Islamisation: Comparative perspectives from History
20-21 March 2015, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
For further information and to attend please contact iran@st-andrews.ac.uk
Programme:
Friday 20th March 2015
9.00am – 9.30am Registration
9.30am – 9.45am Welcome/Introduction
9.45am – 11.00am Panel 1 – Theoretical Approaches to Islamisation
Richard Bulliet (Columbia) – ‘The Conversion Curve Revisited’.
Alan Strathern (Oxford) – ‘Ruler Conversions to Monotheism in Comparative Perspective’.
David Thomas (Birmingham) – ‘Conversion from Personal Principle: ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī (d. c. 860) and ʿAbd Allāh al-Turjumān (d. c. 1430), two converts from Christianity to Islam’.
11.00am –11.30am Refreshments
11.30am – 12.45pm Panel 2 – The Early Islamic Period
Harry Munt (York) ‘What did Conversion to Islam Mean in 7th-century Arabia?’
Andrew Magnusson (University of California) ‘The Islamization of Sacred Space in Post-Conquest Iran: Historiography and the Desecration of Zoroastrian Fire Temples’
Anna Chrysostomides (Oxford) – ‘”There is no god but God”: Conversion, Islamization, and Religious Code Switching, 8th-10th centuries C.E.’
12.45pm-2.00pm Lunch
2.00pm – 2.50pm Panel 3 – The Muslim West
Michael Brett (SOAS) – ‘Conversion of the Berbers to Islam/Islamisation of the Berbers’
Maribel Fierro (CCHS, Madrid) – ‘The Islamisation of al-Andalus: recent studies and debates’
2.50pm – 3.40pm Panel 4 . The Late Medieval Middle East
Reuven Amitai (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – ‘Islamisation in Palestine and its Environs in the Post-Frankish Period’
Tamer el-Leithy (NYU) – ‘Converting Cultures in Medieval Cairo: The Deep Grammar of Religious Transformation’
3.40pm – 4.10pm Refreshments
4.10pm-5.00pm Panel 5. Anatolia
Andrew Peacock (St Andrews) – ‘Islamisation in Seljuq Anatolia’
Zeynep Oktay (St Andrews) – ‘The Formation of the Doctrines of Bektashism and Alevism: An “Incomplete” Islamisation or a Unique Branch of Islam?’
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Saturday 21st March 2015
9.00am – 9.15am Registration
9.15am-10.30am Panel 6 – Southeast Asia
Edwin Wieringa (Cologne) – ‘The Promise of Salvation: The Story of Yusuf and Indonesia’s Islamization’
Philipp Bruckmayr (Vienna) – ‘Epics of Islamisation and the Islamisation of Epics: Cases and Observations from Southeast Asia’
Alexander Wain (Oxford) – ‘China and the Rise of Islam in Southeast Asia’.
10.30am –11.00am Refreshments
11.00am-11.50am Panel 7 – The Far East
James Frankel (Chinese University of Hong Kong) ‘Islamisation and Sinicisation: Conversion, Reversion and Alternate Versions of Islam in China’.
Yuka Kadoi (Edinburgh) – ‘Orientalism Meets Occidentalism: Material Evidence for the Islamisation of East Asia’.
11.50am-12.40pm Panel 8 – Sub-Saharan Africa
Timothy Insoll (Manchester) –‘The Archaeology of Islamisation in sub-Saharan Africa’
Marco Demichelis (Yale) – ‘Habas̆ah vs Argobba on the “Acrocoro”. The historicized Islamisation process of the Horn of Africa’.
12.40pm-2.00pm Lunch
2.00pm-2.50pm Panel 7 – Iran and Central Asia
Daniel Beben (Indiana University Bloomington) – ‘Islamization on the Iranian Periphery: Nasir-i Khusraw and Ismailism in Badakhshan’.
Devin A DeWeese (Indiana University) – ‘Khwāja Aḥmad Yasavī as an Islamizing Saint: Rethinking the Role of Sufis in the Islamization of the Central Asian Turks’.
2.50pm-3.40pm Panel 8 – India
Blain Auer (University of Lausanne) – ‘Civilizing the Savage: Persianization in Early Islamic South Asia’.
Richard Eaton (Arizona) – ‘Sorting out Islam and Persianate culture in Indian history’.
3.40pm-4.10pm Refreshments
4.10pm – 5.00pm Panel 9 – The Balkans
Tijana Krstić (CEU, Hungary) – ‘Catechetical Strategies: Teaching the Basics of Islam in Ottoman Rumeli, 15th-17th Centuries’.
Sanja Kadrić (Ohio State University) ‘The Islamisation of Ottoman Bosnia: Myths and Matters’.
5.00pm-5.15pm Conclusions and Comments