Rulers As Authors in the Islamic World: Knowledge, Authority and Legitimacy (Islamic History and Civilization, 213)

How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed, shedding light on the role that authorship had in the construction of the rulers' authority and legitimacy. ‎Contents 6 ‎Figures 10 ‎Tables 11 ‎Notes on Contributors 12 ‎Introduction (Fierro, Brentjes and Seidensticker) 20 ‎Part 1. The early period 26 ‎1. Rulers as Authors: ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the Other Twelver Imams (Bernheimer) 28 ‎2. Eloquent Exchange: Asceticism and Shirāʾ in the Poetry of Qaṭarī b. al-Fujāʾa (Gaiser) 49 ‎3. A ‘Rediscovered’ Letter of the Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717–720) (Anthony) 66 ‎4. Abbasid Rulers and Their Standing as Authors (Osti) 108 ‎Part 2. Caliphs and Messianic figures 124 ‎5. Zaydī Rulership and Authorship: A Quest for Legitimacy. The Case of al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī (333–411/945–1021) (Jarrar) 126 ‎6. The Caliph al-Qādir bi-llāh and the Qādirī Creed (Holtzman) 162 ‎7. Do Caliphs Write? The View from the Islamic West (Ávila and Fierro) 229 ‎8. Authority, ijāzāt and Politics: Caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh’s Kitāb Rūḥ al-ʿārifīn (7th/13th Century Baghdad) (Hartmann) 264 ‎9. The Pen and the Sword: The Case of the Sudanese Mahdī (Abushouk and Kramer) 339 ‎Part 3. Emirs and sultans 364 ‎10. Entre l’épée et le calame: Abū l-Fidāʾ, prince et savant ayyoubide (Eddé) 366 ‎11. The Persian Quatrains of Sultan Toghrïl b. Arslan (d. 590/1194): Reflections on the Literacy and Culture of the Saljuqs (Durand-Guédy) 407 ‎12. Royal Quatrains: Rulers of the Anūshteginid Line of Khwārazmshāhs as Poets (Paul) 452 ‎13. Rulers as Authors in 13th-Century Yemen: The Oeuvre of al-Ashraf ʿUmar (Schmidl) 474 ‎14. Non-caliphal Rulers and Their Writings in the Islamic West (2nd–9th/8th–15th Centuries) (Fierro) 508 ‎15. Legitimating Sultanic Rule in Arabic, Turkish and Persian—Late Mamluk Rulers as Authors of Religious Poetry (Mauder) 537 ‎Part 4. The great empires: Timurids-Mughals, Ottomans, Safavids 564 ‎16. The Ottoman Ruler Poet Sultan Süleyman i, His Third Divan, and His Reception beyond the Palace Walls (Czygan) 566 ‎17. The Power of Poetry in the Ottoman Context (Sinem Eryılmaz) 580 ‎18. Timurid-Mughal Philosopher-Kings as Sultan-Scientists (Melvin-Koushki) 615 ‎19. Shah Ṭahmāsp and the Taẕkira: A Sixteenth-Century Ruler’s Justification of His Policies (Bockholt) 650 ‎Index 675 How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed in this book, from the early centuries in the central lands of Islam to 19th century Sudan. The composition of poetry appears as the most fertile area for authorship among rulers. Prose writings show a wide variety, from astrology to bookmaking, from autobiography to creeds. Some of the rulers made claims to special knowledge, but in all cases authorship played a special role in the construction of the rulers'authority and legitimacy. Contributors: Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk, Sean W. Anthony, María Luisa Ávila†, Teresa Bernheimer, Philip Bockholt, Sonja Brentjes, Christiane Czygan, David Durand-Guédy, Anne-Marie Eddé, Sinem Eryılmaz, Maribel Fierro, Adam Gaiser, Angelika Hartmann†, Livnat Holtzman, Maher Jarrar, Robert S. Kramer, Christian Mauder, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Letizia Osti, Jürgen Paul, Petra Schmidl, Tilman Seidensticker.