Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 27
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
February 2013
Print publication year:
2013
Online ISBN:
9781139343305

Book description

The prophet Muhammad and the early Islamic community radically redefined the concept of time that they had inherited from earlier religions' beliefs and practices. This new temporal system, based on a lunar calendar and era, was complex and required sophistication and accuracy. From the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, it was the Muslim astronomers of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires who were responsible for the major advances in mathematics, astronomy and astrology. This fascinating study compares the Islamic concept of time, and its historical and cultural significance, across these three great empires. Each empire, while mindful of earlier models, created a new temporal system, fashioning a new solar calendar and era and a new round of rituals and ceremonies from the cultural resources at hand. This book contributes to our understanding of the Muslim temporal system and our appreciation of the influence of Islamic science on the Western world.

Reviews

'This work is … both of general human interest, as well as specific interest with respect to the dialogue between ‘Islam and the West’ today.'

Amina Inloes Source: Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies

'… a well-written and well-organized summation of the complexities of time management in Muslim societies, not only in the early modern period, but throughout Islamic history. The book will prove useful as an introduction to these issues for both advanced undergraduate and graduate students.'

John J. Curry Source: Middle East Media and Book Reviews (membr.uwm.edu)

'… Blake’s book is a fascinating exploration of how early modern empire building was far more complex than the application of an imperial ideology that hinged on a pure religious identity. Rather, as evidenced through three distinct applications of time and ceremony in building Islamic empires, empire building was a recursive reconciliation of the ideology of the metropole with local conditions and expectations that allowed for the intersection of unique cultures in areas of commerce and the exchange of ideas. While the ruling elite of each of the three empires in Blake’s study saw itself as the power base of an Islamic empire, all three empires were nevertheless the successors of the preceding cultures that they conquered and were subsequently compelled to use localized cosmopolitan constructions and understandings of time to ossify the reality of their power and to secure the viability of their empires.'

