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Lahore University of Management Sciences
HIST 322 – Islamic Empires
Spring 2010-11
Instructor: Dr. Taymiya Zaman
Office: TBA
Office hours: **** or by appointment
E-mail: [email protected]
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This upper-division course is a radical imagining of the Muslim world through a study of
three legendary empires: the Ottoman Empire (1300-1922), the Safavid Empire (15011722), and the Mughal Empire (1526-1707). Through a study of these three empires, this
course will introduce students to the method of history and its necessity to understandings
of the contemporary Muslim world. Students will read a number of primary sources,
including Mughal memoirs and travel accounts such as that of Ibn Battuta. Students will
also read secondary sources that depict the cultural, economic, and social world inhabited
by those living under Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal rule. We will pay special attention
to communications of power in urban landscapes: What did the Mughals, for instance,
want people to know about them when they built the Taj Mahal? What did it mean to live
in Muslim cities that were known as centers of learning and peace?
This course is arranged chronologically: We will make a case study of each empire and
conclude the course with comparative analysis. It is also arranged thematically: In each
case study, we will address how Muslim kings and their subjects understood the nature of
sovereignty, allegiance, and family. This course will also expose students to the diversity
of religious and cultural expression in the Muslim world, the ways in which each empire
cultivated economic networks and military elites, and the centrality of the imperial
household to maintaining and communicating power. Through a study of the lives of premodern Muslims, this course will shed light on the universal nature of human experience
as filtered through the specificity of historical understanding. While the focus of this
course is pre-modern empire, this course will also examine how a study of the premodern Islamic world challenges current narratives of Muslim identity.
OBJECTIVES
Disciplines in the humanities understand the Muslim world differently. This course, at its
most basic, is meant to show students how to understand the Muslim world through a
historical lens. This means that Islamic Empires is not a course about the theological
teachings of Islam; rather, it is a course about the many textured realities inhabited by
Muslims across a broad spectrum of time and geography. We will study the writings of
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kings, legal norms influenced by the ulama in Istanbul, the work of architects and poets,
and do so as a means of understanding the past, and recognizing how the past both
continues into and breaks with the present. The cultivation of historical consciousness
means that students will:
1. Learn how historical forces shape the cultural, social, and political institutions of
the Muslim world.
2. Understand the past in its own context; this includes being able to analyze the
motives of historical actors based on the choices available to them.
3. Challenge notions presented in the media as fixed and abiding, such as notions of
religious identity and family.
4. Reflect upon how current intellectual dichotomies such as religious/secular,
tolerant/intolerant are a product of history.
5. Develop a framework for addressing ethical questions that Muslim societies faced
in the past and must come to terms with in the present.
READINGS
Three textbooks are required for this course. These are:
John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire
Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman
Empire
Roger Savory, Iran Under the Safavids
All other required readings will be made available to you as a course reader. Bring all
assigned readings with you to class. Readings are subject to change at my discretion, but
you will be informed of all changes to the readings and syllabus.
GRADING
Grades for this course will be based on the following percentages:
1) Attendance & Participation
2) Short Papers (25% each)
3) Final Paper
20%
50%
30%
1. Regular attendance, preparedness, and active participation count for 20% of your
final grade. You are expected to do the readings on time, to attend class regularly,
and to contribute to class discussion. If you are more than 10 minutes late, or if
you leave class before it is over, you will be counted as absent. You are allowed
three unexcused absences. After three unexcused absences, your attendance and
participation grade will be an F. No laptops are allowed in class; bring print-outs
of all readings to class and be prepared to talk about them. Together, attendance
and participation count toward 20% of your grade. To get an A for this
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component of class, you would have to come to class on time, bring readings with
you, participate in a way that demonstrates that you have done the readings and
are thinking about them critically, and conduct yourself appropriately at all times.
By taking this class you assume responsibility for your own learning and that of
others; this means that lack of preparedness on the part of one student affects the
learning of all.
2. Two 4-5 page, typed, double-spaced papers are worth 50% of your final grade.
These papers will enable you to analyze the sources you will read and the themes
addressed in this course. Your grade will be based on your engagement with and
ability to think critically about the course material.
