The Naqshbandiyya Mujaddidiyya order is among the world's largest and most geographically widespread Sufi orders, but it has long been assumed to be absent among Chinese-speaking Muslims. Despite a handful of isolated references to local Chinese Mujaddidī groups in studies of particular communities, comprehensive histories of Chinese Islams make no mention of the Mujaddidiyya, and histories of the Naqshbandiyya Mujaddidiyya make no reference to Chinese-speaking Muslims. This article demonstrates that the Mujaddidiyya order has not only been present at various times and places among Chinese Muslims, but has also played a role in the development of nearly all major strains of Islam in China proper, including those commonly known as the Gedimu, Jahriyya, Khāfiyya, Qādiriyya, and Ikhwān. The article also uses new primary sources to provide an account of how a Mujaddidī order expanded into Eastern Turkistan and was transmitted from there to Muslims in China proper. It shows that adaptation to local environments created distinctive forms of Mujaddidī Sufism, highlights Hui-Uyghur connections, and argues that South Asia deserves a central place in any account of Islam in China.

This article begins by surveying the commercial structure of nineteenth-century Yazd, centring on the economic activities of its Zoroastrian inhabitants. Next, we examine the house of Mehrabān, arguing that they were intermediate figures in Persia's transition from a pre-capitalist to an inchoate capitalist mode of production. Throughout the mid- to late nineteenth century, the Mehrabāns were significant socio-economic players and precursors for later generations of prosperous, worldly Iranian Zoroastrians. Ardeshir in particular epitomised the gradual emergence of an Iranian bourgeoisie in the urban centres of Persia, specifically Yazd. Concurrently, the rise of prominent members of the Mehrabān family was intimately related to their education, ‘cultural capital’, socio-economic connections, and business ventures in Bombay as well as their constantly developing political clout in Persia and India.

This article examines the different mechanisms of the circulation of Chinese ceramics in the Middle East during the Abbasid-Chinese ceramic exchange during the eighth–tenth centuries ce. Although trade has been used conveniently to denote the circulation of Chinese wares in the Abbasid Caliphate, it is not the only mechanism that existed. There were also other possible processes of circulation, such as ceramics sent as tributes, diplomatic gifts, and samples, and secondary distribution through looting and pilgrimage. Not all Chinese wares shipped to the Middle East were luxury goods. Different types of Chinese wares had different functions and commercial and aesthetic values in the Middle East. It is an oversimplification to describe the circulation of Chinese wares in the Middle East as merely the result of the luxury goods trade.

This article examines the comparison constructions in two Northern Talyshi varieties: in Anbarāni, used in the Islamic Republic of Iran; and the Northern Talyshi dialects spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan. These constructions have been poorly studied in previous research dealing with this North-western Iranian language and this article aims to fill that gap. In contrast with a number of Western Iranian languages, Northern Talyshi (and the Talyshi language in general) does not have special morphological markers for expressing the degrees of comparison. The comparative grades are marked syntactically using various adpositions and function words. Having long been under the influence of neighbouring languages such as Persian and Azerbaijani, both Anbarāni and the Talyshi dialects spoken in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan have been affected by these languages at some level in the ways to make comparison.

On Rameshvaram island in the south-east corner of India lies one of Hinduism's most important temples—the Rāmanāthasvāmi, one of the four dhams (‘holy abodes’) and the site of two Śiva-liṅgas said to have been consecrated by Rāma himself. A temple has existed here since at least the eleventh century, although most of the present temple dates to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the island was protected by the Setupati rulers of nearby Ramnad. In several of the long corridors and halls for which this temple is famous are brightly painted life-sized standing images of over 100 male figures attached to columns. Though such images are characteristic of many south Indian temples from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there are far more at Rameshvaram than at any other south Indian temple. This article examines the number, location, and significance of these numerous standing images within this temple. By exploring the significance of the temple as a long-standing site for the royal performance of devotion, this article seeks to address whether the great number and identity of the life-sized donor images can be explained by both Purāṇic ideas of kingship and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch observations of the pan-Indian status of the temple.

