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How do rulers make their rule palatable to their people? This book examines the question from the perspective of medieval Muslims in the areas that are now Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. It looks at strategies of legitimation ranging from the use of titles to issues such as economic prosperity.
List of contents
- Section 1: Laying the Groundwork
- 1: Amira K. Bennison: Introduction
- 2: Maya Shatzmiller: Islam and the 'Great Divergence': The case of the Moroccan Marinid Empire 1269-1465 CE.
- 3: Allen J. Fromherz: Writing History as a Political Act: Ibn Khaldun, Asabiyya, and Legitimacy.
- Section 2: Genealogy, Titulature and Propaganda
- 4: Bárbara Boloix-Gallardo: The Genealogical Legitimisation of the Nasrid Dynasty: The Alleged Ansari Origins of the Banu Nasr.
- 5: Abigail Krasner Balbale: Jihad as a Means of Political Legitimation in Thirteenth-Century Sharq al-Andalus.
- 6: Stephen Cory: Honouring the Prophet's Family: A Comparison of the approaches to Political Legitimacy of Abul-Hasan Ali al-Marini and Ahmad al-Mansur al-Sa'di.
- Section 3: Ceremonies and Ritual Performances
- 7: James A. O. C. Brown: 'Azafid Ceuta, Mawlid al-Nabi and the Development of Marinid Strategies of Legitimation.
- 8: Cynthia Robinson and Amalia Zomeño: On Muhammad V, Ibn al-Khatib and Sufism.
- 9: Mohamed El Mansour: Hospitality, Charity and Political Legitimacy in Pre-modern Morocco.
- Section 4: Legitimation outside the City
- 10: Amira K. Bennison: Drums, Banners and Baraka: Symbols of authority during the first century of Marinid rule, 1250-1350.
- 11: Camilo Gómez-Rivas: The Ransom Industry and the Expectation of Refuge on the Western Mediterranean Muslim-Christian Frontier 1085-1350.
- 12: Russell Hopley: Nomadic Populations and the Challenge to Political Legitimacy: Three Cases from the Medieval Islamic West.
About the author
Amira K. Bennison is Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Magdalene College. Her research interests include the medieval Islamic West (Islamic Iberia and Morocco), Maghribi modes of legitimation and cultures of power, and 18th-19th century Muslim religio-political discourse and engagement with modernity. In addition, Amira is an experienced cultural tour lecturer who has led numerous trips to Morocco, southern Spain, Syria and Egypt. She also contributes regularly to television programmes on Islamic history and is a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time'. Her publications include The Great Caliphs: the Golden Age of the 'Abbasid Empire, (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009); Cities in the Premodern Islamic World: the urban impact of religion, state and society, edited with Alison L. Gascoigne, (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2007); Jihad and its Interpretations in Pre-Colonial Morocco, (London: Curzon, 2002), as well as numerous articles.
Summary
How do rulers make their rule palatable and appealing to their subjects or citizens? Drawing on the expertise of several international scholars, this volume explores how rulers in medieval Iberia and the Maghrib presented their rule and what strategies they adopted to persuade their subjects of their legitimacy. It focuses on the Nasrids of Granada and the Marinids of Morocco, who both ruled from the mid-13th century to the later 15th century.
One of the book's central themes is the idea that the ways in which these monarchs presented their rule developed out of a common political culture that straddled the straits of Gibraltar. This culture was mediated by constant transfers of people, ideas and commoditities across the straits and a political historiography in which deliberate parallels and comparisons were drawn between Iberia and North Africa. The book adopts this approach to challenge a tendency to see the Iberian and North African cultural and political spheres as inherently different and, implicitly, as precursors to later European and African indentities. While several chapters in the volume do flag up contrasts in practice, they also highlight the structural similarities in the approach to legitimation deployed by the Nasrid and Marinid dynasties in this period.
The volume is divided into several sections, each of which approaches the theme of legitimation from a fresh angle. The first section contains a introduction to the theme as well as analyses of the material and intellectual background to discourses of legitimation. The next section focuses on rhetorical bids for legitimacy such as the deployment of prestigious genealogies, the use of religio-political titles, and other forms of propaganda. That is followed by a detailed look at ceremonial and the calculated patronage of religious festivals by rulers. A final section grapples with the problem of legitimation outside the environs of the city, among illiterate and frequently armed populations.
