Medieval Islamic and Turco-Iranian world, Mongol world empire

Mystical Literature is strong link between Iranian culture and art and has led to consolidation of various arts such as architecture. To understand the identity of Iranian and Islamic architecture should recognize the value of its effective and investigated.Sufism and mysticism during the Ilkhanid and Timurid was Spread and one feature Islamic society, especially in Iran in this period. This leads to the expansion of mystical literature. . The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between mystical literature as a factor for influence of Sufism and the Islamic architecture. The research has an sociological of art and based on reflect theory. Research explored historical documents and resources to investigate the features of mystical literature and sociological context of its development during this period. Then the impact of the mystical literature in architectural education, messaging of architecture, and architectural features expressed in mystical poems was analyzed. This study showed that mystical literature influence on architecture by Futuwwat-nāme brotherhoods (craftsmen chivalry letters), inscriptions themed of buildings and architecture as a metaphor for God's Mention.
ادبیات عرفانی حلقه پیوند محکمی است که فرهنگ و هنر ایران را به یکدیگر متصل کرده و موجب انسجام هنرهای مختلف همچون معماری گشته است. برای درک هویت ایرانی و اسلامی معماری ایران می بایست ارزش های تاثیرگذار بر آن را شناسایی نمود و نوع این تاثیرگذاری را بررسی کرد. با توجه به این که معماری، هنری بازتاب دهنده ارزش ها و اعتقادادت جامعه است و عرفان را می توان ارزشی موثر در جامعه دوره ایلخانی و تیموری دانست، هدف از این تحقیق بررسی ارتباط ادبیات عرفانی به عنوان عامل نفوذ ارزش های عرفانی، با معماری است. محقق با روش کیفی و از طریق بررسی منابع تاریخی، ابتدا ویژگی های ادبیات عرفانی و علت رواج آن در دوره مغول را بیان کرده و سپس ارتباط ادبیات عرفانی با معماری این دوره را در تاثیر بر نحوه آموزش، نقش کتیبه بر معماری و رواج مفاهیم بنیادین در معماری می داند.

When Muhammad b. Tekesh became Khwarazmshah in 1200, he needed some years to consolidate his position. In the process, a tactics of winning over local power-holders is particularly striking. The paper gives some examples and a brief analysis of the relationship between imperial ruler and local power-holders.

The Tall Gnomon (kao piao) of the ancient observatory at Gaocheng , Henan Province, China (34° 24’ 8.73” N, 113° 8’ 26.23” E) is described in a contemporary historical document in terms of  tracking changes solar altitude at meridian transit between summer and winter solstices  (Needham et al.  1954, 296-298; Sivin 2009, 183-186).  For example, the Yuan History (Yuan shih) records that the sun’s shadow cast near the winter solstice on 14 December 1278 AD measured 76.7400 feet (Needham et al. 1959, 299; Mercier 2003, 197-198; Sivin 2009, 571).  However, the 128-foot horizontal graduated template scale (kuei-piao) of the Tall Gnomon is 40% longer than what is required to measure the sun’s longest shadow at the winter solstice.  Using GIS and astro-archaeological computer modeling, additional astronomical targets (i.e., Midsummer Moon,  Venus and bright Stars) are proposed that could account for the construction of the extra 51 feet in length of the template scale.  Evidence is also presented that the solstice observations reported in the Yuan History could not have been made at Gaocheng, but rather at Beijing.

References
Mercier, Raymond.
2003  “Solsticial observations in thirteenth century Beijing.” SCIAMVS,  4:191-232.

Needham, Joseph
1959  Science and Civilization in China, III, London: Cambridge University Press.

Sivin, Nathan
2009  Granting the Seasons:  The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280.  New York: Springer.

"Like all multi-lingual computing, Arabic computing is now firmly in the domain of Unicode. Unicode is an industrial protocol with the status of international agreement. It is designed to encode the elements of all known script systems in such a way that they become interchangeable between programs and operating systems. Its implementation is well underway.

Unicode eliminates the need to tamper with fonts to get special characters, but it is not a font. For legible text on screen and paper, Unicode depends on compatible fonts with the required characters, where necessary with additional dedicated font technology."

