Al-Hind, Volume 2 Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries

Al-Hind, Volume 2 Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries

Author: André Wink

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-10-25

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 9004483012

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During the early medieval Islamic expansion in the seventh to eleventh centuries, al-Hind (India and its Indianized hinterland) was characterized by two organizational modes: the long-distance trade and mobile wealth of the peripheral frontier states, and the settled agriculture of the heartland. These two different types of social, economic, and political organization were successfully fused during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, and India became the hub of world trade. During this period, the Middle East declined in importance, Central Asia was unified under the Mongols, and Islam expanded far into the Indian subcontinent. Instead of being devastated by the Mongols, who were prevented from penetrating beyond the western periphery of al-Hind by the absence of sufficient good pasture land, the agricultural plains of North India were brought under Turko-Islamic rule in a gradual manner in a conquest effected by professional armies and not accompanied by any large-scale nomadic invasions. The result of the conquest was, in short, the revitalization of the economy of settled agriculture through the dynamic impetus of forced monetization and the expansion of political dominion. Islamic conquest and trade laid the foundation for a new type of Indo-Islamic society in which the organizational forms of the frontier and of sedentary agriculture merged in a way that was uniquely successful in the late medieval world at large, setting the Indo-Islamic world apart from the Middle East and China in the same centuries. Please note that The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries was previously published by Brill in hardback (ISBN 90 04 10236 1, still available).


The Making of the Indo-Islamic World

The Making of the Indo-Islamic World

Author: André Wink

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-08-06

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1108417744

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A major reinterpretation of the rise of the Indo-Islamic world rooted in world history and geography.


Al-Hind: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest, 11th-13th centuries

Al-Hind: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest, 11th-13th centuries

Author: André Wink

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 9780391041745

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During the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, Islamic conquest and trade laid the foundation for a new type of Indo-Islamic society in which the organizational forms of the frontier and of sedentary agriculture merged in a way that was uniquely successful in the late medieval world at large, setting the Indo-Islamic world apart from the Middle East and China in the same centuries.


A Political History of the World

A Political History of the World

Author: Jonathan Holslag

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2018-10-25

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0241352053

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A three-thousand year history of the world that examines the causes of war and the search for peace In three thousand years of history, China has spent at least eleven centuries at war. The Roman Empire was in conflict during at least 50 per cent of its lifetime. Since 1776, the United States has spent over one hundred years at war. The dream of peace has been universal in the history of humanity. So why have we so rarely been able to achieve it? In A Political History of the World, Jonathan Holslag has produced a sweeping history of the world, from the Iron Age to the present, that investigates the causes of conflict between empires, nations and peoples and the attempts at diplomacy and cosmopolitanism. A birds-eye view of three thousand years of history, the book illuminates the forces shaping world politics from Ancient Egypt to the Han Dynasty, the Pax Romana to the rise of Islam, the Peace of Westphalia to the creation of the United Nations. This truly global approach enables Holslag to search for patterns across different eras and regions, and explore larger questions about war, diplomacy, and power. Has trade fostered peace? What are the limits of diplomacy? How does environmental change affect stability? Is war a universal sin of power? At a time when the threat of nuclear war looms again, this is a much-needed history intended for students of international politics, and anyone looking for a background on current events.


The Books Sānk and Pātanğal

The Books Sānk and Pātanğal

Author: Noémie Verdon

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-01-08

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9004680306

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The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Al-Bīrūnī (ca. 973-1050) was an innovative encyclopaedist thinker. He is particularly known to have investigated into India of his time. Yet, his life and the circumstances of his encounter with Indian languages, culture and sciences are still shrouded in mystery and legends. This research brings to light elements of his intellectual journey based on well-grounded analysis so as to contextualise al-Bīrūnī’s work of transmission of Indian philosophies into Arabic. Thanks to a theoretical framework rooted in a multidisciplinary approach, including Translation Studies, it enables to comprehend the full scope of his work and to analyse deeply his motives and choices of interpretation.


