Writing to his brother from prison in 1949, a young African American man opens his letter citing these lines from a medieval Persian poet: Indeed the Idols I have loved so long, Have done my credit in this World much Wrong: Have dropped my Glory in a shallow Cup, And sold my Reputation for a song The writer would later achieve acclaim as the civil rights activist Malcolm X, and the lines he was citing were by Omar Khayyam, the subject of today’s episode. Q1. Omar Khayyam was born in 1048CE in Ni...
May 24, 2025•25 min
Born 1004CE in present-day Tajikistan then under control of the Ghaznavid dynasty, Abū Muʿīn al-Dīn Nasir Khusraw was an Ismaili convert and missionary who became better known for his poetry. To discuss with us today the life, works and legacy of Nasir Khusraw is Ali Hammoud. Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shīʿīsm and Islamicate intellectual history. Welcome Ustad Ali! Q1. I think it’s important we set the scene for the socio-political dy...
Apr 06, 2025•29 min
Born under the Samanid dyansty and living through the rule of the Ghaznavid dynasty in Tus located north Iran, Ferdowsi is author of the epic Shahnameh (“The Book of Kings”) of 50,000 lines taking 30 years to compose. The work is of central importance in Persian heritage. Q1. Ferdowsi was born in 940CE and died around 1019CE at around 80 years old. He lived under the Ghaznavid dynasty who at their height ruled territory spanning modern day Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tell us about the cultur...
Feb 16, 2025•28 min
Living under the Samanid dyansty in modern-day Tajikistan, Rudaki is considered the first of the great classical Islamic Persian poets and the father of Tajik literature. Despite being a celebrated, patronised court poet, he would fall into poverty near the end of his life dying blind and alone. To discuss with us today the life, works and legacy of Rudaki is Ali Hammoud. Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shīʿīsm and Islamicate intellectual ...
Dec 21, 2024•28 min
Thomas Bauer's "A Culture of Ambiguity" stands out as one of the most important contributions to Islamic Studies in recent decades. First published in German in 2011, it wasn't until 2021 that it became available in English. Bauer's three decades of knowledge and expertise shine through in the work, which earned him the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award in Germany. It is rare for an academic book rich in insights for specialists to also be engaging enough for general readers, yet this is exactly w...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 13 min
The longest aqueduct of the ancient world, the Valens aqueduct brought water to the capital of the eastern Roman empire: Byzantium or Constantinople, today known as Istanbul. Monumental sections of the aqueduct bridge still majestically stride across the city. In this episode we talk about the reasons for embarking on this colossal project, its development, decline and adaptation, and its place in the cultural heritage of today’s Turkey. Speaker: Mariëtte Verhoeven. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes. Ma...
Oct 02, 2024•47 min
In this episode we discuss what is perhaps the most famous and distinctive invention of Middle Eastern and North African hydraulic engineering is the qanāt (also known as foggaras, khettāras, and aflāj): an underground tunnel dug horizontally into a hillside to harvest water from the water table. Speakers: Majid Labbaf Khaneiki and Louise Rayne. Majid Khaneiki is a human geographer who specializes in traditional irrigation and hydro-social cycles in rural communities. He has conducted or coopera...
Sep 04, 2024•57 min
It is often difficult to reconstruct the water infrastructure at historical sites due to recent building and patchy excavation and survival. In this episode we look at a site in which we can see a great deal of the water supply as a connected system, and how it developed over time: the great late antique White Monastery on the edge of the Egyptian desert. Speaker: Louise Blanke. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes. Louise Blanke is Senior lecturer in Late Antique Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh...
Aug 01, 2024•52 min
You can’t think about clean water without also thinking about removing dirty water and other waste. In this episode we take a deep dive into sewage (figuratively speaking) on the basis of excavations and documents that survive about cities in Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages. Speaker: Ieva Rèklaityte. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes. Ieva Reklaityte is an independent researcher. She graduated in Archaeology at the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, and did her PhD thesis at the University of Saragossa i...
Jul 01, 2024•39 min
Ep4. The City on The Tigris: Baghdad, Drinking and Water Transport Medieval Baghdad was probably home to 200,000 to 500,000 inhabitants. In this episode we look at how water functioned as the life blood of this great city, providing drink, but also transportation that supplied the city with food and connected it with trade routes in Indian Ocean and beyond. Speakers: Hugh Kennedy, Josephine van den Bent. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes. Hugh Kennedy is Professor of Arabic at SOAS in the University of ...
Jun 01, 2024•49 min
The bathhouse is an iconic feature of the medieval middle eastern city up until the present. But how did this come to be? In this episode we look into the origins of bathing culture in the Middle East by going back to the Roman, late antique and early Islamic development of bathhouses. Speakers: Nathalie de Haan and Sadi Maréchal. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes. Nathalie de Haan is an associate professor in ancient history at Radboud University, Department of History, Art History and Classics and RIC...