3. Your final paper will consist of an 8-10 page double-spaced, typed essay.
I spend extensive amounts of time discussing paper topics, allowing students to
brainstorm ideas for papers in class, and explaining to students how I grade papers. This
is meant to facilitate collaborative learning. I also give students paper topics early in the
course, so that students can direct their reading accordingly. Often, students new to
history courses are not sure about what to look for in their readings, and paper topics give
you a sense of the questions I expect you to address independently and through
discussion with your classmates. The readings and course schedule is subject to change
at my discretion, but you will be informed of all changes.
ACADEMIC HONESTY & CONDUCT
Being found guilty of plagiarism or academic dishonesty on an assignment will result in a
failing grade for the assignment. Repeated acts of academic dishonesty on assignments or
misconduct in the classroom, including but not limited to inappropriate use of technology
(such as ringing mobile phones) and/or displays of disruptive behavior, will lead to
disciplinary action against you and a failing grade for the course.
Plagiarism is defined as “the representation of another’s words, ideas…opinions, or
other products of work as one’s own either overtly or by failing to attribute them to their
true source.”1.
Plagiarism is the use without citation of:
another person’s written words
a paraphrase of another person’s written words
Make sure that you cite all materials that you are using; even if you use a paragraph from
someone else’s work and change some of the words and phrases in it, you must still cite
your source.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Section I: THE OTTOMANS
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Syracuse University Rules and Regulations, Section 1.0
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WEEK 1
Tuesday, August 24: Introduction and Background to the Course
Thursday, August 26: Lecture #1— Why Study the Ottomans?
Readings:
Marshall Hodgson, “The Ottoman Empire.”
Haldun Gulalp, “Turkey in the European Union: The Ironies of History.”
M. E. Yapp, “Europe in the Turkish Mirror”
Sir Thomas More, “The Savage Turk.”
WEEK 2
Tuesday, August 31: Lecture # 2—Establishment and Institutions of the Ottoman
Empire
Readings:
Caroline Finkel, “First Among Equals,” and “A Dynasty Divided.”
Selections from Ibn Batutta’s Travels
Thursday, September 2: Lecture # 3—Visions of Empire
Readings:
Caroline Finkel, “An Imperial Vision.”
Halil Inalcik, “The Ottoman Concept of the State and the Class System,”
“Sultanic Law and Religious Law.”
WEEK 3
Tuesday, September 7: Lecture #4—The Ottoman World: Cities and Borders
Readings:
Suraiya Faroqhi, “Borders and Those who Crossed Them.”
Suraiya Faroqhi, “Urban Identity and Lifestyle.”
Mark Mazower, “The Arrival of the Serfardin”
* Topic for short paper #1: The year 1453 marks the conquest of Constantinople by
Sultan Mehmed II. What, according to you, is the significance of this victory? Does it
mark an arbitrary change of territory from one ruling empire to another while leaving
local customs and institutions largely unchanged? Alternatively, does the conquest of
Constantinople mark a shift in power in which an “Islamic” Empire triumphs over a
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“Christian” one? Refer to the ways in which Islamic or Christian identity is depicted in
Ibn Battuta’s descriptions of his travels to the land of the Turks prior to Ottoman
conquest, and in Sir Thomas More’s metaphor of the savage Turk to refer to Henry VIII.
The paper is due Tuesday, September 21, at the beginning of class.
Thursday, September 9: No class—Eid vacation
WEEK 4
Tuesday, September 14: No class—Eid vacation
Thursday, September 16: Lecture #5—The Ottoman Household
Readings:
Leslie Peirce, “Myths and Realities of the Harem.” (Skim this)
Leslie Pierce, “The House of Osman,” “Wives and Concubines,”
WEEK 5
Tuesday, September 21: Lecture #6—Familial Power
Readings:
Leslie Pierce, “The Age of the Favorite,” “The Age of the Queen Mother.”
Thursday, September 23: Lecture #7—Travelers and Storytellers
Readings:
Suraiya Faroqhi, “Readers, Writers, and Storytellers”
Eveliya Chelabi, Fatma Sultan (The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman,
Melek Ahmed Pasha)
*Paper #1 due in class.
WEEK 6
Tuesday, September 28: Lecture # 8—The Ottomans through European Eyes
Mary Wortley Montague, Selections from “The Turkish Embassy Letters.”
Thursday, September 30: Lecture #9— The Rise of Europe, the End of Ottoman Rule
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Readings:
Marshall Hodgson, “The Great Western Transmutation.”
Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and New Beginnings.”
Engin Deniz Akarli, “The Tangled Ends of an Empire.”