As the largest contiguous empire in history, the Mongol Empire looms large in history: it permanently changed the map of Eurasia as well as how the world was viewed. As the empire expanded, the Mongols were alternately seen as liberators, destroyers, and harbingers of apocalyptic doom. At the same time, they ushered in an era of religious tolerance and cross-cultural transmission. This book explores the rise and establishment of the Mongol Empire under Chinggis Khan, as well as its expansion and evolution under his successors. It also examines the successor states (Ilkhanate, Chaghatayid Khanate, the Jochid Ulus (Golden Horde), and the Yuan Empire) from the dissolution of the empire in 1260 to the end of each state. They are compared in order to reveal how the empire functioned not only at the imperial level but how regional differences manifested.

In this interdisciplinary multi-author volume, scholars from diverse areas of research (European history, Indology, Sinology, Japanology, Tibetology, Oriental studies, anthropology) will examine the uses of mercury in a number of medical and alchemical traditions  from the early modern period to the present. Drawing upon the primary textual sources of each respective tradition (European, Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Arab and Persian) as well as on colonial and trade company records, the authors will explore why, when and how mercury was used in the different medical traditions. A comparison of processing methods, recipes and applications will serve to identify possible links between the various medical and alchemical systems and to create a detailed and comprehensive picture of connections both in trade as also in medical theory and techniques.
Contributions will further examine the role of the shifting colonial networks of trade and the inner workings of European markets in the development and global transmission of mercury products,
locating the different medical traditions and their cultural, political and economic contexts within a global history of iatrochemistry.

The province of Khurāsān constituted the centre of political, cultural, and religious life in the Sunni Islamic world from the ninth until the mid-twelfth century, after which Khurāsān was completely eclipsed. The question of how this occurred has remained almost completely unstudied; and the one study that there is does not consult the key primary literary sources for the time. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to re-examine what the primary sources reveal about the catastrophic cultural and political eclipse of Khurāsān in the mid-twelfth century, in order to demonstrate that this catastrophe was not due to “climate, cotton and camels” – in fact, Khurāsān was doing very well until the 1150s – but to concrete human agency and action: namely, the province's destruction by the rampaging Oghuz Turkmens after Sultan Sanjar had been taken captive by them in 1153, thus leading directly to the downfall of the Great Seljuq Sultanate.

A 12th-13th-century A.D. ceramic assemblage from Alexander’s Hill at Sagalassos in southwestern Turkey provides new evidence for the typo-chronological study of Byzantine pottery. A functional analysis of the assemblage, along with textual and iconographic evidence, archaeozoological and palynological analyses, and chemical analysis of cooking-pot residues, contributes to the reconstruction of diet and cooking practices in Anatolia. While baked fish, vegetables, pulses, and bread are usually regarded as the staples of Byzantine peasant cuisine, diners at Sagalassos were enjoying beef stews before the Fourth Crusade, when the technique of stewing meat was allegedly introduced to the eastern Mediterranean from the West.

مصر کے قاضی القضاۃ علامہ تقی الدین ابن دقیق العید کا ایک مکالمہ امام ابن تیمیہؒ کے ساتھ تاریخ نے محفوظ کیا ہے
"(امام ابن تیمیہؒ کہتے ھیں) مجھے سے ابن دقیق نے بیان کیا کہ تاتاریوں نے بلاد مشرق (اسلامی بلاد مشرق توران  ، ایران ، عراق) میں محض فلسفہ کے غالب ہونے اور شریعت کے کمزور ہونے کیوجہ سے غلبہ حاصل کیا ہے ، تو میں نے کہا کہ آپ کے علاقہ (مصر) میں بھی وجودیوں کا مذھب پایا جاتا ہے جو کے فلسفیوں کے مذھب سے بدتر ہے تو وہ فرمانے لگے کہ وجودیوں کے مذھب کو کوئی عقل مند قبول نہیں کرتا کیونکہ اس مذھب کا فاسد ہونا ظاہر ہے اور ہر عقل مند اسکے فساد واقف ہے یہی وجہ ہے کہ یہ عقل مندوں کے سامنے اپنا مذھب پیش ہی نہیں کرتا برخلاف فلسفہ کے ، جو کے خود بھی باطل ہے مگر پھر بھی اس میں وجودیت کے مقابلے پر تھوڑی سی معقولیت موجود ہے "

Fuad Köprülü'nün Anadolu’da İslamiyet adlı eseri birçok bakımdan
onun Türk Edebiyatında İlk Mutasavvıflar başlıklı
çalışmasını tamamlamaktadır. Köprülü’nün bu metinde
yürüttüğü çeşitli tartışmalar, aradan geçen yüzyıl
boyunca Abdülbâki Gölpınarlı’dan Ahmet Yaşar Ocak’a,
Suraiya Faroqhi’den Ahmet Karamustafa’ya dek takip edilip
tekrar tekrar yorumlanmış ve günümüze dek zenginleşerek
gelen literatürü şekillendirmiştir.

