Abbasid Caliphate Bibliography

*I was fortunate enough to teach a 1001 Nights film and literature course last Fall (2021). And I'm even more fortunate to have had such great students. They've let me share their work with you. Bibliography, Annotated Bibliography, and a further report on one article related to their topic (which in some cases is loosely Nights-related). I'll be posting them over the next few weeks. 

**I messed up the formats with my copying and pasting but you know. - M

Here is Kenji's on The Abbasid Caliphate

Kenji Fukuda Professor Lundell English 260

8 December 2021

The Abbasid Caliphate Extended Bibliography

“Abbasid Caliphate.” Encyclopedia of Empire, 2016.

“Abbāsid Empire.” Gale Encyclopedia of World History: Governments, vol. 1, 2008.

"Abbasid Caliphate." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Dec. 2021. Web. 9 Dec. 2021.

Amotz Asa-El. “Arabian Nights II: Daily Edition.” The Jerusalem Post, The Jerusalem Post Ltd, 1998.

Bagdadi, Nadia. “Registers of Arabic Literary History.” New Literary History, vol. 39, no. 3, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, pp. 437–61, https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.0.0046.

Demiralp, Seda. “1001 Nights with Animus.” Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, Pluto Journals, 2021, pp. 213–29, https://doi.org/10.13169/arabstudquar.43.3.0213.

Doyle, Laura. “Shahrazad’s 1001 Mediations: Translation in the Inter-Imperial Economy.” Parergon, vol. 35, no. 2, Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Inc.), 2018, pp. 7–28, https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2018.0065.

FARAG, F. ROFAIL. “The Arabian Nights: A Mirror of Islamic Culture in The Middle Ages.” Arabica, vol. 23, no. 2, Brill, 1976, pp. 197–211.

Goodwin, Jason. “The Glory That Was Baghdad.” The Wilson Quarterly (Washington), vol. 27, no. 2, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2003, pp. 24–28.

Kennedy, Hugh. “The True Caliph of the Arabian Nights: Hugh Kennedy Examines the Life of One of the Most Powerful Men in the World in the Eighth Century.” History Today, vol. 54, no. 9, History Today Ltd, 2004, p. 31–.

Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. “Arabian Nights.” Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Culture Society History, vol. 1, 2007, pp. 80–82

Marozzi, Justin. “Stranger Than the nights.(Hugh Kennedy’s Nuanced Portrayal of Abbasid Caliph Harun Al Rashid).” History today 64.7 (2014): 72–. Print.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith, et al. Two Arabic Travel Books: Accounts of China and India and Mission to the Volga. Library of Arabic Literature, 2014.

Shureteh, Halla A. “The Contemporary Landscape of Arabic Translation: A Postcolonial Perspective.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 4, no. 7, Academy Publication Co., LTD, 2014, p. 1376–, https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.4.7.1376-1384.

Sprengling, M. “The Arabian Nights Stone of the Oriental Institute.” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, vol. 51, no. 4, The University of Chicago Press, 1935, pp. 217–32, https://doi.org/10.1086/370459.

Yucesoy, Hayrettin. “Translation as Self-Consciousness: Ancient Sciences, Antediluvian Wisdom, and the ’Abbāsid Translation Movement.” Journal of world history 20.4 (2009): 523–557. Web.

Annotated Bibliography

Marozzi, Justin. “Stranger Than the nights.(Hugh Kennedy’s Nuanced Portrayal of Abbasid Caliph Harun Al Rashid).” History today 64.7 (2014): 72–. Print.

This is a peer reviewed article published in the fifty fourth volume of History Today by the author of the book Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, Justin Marozzi. Justin Marozzi has six published books, several having to do with Islam and the middle east and has worked as a journalist for the BBC, the Financial Times and the Economist. In this article Marozzi praises Hugh Kennedy’s 2004 article that paints Harun al Rashid, the caliph of the Abbasid Empire in a more nuanced light than his portrayal in the One Thousand and One Nights. Marozzi also praises Kennedy for his inclusion of Harun al Rashid’s patronage to various types of disciplines, scholarship and most importantly translation of Greek, Hindu and Persian works. I will be referring to this source when I discuss important figures of the Abbasid Califate and the extent to which the dynasty championed academics from various sources.

