The Ismailis: a Religious Community in Islam
First §: AN IMPORTANT SHIʿI MUSLIM community, the Ismailis have had a complex history dating to the formative period of Islam, when different communities of interpretation were developing their doctrinal…
Funduq and Fondaco in the Medieval Islamic World
This paper surveys the development of the institution of the fundug in the Islamic Mediterranean world, from its pre-Islamic origins as the Byzantine pandocheion until the fifteenth century AD. This…
Christianity in an African Context: on the Inadequacy of the Notion of a Sacred/secular Divide
This paper focuses upon the interaction between the Northern Tswana kingdoms, located in present-day Botswana, and evangelizing missionaries. Agents of such highly institutionalized, monotheistic ‘religions’ as Judaism, Christianity and Islam…
The Formation of a Diaspora: the Crimean Tatars of Turkey, the Balkans and Central Asia
Tracing the historical development of the Crimean Tatar diaspora of Turkey, the Balkans and Central Asia, this paper looks first at the migration of this small Muslim ethnie from 1783…
Hindiyya Anne ʿajaymi, 1727-1798: a Story of Encounters, Human and Divine
This paper is primarily concerned with those aspects of the life and spirituality of Hindiyya Anne ʿAjaymi (1727-1798) that reveal a unique blending of Western and Syriac elements in an…
From Refugees to Transnational Communities?
Refugees have often been either excluded from recent studies on transnationalism or treated as exceptions to the rule. By contrast, this paper proposes one way of incorporating them more fully…
Cross-faith Conflict and Interfaith Community in Britain: From the 'Rushdie Affair' to the Present
This article, which is based upon seven years of anthropological field research in London, outlines the reasons why the so-called Rushdie Affair forced Muslims in Britain into a corner that…
The Armenian Minority Experience in the Modern Arab World
This article focuses upon the Armenian diasporan experience in the Arab world after the First World War. It discusses the formation of Armenian communities in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt…