Thomas Bauer's "A Culture of Ambiguity" stands out as one of the most important contributions to Islamic Studies in recent decades. First published in German in 2011, it wasn't until 2021 that it became available in English. Bauer's three decades of knowledge and expertise shine through in the work, which earned him the  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award in Germany. It is rare for an academic book rich in insights for specialists to also be engaging enough for general readers, yet this is exactly what Bauer has achieved. However our guest today has an essay published in the Maydan journal online journal interogating Bauer's conceptualisation of "ambiguity" and its application in the history of islamic culture.

Faheem A. Hussain is an independent researcher. He has a BA (Hons.) in Arabic and Islamic studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, a PGCE in Religious Studies from Roehampton University, and an MA in philosophy from Heythrop College, University of London. His writings can be found at https://faheemahussain.substack.com/ and https://x.com/FaheemAMHussain.

Faheem's article: https://themaydan.com/2024/08/ambiguity-as-a-master-key-critically-reading-thomas-bauers-culture-of-ambiguity/

https://x.com/FaheemAMHussain/status/1772736085627457970

Timestamps 02:11 You say in your essay:  Now this does not pretend to be anything but a critical review of Bauer, interrogating his ideas of ambiguity, its coherence and implications, and despite my best efforts in civility, there’s no hiding my polemical intent. Even so, I wish to insist that this book is a product of a fine mind and generous soul, and that I have no doubt that if anyone reads the book, they will only leave more humbled, indebted as well as greatly enriched by reading it. Without a doubt, this is a book that should be read as well as kept on a shelf. Before we start why don't you give us an overview of the book and what he liked best about it.

16:23 At the heart of Bauer's work is this concept of Ambiguity. Tell us what he means by this and your reservations.

37:52 For me, my favourite parts were on the divergent readings of the Quran and the difference between the comfort of medieval scholars about that, particularly Ibn al-Jazari and the anxiety of modern Muslims. Though at first blush the late Saudi-Salafi cleric, Sheikh Ibn al-ʿUthaymin and the Pakistani activist al-Mawdudi, God be kind to their souls, might seem apart yet they share the same modern anxiety about ambiguity according to Bauer. It seems you are more on board with him on this then his other applications of ambiguity in the cultural history of Islam.

49:25 Like you, I wasn't convinced by his thoughts on the concept of foreigness in Islamic cultural history. You also take him to task on his take on homoerotica. I also feel that with current debate about gender and the like whether it makes sense to say there is a lack of ambiguity in contemporary culture. I feel if we had experts on medieval, early modern and modern Europe as Bauer is an expert on medieval Arabic whether we would have better insights on ambiguity as a concept.

01:03:52 And finally before we end tell us where listeners can turn next to learn more about today's topic and what are other current projects that listeners can anticipate? Works mentioned in episode: Pieter Coppens, Did Modernity End Polyvalence? Some Observations on Tolerance for Ambiguity in Sunni tafsīrhttps://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/jqs.2021.0450?role=tab Usaama al-Azami,Traditional Islam, Ideology, Immigrant Muslims, and Grievance Culture: A Review of Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe by Abdal Hakim Murad https://muslimmatters.org/2021/02/05/traditional-islam-ideology-immigrant-muslims-and-grievance-culture-a-review-of-travelling-home-essays-on-islam-in-europe-by-abdal-hakim-murad/ Frank Griffel, The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam https://www.academia.edu/47378325/The_Formation_of_Post_Classical_Philosophy_in_Islam

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The longest aqueduct of the ancient world, the Valens aqueduct brought water to the capital of the eastern Roman empire: Byzantium or Constantinople, today known as Istanbul. Monumental sections of the aqueduct bridge still majestically stride across the city. In this episode we talk about the reasons for embarking on this colossal project, its development, decline and adaptation, and its place in the cultural heritage of today’s Turkey.

Speaker: Mariëtte Verhoeven. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Mariëtte Verhoeven is university lecturer and researcher at Radboud University specialising in  the field of late antique and Byzantine cultural and architectural history and heritage.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further Reading

Mariëtte Verhoeven, F. Gerritsen, & Özgün Özçakır, Revitalizing Istanbul’s Water Heritage: The Valens Aqueduct. Blue Papers, 2(1) (2023): 154–163. https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2023.1.15

Ward, Kate, James Crow and Martin Crapper. 2017. “Water-Supply Infrastructure of Byzantine Constantinople.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 30: 175–95. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1047759400074079

---

Edmund Hayes

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-hayes-490913211/

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Mariette Verhoeven

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariëtte-verhoeven-ba10153  

https://radboud.academia.edu/Mari%C3%ABtteVerhoeven

In this episode we discuss what is perhaps the most famous and distinctive invention of Middle Eastern and North African hydraulic engineering is the qanāt (also known as foggaras, khettāras, and aflāj): an underground tunnel dug horizontally into a hillside to harvest water from the water table.

