Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
The course will introduce students to the period widely known as Islamicate middle period (to use Marshall Hodgson’s terminology). The term was coined in an effort to distinguish the 10th -16th centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean, West Asia, Central Asian and the Eurasian Steppe. During those years Islam conquered a vast territory that witnessed the emergence of new civilization and the wandering of Turkic people, who became the rulers of complex societies characterized with a rich ethnic and religious mosaic.
The lectures aim on providing a broad picture of political, social and cultural (including religious) topics. Following a condensed account of the Islamic conquests (in the East) and the history of the Eurasian Steppe, we will move to study the story of the Turkic people in the Caliphate’s frontier in Central Asia as well as their history in the Abode of Islam. This chapter will also focus on their image, their role and the question of slave soldiers. The next topic will dwell upon the political ideology of the Sultanate and the relations between the Turkic army commanders and the Islamic religious establishment. These broad questions, regarding motives, changes and result will occupy us also in the sections that deal with the post-Mongol history of the extensive continent that stretches between the Mediterranean and the Indus Valley. I will try drawing a line of continuation, of rise and fall (to use Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history).
能力項目說明
Learning a long chapter in the history of the Islamicate world (c. 1000-1600 CE). Students would concentrate on research question regarding migration, continuum, acculturation and collapsing of powerful regimes. They will gain tools to continue studying the history of the Abode of Islam and analyzing social and political developments.
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
|---|---|---|
Week 1
Introduction
Week 2
Iran and Turan
Week 3
The Emergence of the Caliphate
Week 4
The Caliphs and Eurasia
Week 5
The Abbasid Caliphate and the Steppe
Week 6
The Turk in the Service of the Caliphate
Week 7
The Iranian Intermezzo
Week 8
The Great Saljuq Sultanate
Week 9
Week 10
The Rum Sultanate
Week 11
The Turks during the period of the Crusades
Week 12
The Advance of the Mongols
Week 13
The Mamluk Sultanate- a
Week 14
The Mamluk Sultanate -b
Week 15
The Rise of the Ottoman Sultanate
Week 16
Iran
Week 17
India
Week 18
Conclusion
1. Attendance. Students must attend all class sessions. You are permitted two (2) unexcused absences. Each additional absence will count five (5) points from the point total.
2. Participation. 10 points. You are expected to offer questions and statements. These involve close listening and critical reading. I will provide you with several pieces of translated primary sources and we will discuss them in class.
3. Two Written Assignments (essays). Each essay is worth 25 points (total = 50 points). The goal of these assignments is, first, to have students learn the material of the course, and, second, develop their skills of analysis, critical thinking and written expression. The due date for each assignment is provided in the schedule below. Each of the essays will consist of a two-three (2-3) page response to an assigned question (‘prompt’). The essays are to be written in Word, using Times New Roman (12-point font or an equivalent), and double-spaced. I do not require bibliography or endnotes/footnotes.
4. One short-answer test. It worth 20 points. The test will be based primarily on the readings. It will consist of roughly one-paragraph long identifications of names, toponyms, events or major developments.
5. Concluding test. It worth 20 points. The test will be based on lectures and reading. The student is expected to write c. 700 words, answering a broad outline question. I will provide a list of those questions.
REQUIRED READINGS
Andrew C.S. Peacock, The Great Seljuk Empire (2015)
David Morgan, Medieval Persia 1040–1797 (Routledge, 2016)
Carl F. Petry, The Mamluk Sultanate A History (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (Basic Books 2007).
Stephen Frederic Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Additional Reading
Justin McCarthy, Who Are the Turks (American Forum for Global Education, 2003)
Andrew C.S. Peacock, Early Seljūq history (London: Routledge studies in the history of Iran and Turkey, 2010)
Christian Lange and Songul Mecit (eds.), The Seljuqs: politics, society and culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2011).
Edmund Herzig & Sarah Stewart (eds.), The Age of the Seljuqs (2015)
Claude Cahen, The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rum -- Eleventh to Fourteenth Century Translated to English and edited by P.M. Holt (Harlow, England: Longman, 2001).
Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It (Tauris, 2004)
Jane Hathaway, with contributions by Karl K. Barbir, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800 (Pearson Education Limited, 2008).
Douglas A. Howard, A History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire 1300-1650, The Structure of Power (Palgrave, 2002)
Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (2008)
Faroqhi, Suraiya. The Ottoman Empire: A Short History (2009)