The interactions between the Mongols and religious leaders from different confessions have been documented since the early period of the Mongol Empire. When the Mongols conquered Iran and Anatolia and established the Ilkhanid dynasty, the interaction between the Mongol court and Sufi shaykhs became more apparent. Mongol courtly women (khātūns), who had enough economic capability and financial autonomy, played an important role in securing political favour and economic support for religious leaders. This paper explores the interaction between courtly women and Sufi shaykhs in Ilkhanid Iran and Anatolia. Firstly, it investigates the role of Mongol women in religion and secondly, it examines their patronage activities. Finally, it addresses the personal interaction between some of these ladies and Shaykh Ṣafī al-Dīn Ardabilī, which provides an interesting case study to facilitate an understanding of the relationship between khātūns and shaykhs in the fourteenth century.

The Shansabānid dynasty of Ghūr (ca. 545–612/1150–1216) emerged from the mountains of Afghanistan to become a world power stretching from the Oxus River in Central Asia to the Ganges delta in Bengal. This study seeks to answer a central question in the Ghūrid expansion: How did the Ghūrid sultans seek to legitimate their rule and thus mobilize military support in the creation of their empire? It is commonly assumed that the ideology of ghazā played a central role in this process, but this thesis has not yet been systematically analyzed. The Ghūrids’ claims about their actions are reconstructed through an analysis of epigraphy, numismatics, historical chronicles, and other literary works. A special emphasis is placed on those works produced under Ghūrid patronage or by authors living under Ghūrid rule. The analysis suggests that the promotion of ghazā was a late development incidental to the ongoing wars of conquest. On the contrary, situated within the highly fractured religious and political milieu of the eastern Iranian world and becoming in time rulers of all of northern India, the Ghūrids required multiple strategies of political legitimation that varied in time and place: besides the image of the Muslim warrior-king, the Ghūrid rulers also projected themselves and appeared to their followers as Ghūrī chieftains, as traditional Perso-Arabic Islamic rulers, and as Indian rājas. This thesis contributes both to the debate over the meaning and importance of ghazā in Islamic history and to a growing body of recent research on the Ghūrids which is enriching our knowledge of the various forms of political legitimacy in the medieval Muslim world.

Bu kitap, Orta-Çağ Tarihi hakkında bilgilenmek isteyen okura dönemin temel karakteristiklerini tanıtmayı amaçlamaktadır. Kitabın merkezinde Akdeniz Havzası ve onun yarattığı uygarlıklar duruyor. Dönemi, üç ana coğrafya etrafında yansıtmaya çalıştık: Avrupa, Bizans dünyası ve İslam’la yoğrulmuş Orta-Doğu. Yazarın hedefi, Akdeniz uygarlıkları çerçevesinde Orta-Çağ halklarının ekonomik, toplumsal, siyasal, hukuksal ve dinsel gerçeklerini olabildiğince kapsamlı biçimde tartışmaktır.

The first post-classical appearance of descent from Trojan
exiles is found in the Merovingian Chronicle of Fredegar. The text
reached its final version around 660 and, in it, the author describes
the Franks as sharing a common ancestry with the Turks among refugees from the Fall of Troy.

While this connection seems absurd (and claims of Trojan origins of
the Turks were later ridiculed), it could have originated with
Byzantine diplomacy in the late 6th or early 7th century. While it was retained in Frankish origin myths for nearly a millennium, its
original significance appears to have been neglected very soon.
Fredegar reports the return of named ambassadors from Constantinople in 629, who could be the source for many of his eastern stories as some details fit that specific time. While the ambassadors' sojourn coincided with Heraclius's alliance with the Göktürks, Fredegar seems unaware of Turkish involvement in the Persian wars.

Oddly, similar material is reflected several centuries later in the
Icelandic Prose Edda where, in a euhemeristic introduction, Snorri
Sturluson finds a Trojan ancestry for the Norse Gods in what he calls the Turkish city of Troy.  Writing well before the Turks had conquered the site of Troy, it has sometimes been argued as a reflection of the Fredegarian material but would appear more likely to be independent.

What do these accounts of Turks and Trojans tell us about the mindset of the authors?  What do they reflect about the memories of Troy?