This exploration of the role of violence in the history of Islamic societies considers the subject particularly in the context of its implementation as a political strategy to claim power over the public sphere. Violence, both among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims, has been the object of research in the past, as in the case of jihad, martyrdom, rebellion or criminal law. This book goes beyond these concerns in addressing, in a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary fashion, how violence has functioned as a basic principle of Islamic social and political organization in a variety of historical and geographical contexts. Contributions trace the use of violence by governments in the history of Islam, shed light on legal views of violence, and discuss artistic and religious responses. Authors lay out a spectrum of attitudes rather than trying to define an Islamic doctrine of violence. Bringing together some of the most substantive and innovative scholarship on this important topic to date, this volume contributes to the growing interest, both scholarly and general, in the question of Muslim attitudes toward violence.
Introduction: Spatial, Ritual and Representational Aspects of Public Violence in Islamic Societies (7th-19th Centuries CE); Part I: Public Violence and the construction of the public sphere; 1. The Case of Ja'd b. Dirham and the Punishment of Heretics in the Early Caliphate, Gerald Hawting; 2. Qadis and the Political Use of the Mazalim Jurisdiction under the Abbasids, Mathieu Tillier; 3. The Fatimids (297-567/909-1171): From Revolutionary Violence to State Violence, Yaacov Lev; 4. Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Reactions to Lampoons and Abusive Poetry in Medieval Arabic Society, Zoltan Szombathy; Part II: Ritual Dimensions of Violence; 5. Reveal or Conceal: Public Humiliation and Banishment as Punishments in Early Islamic Times, Everett Rowson; 6. Emulating Abraham: The Fatimid al-Qa'im and the Umayyad 'Abd al-Rahman III, Maribel Fierro; 7. Where on Earth is Hell? State Punishment and Eschatology in the Islamic Middle Period, Christian Lange; 8. Justice, Crime and Punishment in Eleventh/Seventeenth-Century Morocco, Fernando Rodriguez Mediano; Part III: Representations of Public Violence; 9. Responses to Crucifixion in the Islamic World (1st-7th/7th-13th Centuries), Tilman Seidensticker; 10. Public Violence and the Prince: The Case of the Aghlabid Amir Ibrahim II (261-89/875-902), Annliese Nef; 11. Concepts of Justice and the Catalogue of Punishments under the Sultans of Delhi (7th-8th/13th-14th Centuries), Blain Auer; 12. Public Violence, State Legitimacy: The Iqamat al-hudud and the Sacred State, Robert Gleave; 13. Violence in Islamic Societies through the Eyes of Non-Muslim Travellers: Morocco in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries, Manuela Marin.
