#oneabstractaday

This book is the first in English to survey indigenous #knowledge of seasonal, astronomical, and agricultural information in Arab Gulf almanacs. It provides an extensive analysis of the traditional information available, based on local almanacs, #Arabic texts and poetry by #Gulf individuals, ethnographic interviews, and online forums. A major feature of the book is tracing the history of terms and concepts in the local seasonal knowledge of the Gulf, including an important genre about weather stars, stemming back to the ninth century CE. Also covered are pearl diving, fishing, #seafaring, and pastoral activities. This book will be of interest to scholars who study the entire #Arab region, since much of the lore was shared and continues through the present. It will also be of value to scholars who work on the #IndianOcean and Red Sea Trade Network, as well as the history of folk #astronomy in the Arab World.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-95771-1#about-this-book

@islamicstudies #islamicstudies

Blind trust in (poorly understood) machine learning algorithms leads to thoughtlessness - we need a counterculture based on agential realism, acknowledging the entanglement of the observer and the observed and where 'people and communities are involved in both setting the questions and determining the meaning of what is found'

McQuillan, D. (2018). Data Science as Machinic Neoplatonism. Philosophy & Technology, 31(2)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13347-017-0273-3

#OneAbstractADay #DataScience
#Philosophy

#oneabstractaday

As far too many intellectual histories and theoretical contributions from the ‘global South’ remain under-explored, this volume works towards redressing such imbalance. Experienced authors, from the regions concerned, along different disciplinary lines, and with a focus on different historical timeframes, sketch out their perspectives of envisaged transformations. This includes specific case studies and reflexive accounts from African, South Asian, and Middle Eastern contexts. Taking a critical stance on the ongoing dominance of Eurocentrism in academia, the authors present their contributions in relation to current decolonial challenges.

(...)

From their particular vantage points of (trans)disciplinary and transregional engagement, they sketch out potential pathways for addressing the unfinished business of conceptual #decolonization

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110733198/html#overview

#academicchatter @academicchatter @academicsunite #justpublished

#oneabstractaday #justpublished

The diversity of #modernities that can be observed in our world is linked to the claim of living in a global #modernity, in a world society. The book underpins this claim with numerous excursions into Islamic history. It criticises the view that #modernisation can be equated with westernisation and considers different projects of specifically Islamic modernities as integral parts of world society.

From this perspective, the study contributes to the "provincialisation" of European history in contemporary social scientific thought. Contrary to the theories of #postcolonialism associated with the call for the provincialisation of Europe, however, this book adheres to essential traditions of classical sociology. It thus aims to make a contribution to the social theoretical discussion on modernity.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-39954-2

@islamicstudies @sociology #globalhistory #islamicstudies #sociology

#oneabstractaday

This book considers an important and largely neglected area of Islamic law by exploring how medieval Muslim jurists resolved criminal cases that could not be proven beyond a doubt, calling into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a divine legal tradition that has little room for discretion or doubt, particularly in Islamic criminal law.

Through examination of legal, historical, and theological sources, and a range of illustrative case studies, this book shows that Muslim jurists developed a highly sophisticated and regulated system for dealing with Islam's unique concept of doubt, which evolved from the seventh to the sixteenth century.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/doubt-in-islamic-law/3F33884C01782919E73DC857A504D434#fndtn-information

@islamicstudies #islamicstudies #islamiclaw #evidence #doubt #truth

#oneabstractaday #justpublished

This volume discusses the origin and structure of the universe in mystical Islam (#Sufism) with special reference to parallel realms of existence and their interaction. Contributors address Sufi ideas about the fate of human beings in this and future life under three rubrics: (1) cosmogony and eschatology (“where do we come from?” and “where do we go?”); (2) conceptualizations of the world of the here-and-now (“where are we now?”); and (3) visualizations of realms of existence, their hierarchy and mutual relationships (“where are we in relation to other times and places?”).

https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/39557

@islamicstudies @sufistudies #sufism #cosmology #newbooks

#oneabstractaday

“In Compliance with the Old Register”: on Ottoman Documentary Depositories and Archival Consciousness