Historical Dictionary of Medieval India

Historical Dictionary of Medieval India

Author: Iqtidar Alam Khan

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2008-04-25

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0810855038

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The medieval period of Indian history is difficult to clearly define. It can be considered a long transition from ancient to precolonial times. Its end is marked by Vasco da Gama's voyage round the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 and the establishment of the Mughal empire (1526). The renewed Islamic advance into north India, from roughly 1000 A.D. onward, leading to the rise of the Delhi Sultanate (1206), is the beginning of the medieval period in political and cultural terms.


The Ebb and Flow of the Ghūrid Empire

The Ebb and Flow of the Ghūrid Empire

Author: David C. Thomas

Publisher: Sydney University Press

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1743325428

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The iconic minaret of Jām stands in a remote mountain valley in central Afghanistan, the finest surviving monument of the enigmatic 12th-century Ghūrid dynasty. The re-discovery of the minaret half a century ago prompted renewed interest in the Ghūrids, and this has intensified since their summer capital at Jām became Afghanistan’s first World Heritage site in 2002. Two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at Jām, the detailed analysis of satellite images and the innovative use of Google Earth as a cultural heritage management tool have resulted in a wealth of new information about known Ghūrid sites, and the identification of hundreds of previously undocumented archaeological sites across Afghanistan. Drawing inspiration from the Annales School and the concept of an ‘archipelagic landscape’, Thomas has used these data to re-assess the Ghūrids and generate a more nuanced understanding of this significant Early Islamic polity. In addition to complementing the événements which form the focus of the urban-based historical sources, the new archaeological data are used by Thomas to reconsider the urban characteristics of the Ghūrids’ summer capital. Throughout The Ebb and Flow of the Ghūrid Empire, Thomas uses this to explore the issues of Ghūrid identity, ideology and the sustainability of their polity.


The Language of the Gods in the World of Men

The Language of the Gods in the World of Men

Author: Sheldon Pollock

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2006-05-23

Total Pages: 705

ISBN-13: 0520932021

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In this work of impressive scholarship, Sheldon Pollock explores the remarkable rise and fall of Sanskrit, India's ancient language, as a vehicle of poetry and polity. He traces the two great moments of its transformation: the first around the beginning of the Common Era, when Sanskrit, long a sacred language, was reinvented as a code for literary and political expression, the start of an amazing career that saw Sanskrit literary culture spread from Afghanistan to Java. The second moment occurred around the beginning of the second millennium, when local speech forms challenged and eventually replaced Sanskrit in both the literary and political arenas. Drawing striking parallels, chronologically as well as structurally, with the rise of Latin literature and the Roman empire, and with the new vernacular literatures and nation-states of late-medieval Europe, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men asks whether these very different histories challenge current theories of culture and power and suggest new possibilities for practice.


India in the Persianate Age

India in the Persianate Age

Author: Richard M. Eaton

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2019-07-25

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 0141966556

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 'Remarkable ... this brilliant book stands as an important monument to an almost forgotten world' William Dalrymple, Spectator A sweeping, magisterial new history of India from the middle ages to the arrival of the British The Indian subcontinent might seem a self-contained world. Protected by vast mountains and seas, it has created its own religions, philosophies and social systems. And yet this ancient land experienced prolonged and intense interaction with the peoples and cultures of East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and, especially, Central Asia and the Iranian plateau between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. Richard M. Eaton's wonderful new book tells this extraordinary story with relish and originality. His major theme is the rise of 'Persianate' culture - a many-faceted transregional world informed by a canon of texts that circulated through ever-widening networks across much of Asia. Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become thoroughly indigenized by the time of the great Mughals in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This long-term process of cultural interaction and assimilation is reflected in India's language, literature, cuisine, attire, religion, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, architecture, and more. The book brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture - which continued to flourish and grow throughout this period - and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and a host of regional states, and made India what it is today.