The Ahl-i Hadith in South Asia has largely been studied as a textualist, puritan movement as a result of its exclusive emphasis on the Quran, Hadith sources, and connection with a variety of radical political and armed groups. In contrast, poetry has largely been associated with Sufi movements. This article questions this distinction and makes a historiographical intervention by examining the poetry of Maulana Muhammad Anwar Shopiani (d. 1940) in the Kashmiri, Persian, and Urdu languages. Through a close analysis of Shopiani's biography and poetry, the article complicates the hitherto available picture of the Ahl-i Hadith movement which Shopiani helped to take root in Kashmir. Doing so draws attention to the movement's novel literary aspect that engages with regional Sufi and sympathetic Hanafi thinking as well as with the broader Persianate literary traditions and transregional currents of revivalist thinking on the basis of the principle of taḥqīq, research. Even as Shopiani's message remains committed to a ‘factual’ iteration based upon Quran and Hadith sources, it is the concept of love, both in its spiritual and worldly manifestations, that emerges as central to his thought. It is through this that the paradox between the actual historical distance from Prophet Muhammad's time and the Ahl-i Hadith's ideological desire to revive that time by a literal enactment of the sunnah is resolved. In doing so, the article makes a methodological case for employing poetry as a source for writing an intellectual history from below which examines Islamic movements on their own terms.

The ancient Zoroastrian hymn of worship dedicated to the frauuaṣ̌i-s (affirmative choices) of righteous mortals and divinities refers to an important discourse that takes place between an unnamed Zoroastrian poet-sage and his mysterious rival, named Gaōtəma. The figure of Gaōtəma has intrigued Avestan scholars through the years, but the significance and the implications of Gaōtəma's identity, and of his presence in the hymn, has to date not been seriously studied. This article first examines the context in which Gaōtəma is presented in the hymn. Building upon this, it then evaluates four potential identities for Gaōtəma: Avestan, Turanian, Buddhist, and Vedic. Conducting a multidisciplinary and comparative assessment, the article eventually argues in favour of a Vedic identity for Gaōtəma, specifically that of a poet-sage who was a proponent of the Rig Vedic divinity Indra. This investigation into Gaōtəma's identity concomitantly provides important perspectives on certain aspects of the Zoroastrian religion, and often in a comparative context.

An inscription in the name of a Kushan king, Wima Takto (circa 90–113 CE), has recently been discovered by the archaeologist Muhsin Bobomulloev of the National Museum of Tajikistan and his colleagues. The new inscription, found in the Almosi Gorge with other inscriptions in an ‘unknown script’, confirms the identity of Wima Takto, the second king of the Kushan Dynasty, which ruled a large territory stretching from Central Asia to North India in the first four centuries CE. The history of this dynasty is pieced together from inscriptions, coins, and archaeology, and fleeting references in Chinese sources. Each new inscription adds another piece to the jigsaw of Kushan history, revealing a powerful state in control of the central lands of the ancient Silk Road. This article positions the new inscription within the current understanding of Kushan history and the status of Wima Takto.

This article examines the way in which Iran's eighteenth-century ruler Nader Shah was portrayed in contemporary Europe as well as in Iran, and how the resulting image—half national hero, half ruthless warlord—has resonated until today. In an age short on ‘great’ leaders, Nader spoke to the imagination like no other contemporary ruler, Western or Asian. Nader's subsequent record can be read as a palimpsest, a layered series of images of multiple world conquerors, from Alexander to Napoleon. The latter, who shared Nader's humble background and evoked a similar ambivalence, represented the closest analogue, turning him into the European Nader Shah. In the modern West, Nader no longer speaks to the imagination. Modern Iranians, by contrast, have come to see him as the Iranian Napoleon. While still ambivalent about him, they admire him as the ruler who regenerated the nation and ended foreign occupation, yet his undeniable cruelty and imperialism make him an awkward national hero.

