The Geographic and Social Mobility of Slaves: The Rise of Shajar al’Durr, A Slave-Concubine in Thirteenth-Century Egypt

Large numbers of outsiders were integrated into premodern Islamic society through the institution of slavery. Many were boys of non-Muslim parents drafted into the army, and some rose to become powerful political figures; in Egypt, after the death of Ayyubid sultan al-Salih (r. 1240–49), they formed a dynasty known as the Mamluks. For slave concubines, the route to power was different: Shajar al-Durr, the concubine of al-Salih, gained enormous status when she gave birth to his son and later governed as regent in her son’s name, converting to Islam after her husband’s death and then reigning as sultan in her own right. She emerges as a figure both unique and typical of the pathways to assimilation and mobility

Al-Bustān. Las fincas aristocráticas y la construcción de los paisajes periurbanos de al-Ándalus y Sicilia

Navarro Palazón, Julio, editorLa presente publicación se enmarca en el Proyecto I+D+i «Almunias medievales en el Mediterráneo: Historia y conservación de los paisajes culturales periurbanos» (PID2019-111508GB-I00, dirigido por Julio Navarro Palazón), del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Agencia Estatal de Investigación. Proyectos de I+D+i, de los Programas Estatales de Generación de Conocimiento y fortalecimiento Científico y Tecnológico del Sistema de I+D+i y de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, del Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020. Esta obra es también un fruto destacado del trabajo realizado en el marco de la Unidad Asociada de I+D+i Patrimonio Cultural Árabe e Islámico, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universidad de Granada, a través de la Escuela de Estudios Árabes de Granad

Mad\=\i nat al -Zahr\=a\u27s constructed landscape: A case study in Islamic garden and architectural history

Madinat al-Zahra\u27, the tenth-century Umayyad palace city built by \u27Abd al-Rahman III outside of Cordoba, the caliphal seat of Andalusia, is of profound importance within the history of Islamic architecture, gardens, and landscape because at al-Zahra\u27 occurred the first synthesis of Abbasid and Umayyad palace typology in the Iberian Peninsula. From this synthesis emerged many of the Hispano-Islamic stylistic elements associated with later palace such as the Alcazaba of Malaga, the Castillejo of Monteagudo, the Alcazaba of Almeria, and the Alhambra and Generalife of Granada. These elements included the use of luxury materials (marble, precious wood, stucco), grandiose scale and complex plan of juxtaposed residences and reception halls, serving a variety of functions, and the use of water and vegetation not only as decorative elements, but as essential elements in the spatial planning of the palace.^ Relying on a textual foundation of Arabic agricultural manuals, plant lists, histories, geographies, and poetry as well as archaeological data from Madinat al-Zahra\u27 and related sites, the dissertation places the palace city within its regional agricultural context and links it with the more than twenty-five other palaces and villas built around Cordoba in the Umayyad period, both before and after the founding of al-Zahra\u27.^ The chapters examine the typological sources for al-Zahra\u27s architecture and gardens, its orientation to landscape, exploitation of hillside location, and deliberate manipulation of vistas via miradors and viewing platforms, as well as the question of the meaning of a panoramic view of landscape in the medieval Islamic world and for whom the view was intended. The economic and hydraulic reasons for a green belt of agricultural and recreation estates with gardens and orchards surrounding Cordoba are examined. The last chapter discusses Madinat al-Zahra\u27s persistence, after it was destroyed in the eleventh century, as a nostalgic symbol of the gradual loss of Andalusia to the Christian conquerors.

Mad\=\i nat al -Zahr\=a\u27s constructed landscape: A case study in Islamic garden and architectural history

Madinat al-Zahra\u27, the tenth-century Umayyad palace city built by \u27Abd al-Rahman III outside of Cordoba, the caliphal seat of Andalusia, is of profound importance within the history of Islamic architecture, gardens, and landscape because at al-Zahra\u27 occurred the first synthesis of Abbasid and Umayyad palace typology in the Iberian Peninsula. From this synthesis emerged many of the Hispano-Islamic stylistic elements associated with later palace such as the Alcazaba of Malaga, the Castillejo of Monteagudo, the Alcazaba of Almeria, and the Alhambra and Generalife of Granada. These elements included the use of luxury materials (marble, precious wood, stucco), grandiose scale and complex plan of juxtaposed residences and reception halls, serving a variety of functions, and the use of water and vegetation not only as decorative elements, but as essential elements in the spatial planning of the palace.^ Relying on a textual foundation of Arabic agricultural manuals, plant lists, histories, geographies, and poetry as well as archaeological data from Madinat al-Zahra\u27 and related sites, the dissertation places the palace city within its regional agricultural context and links it with the more than twenty-five other palaces and villas built around Cordoba in the Umayyad period, both before and after the founding of al-Zahra\u27.^ The chapters examine the typological sources for al-Zahra\u27s architecture and gardens, its orientation to landscape, exploitation of hillside location, and deliberate manipulation of vistas via miradors and viewing platforms, as well as the question of the meaning of a panoramic view of landscape in the medieval Islamic world and for whom the view was intended. The economic and hydraulic reasons for a green belt of agricultural and recreation estates with gardens and orchards surrounding Cordoba are examined. The last chapter discusses Madinat al-Zahra\u27s persistence, after it was destroyed in the eleventh century, as a nostalgic symbol of the gradual loss of Andalusia to the Christian conquerors.

La estratigrafía del olvido: la Gran Mezquita de Córdoba y su legado refutado

As with any major monument that figures prominently in architectural history, the Great Mosque of Cordoba has a classic architectural "story" behind it. This story attracts little attention in the USA, where the medieval pasis is of little interest because their national narrative does not depend on it. On the other hand, in Europe, where a recent exhibition catalogue on Islamic art concluded with the question, "Que representa hay al-Andalus para nosotros?" ("What does al-Andalus represent for us today?") (Cheddadi, 2000: 270), medieval history plays a powerful role in modern heritage politics. Especially in Spain, the interpretation of the medieval Iberian past, with its intertwining threads of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish culture, is a deeply political act