Deborah Tor | University of Notre Dame (original) (raw)
Books by Deborah Tor
ne of the most formative areas and periods of historical inquiry, across the fields of Mediterran... more ne of the most formative areas and periods of historical inquiry, across the fields of Mediterranean history, Byzantine history, Islamic history and the history of Muslim-Christian relations, is the long warfare between the Islamic and Christian worlds in the period that began with the Islamic conquests of the formerly Byzantine lands of the Eastern Mediterranean in the 630s CE and ended with the closing of the Crusades in the Levant c.1300 CE.
This cross-disciplinary book offers a broad spectrum of essays on important aspects of the political, social, religious and historical importance of the Islamic-Byzantine border between 630-c.1300CE, and in particular on the manifold ways in which the Islamic-Byzantine border affected the internal development and culture of each of the two civilisations. The chapters are written by twelve of the leading scholars in the field, including experts on both the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world, and explore developments ranging from anti-government riots and dynastic revolutions to the border’s influence on religious law, apocalyptic literature, population policy and heroic culture.
This volume examines the major cultural, religious, political, and urban changes that took place ... more This volume examines the major cultural, religious, political, and urban changes that took place in the Iranian world of Inner and Central Asia in the transition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic periods.
One of the major civilizations of the first millennium was that of the Iranian linguistic and cultural world, which stretched from today’s Iraq to what is now the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. No other region of the world underwent such radical transformation, which fundamentally altered the course of world history, as this area did during the centuries of transition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic period. This transformation included the religious victory of Islam over Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, and the other religions of the area; the military and political wresting of Inner Asia from the Chinese to the Islamic sphere of primary cultural influence; and the shifting of Central Asia from a culturally and demographically Iranian civilization to a Turkic one. This book contains essays by many of the preeminent scholars working in the fields of the archeology, history, linguistics, and literature of both the pre-Islamic and the Islamic-era Iranian world, shedding light on some of the most significant aspects of the major changes that this important portion of the Asian continent underwent during this tumultuous era in its history. This collection of cutting-edge research will be read by scholars of Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Iranian, and Islamic studies and archaeology.
Contributors: D. G. Tor, Frantz Grenet, Nicholas Sims-Williams, Etsuko Kageyama, Yutaka Yoshida, Michael Shenkar, Minoru Inaba, Rocco Rante, Arezou Azad, Sören Stark, Louise Marlow, Gabrielle van den Berg, and Dilnoza Duturaeva.
From the political dissolution of the Abb?sid Caliphate in the mid-ninth century to the beginning... more From the political dissolution of the Abb?sid Caliphate in the mid-ninth century to the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Persianate dynasties of Islamic Central Asia constituted the political and military stronghold of Sunni Islam. It was in this region, historically known as Khurasan and Transoxiana, that many of the important religious and cultural developments of Islamic civilisation took place. The region first gave rise to the Abbasid Revolution, provided the troops for its success, and supplied the military slaves and auxiliaries that led to its political dissolution. From the second part of the ninth century, the Sunni Persianate dynasties formed the mainstay of Islamic military might for the ensuing 400 years over the Islamic heartland, from India to Egypt. The period was also characterized by the cultural dominance of the Persian-speaking court, bringing about the acceptance of classical Persian as the second primary Islamic language of high culture. It produced the writing of many of Islamic civilization’s greatest works of poetry, philosophy, biography, history, belles-lettres, and religion, in both Arabic and Persian. This volume explores the origins and nature of this cultural and political florescence, and to shed light on one of the most formative yet unexplored eras of Islamic history.
Papers by Deborah Tor
Islamic Law and Society, 2025
The madhhab is usually investigated from the standpoint of fiqh. But there was also a social aspe... more The madhhab is usually investigated from the standpoint of fiqh. But there was also a social aspect to the importance of the madhhab, which at no time played a more crucial social role than during the Seljuq period (1040–1194). In particular, Ḥanafī madhhab affiliation became both the post-conquest ideological justification for Seljuq rule, and the glue holding together the two elements of the Seljuq ruling class: The Turkish magnates and the Khurasani bureaucrats. This article proves three points: First, that the original Seljuq conquest neither looked like nor purported to be the religious mission the Seljuqs later claimed it was; second, it traces the post-facto madhhab-based justification of their rule which the Seljuqs adopted, and its success in obtaining Khurasani support for the Seljuq regime; and, finally, it shows also the negative consequences this ideology of partisan Ḥanafism had on the internal peace of their realm and its urban flourishing.