Tang expansion in the early seventh century brought about a series of changes to the eastern Tianshan region, including the incorporation of the region into the imperial postal relay and defence system. Important structures, including cities for the soldiers and other immigrants from Tang territory, along with fortresses and relay posts, were established along the major routes in the region, especially on the northern slopes of the Tianshan range. However, the era after the decline of the Tang is not as well known, due to a lack of contemporary sources. This article, based on a comprehensive analysis of documentary and unearthed materials, discusses a previously unacknowledged process of urbanisation in the region during the Uighur era. Uighur immigrants, originally nomads on the Mongolian steppe, occupied not only the cities, but also the garrisons and other infrastructure established by the Tang. As a result, urban settlements were established at sites that had previously served military purposes. Clusters of new cities emerged in the region, especially on the northern slopes of the Tianshan, which had long been part of the nomadic cultural zone. The sedentary and mercantile culture of the Uighurs played an important role in this process, serving as an impetus for economic prosperity along the eastern section of the Silk Road between the Tang and Mongol–Yuan eras.

The American Revolution, as recent studies have shown, was appropriated by Chinese revolutionaries to use in their anti-Manchu propaganda in the early twentieth century. Few scholars have fully recognised Japan's important role in mediating Chinese revolutionaries’ understanding of the American Revolution. This article aims to bridge the gaps in existing scholarship through a close reading of Chinese and Japanese writings on the American Revolution in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I will show that Chinese and Japanese elites’ understanding of the American Revolution was structured by the changing power relations between China, Japan, and the West. Before Chinese and Japanese elites internalised the ideology of Western cultural superiority, the former inspired the latter to see the American Revolution through a Confucian lens. After the ideology of Western cultural superiority became entrenched in Japan, Japanese elites reinterpreted the American Revolution through the lens of Western ideas of liberty, civil rights, and popular sovereignty. Their new interpretation, in turn, inspired Chinese revolutionaries in Meiji Japan to view the American Revolution as a model for their anti-Manchu revolution in the 1900s when the ideology of Western cultural superiority started to take root in China.

In this article, I discuss the vilification of Kṛṣṇa as a deceitful sorcerer in the Mughal poet-laureate Shaikh Abū'l Faiḍ bin Mubārak, or ‘Faiḍī's Mahābhārat and his correspondent apotheosis as the ‘essence of the True God' in the Shāriq al-maʿrifat, a treatise also ascribed to Faiḍī. As I argue, this inconsistency, or ambivalence, is a common and overlooked facet of the elite Islamicate engagement with religious diversity and difference in early modern Hindustan. In the case of the Mahābhārat, however, Faiḍī's portrayal of Kṛṣṇa as a deceitful illusionist reflects not only an Islamic discomfort with Vaishnavite theology, but Faiḍī's own performative insecurities as a Hindustani writer of Persian poetry and literary prose. Kṛṣṇa's so-called ‘magic’ lies in large part in his way with words: the verbal and social manipulation he uses to stoke the flames of conflict. The character thus becomes a kind of shadow or double of Faiḍī himself-a demiurgic author of the Mahābhārat upon which the poet can displace the classical Islamicate association of poetry with sorcery and deceit.

This article examines the relationship between the manuscript translation of Mingxin baojian 明心寶鑑 (Precious Mirror for Enlightening the Mind) (circa 1590) by Juan Cobo (circa 1546–1592) and the Fujian book market in China. It explores the cultural implications of Cobo's translation by focusing on the commentary he provided in the marginalia of the manuscript. By investigating Cobo's translation and marginalia notes on three Chinese concepts—Chinese monks, dragons, and reincarnation—this article highlights the complex cultural issues present when the early Spanish missionaries in the Philippines negotiated with Chinese culture in their writings and publications.

