Sicily: A Frontier in the Centre of the Sea?

ABSTRACT

As part of the Ancient Maritime Dynamics project, this study uses a new interpretive methodology to model the creation and use of maritime places in the western-Mediterranean basin. In turn, the results of this modelling suggest that the waters around the island of Sicily acted as a frontier, distinguishing a distinct zone of activity in the western Mediterranean as well as a western maritime community that segregated itself from other sailors and merchants elsewhere in the sea.     

A Witness of History

Chinese culture provides inexhaustible sources driving Chinese nation for constant progress. We should improve education on the best of Chinese culture, develop and explore rich resources of national culture by means of modem technology, further cultivate and protect cultures of different ethnic groups, attach more importance to the conservation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and make greater efforts in sorting out historical literature.     

Dutch scholars on Muslim Spain

This paper deals with Dutch scholarship on Muslim Spain during three periods of Dutch history: the Reformation, Romanticism and the last quarter of the twentieth century. The interest of Dutch scholars in Muslim Spain is related to general preoccupations of each of these periods. The popularity of Ibn ufayl's ayy ibn Yaqān among Dutch readers in the seventeenth and eighteenth century is linked to the contemporary debate on the relationship between reason and religion. The interest of nineteenth century scholars as Reinhart Dozy in al‐Andalus is related to a general European trend: Romantic interest in the Middle Ages and the Orient. Most attention is devoted to Dutch scholars of Muslim Spain of the last quarter of the twentieth century. Their conclusions are evaluated in the light of the popular Dutch notion of al‐Andalus as a perfect multicultural society.     

族谱与社会史研究

如何面对丰富浩瀚的族谱文献,学界长期聚讼不止,或充分肯定其史料价值,或极端否定其真实性。我们觉得：族谱中既存在真实性的史料,也不乏附会夸饰的内容。只要我们冷静地意识到这两个方面,我们便会分别用族谱的真实内容和不真实内容,     

远去的船队:广州伊斯兰文化千年血脉

如果要书写中国伊斯兰教的历史,广州蕃坊是必须追溯的源头.千百年来,社会文化经历了巨大的变革,然而伊斯兰文化血脉依然鲜活在这座华南大都市的各个角落.中世纪阿拉伯人的商船带来和运走货物的同时,也给这一片土地留下伊斯兰信仰的信息.