"The article examines multiple approaches to archived documents and documentary depositories in the Ottoman Empire. By exploring a range of views that reflect a sense of archival consciousness among different groups and individuals throughout the Ottoman lands, the essay seeks to better contextualize the Ottoman quite successful attempts to regulate the imperial paper trail and to promote a specific view of the archive. More generally, by tracing the emergence of a particular form of archival consciousness among members of the imperial administrative and judicial elites as well as Ottoman subjects, the article intends to offer a framework for a comparative study of the archival practices throughout the eastern Islamic lands."

https://brill.com/view/journals/jesh/62/5-6/article-p799_2.xml

#oneabstractaday

"The Tijaniyya is the largest Sufi order in West and North Africa. In this unprecedented analysis of the Tijaniyya’s origins and development in the late eighteenth century, Zachary Valentine Wright situates the order within the broader intellectual history of Islam in the early modern period. Introducing the group’s founder, Ahmad al-Tijani (1737–1815), Wright focuses on the wider network in which al-Tijani traveled, revealing it to be a veritable global Islamic revival whose scholars commanded large followings, shared key ideas, and produced literature read widely throughout the Muslim world. They were linked through chains of knowledge transmission from which emerged vibrant discourses of renewal in the face of perceived social and political corruption. Wright argues that this constellation of remarkable Muslim intellectuals, despite the uncertainly of the age, promoted personal verification in religious learning."

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469660820/realizing-islam/

@islamicstudies

#oneabstractaday

"The Tijaniyya is the largest Sufi order in West and North Africa. In this unprecedented analysis of the Tijaniyya's origins and development in the late eighteenth century, Zachary Valentine Wright situates the order within the broader intellectual history of Islam in the early modern period. Introducing the group's founder, Ahmad al-Tijani (1737 - 1815), Wright focuses on the wider network in which al-Tijani traveled, revealing it as a veritable global Islamic revival whose scholars commanded large followings, shared key ideas, and produced literature read widely throughout the Muslim world. They were linked through chains of knowledge transmission from which emerged vibrant discourses of renewal in the face of perceived social and political corruption.

Wright argues that this constellation of remarkable Muslim intellectuals, despite the uncertainly of the age, promoted personal verification in religious learning."

https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/40109

@islamicstudies

#oneabstractaday

"This is the first book in English to provide a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the Almoravids and the Almohads, the two most important Berber dynasties of the medieval Islamic west, an area that encompassed southern Spain and Portugal, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The Ṣanhāja Almoravids emerged from the Sahara in the 1050s to conquer vast territories and halt the Christian advance in Iberia. They were replaced a century later by their rivals, the Almohads, supported by the Maṣmūda Berbers of the High Atlas.

Although both have often been seen as uncouth, religiously intolerant tribesmen who undermined the high culture of al-Andalus, this book argues that the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were crucial to the Islamisation of the Maghrib, its integration into the Islamic cultural sphere, and its emergence as a key player in the western Mediterranean, and that much of this was due to these oft-neglected Berber empires."

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-almoravid-and-almohad-empires.html

#oneabstractaday (okay two!)

Today I read Gül Şen's very well-structured and insightful study of an Ottoman chronicle.

"In 'Making Sense of History: Narrativity and Literariness in the Ottoman Chronicle of Naʿīmā', Gül Şen offers the first comprehensive analysis of narrativity in the most prominent official Ottoman court chronicle. As a case study on the literalization of historical material, 'Making Sense of History' provides insights into the historiographical and literary conventions underpinning Naʿīmā’s chronicle and contributes to our understanding of elite mentalities in the early modern Ottoman world by highlighting the author’s use of key concepts such as history and time."

https://brill.com/display/title/61781?language=en

I liked this illustration of the chronicle in question, depicted on a portrait of the Ottoman sultan.

#narratology #narrativity #historiography #ottomanhistoriograpy

#oneabstractaday

Narrative Pattern and Genre in Hagiographic Life Writing: Comparative Perspectives from Asia to Europe examines so far mostly unstudied ‘non-occidental’ pre-modern hagiographic texts across disciplines with both philological and narratological approaches. Texts that recount the life of a saint have been labelled ‘hagiography’ and such works have been employed as sources for historical or literary research. However, a text-based definition of the term, not to mention a confirmation of its use on the basis of wider examinations across cultures is still wanting. This volume aims to be a step on this way: eleven contributors examine texts from Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism in the respective source languages. A comprehensive introduction outlines hagiographic life writing; an outlook develops some definitions and suggests a scheme of analysis for future research.