By the end of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), olfactory culture in China had evolved significantly as coveted aromatics continued to be imported and in increasing quantities from Southeast Asia. Although there is no surviving treatise dedicated to aromatics from this period, anecdotes in prose literature describing the uses and curation of scents reveal a process in which imported aromatics were being actively incorporated into existing olfactory culture and accrued new social, aesthetic, and ritual significance. This process is discernible in two major respects. First, a discourse of connoisseurship for aromatics arose in contrast to the conspicuous consumption of imported aromatics that flaunted wealth and status. Secondly, aromatics that were once the privilege of the very few began to be circulated among a wider (admittedly still elite) population, as seen in the case of the dragon brain aromatic in late-Tang and Five Dynasties accounts. By delving into these and related prose narratives and by cross-examining these accounts against other types of records, this article examines how imported aromatic goods shaped the Tang elite's perception of how scent was—and could be—used as part of a socially rooted sensory experience.

During the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897), many silk portraits were made of kings and other public officials. Most of these are now lost. Silk canvases are partially transparent, which allows pigments on both sides of the canvas to be seen. Before working with a silk canvas, artists would create several drafts of their portraits on paper, which was made translucent through the application of oil. In this research, a set of three paper drafts for a portrait from the eighteenth century was analysed via X-ray fluorescence spectroscopic data and microscopic imagery to identify the type of paper and pigments used. Using this analysis, along with surviving historic records, comparisons to other historic portraits, and an artistic analysis of the line and colouring techniques, new insights into the process of making these portraits are presented. Novel features of the three sketches are identified. Furthermore, the step-by-step process used to create these sketches is discussed and illustrated using a reproduction that employs traditional techniques and materials.

In this article, we explore the longue durée philosophical background of Mughal Emperor Akbar's sun worship. Although Akbar's sun project may have been triggered by contemporary Hindu and Zoroastrian ideas and practices, we argue that Akbar's Neoplatonic advisers reframed it as a universal cosmotheistic tradition that, at the start of the new millennium, served as the perfect all-inclusive imperial ideology of Akbar's new world order. The astonishing parallels with the much earlier Neoplatonic sun cult of Roman Emperor Julian demonstrate that, although having characteristic of its own, Akbar's sun project was not that unique and should be seen as a fascinating late example of a so-far completely forgotten ancient Neoplatonic legacy of seeing the philosopher king, via the Sun, via illumination, connected to the One.

Hazariprasad Dwivedi's 1946 novel, Bāṇabhaṭṭa kī ‘ātmakathā’, has long been considered one of the most prominent historical novels in modern Hindi literature, canonised in literary history for its progressive view of the past and for elaborating an autobiographical voice for the seventh-century Sanskrit poet, Bāṇa. However, the many layers of fictive authorship that enfold the main narrative of the text are rarely taken into account. Examination of the metatextual materials of this text reveal, however, that Bāṇabhaṭṭa kī ‘ātmakathā’ is meant to be read in terms of the problem of its authorship, in such a way as to problematise the autobiographical voice that it presents to the reader. In this article, I analyse this material and argue that the actual author of the text, described as an Austrian woman named Catherine, is most likely inspired by Stella Kramrisch. Further analysis shows this novel to be deeply shaped by the intellectual milieu of interwar Bengal, where Dwivedi was a teacher at Shantiniketan and engaged in commenting upon the complex intellectual traditions that existed in part of that world.

In Japanese scholarship, the notion of public health is closely associated with modernisation and the adoption of Western medicine in the nineteenth century, which influenced the centralisation of medical affairs and the establishment of hospitals. This article aims to challenge this assumption. A closer look at Japan's medical history shows that government institutions caring for the sick and destitute existed before the introduction of Western concepts of medicine. Furthermore, Japan had other ways of providing welfare, in addition to establishing hospitals. These included government-sponsored medical manuals designed to deliver healthcare via published texts, an aspect of welfare that has been neglected in the history of public health in Japan. This article fills this gap by illuminating and grasping lesser-known strands of healthcare delivery to enhance our understanding of the relationship between the state and medicine in early modern Japan. In particular, it examines welfare initiatives implemented by the tenth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (r. 1716–1745), a prominent and well-researched figure in the history of Tokugawa Japan and a key player who laid the foundations of welfare in this era.