Speakers: Majid Labbaf Khaneiki and Louise Rayne.

Majid Khaneiki is a human geographer who specializes in traditional irrigation and hydro-social cycles in rural communities. He has conducted or cooperated with more than 20 research projects on water issues in Oman, Iran, Iraq, India and Azerbaijan. He is the author of 13 books about traditional water management, water history, qanat system, and Indigenous water knowledge. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Nizwa in Oman, where he works in the field of socio-hydrology and conducts a research project on the interplay between water systems and social structures Oman’s local communities.

Louise Rayne is Newcastle University Academic Track Fellow in School of History Classics and Archaeology. She has a background in both Archaeology and Geography (joint PhD), especially remote sensing. Originally working in the Middle East on water management archaeology of Syria and Iraq, she is now also working in North Africa on remote sensing of land-use change, especially traditional water management and desertification.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further reading

M. L. Khaneiki, Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization (Springer, 2020).

Rayne, L.; Gatto, M.C.; Abdulaati, L.; Al-Haddad, M.; Sterry, M.; Sheldrick, N.; Mattingly, D. Detecting Change at Archaeological Sites in North Africa Using Open-Source Satellite Imagery. Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 3694. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12223694

A. A. S., Yazdi, & M. L. Khaneiki, Qanat knowledge: Construction and maintenance (Springer, 2010).

Edmund Hayes

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It is often difficult to reconstruct the water infrastructure at historical sites due to recent building and patchy excavation and survival. In this episode we look at a site in which we can see a great deal of the water supply as a connected system, and how it developed over time: the great late antique White Monastery on the edge of the Egyptian desert.

Speaker: Louise Blanke. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Louise Blanke is Senior lecturer in Late Antique Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and has written extensively on late antique and early Islamic archaeology and the archaeology of Egyptian monasticism.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further reading

Louise Blanke, Archaeology of Egyptian Monasticism, Settlement, Economy and Daily Life at the White Monastery Federation (New Haven: 2019)

Louise Blanke, “Life on the Desert’s Edge: The Water Supply of a Late Antique Monastery in Egypt.” In J. Kuhlmann Madsen, N.O. Andersen and I. Thuesen (eds.) Water of Life, 130-143 (Copenhagen: Orbis, 2016).

Edmund Hayes

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You can’t think about clean water without also thinking about removing dirty water and other waste. In this episode we take a deep dive into sewage (figuratively speaking) on the basis of excavations and documents that survive about cities in Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages.

Speaker: Ieva Rèklaityte. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Ieva Reklaityte is an independent researcher. She graduated in Archaeology at the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, and did her PhD thesis at the University of Saragossa in Spain.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further reading

Ieva Reklaityte, Vivir en una ciudad de Al-Andalus: hidraulica, saneamiento y condiciones de vida (University of Saragossa, 2012).

Ieva Rèklaityte, (ed.), Water in the Medieval Hispanic Society: Economic, Social and religious implications (Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2019).

Ieva Rèklaityte,  “Les latrines en al‑Andalus : leurs principales caractéristiques et les conditions sanitaires urbaines  (The Latrine in Al‑Andalus : its Main Characteristics and the Urban Hygienic Conditions)” in “Lieux d'hygiène et lieux d'aisance en terre d'Islam (VIIe-XVe siècle)” special issue of Médiévales 70 (Spring 2016) edited by Patrice Cressier, Sophie Gilotte et Marie-Odile Rousset, https://doi.org/10.4000/medievales.7683 (and see this special issue in general).

Edmund Hayes

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Medieval Baghdad was probably home to 200,000 to 500,000 inhabitants. In this episode we look at how water functioned as the life blood of this great city, providing drink, but also transportation that supplied the city with food and connected it with trade routes in Indian Ocean and beyond.

Speakers: Hugh Kennedy, Josephine van den Bent. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Hugh Kennedy is Professor of Arabic at SOAS in the University of London and from 2022 he has been teaching in the History Department at University College London. 

Josephine van den Bent is a researcher on the Source of Life project at Radboud University and assistant professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further reading

Hugh Kennedy, “The Feeding of the 500.000: Cities and Agriculture in Early Islamic Mesopotamia,” Iraq 73 (2011): 177–199.

Josephine van den Bent & Peter Brown, “On Strong Vaults with Solidly Constructed Arches: Urban Waterways in the Cities of Early Islam,” Al-Masāq (2024).

