Trajectories of State Formation Across Fifteenth-Century Islamic West-Asia: Eurasian Parallels, Connections and Divergences

Description

The concept, practice, institution and appearance of 'the state' have been hotly debated ever since the emergence of history as a discipline within modern scholarship. The field of medieval Islamic history, however, has remained aloof from most of these debates. Rather it tends to take for granted the particularity of dynastic trajectories within slow-changing bureaucratic contexts. 'Trajectories of State Formation' promotes a more critical and connected understanding of state formation in the late medieval Sultanates of Cairo and of the Timurid, Turkmen and Ottoman dynasties. Projecting seven case studies onto a broad canvas of European and West-Asian research, this volume presents a trans-dynastic reconstruction, interpretation and illustration of statist trajectories across fifteenth-century Islamic West-Asia. Acknowledgements vii List of Figures, Tables and Maps ix List of Contributors x Introduction: State Formation in the Fifteenth Century and the Western Eurasian Canvas: Problems and Opportunities / Jo Van Steenbergen 1 Maps 21 Part 1. Whither the Fifteenth Century? 1. From Temür to Selim: Trajectories of Turko-Mongol State Formation in Islamic West-Asia’s Long Fifteenth Century / Jo Van Steenbergen 27 2. Studying Rulers and States across Fifteenth-Century Western Eurasia / Jan Dumolyn and Jo Van Steenbergen 88 Part 2. From Cairo to Constantinople: The Construction of West-Asian Centers of Power 3. The Road to the Citadel as a Chain of Opportunity: Mamluks’ Careers between Contingency and Institutionalization / Kristof D’hulster 159 4. The Syro-Egyptian Sultanate in Transformation, 1496–1498: Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad b. Qaytbay and the Reformation of mamlūk Institutions and Symbols of State Power / Albrecht Fuess 201 5. Tales of Viziers and Wine: Interpreting Early Ottoman Narratives of State Centralization / Dimitri Kastritsis 224 Part 3. From Khwaf to Alexandria: The Accommodation of West-Asian Peripheries of Power 6. Iranian Elites under the Timurids / Beatrice F. Manz 257 7. The Judges of Mecca and Mamluk Hegemony / John L. Meloy 283 8. The Syrian Commercial Elite and Mamluk State-Building in the Fifteenth Century / Patrick Wing 306 9. Settling Accounts with the Sultan: 'Cortesia', 'Zemechia' and Venetian Fiscality in Fifteenth-Century Alexandria / Georg Christ 319 Index 353