May 02, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Part of the “Source of Life: Water Management in the Premodern Middle East” project (Radboud Institute for Culture and History). Ep2. Mesopotamia: Taming the Euphrates Mesopotamia means “the land between the rivers.” The fertile silt and life-giving waters from the rivers Tigris and Euphrates allowed the region to develop into a key area of human settlement and culture in the late Holocene around 12000 years ago. In this episode we discuss the earliest settlements in Mesopotamia and how humans h...
Apr 01, 2024•1 hr 8 min
This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa. Ep1. Water History and the Pre-Modern Middle East The cities of the medieval Middle East were some of the largest in the world, dwarfing the major cities of western Europe, for example. So how did they support large populations in relatively arid conditions? In this episode we provide an overview of the kinds of hydraulic infrastructure and social institutions that allowed pre-modern Middle Eastern cities to function. Speakers: Maaike ...
Mar 01, 2024•42 min
Hayrettin Yücesoy is a historian with a specialization in the premodern Middle East. His scholarly interests revolve around the intricate realm of political thought and practice, covering themes such as political messianism, monarchy, republican practices, visions of social order throughout premodern literature, and the historiography of these subjects. In his written works and publications, Yücesoy delves into the convergence of discourse and political practice, unraveling the polyphonic and di...
Feb 18, 2024•1 hr 25 min
Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥarīrī was an Arab poet, scholar and Seljuk government official who died in 1122CE aged 68 years old. His work al-Maqāmāt, a compilation of 50 highly-stylised comic anecdotes about the exploits of trickster Abū Zayd, received widespread renown in his time across the Muslim world and is regarded as a high point of Arabic literature. We are pleased to be joined by Nasim Hassani in Tehran. Ms. Hasani hold a master's degree in Islamic Studies from Shahid Beheshti University,Tehran, I...
Feb 18, 2024•36 min
In 1319 Roger de Stangrave, a Hospitaller knight, and a Jew named Isaac arrived in England. For a ransom of 10,00 gold florins, Isaac had freed Stangrave, a stranger to him, from over 30 years of Mamluk captivity and then accompanied the knight home to be repaid. By 1322, Isaac has converted to Christianity and become Edward of St. John, with King Edward II taking him as godson. What motivated Isaac to ransom a stranger for such an exorbitant cost and leave his native Egypt and end up baptised i...
Feb 17, 2024•1 hr 9 min
This is the second part of two presentations. More on our guest: https://isabelle-imbert.com 0:50 In your previous presentation, you gave us an overview of the history of Islamic art. Give us an overview of the Islamic arts market scene: who are the main players? Where are the main auctions, and so on? 7:05 You advised in your Bayt al-Fann interview that beginners should buy what they like. At what stage can a beginner can consider himself a serious investor? Link to interview: https://www.bayta...
Feb 17, 2024•37 min
Works of Islamic arts mesmerise their viewers, be it calligraphy, vases or mausoleums, but knowledge of their developments continues to be weak for the general enthusiast. To give an introductory survey on how to delve deeper into the fascinating ocean of Islamic arts is Dr. Isaballe Imbert. Dr. Imbert completed her PhD in 2015 at Sorbonne in Persian and Indian Flower Paintings in the 16th to 18th century. She is an Islamic Art specialist with over 10 years’ experience working with the best clie...
Feb 17, 2024•50 min
Dr. Azim Ahmed, Research Associate in British Muslim Studies at Cardiff University, discusses the late Shahab Ahmed's (no relation!) seminal work "What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic" leading us to identify the Anglophone as the New Persianate for the Cathay-to-California Complex. Links: Abdul-Azim Ahmed, Mind the Gap — The Textual, The Social, and Anglophone Islam https://medium.com/@AbdulAzim/mind-the-gap-the-textual-the-social-and-anglophone-islamin-shahab-ahmeds-2015-book-what-is-...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Despite many a tattoo of his alleged verses decorating limbs of heartbroken US college students, the actual life, works and legacy of the Sunni Hanafi jurist and Māturīdī theologian Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī have been conveniently overlooked. To provide a historical introduction to Rumi, we are joined by Muhammad Ali Mojaradi, a University of Michigan graduate, translator, editor and founder of the persianpoetics.com project and is best known by his Twitter and Instagram handle @sharghzadeh . T...