Josephine van den Bent, “Caliphal Involvement in Water Provision in the Cities of the Early ʿAbbāsid Period,” Journal of Abbasid Studies (2024).

Edmund Hayes

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The bathhouse is an iconic feature of the medieval middle eastern city up until the present. But how did this come to be? In this episode we look into the origins of bathing culture in the Middle East by going back to the Roman, late antique and early Islamic development of bathhouses.

Speakers: Nathalie de Haan and Sadi Maréchal. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Nathalie de Haan is an associate professor in ancient history at Radboud University, Department of History, Art History and Classics and RICH (Radboud Institute for Culture &History). She is the coordinator of the RICH research group The Ancient World. Her research interest include baths and bathing in the Roman world, Pompeii and Herculaneum and the history of classical archaeology in modern Italy (19th and 20th centuries).

Sadi Maréchal is senior postdoctoral researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) based at the department of Archaeology at Ghent University, part of the Historical Archaeology Research Group, the Mediterranean Archaeology Research Unit and coordinator of the Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further Reading

Nathalie de Haan & Kurt Wallat, Die Zentralthermen (Terme Centrali) in Pompeji: Archäologie eines Bauprojektes, Papers of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, 71 (Rome: Quasar, 2023). (see: https://edizioniquasar.it/products/die-zentralthermen-terme-centrali-in-pompeji-archaologie-eines-bauprojektes)

Nathalie de Haan “Si aquae copia patiatur. Pompeian Private Baths and the Use of Water”, Chapter 4, in A.O. Koloski-Ostrow (ed.), Water Use and Hydraulics in the Roman City, Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company (Archaeological Institute of America, Colloquia and Conference Papers, Vol. 3, 2001)

Sadi Maréchal, Public Baths and Bathing Habits in Late Antiquity. A Study of the Evidence from Italy, North Africa and Palestine A.D. 285–700 (Late Antique Archaeology Supplementary Series 6), Leiden: Brill 2020.

Sadi Maréchal, Washing the Body, Cleaning the Soul : Baths and Bathing Habits in a Christianising Society, Antiquité Tardive 28 (2020): 167–176.

F. Yegül, Bathing in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Edmund Hayes

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Part of the “Source of Life: Water Management in the Premodern Middle East” project (Radboud Institute for Culture and History).  Ep2. Mesopotamia: Taming the Euphrates Mesopotamia means “the land between the rivers.” The fertile silt and life-giving waters from the rivers Tigris and Euphrates allowed the region to develop into a key area of human settlement and culture in the late Holocene around 12000 years ago. In this episode we discuss the earliest settlements in Mesopotamia and how humans have managed their rela.tionship to the rivers in Iraq up until today.

Speaker: Jaafar Jotheri. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Dr. Jaafar Jotheri is Assistant Professor in Geo-Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Al-Qadisiyah https://csm-qadiss.academia.edu/JaafarJotheri

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa. Further Reading

“Tigris-Euphrates River System”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Tigris-Euphrates-river-system

T Wilkinson, L Rayne, J Jotheri, “Hydraulic landscapes in Mesopotamia: the role of human niche construction” Water History 7 (4), 397-418

TJ Wilkinson, J Jotheri “The Origins of Levee and Levee-Based Irrigation in the Nippur Area–Southern Mesopotamia” From Sherds to Landscapes: Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of McGuire Gibson, SAOC 71, edited by Mark Altaweel and Carrie Hritz  (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2021).

Edmund Hayes

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This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

The cities of the medieval Middle East were some of the largest in the world, dwarfing the major cities of western Europe, for example. So how did they support large populations in relatively arid conditions? In this episode we provide an overview of the kinds of hydraulic infrastructure and social institutions that allowed pre-modern Middle Eastern cities to function.

Speakers: Maaike van Berkel and Josephine van den Bent. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

This episode, and this series on water history and the medieval Middle East was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa as part of the project, “Source of Life: Water Management in the Premodern Middle East” at Radboud University. The “Source of Life” project was funded by the Dutch NWO VICI funding scheme. Additional funding for this podcast series was supplied by the Radboud Fonds of Radboud University.

Maaike van Berkel is Professor of History at Radboud University and director of the project “Source of Life: Urban Water Management in the Premodern Middle East” funded by the Dutch NWO VICI programme.

Josephine van den Bent is a researcher on the Source of Life project at Radboud University and assistant professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam.

