islamic society over time. They range over nearly 1000 years of Islamic history - from the early, formative period (seventh to tenth century C.E.) to the late Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal eras (sixteenth to eighteenth century C.E.) - and regions from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) to Central Asia (Timurid Iran).
The close, common thread joining the essays is an effort to account for the lives, careers and representations of female slaves and freed women participating in, and contributing to, elite urban society of the Islamic realm. Interest in a gendered approach to Islamic history, society and religion has by now deep roots in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. The shared aim of the essays collected here is to get at the wealth of these topics, and to underscore their centrality to a firm grasp on Islamic and Middle Eastern history.
"1125290546"
Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History
Concubines and Courtesans contains sixteen essays that consider, from a variety of viewpoints, enslaved and freed women across medieval and pre-modern Islamic social history. The essays bring together arguments regarding slavery, gender, social networking, cultural production (songs, poetry and instrumental music), sexuality, Islamic family law, and religion in the shaping of Near Eastern and Islamic society over time. They range over nearly 1000 years of Islamic history - from the early, formative period (seventh to tenth century C.E.) to the late Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal eras (sixteenth to eighteenth century C.E.) - and regions from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) to Central Asia (Timurid Iran).
The close, common thread joining the essays is an effort to account for the lives, careers and representations of female slaves and freed women participating in, and contributing to, elite urban society of the Islamic realm. Interest in a gendered approach to Islamic history, society and religion has by now deep roots in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. The shared aim of the essays collected here is to get at the wealth of these topics, and to underscore their centrality to a firm grasp on Islamic and Middle Eastern history.
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Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History

Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History

Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History

Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History

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Overview

Concubines and Courtesans contains sixteen essays that consider, from a variety of viewpoints, enslaved and freed women across medieval and pre-modern Islamic social history. The essays bring together arguments regarding slavery, gender, social networking, cultural production (songs, poetry and instrumental music), sexuality, Islamic family law, and religion in the shaping of Near Eastern and Islamic society over time. They range over nearly 1000 years of Islamic history - from the early, formative period (seventh to tenth century C.E.) to the late Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal eras (sixteenth to eighteenth century C.E.) - and regions from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) to Central Asia (Timurid Iran).
The close, common thread joining the essays is an effort to account for the lives, careers and representations of female slaves and freed women participating in, and contributing to, elite urban society of the Islamic realm. Interest in a gendered approach to Islamic history, society and religion has by now deep roots in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. The shared aim of the essays collected here is to get at the wealth of these topics, and to underscore their centrality to a firm grasp on Islamic and Middle Eastern history.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780190622183
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 10/27/2017
Pages: 368
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Matthew S. Gordon a professor of Middle East and Islamic history at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio). His publications include The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Military of Samarra (2000) and The Rise of Islam (2005), and a series of articles on gender and slavery in early Islamic society. He is coeditor of the Yaqubi Translation Project and, with Antoine Borrut, an editor of the online journal al-Usur al-Wusta.

Kathryn A. Hain came to academia after seventeen years serving the church in Jerusalem and Amman. She currently serves as the assistant professor of History and World Christianity at Northwest Christian University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Producing Songs and Sons
Matthew S. Gordon

Chapter 1: Statistical Approaches to the Rise of Concubinage in Islam
Majied Robinson

Chapter 2: Abbasid Courtesans and the Question of Social Mobility
Matthew S. Gordon

Chapter 3: A jariya's prospects in Abbasid Baghdad
Pernilla Myrne

Chapter 4: Visibility and Performance: Courtesans in the Early Islamicate
Courts (661-950 CE)
Lisa Nielson

Chapter 5: The Qiyan of al-Andalus
Dwight F. Reynolds

Chapter 6: The Ethnic Origins of Female Slaves in al-Andalus
Cristina de la Puente

Chapter 7: The Mothers of the Caliph's Sons: Women as Spoils of War in the
Early Almohad Period
Heather J. Empey

Chapter 8: Concubines on the Road - Ibn Battuta's Slave Women
Marina A. Tolmacheva

Chapter 9: Slaves Only in Name: Free Women as Royal Concubinesin Late
Timurid Iran and Central Asia
Usman Hamid

Chapter 10: A Queen Mother and the Ottoman Imperial Harem: Rabia Gülnu?
Emetullah Valide Sultan (1640-1715)
Betul Ipsirli Argit

Chapter 11: Hagar and Mariya: Early Islamic Models of Slave Motherhood
Elizabeth Urban

Chapter 12: Between History and Hagiography: The Mothers of the Imams in
Imami Historical Memory
Michael Dann

Chapter 13: Are Houris Heavenly Concubines?
Nerina Rustomji

Chapter 14: Educated Slave Women and Gift Exchange in Abbasid Culture
Jocelyn Sharlet

Chapter 15: Remembering the Umm al-Walad: Ibn Kathir's Treatise on the Sale of the Concubine
Younus Y. Mirza

Epilogue: Avenues to Social Mobility for Courtesans and Concubines
Kathryn Hain

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