Friends of the emir : non-Muslim state officials in premodern Islamic thought / Luke B. Yarbrough.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yarbrough, Luke B., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization.

Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Islam and state--Islamic Empire.

Islam and state.

Islamic Empire--Intellectual life.

Islamic Empire.

Islamic Empire--Politics and government.

Islamic Empire--Officials and employees.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 361 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

The caliphs and sultans who once ruled the Muslim world were often assisted by powerful Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, and other non-Muslim state officials, whose employment occasioned energetic discussions among Muslim scholars and rulers. This book reveals those discussions for the first time in all their diversity, drawing on unexplored medieval sources in the realms of law, history, poetry, entertaining literature, administration, and polemic. It follows the discourse on non-Muslim officials from its beginnings in the Umayyad empire (661-750), through medieval Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Spain, to its apex in the Mamluk period (1250-1517). Far from being an intrinsic part of Islam, views about non-Muslim state officials were devised, transmitted, and elaborated at moments of intense competition between Muslim and non-Muslim learned elites. At other times, Muslim rulers employed non-Muslims without eliciting opposition. The particular shape of the Islamic discourse on this issue is comparable to analogous discourses in medieval Europe and China.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Part I. Beginnings: 1. An introduction to the prescriptive discourse surrounding non-Muslim state officials; 2. Preludes to the discourse: non-Muslim officials and late ancient antecedents; 3. The beginnings of the discourse to 236/851; 4. The discourse comes of age: the edicts of the caliph al-Mutawakkil; Part II. Elaboration: 5. Juristic aspects of the discourse; 6. Literary aspects of the discourse; Part III. Efflorescence and Comparisons: 7. The discourse at its apogee: the independent counsel works; 8. The discourse in wider perspective: comparisons and conclusions; 9. Afterword: the discourse to the nineteenth century.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 30 May 2019).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-75144-X

1-108-75855-X

1-108-63427-3