SECTION II: THE MUGHALS
WEEK 7
Tuesday, October 5: Lecture #10—The Mughal Empire and the Legacy of Babur
Readings:
Marshall Hodgson, “The Indian Timuri Empire” (This is a general overview of
the Mughals—feel free to skim this if you are already familiar with Mughal
history)
Selections from Babur’s Baburnama
Stephen Dale, “The Poetry and the Autobiography of the Baburnama” (CPII)
Thursday, October 7: Lecture: #11—Akbar and Consolidation
Readings:
John F. Richards, “Conquest and Stability” and “The New Empire”
Selections from Gulbadan Begum’s Humayunama
For the rest of Gulbadan Begum’s work in translation, go to:
http://persian.packhum.org/persian, which is an excellent website for translated Persian
sources.
See also:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/, for historical materials on the Muslim world
WEEK 8
Tuesday, October 12: Lecture #12—Centralism and Revenue
Readings:
John F. Richards, “Autocratic Centralism,” and “Land Revenue and Rural
Society”
Thursday, October 14: Lecture #13—Jahangir
Readings:
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John F. Richards, “Jahangir”
Selections from Jahangir’s Jahangirnama
*Topic for Paper II: Of the three memoirs you have read, which do you find the most
compelling and why? Does the author’s truthfulness and fidelity to facts matter? Or
should there be another criterion for evaluating memoirs as opposed to histories? Would
you consider the memoir you have chosen for this essay a history, and do you believe
there is a clear line between the two?
This paper is due Thursday, October 21
WEEK 9
Tuesday October 19: Lecture #14— Syncretism and Shah Jahan
Readings:
John F. Richards, “Shah Jahan.”
Nathan Katz, “The Identity of Mystic: The Case of Sa`id Sarmad, A JewishYogi-Sufi Courtier of the Mughals.”
Thursday, October 21: Lecture #15—Aurangzeb
Readings:
John F. Richards, “The War of Succession” and “Imperial Expansion Under
Aurangzeb”
WEEK 10
Tuesday, October 26: Lecture #16—The End of Mughal Rule
William Dalrymple, “An Uneasy Equilibrium”
M. Athar Ali, “The Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case.”
Thursday, October 28
Readings to be assigned
*Paper #2 due in class.
Section III: THE SAFAVIDS
WEEK 11
Tuesday, November 2: Lecture #17—Introducing the Safavids
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Readings:
Marshall Hodgson, “The Safavid Empire.”
Thursday, November 4: Lecture #18: Shah Ismail’s Visions
Readings:
Roger Savory, “The Lords of Ardabil” and “The Reign of Shah Ismail”
Shah Ismail, excerpt from poetry
WEEK 12
Tuesday, November 9: No class, Iqbal Day
Thursday, November 11: Lecture #19— Fathers and Sons
Readings:
Kathryn Babayan, “Mirroring the Safavid Past”
Roger Savory: “The Safavid State from 1524-1588”
*Final paper discussed in class. Your paper is due December 10th.
WEEK 13
Tuesday, November 16: Lecture #20—The Safavid Empire under Shah Abbas
Readings:
Roger Savory, “The Safavid Empire Under Shah Abbas the Great” and “Isfahan is
Half the World”
Thursday, November 18: No class, Eid holiday
WEEK 14
Tuesday, November 23: Lecture #21—Trade, Travel, and Economy
Readings:
Roger Savory, “Relations with the West,” and “Social and Economic Structure.”
Adam Olearius, Excerpts from Travelogue
Thursday, November 25: Lecture #22—The Decline of Safavid Power
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Readings:
John Foran, “The Long Fall of the Safavid Dynasty.”
Said Amir Arjomand, “History, Structure, and Revolution in the Shi`ite Tradition
in Contemporary Iran.”
WEEK 15
Tuesday, November 30: Lecture # 23: Towards Comparative Analysis
Readings:
Francis Robinson, “Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals: Shared Knowledge and
Connective Systems”
Rohan D’Souza, “Crisis before the Fall.”
Thursday, December 2: Lecture #26—The Past in the Present
Readings:
New York Times, “Not Quite a Castle,” May 26, 2006.
Ira Lapidus, “Islamic Revivalism and Modernity: Contemporary Movements and
Historical Paradigms.”
Rohan D’Souza, “Crisis before the Fall.”
WEEK 16
Tuesday, December 7: Lecture #27—Beginnings
Marshall Hodgson, “The Role of Islam in World History.”