The Abbāsid palace of Theophilus: Byzantine taste for the arts of Islam1

The Byzantine emperor Theophilus (829–842) is recorded as having commissioned a palace in the style of contemporary Abbāsid palaces in Baghdad near Constantinople, making it an important instance in the visual cultural exchange between Byzantium and Islamdom. One widely held explanation suggests that Theophilus had a taste for the arts of Islamdom. This paper argues that the Abbāsid‐style palace of Theophilus should be placed in the context of contemporary political events and Theophilus's architectural patronage. The palace can then be seen as the product of Byzantine‐Muslim political and cultural rivalry mediated by an increasingly shared culture of objects that included architectural concepts.     

“Fear God; Fear the Bogaze”: The Nile Mouths and the Navigational Landscape of the Medieval Nile Delta,Egypt

By the fourth/tenth century, Egypt's Nile Delta had just two major Delta branches debouching directly into the Mediterranean – the Dumyā? (Damietta) and Rashīd (Rosetta). Navigational conditions at these branches’ mouths were treacherous because of a combination of currents, winds, wave-fields and shifting sandbanks. These conditions were a danger to shipping, and so had a formative effect on the navigational landscape of the Delta. Despite its remoteness from the Nile, Alexandria remained Egypt's chief Mediterranean port, but only because river connections were maintained that avoided the Rashīd mouth. In contrast, the port of Rashīd was relatively insignificant. Similar conditions at the Dumyā? mouth prompted navigators to adopt routes via Lake Tinnīs, modern Lake Manzala, which linked to the sea through its calmer sea mouths. This article brings together material from multiple disciplines to offer a new understanding of the navigational context of Egypt's medieval Mediterranean ports.     

“He Was a Muslim Knight Who Fought for Religion,Not for the World”. War and Religiosity in Islam: A Comparative Study between the Islamic East and West (Twelfth century)

In the second half of the twelfth century, the Maghreb and the Mashriq saw two new political and religious projects taking place, which shared a common reformist spirit. The Almohad movement and the process initiated by Zankī (r. 1127–1146) gave a crucial role to jihād, as well as introducing far-reaching religious reform, doing away with the supposed decadence that had taken hold in the years before. The combination of these two elements gave rise to a greater exchange between religiosity and war. A comparative analysis of Islamic sources from both east and west reveals this increase of religiosity in war in three different fields: the participation of religious elites in the armies; the rise in the use of rituals and religiosity while at war, by means of sermons, speeches and the use of “sacred” objects; and miraculous events related to acts of war.