Amotz Asa-El. “Arabian Nights II: Daily Edition.” The Jerusalem Post, The Jerusalem Post Ltd, 1998.

This is a peer reviewed news article published in The Jerusalem Post by bestselling Israeli author and former executive editor of the same publication Amotz Asa-El. Amotz Asa-El is also known for being a fellow at the Hartman Institute and has been quoted or published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. In this news article Asa-El compares Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad as the opposite of Harun al-Rashid's Baghdad. He claims that during al-Rashid's reign, Baghdad was a cosmopolitan city like Manhattan, while Saddam’s was ideologically restrained. He also draws comparisons to the Chinese import, paper, and its impact on the Abbasid Empire to the impact that the Arab oil industry has had on the West. This article will be used to show the impact of paper production has had on the Abbasid Caliphate and to the spread of ideas across the EuroAsian subcontinent.

Goodwin, Jason. “The Glory That Was Baghdad.” The Wilson Quarterly (Washington), vol. 27, no. 2, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2003, pp. 24–28.

This article was published in the 27th volume of The Wilson Quarterly and was written by English writer and historian Jason Goodwin. Goodwin has written six books with various topics, and those of which have received a variety of awards including but not limited to, Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Library Dagger and the John Llewllyn Rhys Prize. This article is about the Baghdad of the Abbasid era and how it was a city of scholarship and philosophy. Goodwin describes the Baghdad of the Nights as a site of translation and transformation and the city had influences coming from India, Alexandria, and Persia. Baghdad was also a center for trade and the home of mythic trader Sinbad the sailor from the Arabian Nights. This article will be sited when talking about the original sources from around the Asian continent that went into the Nights and the great translation moment that took place during the Abbasid Caliphate.

Part 3: “The True Caliph of the Arabian Nights”

Author – Who is the author of this piece? What is their relevance to the topic? Where do they work? Do they seem like an expert in this field? Do they have contact information or a bio that you can find online? Did you contact them?

 

The author of this piece is Hugh N. Kennedy. He is a British Medieval historian and specializes in Islamic Middle East, Muslim Liberia and the Crusades. Kennedy from 1997 to 2007 worked as a professor of Middle eastern History at the University of St Andrew and from 2007 to the present he is a Professor of Arabic at SOAS, University of London. Kennedy is without a doubt an expert on the Abbasid Caliphate and its implications to the One Thousand and One Nights. He has published works such as The Early Abbasid Caliphate; a Political History, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, The Armies of the Caliphs: military and society in the early Islamic State, The Court of the Caliphs, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty and The Caliphate: A Pelican Introduction. There is a short Wikipedia page about him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_N._Kennedy and his contact information can be found on the SOAS University of London website https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff36939.ph

Email address: hk1@soas.ac.uk Telephone: +44(0)20 7898 4251. I have not contacted Professor Kennedy because his article answered many of the questions I had regarding the caliphate and then some.

Thesis – What is the thesis of this text? How is it built? What evidence is used to make their argument? What is the question or problem that the author is responding to? This article is about Harun al-Rashid and comparing the real-life figure to how he is portrayed in the Arabian Nights. Kennedy also writes in detail about the history of the Abbasid Caliphate and how their society was structured. The article was built by first explaining how most of the information regarding other caliphs apart from al-Rashid, are unknown to the world besides specialists in Islamic history. Next, he explains how al-Rashid came to power and how with his and his son’s reign Baghdad became a center of learning and science. He also claims that it wasn’t real achievements that have kept his memory alive but his role in stories collected in Book of Songs and Arabian Nights. Kennedy also explains how this is where the legends of Abbasid historical figures come from, but we must read between the lines to get a more nuanced view of them. Kennedy supports his arguments by saying that the Harun of the Nights was a street wander and promiscuous while in reality was a shy but accomplished ruler. Much of the article is dictated to giving its readers real information about the Abbasid Caliphate, their customs and most of all Harun, without looking at them through the lenses of orientalism like the Arabian Nights.