Further reading

Maaike van Berkel, “Waqf Documents on the Provision of Water in Mamluk Egypt,” in M. van Berkel, L. Buskens and P.M. Sijpesteijn (eds.), Legal Documents as Sources for the History of Muslim Societies (Brill: Leiden, 2017).

Peter Brown and Maaike van Berkel, “Water Provision in Early Islamic Cities: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Urban Water Governance,” in E Rose, M de Bruin, and R Flierman (eds) City, Citizen & Citizenship 400–1600: A Comparative Approach (Palgrave Macmillan: London, forthcoming).

Josephine van den Bent and Peter Brown, “Constructing Hydraulic Infrastructure in the Abbasid and Tulunid Capitals: Water Conduits in Baghdad, Samarra, and Cairo between the eighth and ninth centuries,” Al-Masāq, forthcoming.

Edmund Hayes,  “A Late Umayyad Reform to the Water Distribution System in the Hinterland of Damascus,” Al-Masāq, forthcoming.

Edmund Hayes

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Maaike van Berkel

https://radboud.academia.edu/MaaikevanBerkel

Josephine van den Bent

https://radboud.academia.edu/JosephinevandenBent

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Hayrettin Yücesoy is a historian with a specialization in the premodern Middle East. His scholarly interests revolve around the intricate realm of political thought and practice, covering themes such as political messianism, monarchy, republican practices, visions of social order throughout premodern literature, and the historiography of these subjects.

In his written works and publications, Yücesoy delves into the convergence of discourse and political practice, unraveling the polyphonic and dialogic nature of texts. His research endeavors aim to uncover unconventional and dissenting voices, which act as a counterpoint to both contemporary and premodern "master narratives." Yücesoy is interested in discourse and social position and in the language's capacity not only to articulate but also to shape life-worlds. Throughout his career, Yücesoy has contributed to scholarship through publications in English, Arabic, and Turkish. His recent research revolves around the discourses of "good governance" as a point of entry for tracing the lineage of non-theological and non-ulema-centric political discourses in Middle Eastern history.

His latest monograph, Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought from Columbia University Press is a significant contribution to the history of political thought in the Middle East. Closely reading key eighth-century texts, Yücesoy argues that the ulema’s discourse of religious governance and the political thought of lay intellectuals diverged during this foundational period, with enduring consequences. He traces how notions of good governance and reflections on prudent statecraft arose among cosmopolitan literati who envisioned governing as an art and illuminates the emergence and impact of a vibrant secular political thought tradition that spread across regions and over centuries. Disenchanting the Caliphate provides an insightful and thought-provoking reconsideration of key aspects of political discourse in the intellectual history of Muslim societies.

In his previous monograph, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The Abbasid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century, Yücesoy embarks on an analytical journey to understand the interplay between ideology and practice, using the political actions of the early ninth century Abbasid caliph as a specific case study.

In an earlier monograph, The Development of Sunni Political Thought: The Formative Period (published in Arabic), Yücesoy traces the emergence of Sunni political discourse against the backdrop of socio-political and theological developments between the 8th and 10th centuries. Going through a wealth of textual sources, he illuminates how the Sunnis developed a political awareness that treaded a fine line between monarchical rule and “electoral consent” in the context of their dialogic engagement with the caliphate, sectarian formations, and lay bureaucrat-scholars.

Yücesoy's related scholarly work has also been featured in prominent journals and published volumes. The list of publications includes titles such as "Language of Empire: Politics of Arabic and Persian in the Abbasid World," "Translation as Self-Consciousness: The Abbasid Translation Movement, Ancient Sciences, and Antediluvian Wisdom (ca. 750-850)," "Ancient Imperial Heritage and Islamic Universal Historiography: Al-Dinawari’s Secular Perspective," "Political Anarchism, Dissent, and Marginal Groups in the Early Ninth Century: The Ṣufis of the Mu’tazila Revisited," and "Justification of Political Authority in Medieval Sunni Thought."

Yücesoy's current academic responsibilities encompass teaching a range of courses, including premodern political thought and practice,  the history of slavery, the life of the prophet Muhammad, the history of Islamic civilization, the history of food, and premodern Islamic history. His teaching methodology, much like his research, is in harmony with a critical decolonial standpoint, intricately weaving a bottom-up, world-historical storyline to confront enduring culturalist interpretations. At the moment, he is in the process of preparing a book that will incorporate an English translation of Ibn al-Muqaffa’s work "The Epistle on the Caliph’s Companions," accompanied by a contextual biography of the author. From: https://jimes.wustl.edu/people/hayrettin-y%C3%BCcesoy https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayrettin-yucesoy-140782216

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Originally published: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUlGycv5jUQ

November 30, 2023

#Caliphate #Caliph