Female Power and Religious Change in the Medieval Near East

Provides the first comprehensive study of female power in the framework of the family during a period that was crucial for the formation of Islamic civilization
Gives a comprehensive consideration of the place of women in the Islamization of the early and medieval Near East
Analyses a broad variety of literary genres of Jewish, Eastern Christian, and Islamic provenance
Considers the phenomenon of conversion to Islam through the prism and experiences of women

A Common Justice The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews Under Early Islam

In A Common Justice Uriel I. Simonsohn examines the legislative response of Christian and Jewish religious elites to the problem posed by the appeal of their coreligionists to judicial authorities outside their communities. Focusing on the late seventh to early eleventh centuries in the region between Iraq in the east and present-day Tunisia in the west, Simonsohn explores the multiplicity of judicial systems that coexisted under early Islam to reveal a complex array of social obligations that connected individuals across confessional boundaries. By examining the incentives for appeal to external judicial institutions on the one hand and the response of minority confessional elites on the other, the study fundamentally alters our conception of the social history of the Near East in the early Islamic period.

Cultural Brokerage in Premodern Islamic Societies

Edited by Uriel Simonsohn, Luke Yarbrough

Presents the first comprehensive and systematic account of the crucial role cultural brokers played in shaping Islamic societies:

• Develops a theory of cultural brokerage informed by recent scholarship
• Applies concepts of cultural brokerage to a series of original historical case studies from China, Mongolia, Central Asia, Byzantium, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula
• Includes critical responses from leading historians and anthropologists
• Ranges from the seventh to the fifteenth century, and across domains such as theology, medicine and the arts

When we speak of ‘Islamic societies’ or ‘Islamic civilisation’, we often imply that there is something distinctive about cultures wherever Islam is prominent. Yet historians have rarely examined in detail how these cultures that we call ‘Islamic’ were formed in relation to neighbouring ones. This volume addresses that gap by focusing on cultural brokerage: the process by which an individual mediates between different cultural spheres, transferring and translating ideas, practices and institutions across boundaries, often with lasting effects. The collection proposes a robust, historically grounded theory of cultural brokerage and demonstrates its significance for understanding the formation and evolution of culture in Islamic societies. It illustrates this theory with empirical case studies that range from early Islamic Egypt to early modern China, and from spheres as diverse as medicine, theology and art.

Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age

by Nimrod Hurvitz (Editor), Christian C. Sahner (Editor), Uriel Simonsohn (Editor), Luke Yarbrough (Editor)

Conversion to Islam is a phenomenon of immense significance in human history. At the outset of Islamic rule in the seventh century, Muslims constituted a tiny minority in most areas under their control. But by the beginning of the modern period, they formed the majority in most territories from North Africa to Southeast Asia. Across such diverse lands, peoples, and time periods, conversion was a complex, varied phenomenon. Converts lived in a world of overlapping and competing religious, cultural, social, and familial affiliations, and the effects of turning to Islam played out in every aspect of life. Conversion therefore provides a critical lens for world history, magnifying the constantly evolving array of beliefs, practices, and outlooks that constitute Islam around the globe. This groundbreaking collection of texts, translated from sources in a dozen languages from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries, presents the historical process of conversion to Islam in all its variety and unruly detail, through the eyes of both Muslim and non-Muslim observers.

Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times

Volume Editors: Arnold E. Franklin, Roxani Eleni Margariti, Marina Rustow, and Uriel Simonsohn

This volume brings together articles on the cultural, religious, social and commercial interactions among Jews, Christians and Muslims in the medieval and early modern periods. Written by leading scholars in Jewish studies, Islamic studies, medieval history and social and economic history, the contributions to this volume reflect the profound influence on these fields of the volume’s honoree, Professor Mark R. Cohen.

The Family in Late Antiquity: Between Kinship and Community

co-editor with Yaniv Fox. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute Press, 2019.

קובץ המאמרים בספר זה בא לשמש במה אחת לעבודות מכמה תחומי מחקר בנושא המשפחה, ויש בו משום נקודת פתיחה להיכרות של הקורא העברי עם שלהי העת העתיקה. לפני הקורא נפתח כאן צוהר לעולמן התרבותי של קהילות כפריות בסוריה הביזנטית, לחקיקה בבבל התלמודית, לחיג’אז בימיו הראשונים של האסלאם, לממלכות הפרנקיות בשלטון המלכים המרובינגים, ועוד..

Volume 30 (2024): Issue 2-3 (May 2024): Special Issue: Kinship Encounters: People and Ideas in the Medieval Islamicate World,

edited by Uriel Simonsohn and Oded Zinger