Critique – What is good, specifically, about your text? What issues does it address and how? What is lacking in your text? What things would you like to see expanded on/written about instead?

What I thought was good about Kennedy’s article was how it gave its readers a lot of information about the Abbasid Caliphate, its social and political environment and how he compared it to the misrepresentations we have over in books like Arabian Knights. Kennedy does a fantastic job reading between the lines and with his expertise gives us insight into the Abbasid Caliphate with a more nuanced view. I think if Kennedy used quotes from the Nights and immediately afterward compared them to how things were in the Abbasid era, I think this would have made his arguments easier to digest. He seems to scatter his comparisons to the Nights and misrepresentations and go into long history lessons between points. I would have been interested in Kennedy discussing the different versions of the Nights and showing if the misrepresentations got worse or better with each new version. I would have also liked it if Kennedy expanded more on the customs of the time and used specific quotes from the Nights to prove or disprove its accuracy.

 

Timeliness – When was this written? Does the text include other, relevant scholarship? Why is timeliness important to investigate for this text’s focus? (Maybe it’s not, if not why not?)

This article was written in September of 2004. This text does include some photographs and maps that were relevant to this topic. From my other research it does not seem like any of the information that Kennedy put forth in this article has been proven to be false since its publishing. For these reasons I feel that timeliness in this case was not a big factor. Though I do feel that Kennedy was lax in his criticism of Haruns portrayal in the Nights and ever mentioned the word orientalism. I thought this might have been the case because of the time and environment in which the article was written.

Relevance – How relevant is your text to your topic? (IE: Does this article shed any new (revelatory) light on your topic? If so what is it?)

I felt that this article was relevant to the topic of the Abbasid Caliphate, Arabian Nights and Orientalism because Kennedy shares the history of the dynasty, wrongful portrayal of it most well-known ruler, and how this all relates to the Nights. This article gave me a deep dive into the Caliphate that most other videos and websites failed to provide. Kennedy was very thorough in explaining how Harun came to power, the circumstances in which it happened, and how the Nights mischaracterized him.

Future Ideas – How might a course on your topic incorporate this text? What might an essay assignment on this text look like?

If there was an entire course on the Abbasid Caliphate this article would be great for explaining how the dynasty exchanged hands and the customs of succession. It would also provide a great amount of information regarding its most well-known ruler. I think a great essay assignment based on this text would be to see if any of the historical facts have been disproven since the time it was written or if any new information has surfaced.

What I Learned – What new thing(s) did you learn about your topic? What might you do in the future with this information?

I learned from my research that this dynasty was crucial in not just the development of the Nights but to so many other aspects of modern life. Science, medicine, math and literature were all improved upon, and we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for the Abbasid

Caliphate. I think this period of history doesn’t get the credit it deserves because of things like orientalism. We choose to focus on things like flying carpets and genies because we don’t want to admit to ourselves that we all stand on the shoulders of the giants before us. So many of our modern accomplishments are in debt to the Abbasids but we choose to ignore these facts because of our fear of the “other”. I think still to this day it scares many people to think that a civilization so different from ours could be this accomplished so long ago.

Optional - An overview of your research methodologies – How did you find this source? What made you choose it?

My research started on YouTube and Wikipedia just a brief overview. Next, I went to the Palomar Library database and used the search term “Abbasid Caliphate Nights”. This resulted in over a thousand articles, so I narrowed my search results to just peer reviewed articles. I read all the short articles I found and for the longer articles I pressed Control+F on my keyboard and searched words like “Abbasid” or “Nights” to quickly find sections relevant to my topic. I chose this topic because I enjoy learning about cultures and have an interest in the sciences and arts. I have no interest in made up things like magic lamps or flying carpets, so I left those for someone else. I also felt that to understand the Nights you must know the environment in which it came from.