https://www.ebv-berlin.de/epages/15494902.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/15494902/Products/978-3-86893-102-0&Locale=en_GB #hagiography #narratology #narrativity

#oneabstractaday

"Devotional manuals in the honour of the Prophet had a great success at the pre-modern period (11th/17th-13th/19th centuries) in the Muslim West. Based on the Qur’anic text and the Prophetic traditions, these manuals focus on the physical and spiritual qualities of the Prophet, while providing the reader with a wide range of prayers and invocations in the honour of Muhammad. Consequently, they are ideal for the believer who wants to benefit from the baraka, whether in a private or a collective sphere. A close examination of the manuscripts helps understand their functions, their uses and their rituals through the study of their formats and dimensions, illuminated ornamentations, and marginal inscriptions."

https://journals.openedition.org/assr/29465

#oneabstractaday

"There is a Moroccan saying: A market without Jews is like bread without salt. Once a thriving community, by the late 1980s, 240,000 Jews had emigrated from Morocco. Today, fewer than 4,000 Jews remain. Despite a centuries-long presence, the Jewish narrative in Moroccan history has largely been suppressed through national historical amnesia, Jewish absence, and a growing dismay over the Palestinian conflict.

Memories of Absence investigates how four successive generations remember the lost Jewish community. Moroccan attitudes toward the Jewish population have changed over the decades, and a new debate has emerged at the center of the Moroccan nation: Where does the Jew fit in the context of an Arab and Islamic monarchy? Can Jews simultaneously be Moroccans and Zionists?"

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21951

#oneabstractaday

"Véritable lieu de mémoire du Maghreb, Fès est l’une de ces villes historiques qui n’ont cessé de fasciner et d’inspirer un sentiment de sacré. Elle fut le confluent de multiples courants de la spiritualité musulmane, de la science religieuse, de la bénédiction (baraka) et de l'ascendance prophétiques.

À partir d’une documentation considérable et de sources d'époques différentes judicieusement exploitées, ce livre dresse avec profondeur et finesse un tableau historique de la sainteté à Fès, depuis sa fondation jusqu'au Protectorat en 1912. L'auteur réussit à faire revivre la tradition spirituelle de Fès en nous restituant son histoire, ses sources, ses représentants, les formes de leur expérience religieuse, et enfin l’empreinte qu’ils ont laissée dans la cité, sanctifiée par leur présence."

https://books.openedition.org/cjb/498

#oneabstractaday

"The history of Morocco cannot effectively be told without the history of its Jewish inhabitants. Their presence in Northwest Africa pre-dates the rise of Islam and continues to the present day, combining elements of Berber (Amazigh), Arab, Sephardi and European culture. Emily Gottreich examines the history of Jews in Morocco from the pre-Islamic period to post-colonial times, drawing on newly acquired evidence from archival materials in Rabat. Providing an important reassessment of the impact of the French protectorate over Morocco, the author overturns widely accepted views on Jews' participation in Moroccan nationalism - an issue often marginalized by both Zionist and Arab nationalist narratives - and breaks new ground in her analysis of Jewish involvement in the istiqlal and its aftermath."

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/jewish-morocco-9781838603618/

#oneabstractaday

"Islam is often described as abstract, ascetic, and uniquely disengaged from the human body. Scott Kugle refutes this assertion in the first full study of Islamic mysticism as it relates to the human body. Examining Sufi conceptions of the body in religious writings from the late fifteenth through the nineteenth century, Kugle demonstrates that literature from this era often treated saints' physical bodies as sites of sacred power."

https://uncpress.org/book/9780807857892/sufis-and-saints-bodies/

@oneabstractaday #oneabstractaday

"Variables associated with COVID-19 infection
Only smoking was associated with a decreased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection (OR 0.491; 95% CI 0.275–0.878; p = 0.017). No other factors, neither demographic, clinical, disability, comorbidity, nor treatment was associated with the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection"

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2022.1001429/full

@oneabstractaday #oneabstractaday

The “Rich Gay”? Small Museums & Funding “Difficult” History
@oneabstractaday #OneAbstractADay https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12388

@dhruvasambrani @cadxdr @bgcarlisle @caranha I haven't been able to contribute anything to the #oneabstractaday gup.pe yet. Is it working? I periodically see boosts from the gup.pe

Also I wanted to say it would be interesting to create a bookwym based derived instance that used crossref or something as the database of potential stuff to read.