The study of qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, the Islamic tales of the prophets, has a distinguished pedigree in the Western academy, but much work remains to be done in the field. Although there have been numerous studies of individual prophetic figures over the last few decades, focused studies of specific works in the literary genre of qiṣaṣ have generally…[Read more]

This is the afterword to Volume 3 of Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, “New Perspectives on Late Antique Iran and Iraq.”

Medieval Persianate local histories form a heterogeneous genre, but a trait these diverse texts share is that they perform a balancing act: they simultaneously respond to and challenge assumptions about the centrality of Arabs, Arabic, Arabia, Iraq, Syria, the ṣaḥābah (Companions of the Prophet), tābiʿūn (Successors of the Companions), Alids,…[Read more]

This paper argues that the famous conqueror of al-Andalus, Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr, who originally came from ʿAyn al-Tamr, a town under the hegemony of Naṣrid al-Ḥīrah, transmitted aspects of Sasanian administrative practice to al-Andalus and hence to Europe, as evidenced by the taxation terms tasca and kafiz attested in Latin and Romance texts. This spec…[Read more]

The Islamic conquest of the Sasanian Empire inaugurated, among many other transformations, the progressive Islamization of the region. The pace and mechanisms of this transformation remain poorly understood. Yet the progress of Islamization in the capital province of the Abbasid caliphate is a significant hidden variable in the study of Muslim…[Read more]

This essay focuses on two anti-Jewish chapters from the ninth-century Zoroastrian apologetic-polemical book called the Doubt-Dispelling Exposition (Škand Gumānīg Wizār). This book represents the earliest sustained engagement of Zoroastrianism with Judaism and Jewish texts. Through a close analysis of the text, this essay demonstrates how the aut…[Read more]

The study of the Sasanian Empire has gradually been incorporated into Late Antique Studies. The inclusion of a territory that was originally marginal to this area of scholarship is by most accounts a positive development, though it is one that should be carefully considered. One means of evaluating the significance of this development is by…[Read more]

This essay discusses the shifts brought on the Iranian Plateau by the founder of the Sasanian Empire, Ardaxšīr ī Pābagān, in the third century CE. I contend that these structural changes in rule, religion, physical boundaries, and political propaganda ushered in a new period in Iranian and Middle Eastern history that coincides with the period of L…[Read more]

This is the editor’s introduction to Volume 3 of Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, “New Perspectives on Late Antique Iran and Iraq.”

In this paper, we draw attention to the ways in which theology operates within, and indeed proceeds from, generative social contexts. Beyond a concern for correct interpretation of scripture, categories of religious permissibility and impermissibility are socially constituted—they define boundaries of inclusion or exclusion that establish s…[Read more]

This is a response to Thomas Barfield, “The Islamic State as an Empire of Nostalgia.”

Primary empires were the product of internal development and self-sustaining through the exploitation of their own resources, but there were also historically a large number of “shadow empires.” These were imperial polities that were the products of secondary empire formation, which came into existence as a response to the formation of primary emp…[Read more]

This paper is an attempt to analyze one facet of ISIS’ discourse in order to understand why the movement chooses the arguments it does and how it uses them to achieve particular goals. One of the most commonly occurring tropes in ISIS propaganda is its critique of its opponents as “Murji’ites.” The Murji’ites were a school of Islamic thought t…[Read more]

This is a response to Michael Pregill, “ISIS, Eschatology, and Exegesis: The Propaganda of Dabiq and the Sectarian Rhetoric of Militant Shi’ism.”

The rise and successes of ISIS may at first glance appear unprecedented, and its extreme ideology as an aberrant distortion of traditional Islam. However, I will argue that some aspects of the ISIS phenomenon actually appear familiar when we consider them in deeper historical perspective, especially in the context of the kinds of arguments and…[Read more]

This is a response to Kecia Ali, “Redeeming Slavery: The ‘Islamic State’ and the Quest for Islamic Morality”

Engaging texts produced by the so-called Islamic State and some of its Muslim opponents, particularly as they treat the enslavement and sexual use/abuse of female captives, this essay argues for a nuanced account of how actors invoke and claim tradition. The Islamic State’s capture, sale, and rape of Yazidi women and girls have garnered media a…[Read more]

This is the editor’s introduction to Volume 1 of Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, “The Islamic State in Historical and Comparative Perspective.”