Der Islam, 2024
This article analyses five historical missives written by the great theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazā... more This article analyses five historical missives written by the great theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī to three Seljuq viziers, and datable to the years 490/1097 to 504/1110 f. The first four of these letters form a progressive series complaining of governmental corruption in Ṭūs during the Seljuq civil war around the turn of the sixth/twelfth century, and thus provide the sole extant eyewitness testimony from Khurāsān during the last five years of the Seljuq civil war period. They also reveal al-Ghazālī’s vision of just rule far more concretely than do al-Ghazālī’s numerous theoretical writings on the subject. The fifth letter, written after the civil war had ended, explores the problem of intra-Sunni madhhab-based religious partisanship (taʿaṣṣub), and also incidentally reveals important biographical information about al-Ghazālī. All five of these letters constitute unique eyewitness testimony to some of the major political and social problems of the Seljuq period.
The Islamic-Byzantine Border in History: From the Rise of Islam to the End of the Crusades, 2023
Journal of Abbasid Studies 6:2, 2019
The Abbasid Revolution rode to power on a religious ideology based upon ʿAlī's legitimacy and the... more The Abbasid Revolution rode to power on a religious ideology based upon ʿAlī's legitimacy and the Abbasid Muḥammad b. ʿAlī's supposed appointment as imam by ʿAlī's grandson Abū Hāshim. In the wake of the Revolution, however, the differences between the Hāshimiyya and purely ʿAlid branches of the proto-Shiʿa came to a head. This article demonstrates that the pivotal theological turning point occurred in the year 145/762, as a result of the revolt of the Ḥasanid Muḥammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya. The article's close reading of the arguments adduced in the purported correspondence between the two sides, preserved uniquely in al-Ṭabarī's chronicle, reveals why in the wake of this revolt the Abbasids ultimately found the legitimating theology of their original daʿwa to be untenable.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2018
The province of Khurāsān constituted the centre of political, cultural, and religious life in the... more The province of Khurāsān constituted the centre of political, cultural, and religious life in the Sunni Islamic world from the ninth until the mid-twelfth century, after which Khurāsān was completely eclipsed. The question of how this occurred has remained almost completely unstudied; and the one study that there is does not consult the key primary literary sources for the time. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to re-examine what the primary sources reveal about the catastrophic cultural and political eclipse of Khurāsān in the mid-twelfth century, in order to demonstrate that this catastrophe was not due to “climate, cotton and camels” – in fact, Khurāsān was doing very well until the 1150s – but to concrete human agency and action: namely, the province's destruction by the rampaging Oghuz Turkmens after Sultan Sanjar had been taken captive by them in 1153, thus leading directly to the downfall of the Great Seljuq Sultanate.
The reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtafī (r. 1136–1160) was one of great historical significanc... more The reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtafī (r. 1136–1160) was one of great historical significance. Despite his having been chosen and elevated to the caliphate by the Seljuq sultans during the nadir of Abbasid power, after they had murdered one caliph and deposed another, it was al-Muqtafī who finally succeeded in reestablishing Abbasid political rule over Iraq. This article traces the course of al-Muqtafī's relations with the Seljuq sultans, analyzes how and why he succeeded in reviving Abbasid political rule, and considers the import of the events that transpired during his reign.
Historically, the years between the start of the tenth century AD and the mid-twelfth century wit... more Historically, the years between the start of the tenth century AD and the mid-twelfth century witnessed dramatic socio-political and religious convulsions and transformation. This article first adumbrates the political role of Rayy, then gives an overview of the major trends in the religious history of the Seljūq period. These included the promotion and spread of the madrasa, with its accompanying madhhab-based ʿaṣabiyya and violence; paradoxically, a reduction in the level of violence against dhimmīs and Shiʿites; the final acceptance of Sufism and its incorporation into mainstream religious life, including court life; and, above all, the close tying, and subsequent subservience, of the Sunni ʿulamāʾ to the government.
Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives, ed. Teresa Bernheimer and Adam Silverstein, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series (Oxford: Oxbow, 2012), 145-163.
ne of the most formative areas and periods of historical inquiry, across the fields of Mediterran... more ne of the most formative areas and periods of historical inquiry, across the fields of Mediterranean history, Byzantine history, Islamic history and the history of Muslim-Christian relations, is the long warfare between the Islamic and Christian worlds in the period that began with the Islamic conquests of the formerly Byzantine lands of the Eastern Mediterranean in the 630s CE and ended with the closing of the Crusades in the Levant c.1300 CE.
