In the Presence of Power : Court and Performance in the Pre-Modern Middle East

Insights into power, spectacle, and performance in the courts of Middle Eastern rulers In recent decades, scholars have produced much new research on courtly life in medieval Europe, but studies on imperial and royal courts across the Middle East have received much less attention, particularly for courts before 1500AD. In the Presence of Power , however, sheds new light on courtly life across the region. This insightful, exploratory collection of essays uncovers surprising commonalities across a broad swath of cultures. The pre-modern period in this volume includes roughly seven centuries, opening with the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyads, whose reign marked an important watershed for Late Antique culture, and closing with the rule of the so-called “gunpowder” empires of the Ottomans and Safavids over much of the Near East in the sixteenth century. In between, this volume locates similarities across the Western Medieval, Byzantine and Islamicate courtly cultures, spanning a vast history and geography to demonstrate the important cross-pollinations that occurred between their literary and cultural legacies. This study does not presume the presence of one shared courtly institution across time and space, but rather seeks to understand the different ways in which contemporaries experienced and spoke about these places of power and performance. Adopting a very broad view of performances, In the Presence of Power includes exuberant expressions of love in Arabic stories, shadow plays in Mamluk Cairo, Byzantine storytelling, religious food traditions in Christian Cyprus, advice, and political and ethnographic performances of power. **Insights into power, spectacle, and performance in the courts of Middle Eastern rulers**In recent decades, scholars have produced much new research on courtly life in medieval Europe, but studies on imperial and royal courts across the Middle East have received much less attention, particularly for courts before 1500AD. __In the Presence of Power__, however, sheds new light on courtly life across the region. This insightful, exploratory collection of essays uncovers surprising commonalities across a broad swath of cultures. The pre-modern period in this volume includes roughly seven centuries, opening with the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyads, whose reign marked an important watershed for Late Antique culture, and closing with the rule of the so-called “gunpowder” empires of the Ottomans and Safavids over much of the Near East in the sixteenth century. In between, this volume locates similarities across the Western Medieval, Byzantine and Islamicate courtly cultures, spanning a vast history and geography to demonstrate the important cross-pollinations that occurred between their literary and cultural legacies. This study does not presume the presence of one shared courtly institution across time and space, but rather seeks to understand the different ways in which contemporaries experienced and spoke about these places of power and performance. Adopting a very broad view of performances, __In the Presence of Power__ includes exuberant expressions of love in Arabic stories, shadow plays in Mamluk Cairo, Byzantine storytelling, religious food traditions in Christian Cyprus, advice, and political and ethnographic performances of power. In recent decades, scholars have produced much new research on courtly life in medieval Europe, but studies on imperial and royal courts across the Middle East have received much less attention, particularly for courts before AD 1500. In the Presence of Power, however, sheds new light on courtly life across the region. This insightful, exploratory collection of essays uncovers surprising commonalities across a broad swath of cultures. The pre-modern period in this volume includes roughly seven centuries, opening with the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyads, whose reign marked an important watershed for Late Antique culture, and closing with the rule of the so-called "gunpowder" empires of the Ottomans and Safavids over much of the Near East in the sixteenth century. In between, this volume locates similarities across the Western Medieval, Byzantine and Islamicate courtly cultures, spanning a vast history and geography to demonstrate the important cross-pollinations that occurred between their literary and cultural legacies. This study does not presume the presence of one shared courtly institution across time and space, but rather seeks to understand the different ways in which contemporaries experienced and spoke about these places of power and performance. Adopting a very broad view of performances, In the Presence of Power includes exuberant expressions of love in Arabic stories, shadow plays in Mamluk Cairo, Byzantine storytelling, religious food traditions in Christian Cyprus, advice, and political and ethnographic performances of power Cover IN THE PRESENCE OF POWER Title Copyright Dedication CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. POWER PERFORMED 1. Performance and Competition of Kingship and Court in Le Voyage de Charlemagne à Jerusalem et à Constantinople: Real and Imaginary Encounters between the Medieval West and the Middle East 2. Bloodthirsty Emperors: Performances of Imperial Punishment in Byzantine Hagiography 3. Maydān-i Naqsh-i Jahān: The Safavid Isfahan Public Square as “A Playing Field” PART II. PERSUASION 4. Performances of Advice and Admonition in the Courts of Muslim Rulers of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries 5. Conversation as Performance: Adab al-Muḥādatha at the Abbasid Court 6. Khālid Ibn Ṣafwān: An Orator at the Umayyad and Abbasid Courts PART III. ENTERTAINMENT 7. Performing Court Literature in Medieval Byzantium: Tales Told in Tents 8. Error and the Abbasid Performer: The “Rare Slips” of the Fifth/Eleventh-Century Ghars al-Niʿma al-Ṣābiʾ 9. Cross-Gender “Acting” and Gender-Bending Rhetoric at a Princely Party: Performing Shadow Plays in Mamluk Cairo PART IV. DELIGHT 10. The Court Cuisine of Medieval Cyprus: Food as Table Theater 11. Mystical Poetics: Courtly Themes in Early Sufi Akhbār 12. Chaste Lovers, Umayyad Rulers, and Abbasid Writers Epilogue Bibliography List of Contributors Index