Apr 01, 2022•41 min
Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d.944CE) was a Persian Sunni Hanafi jurist, theologian, and scriptural exegete based in Samarkand. His eponymous codification of Sunni creed became the dominant theological school for Sunni Muslims in Central Asia and later enjoyed a preeminent status as the school of choice for both the Ottoman Empire and the Mughal Empire. Timestamps 01:40 Al-Māturīdī was born at Māturīd, a village or quarter in the neighbourhood of Samarkand during the reign of the caliph al-Mutawakkil...
Mar 11, 2022•38 min
Our series concludes with this live session with our guest and listeners. For more on our guest, see kblankinship.com. Sponsored by shop.ihrc.org Get 15% off with discount code AHP15 at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Contact IHRC Bookshop for details.
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 38 min
Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī was a Shʿī poet who was born in Iraq but lived much of his life in Mardin in modern day Turkey. He was an exemplar of versatility in verse for the much neglected Mamluk period of literary history. Timestamps 01:20 Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī was born in 1278 just over a decade after the Mongol sack of Baghdad. What do we know about his socio-political context? 08:27 War and disaster forced al-Ḥillī to leave his family and move to Mardin. What do we know about his life? 13:14 Al-Ḥil...
Dec 18, 2021•28 min
Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher. He is renowned among practitioners of Sufism by the names al-Shaykh al-Akbar ("the Greatest Shaykh"; from here the Akbarian school derives its name). Timestamps 01:36 Ibn ʿArabī was born in 1165 in Andalusia whose literary history we covered in episode 35. What do we know about his socio-political context? 06:12 Ibn ʿArabī lived an iterant life and is buried in Damascus. What do we know about his life? 10:25 Ibn ʿArabī w...
Dec 04, 2021•25 min
Abū al-Walīd Aḥmad Ibn Zaydūn al-Makhzūmī, or simply known as Ibn Zaydūn, was considered the greatest neoclassical poet of al-Andalus. His love affair with the princess and poet Wallada and his exile inspired many of his poems. Timestamps 01:37 Ibn Zaydūn grew up during the decline of the Caliphate of Córdoba. What do we know about his socio-political context and also tell us about Arabic literature in al-Andalus more generally? 07:10 Ibn Zaydūn was born in 1003 in Cordoba to an aristocratic And...
Nov 27, 2021•25 min
Dr. Kevin Blankinship, BYU Utah, speaks about the life, works and legacy of Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī, prince, prisoner, poet. Al-Ḥārith b. Abū al-ʿAlā Saʿīd ibn Ḥamdān al-Taghlibī, better known by his nom de plume of Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī, was an Arab prince and poet. He was a cousin of Sayf al-Dawla, the ruler of northern Syria, whom we mentioned in episode 33. He best known for the collection of poems titled al-Rūmiyyāt during his time as a prisoner of war with the Byzantines. Timestamps 01:52 Abū ...
Nov 13, 2021•26 min
Dr. Kevin Blankinship, BYU Utah, speaks about the life, works and legacy of al-Mutanabbī, whose poetry continues to inspire. Timestamps 01:44 Al-Mutanabbī was born in 915CE in the city Kufah in modern day Iraq at the height of the Abbasid caliphate but with rising challenges from sectarian foes. What do we know about his socio-political context? 05:34 Al-Mutanabbī was educated in Damascus and is said to have participated in Qaramatian revolts which we covered in episode 13 with Dr. Andani. What ...
Nov 06, 2021•35 min
Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī (865–925 CE), also known by his Latinized name Rhazes, was one of the greatest figures in the history of medicine in the Islamic tradition, and one of its most controversial philosophers. While we have ample surviving evidence for his medical thought, his philosophical ideas mostly have to be pieced together on the basis of reports found in other authors, who are often hostile to him. To discuss with us the life, work and legacy of al-Rāzī is Prof. Peter ...
Aug 21, 2021•27 min
The laws of Dhimma, or governance of non-Muslim minorities in a Muslim polity, can arouse difficult feelings amongst both Muslims and non-Muslims especially at sites of tension and conflict between them around the globe. To discuss with us today a medieval legal work on these rulings is Dr. Antonia Bosanquet , author of Minding their Place: Space and Religious Hierarchy in Ibn al-Qayyim’s Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma published by Brill in 2021. She is currently a researcher at the University of Hamburg a...
Aug 15, 2021•28 min
"This blessed cenotaph was made for the Imam (al-Shāfʿī)…by ʿUbayd the carpenter, known as Ibn Maʿālai, in the months of the year five hundred seventy-four. May God have mercy on him; may he [also] have mercy on those who are merciful toward him, those who call for mercy upon him, and upon all who worked with him—the woodworkers and carvers—and all the believers." Thus reads the inscription on the teak cenotaph at the grave of Imām al-Shafiʿī. For at least ten centuries, in a city replete with h...
Jul 19, 2021•31 min
