Conferences - Kinship and Community in the Early and Medieval Islamic Mediterranean
3rd and final Meeting:
The group’s concluding meeting will take place in Haifa on October 25-26, 2022.
2nd Meeting:
The second meeting of the group took place on January 9-10, 2020, in St. Cross College, Oxford.
Thursday, January 9
09:30-09:45 Opening remarks
1) The bonds of Kinship
10:00-11:00 Christian Sahner – Marrying Up: Bonds of Kinship between Muslim Men and Elite Non-Muslim Women in the Conquest Era
11:15-12:15 Oded Zinger – The Bonds of Kinship: Jewish Women in the Legal of Medieval Egypt
12:15-13:30 Lunch
2) The commitment of kinship
13:30-14:30 John Nawas – The Patronate of the third AH/ninth century AD
14:30-16:30 Visit to the Bodleian manuscript collection
16:30-17:30 Arietta Papaconstantinou – The Role of Debt and Obligation in Discourses of Community and Kinship in Eighth-Century Egypt
19:00 Dinner
Friday, January 10
3) Uterus, law, and society
09:30-10:30 Uriel Simonsohn – Hannah, Sarah, or Shmuni? Medieval Retellings of the Martyrdom of the Mother and Seven Sons
10:45-11:45 Karen Bauer – The Womb-Ties, Blood Kinship, and Communities of Qur’anic Interpretation
4) The kinship markers of community
12:00-13:00 Anna Chrysostomides – Initiation Rituals and Religious Affiliation in the 7th-9th-century Near East: fiṭra, ṣibgha, and ma‘mūdiyya
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:00 Ana Echevarria – The Berbers in the Iberian Penisula: A Marker of Religious Difference of a Tribal Category?
15:00-17:00 Planning ahead
19:00 Dinner
1st Meeting:
The first meeting of the group took place on December 3-4, 2018, at the University of Haifa.
Monday, December 3
10:00 Welcome and opening remarks
Gil Gambash and Zur Shalev, directors of the Haifa Center for Mediterranean history
Uriel Simonsohn and Oded Zinger, group conveners.
10:30 Kinship studies in anthropology – an overview
11:30 Coffee
11:45 Christian Sahner – Kinship, community, and religious change in Zoroastrian legal sources from the Islamic period
12:45 Lunch
14:00 John Nawas – Family and Nationality in Kitāb Baghdād by Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr
15:00 Coffee
15:30 Uriel Simonsohn – Motherhood and Confessional Diversity in Early Islam
16:30 Planning ahead
18:30 Dinner
Tuesday, December 4
09:30 Karen Bauer – Kinship and the community in the Qur’an
10:30 Coffee
10:45 Arietta Papaconstantinou – Family disputes and their implications in Papyri from the Islamic period
11:45 Coffee
12:00 Oded Zinger – Obligation between Kinship and community in Cairo Geniza letters
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Ana Echevarría – Baptism and polygamy in al-Andalus
15:45 Tour in downtown Haifa
19:00 Dinner