Al-Nasir Muhammad and the formation of the Qalawunid State

Al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad Ibn Qalawun was the sultan of Egypt and Syria for much of the period 1293 to 1341. Ascending to the throne as a young boy, al-Nasir Muhammad, the son of the charismatic Sultan al-Mansur Qalawun (r. 1269–90), began his rule shakily. His reign would conclude, however, as one of the longest and most successful incumbencies in the region’s history. This biographical essay, which focuses on the transformative interaction between politics and culture in the fourteenth century, will reveal who this sultan was, and why public services, ceremonial banquets, and widespread patronage were eulogized as key characteristics of his long and successful rule

Talismanic Use of Sūra 59 : A Probable Case from the Indonesian Archipelago

This article presents a critical edition of item 0-691, an Arabic manuscript from the collection of the Tropenmuseum, part of the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam (KIT, Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen to refer to both museum and the institute. We therefore use 'KIT collection' in the text to refer to the collection of the Tropenmuseum.). This is an undated manuscript of unknown origin that hitherto has not been described. In the study preceding our edition of the text, we propose both a place of origin and a probable function of item 0-691. The manuscript’s content and physical characteristics, as well as similarities with other manuscripts, suggest that the most likely region of origin is the Indonesian archipelago, and, more specifically, the region of Aceh. In terms of its primary use, we argue that item 0-691 is a Qur'ānic talisman, and not a letter, as it is currently described in the catalogue of the KIT collection

Confronting Gender and Faith

Despite generations of feminist and queer deconstructions of gender and sexual binarisms in diverse disciplines, the modern/colonial belief in the heteronormative sexual (and thus gender) binary between &#8216;man&#8217; and &#8216;woman&#8217; seems to still be strongly held in contemporary society. In this conference, we ask if the binary gender system works as a kind of belief, a question that leads us to explore the relationship between ‘gender’ and systems of &#8216;faith&#8217; by focusing on three different relations between the two: &#8216;gender as faith&#8217;, &#8216;gender against faith&#8217;, and &#8216;gender in faith&#8217;. The convergences and conflicts between gender and faith also ask us to look more closely at the complex and diverse articulations of gender within different religious &#8216;faiths&#8217;. Questions to be addressed by the conference include the following: Is the analogy of gender heteornormativity and &#8216;faith&#8217; still relevant in a cultural and religious context not focused on faith?  Are &#8216;queerness&#8217; and &#8216;faith&#8217; compatible? How do actual non-heteronormative gender positions within religious traditions contradict conservative religious demonizations of gender theory as &#8216;gender ideology&#8217;?Confronting Gender and Faith, conference, ICI Berlin, 10–11 December 2015 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e151210