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The Door of the Caliph: Concepts of the Court in the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus book cover

1st Edition

The Door of the Caliph Concepts of the Court in the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus

By Elsa Cardoso Copyright 2023
292 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

292 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

292 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This book focuses on the conceptualization of the court, palace and ruler of the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus. Western terminology still plays a normative role in the representation of foreign courts , determining concepts that fit poorly into chronologies with their own dynamics and specificities, which is the case of Muslim courts . While Court Studies is a well-developed field for modern... Read more

Acknowledgements

Foreword (Maribel Fierro)

Part I

1. Introduction

2. Sources and State of the Art

    1. Sources

    2. State of the Art

      1. Muslim Courts
      2. The Byzantine Court

3. Concepts

    1. The Invented Court: A Western Imagery

    2. The Concept of Court

    3. The Umayyad Caliph: A Sun-Caliph?

    4. Bāb Suddat al-Khalīfa or the Court of the Caliph: An Umayyad Sublime Porte?

    5. Qaṣr al-Khilāfa: Space and Society

Part II

4. A Ceremonial Common Language in the Mediterranean: Rituals of Court in a Comparative Perspective

    1. The bayʽa: An Introduction to Palace Ceremonies

    2. The Caliphal and Imperial Insignia

    3. Religious Festivities, Processions and Military Parades: An Assessment of Palace and Public Ceremonial

    4.  A Liturgy of Blood? An Assessment of Ritualized Public Executions under the Rule of the Caliph ‘Abd al-Raḥmān III

5. Conclusion

Images

Biography

Elsa Cardoso is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East (ILC) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Lisbon in 2020. From April 2021 to March 2022, she was a postdoctoral fellow of the German DFG Center RomanIslam at the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on the history of Islam and the history of al-Andalus. She has worked and published on the court, diplomacy and ceremonial of the Umayyads of Cordoba, considering a comparative perspective within the Mediterranean. She is also developing her research on the historiography of al-Andalus, as well as on the history of the Gharb al-Andalus.

Drawing on a painstaking and insightful reading of the literary sources and the material evidence, Elsa Cardoso takes on the first academic approach to the concept of "court" in Umayyad Cordoba. A fresh and novel book that opens new avenues for historical knowledge.

Alejandro García Sanjuán (University of Huelva, Spain)

 

Elsa Cardoso offers us a renewed vision of the representation of power in the Umayyad Caliphate, through the study of the multiple manifestations of ceremonial and an innovative approach to the concept of the court, based on textual and material sources.

Antonio Vallejo Triano (Director of the Archaeological Complex of Madinat al-Zahra’, Cordoba, Spain)

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