Rituals of Islamic Monarchy
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€112.99
A01=Andrew Marsham
Author_Andrew Marsham
Category=QRP
Category=QRVG
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Islamic Studies
Product details
- ISBN 9780748625123
- Weight: 683g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 May 2009
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Rituals of Islamic Monarchy is a history of the oath of allegiance by which the caliph was recognised at his accession. It begins in pre-Islamic Arabia and traces the development of a formal ceremonial of Islamic monarchy in Syria and Iraq during the 7th-9th centuries CE. It examines how the caliphs sought to proclaim their status as the representatives of God's covenant on earth through syntheses of Roman and Iranian royal ritual and customs and practices brought from pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia. It engages with current debates about the reliability of the Islamic tradition for early Islamic history and identifies key turning-points in the formation of classical Islamic political culture. An early chapter discusses the importance of the Qur'an as a historical source for the time of the Prophet Muhammad. For the caliphal period, close readings of the sources for specific rituals alternate with the examination of later copies of documents used at these accession rituals.This study of the invention and re-invention of a central institution of early Islamic political culture is the first such account of Islamic accession ceremonial and will appeal to both specialists in early Islamic history and non-specialists alike.
Andrew Marsham is Professor of Classical Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Queens’ College, specialising in the Late Antique and Early Medieval History of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. His publications include The Umayyad World (Routledge, 2021), Power, Patronage and Memory in Early Islam (Oxford, 2018, with Professor Alain George), and Rituals of Islamic Monarchy (Edinburgh, 2009).