Source: H-War

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
×

Contents

  • 1 - Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires
    pp 21-47

Select Bibliography

Abu Ma’sar on Historical Astrology, ed. and trans. Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Alderson, A. D.The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
Allami, Abu al-Fazl. The A`in-i Akbari, ed. D. C. Phillott, trans. H. Blochmann. 3 vols. Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica, 1927–1949; reprint ed. Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1989.
Allami, Abu al-FazlAkbar Nama, trans. H. Beveridge. 3 vols. Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica, 1948.
Alvi, M. A. and A. Rahman. Fathullah Shirazi: A Sixteenth Century Indian Scientist. New Delhi: National Institute of Sciences of India, 1968.
And, Metin. A History of Theater and Popular Entertainment in Turkey. Ankara: Forum, 1964.
Ansar, S. M. Razallah, “On the Transmission of Islamic Astronomy to Medieval India,” in The Tradition of Astronomy in India: Jyotihsastra, B. V. Subbarayappa, ed., 345–73. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations.
Aston, Margaret. “The Fiery Trigon Conjunction: An Elizabethan Astrological Prediction.” ISIS (1970): 159–87.
Atil, Esin Aka. “Surname-I Vehbi: An Eighteenth Century Ottoman Book of Festivals.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1969.
Atil, Esin AkaThe Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival.” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 181–200.
Aveni, Anthony. Empires of Time: Calendar, Clocks, and Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1989.
Babayan, Kathryn. Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
al-Badaoni, Abd al-Qadir. Muntakhabu-T-Tawarikh, translated by GeorgeS. A. Ranking. 3 vols. Reprint ed. Delhi: Darah-I Adabiyat-I Delli, 1973.
Bagci, Serpi and Massumeh Farhad, eds. Falnama: The Book of Omens. London: Thames and Hudson, 2010.
al-Biruni, Abu Rayhan. Chronology of Ancient Nations, trans. C. Eduard Sachau. London: Oriental Translations Fund, 1879.
Blake, Stephen P.Half the World: The Social Architecture of Safavid Isfahan, 1590–1722. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1999.
Blake, Stephen P.Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639–1739. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. Sexuality in Islam. London: Routledge, 2007.
Campion, Nicholas. The Great Year: Astrology, Millenarianism, and History in the Western Tradition. London: Arkana, 1994.
Chardin, Jean. Voyages du Chevalier Chardin, en Perse . . .  10 vols. Paris: Le Normant, 1811.
Combs-Schilling, M. E.Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality, and Sacrifice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Daftary, Farhad. A Short History of the Ismailis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
Darling, L. T.Revenue-Raising and Legitimation: Tax Collection and Financial Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.
Dershowitz, Nachum and Edward M. Reingold. Calendrical Calculations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Duncan, David Ewing. Calendar: Humanity’s Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year. New York: Avon Books, 1998.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
Faroqhi, SuraiyaThe Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Faroqhi, Suraiya N. and Kate Fleet, eds. The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 2: The Ottoman Empire as a World Power, 1453–1603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Friedman, Y.Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi: An Outline of His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1971.
Fleischer, Cornell. Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541–1600). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Fleischer, Cornell. “Ancient Wisdom and New Sciences: Prophecies at the Ottoman Court in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries,” in Serpi, Bagci, and Massumeh Farhad, eds., 231–44. Falnama: The Book of Omens. London: Thames and Hudson, 2010.
Fleischer, Cornell. “The Lawgiver as the Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Suleyman.” in Soliman le magnifiqe et son temps, ed. Gilles Veinstein, 159–77. Paris: La Documentation françoise, 1992.
Fleischer, Cornell. “Seer To Sultan: Haydar-i Remmal and Sultan Suleyman,” in Cultural Horizons: A Festschrift in Honor of Talat S. Halman, Jayne L. Warner, ed., 290–9. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
Fleischer, Cornell. “Shadows and Shadows: Prophecy in Politics in 1530s Istanbul.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (2007): 51–62.
Ghori, S. A. Khan. “Development of Zij Literature in India,” in The Tradition of Astronomy in India: Jyotihsastra, B. V. Subbarayappa, ed. 383–415. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2008.
Gollaher, David. Circumcision: A History of the World’s Most Controversial Surgery. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Grafton, Anthony. Joseph Scalinger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983–94.
Hunsberger, Alice C.Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakshan. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
Ihsanoglu, E.Science, Technology, and Learning in the Ottoman Empire. London: Ashgate Publishing House, 2004.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: Classical Age,1300–1600. London: Weidenfeld, 1973.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Islam, Riazul. Calendar of Persian Documents (1500–1700). 2 vols. Karachi: Iran Cultural Foundation, 1979.
Issawi, Charles. “The Ottoman Empire in the European Economy.”Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1 (1957): 109–17.
