In The Presence Of Power: Court And Performance In The Pre-modern Middle East

Synopsis

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. Introduction -- Power Performed. 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 / Evelyn Birge Vitz -- Bloodthirsty Emperors : Performances Of Imperial Punishment In Byzantine Hagiography / Stavroula Constantinou -- Maydān-i Naqsh-i Jahān : The Safavid Isfahan Public Square As A Playing Field / Babak Rahimi -- Persuasion. Performances Of Advice And Admonition In The Courts Of Muslim Rulers Of The Ninth To Eleventh Centuries / Louise Marlow -- Conversation As Performance : Adab Al-muḥādatha At The Abbasid Court / Nadia Maria El Cheikh -- Khālid Ibn Ṣafwān : An Orator At The Umayyad And Abbasid Courts / Jaakko Hämeen-anttila -- Entertainment. Performing Court Literature In Medieval Byzantium : Tales Told In Tents / Margaret Mullett -- Error And The Abbasid Performer : The Rare Slips Of The Fifth/eleventh-century Ghars Al-niʻma Al-ṣābiʼ / Maurice A. Pomerantz -- Cross-gender Acting And Gender-bending Rhetoric At A Princely Party : Performing Shadow Plays In Mamluk Cairo / Li Guo -- Delight. The Court Cuisine Of Medieval Cyprus : Food As Table Theater / William Woys Weaver -- Mystical Poetics : Courtly Themes In Early Sufi Akhbār / Bilal Orfali -- Chaste Lovers, Umayyad Rulers, And Abbasid Writers / Jocelyn Sharlet -- Epilogue / Evelyn Birge Vitz And Maurice A. Pomerantz. Edited By Maurice A. Pomerantz And Evelyn Birge Vitz. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.