This cross-disciplinary book offers a broad spectrum of essays on important aspects of the political, social, religious and historical importance of the Islamic-Byzantine border between 630-c.1300CE, and in particular on the manifold ways in which the Islamic-Byzantine border affected the internal development and culture of each of the two civilisations. The chapters are written by twelve of the leading scholars in the field, including experts on both the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world, and explore developments ranging from anti-government riots and dynastic revolutions to the border’s influence on religious law, apocalyptic literature, population policy and heroic culture.
This volume examines the major cultural, religious, political, and urban changes that took place ... more This volume examines the major cultural, religious, political, and urban changes that took place in the Iranian world of Inner and Central Asia in the transition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic periods.
One of the major civilizations of the first millennium was that of the Iranian linguistic and cultural world, which stretched from today’s Iraq to what is now the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. No other region of the world underwent such radical transformation, which fundamentally altered the course of world history, as this area did during the centuries of transition from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic period. This transformation included the religious victory of Islam over Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, and the other religions of the area; the military and political wresting of Inner Asia from the Chinese to the Islamic sphere of primary cultural influence; and the shifting of Central Asia from a culturally and demographically Iranian civilization to a Turkic one. This book contains essays by many of the preeminent scholars working in the fields of the archeology, history, linguistics, and literature of both the pre-Islamic and the Islamic-era Iranian world, shedding light on some of the most significant aspects of the major changes that this important portion of the Asian continent underwent during this tumultuous era in its history. This collection of cutting-edge research will be read by scholars of Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Iranian, and Islamic studies and archaeology.
Contributors: D. G. Tor, Frantz Grenet, Nicholas Sims-Williams, Etsuko Kageyama, Yutaka Yoshida, Michael Shenkar, Minoru Inaba, Rocco Rante, Arezou Azad, Sören Stark, Louise Marlow, Gabrielle van den Berg, and Dilnoza Duturaeva.
From the political dissolution of the Abb?sid Caliphate in the mid-ninth century to the beginning... more From the political dissolution of the Abb?sid Caliphate in the mid-ninth century to the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Persianate dynasties of Islamic Central Asia constituted the political and military stronghold of Sunni Islam. It was in this region, historically known as Khurasan and Transoxiana, that many of the important religious and cultural developments of Islamic civilisation took place. The region first gave rise to the Abbasid Revolution, provided the troops for its success, and supplied the military slaves and auxiliaries that led to its political dissolution. From the second part of the ninth century, the Sunni Persianate dynasties formed the mainstay of Islamic military might for the ensuing 400 years over the Islamic heartland, from India to Egypt. The period was also characterized by the cultural dominance of the Persian-speaking court, bringing about the acceptance of classical Persian as the second primary Islamic language of high culture. It produced the writing of many of Islamic civilization’s greatest works of poetry, philosophy, biography, history, belles-lettres, and religion, in both Arabic and Persian. This volume explores the origins and nature of this cultural and political florescence, and to shed light on one of the most formative yet unexplored eras of Islamic history.
Islamic Law and Society, 2025
The madhhab is usually investigated from the standpoint of fiqh. But there was also a social aspe... more The madhhab is usually investigated from the standpoint of fiqh. But there was also a social aspect to the importance of the madhhab, which at no time played a more crucial social role than during the Seljuq period (1040–1194). In particular, Ḥanafī madhhab affiliation became both the post-conquest ideological justification for Seljuq rule, and the glue holding together the two elements of the Seljuq ruling class: The Turkish magnates and the Khurasani bureaucrats. This article proves three points: First, that the original Seljuq conquest neither looked like nor purported to be the religious mission the Seljuqs later claimed it was; second, it traces the post-facto madhhab-based justification of their rule which the Seljuqs adopted, and its success in obtaining Khurasani support for the Seljuq regime; and, finally, it shows also the negative consequences this ideology of partisan Ḥanafism had on the internal peace of their realm and its urban flourishing.