Jackson, Peter and Laurence Lockhart, eds. The Cambridge History of Iran, vol 6: The Timurid and Safavid Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Jahangir, Nur al-Din Salim. The Tuzuk-I Jahangiri, ed. Henry Beveridge, trans. Alexander Rogers. 2 vols. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968.
Kennedy, E. S.Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1983.
Kennedy, E. S. and David Pingree. The Astrological History of Masha`allah. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Lewis, Bernard and P. M. Holt, eds. Historians of the Middle East. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Lewis, Raphaela. Everyday Life in Ottoman Turkey. London: Batsford, 1971.
LiptonG. A.Muhibb Allah Ilahabadi’s Taswiya Contextualized,” in Muslim Cultures in the Indo-Iranian World During the Early-Modern and Modern Periods, Denis Herman, and Fabrizio Speziale, eds., 475–98. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2010.
Matthee, Rudolph. The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
McChesney, R. D.“Four Sources on Shah Abbas’s Building of Isfahan.”Muqaranas 5 (1988), 104–05.
Melville, Charles ed. Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society. London: I. B. Tauris, 1996.
Melville, Charles ed. “The Chinese Uighur Animal Calendar in Persian Historiography of the Mongol Period.”Iran 32 (1994): 83–98.
Moin, Ahmed Azfar. “The Islamic Millennium in Mughal India: An Historiographical Analysis.” M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 2005.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Nasr, Seyyed HosseinIslamic Philosophy From its Origin to the Present. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Newman, Andrew. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008.
Newman, Andrew, ed. Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East, Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
North, John David and Roy Porter. The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology. New York: Norton, 1994.
Pierce, Leslie. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Pingree, David. The Thousands of Abu Ma`shar. London. The Warburg Institute, 1968.
Quinn, Sholeh. Historical Writing During the Reign of Shah Abbas: Ideology and Legitimacy in the Safavid Chronicles. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000.
Rahimi, Babak. “The Rebound Theater State: The Politics of the Safavid Camel Sacrifice Rituals, 1598–1695.”Iranian Studies (2004) 37: 451–78.
Richards, E. G.Mapping Time: The Calendar and Its History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Richards, John. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Rizvi, Sajjad H. “Mir Damad and the Debate on Hudut-i Dahri in India,” in Denis Herman, and Fabrizio Speziale, eds., 449–74. Muslim Cultures in the Indo-Iranian World During the Early-Modern and Modern Periods. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2010.
Rizvi, S. A. A.The Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar’s Reign. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1975.
Rizvi, S. A. A.The Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Agra: Agra University, 1965.
Rizvi, S. A. A.The Socio-Intellectual History of Isna’ Ahsari Shi’is in India. 2 vols. Canberra: Ma’rifat Publishing, 1986.
Robinson, Francis. “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems.”Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997): 158–9.
Ross, E. Dennison. An Alphabetical List of the Feasts and Holidays of the Hindus and Muhammadans. New Delhi: Imperial Record Department, 1914.
Sahillioglu, H.Sivis Year Crises in the Ottoman Empire,” in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, M. A. Cook, ed., 230–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Saliba, George. “The Role of the Astrologer in Medieval Islamic Society.”Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 44 (1992): 45–68.
Savory, Roger. Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Sayili, Aydin. The Observatory in Islam. Ankara: Turk Tarih Kumumu Basimevi, 1988.
Shaw, Stanford. History of Ottoman Empire. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967–77.
Siddiqi, Abdus Sattar. “Construction of Clocks and Islamic Civilization.”Islamic Culture 1 (1927): 245–51.
Siddiqui, I. H.“Nuqtavi Thinkers at Akbar’s Court: A Study of Their Impact on Akbar’s Religious and Political Ideas.”Islamic Culture 72 (1998): 65–82.
Srivastava, A. L.Akbar the Great. 2 vols. Delhi: Shiva Lal Agarwal and Company, 1962–68.
Stillman, Myra and Beulah Tannebaum. Understanding Time: The Science of Clocks and Calendars. New York: Whittlesey House, 1958.
Stout, Robert E. “The Sur-I Humayun of Murad III: A Study of Ottoman Pageantry and Entertainment.” Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1966.
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia.”Modern Asian Studies 31 (1997): 735–62.
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay“Turning the Stones Over: Sixteenth-Century Millenarianism from the Tagus to the Ganges.”The Indian Economic and Social History Review 40 (2003): 129–61.
Taqizadeh, H.“Various Eras and Calendars Used in the Countries of Islam.”BSOAS 9 (1939): 110–12; BSOAS 10 (1940): 107–32.
Tekeli, Sevim. The Clocks in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century and Taqi al Din’s “The Brightest Stars for the Construction of the Mechanical Clocks.”Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Basimevi, 1966.
Terzioglu, Derin. “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582: An Interpretation.”Muqarnas 12 (1995): 84–100.
von Grunebaum, G. E.Muhammadan Festivals. New York: Henry Schuman, 1951.
Zerubavel, Eviatar. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week. New York: The Free Press, 1985.
Zerubavel, EviatarHidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.