ESSAYS IN HONOR OF R. STEPHEN HUMPHREYS

Historical Dimensions of Islam

Pre-Modern and Modern Periods

James E. Lindsay and Jon Armajani, Editors

About the Book:

    This Festschrift consists of twelve chapters first delivered as papers forming the foundations of these chapters at a special conference in honor of Professor Humphreys, which took place in October 2007 at the College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota. These chapters were written as a tribute to Professor Humphreys by twelve of his former graduate students and reflect the broad chronological and disciplinary scope of Professor Humphreys’ teaching and erudition. In geographical range, they stretch from Morocco to the Punjab; in time from the ancient Near East to the present; and in approach from hard-core political analysis to post-modernist and post-colonialist discourse.

    The chapters by Lindsay, Sizgorich, and Bigelow reflect on the persistent power of sacred figures in Islamic societies and the apparently disparate ways in which these figures manifest sanctity, as well as the complex political roles they play both ideologically and in everyday life.

    Cory’s chapter on the ruined al-Badīʻ palace of the Sa‘dī sultans in Marrakesh is illustrated by exquisite color photos and diagrams, and Stockdale shows how art transmutes the tangible present into the mystical realm of an imagined past.

    The contributions of Jones, Hoffman, Keaney, and Armajani explore the ways in which Muslims have constructed their past and how Muslims draw on the past in order to define who they are as Muslims, while Khalid discusses the issues as Muslim reformers and modernists in Bukhara struggled to build their societies along lines both modern and Islamic, between the end of Czarist rule and the imposition of the Soviet system.

    Finally, there is the world of power politics to reconcile with the lofty ideals of justice that are explored in the contributions of Howes (in examining a medieval Islamic polity that strove to define earthly rule in transcendent terms) and Darling, who explores the metaphors of social harmony.

    The final chapter, “Thoughts in Retrospect” by Professor Humphreys, stands as an eloquent commentary on the contributions by his former students.

CONTRIBUTORS

JON ARMAJANI

ANNA BIGELOW

STEPHEN CORY

LINDA T. DARLING

VALERIE J. HOFFMAN

RACHEL HOWES

R. STEPHEN HUMPHREYS

LINDA G. JONES

HEATHER KEANEY

ADEEB KHALID

JAMES E. LINDSAY

THOMAS SIZGORICH

NANCY L. STOCKDALE

About R. Stephen Humphreys. Scholar, teacher, lecturer, and mentor, R. Stephen Humphreys is one of the most prolific and influential scholars of Islamic and Middle Eastern History. After being appointed to an endowed chair at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he was instrumental in establishing the Center for Middle East Studies at the University, which presently has more than 30 faculty members from sixteen different departments and programs affiliated with it. He has imparted his knowledge of the vast and complex discipline of Islamic History to a large number of undergraduate and graduate students while helping the Islamic and Near Eastern Studies program at the University become one of the leading centers in the nation. Professor Humphreys has been a research fellow or faculty member at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the University of Chicago, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the University of Wisconsin, among other institutions. His scholarship has spanned a full range of Islamic history on a variety of topics covering the early, medieval, and modern periods. In addition to his books on the subject, he has contributed numerous journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopaedia articles on a wide number of subjects in the field. Professor Humphreys has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association, President of Middle East Medievalists, Editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and as a member of the Editorial Board of the Cambridge Dictionary of Modern World History.

Published November 2009

302 pages; illustrations, index

size: 6 x 9.25 in (15.2 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN 978-0-87850-190-8  $49.95  Buy it at Amazon.com!