Der Islam, 2024
This article analyses five historical missives written by the great theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazā... more This article analyses five historical missives written by the great theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī to three Seljuq viziers, and datable to the years 490/1097 to 504/1110 f. The first four of these letters form a progressive series complaining of governmental corruption in Ṭūs during the Seljuq civil war around the turn of the sixth/twelfth century, and thus provide the sole extant eyewitness testimony from Khurāsān during the last five years of the Seljuq civil war period. They also reveal al-Ghazālī’s vision of just rule far more concretely than do al-Ghazālī’s numerous theoretical writings on the subject. The fifth letter, written after the civil war had ended, explores the problem of intra-Sunni madhhab-based religious partisanship (taʿaṣṣub), and also incidentally reveals important biographical information about al-Ghazālī. All five of these letters constitute unique eyewitness testimony to some of the major political and social problems of the Seljuq period.
The Islamic-Byzantine Border in History: From the Rise of Islam to the End of the Crusades, 2023
Journal of Abbasid Studies 6:2, 2019
The Abbasid Revolution rode to power on a religious ideology based upon ʿAlī's legitimacy and the... more The Abbasid Revolution rode to power on a religious ideology based upon ʿAlī's legitimacy and the Abbasid Muḥammad b. ʿAlī's supposed appointment as imam by ʿAlī's grandson Abū Hāshim. In the wake of the Revolution, however, the differences between the Hāshimiyya and purely ʿAlid branches of the proto-Shiʿa came to a head. This article demonstrates that the pivotal theological turning point occurred in the year 145/762, as a result of the revolt of the Ḥasanid Muḥammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya. The article's close reading of the arguments adduced in the purported correspondence between the two sides, preserved uniquely in al-Ṭabarī's chronicle, reveals why in the wake of this revolt the Abbasids ultimately found the legitimating theology of their original daʿwa to be untenable.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2018
The province of Khurāsān constituted the centre of political, cultural, and religious life in the... more The province of Khurāsān constituted the centre of political, cultural, and religious life in the Sunni Islamic world from the ninth until the mid-twelfth century, after which Khurāsān was completely eclipsed. The question of how this occurred has remained almost completely unstudied; and the one study that there is does not consult the key primary literary sources for the time. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to re-examine what the primary sources reveal about the catastrophic cultural and political eclipse of Khurāsān in the mid-twelfth century, in order to demonstrate that this catastrophe was not due to “climate, cotton and camels” – in fact, Khurāsān was doing very well until the 1150s – but to concrete human agency and action: namely, the province's destruction by the rampaging Oghuz Turkmens after Sultan Sanjar had been taken captive by them in 1153, thus leading directly to the downfall of the Great Seljuq Sultanate.
The reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtafī (r. 1136–1160) was one of great historical significanc... more The reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtafī (r. 1136–1160) was one of great historical significance. Despite his having been chosen and elevated to the caliphate by the Seljuq sultans during the nadir of Abbasid power, after they had murdered one caliph and deposed another, it was al-Muqtafī who finally succeeded in reestablishing Abbasid political rule over Iraq. This article traces the course of al-Muqtafī's relations with the Seljuq sultans, analyzes how and why he succeeded in reviving Abbasid political rule, and considers the import of the events that transpired during his reign.
Historically, the years between the start of the tenth century AD and the mid-twelfth century wit... more Historically, the years between the start of the tenth century AD and the mid-twelfth century witnessed dramatic socio-political and religious convulsions and transformation. This article first adumbrates the political role of Rayy, then gives an overview of the major trends in the religious history of the Seljūq period. These included the promotion and spread of the madrasa, with its accompanying madhhab-based ʿaṣabiyya and violence; paradoxically, a reduction in the level of violence against dhimmīs and Shiʿites; the final acceptance of Sufism and its incorporation into mainstream religious life, including court life; and, above all, the close tying, and subsequent subservience, of the Sunni ʿulamāʾ to the government.
Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives, ed. Teresa Bernheimer and Adam Silverstein, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series (Oxford: Oxbow, 2012), 145-163.
The Sāmānid-era drive to Islamize Central Asia led not only to increased Islamic influence within... more The Sāmānid-era drive to Islamize Central Asia led not only to increased Islamic influence within the steppes, but, concomitantly, to the transformation of internal Muslim political life. Developments within the Muslim oecumene that were shaped or influenced by this Drang nach Osten range from the legitimizing of the political fragmentation of the Persianate Dynastic period to changes in Muslim military culture and practice, the successful religious conversion of the Turkic steppe; and growing Turkic influence inside the Sāmānid realms, culminating not only in the downfall of the Sāmānids, but in the end of the era of Iranian political and military dominance and the beginning of a millennium of Turkic political hegemony.
Iranian Studies, Jan 1, 2005
