Blain Auer
Biographic Data
| ID | 2044800 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Blain Auer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Blain |
| FAMILY NAME | Auer |
| SIGNATURE | AUER B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lausanne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8476-7959 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Marriage, Political Alliance, and Imperial Polities in Early Ghaznavid History
This article considers how marriages were utilized in early Ghaznavid history to forge political alliances, establish relationships of power and to bind together different royal family households. Marriage was employed as a diplomatic tool to ease political tensions and to strengthen coalitions. The Ghaznavid ruler Maḥmūd (r. 388–421/998–1030) utilized marriage alliances with great success to consolidate and expand his territories. In 391/1001, h…
In the Mirror of Persian Kings: The Origins of Perso-Islamic Courts and Empires in India
Political Advice, Translation, and Empire in South Asia
Works in Sanskrit that deal with governance and ethics are an important repository for moral precepts of kingship. Classic examples of this form of political advice literature, recounted through the fables of animals, are the Pañcatantra and the Hitopadeśa. In various recensions and myriad translations, these works spread throughout Asia. Authors writing in Arabic and Persian displayed a fascination for these texts, beginning significantly with t…
The Origins and Evolution of Sufi Communities in South Asia Revisited
This article offers a reevaluation of studies on the origins of Sufism in South Asia. Generally, scholars have pointed to the thirteenth century as the genesis of Sufi orders in Northern India. However, this period supplies no textual evidence to support this claim. The vague picture of the thirteenth century is one of individual shaykhs unattached to specific Sufi orders or distinct religious teachings. By contrast, in the fourteenth century the…
Finding the Local in Islamicate History Writing in India (1200–1400 CE)
This paper discusses the idea of the “local” as it applies to Persian history writing across the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and produced in South Asia. Geographers ordered land and space with the concepts of climes (s. iqlīm ) and regions ( kishvar ) which reflected different peoples and climates. Historians more generally related geography to power, and kingdoms (s. mamlakat ) served as the primary geographical framework. How did imperi…
Cornell, Rkia Elaroui: Rabiʿa from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam’s Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya
Encountering Buddhism and Islam in Premodern Central and South Asia
This volume brings together a variety of historians, epigraphists, philologists, art historians and archaeologists to address the understanding of the encounter between Buddhist and Muslim communities in South and Central Asia during the medieval period. The articles collected here provoke a fresh look at the relevant sources. The main areas touched by this new research can be divided into five broad categories: deconstructing scholarship on Budd…
A Translation of the Prolegomena to Żiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī’s Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī
Pre-modern intellectual debates on the knowledge of history and Ẓiyā al-Dīn Baranī’s Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī
This article connects the Delhi Sultanate historian Ẓiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī (ca. 684–758/1285–1357) and his thinking on the knowledge of history (ʿilm-i tārīkh) to the broader intellectual milieu developing across South Asia and the Middle East during the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. It situates his contributions within intense debates to define knowledge and the various fields of knowledge traditionally divided between the al-…
Dial M for Murder: A case of passion killing, criminal evidence and sultanic power in Medieval India
This paper considers the structures and applications of the criminal judicial system in the Islamic Later Middle Period as it developed in India under the sultans of Delhi (1200–1400 CE). A fundamental issue in crime and punishment is the relationship between sultanic power and religious authority. Particularly at stake in this relationship is the question of who can sanction the highest form of punishment, i.e. the death penalty ( siyāsa ). Cont…
Early Modern Persian, Urdu, and English Historiography and the Imagination of Islamic India under British Rule
This paper analyses the early modern transformations of South Asian literary cultures through the production of historiography in Persian, English, and Urdu. In the 18th-19th centuries, South Asian communities experienced and participated in a major restructuring of the languages of the subcontinent. Urdu and English were institutionalized as governmental languages and utilized in new literary productions as Persian was gradually marginalized fro…
Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam: History, Religion, and Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate
With the execution of the Abbasid caliph in Al-Musta'sim in 1258, Sunni authority and legitimacy in Baghdad began to disintegrate, and the recently established Delhi Sultanate became a new focus for the development of Muslim societies amidst a global shift in Islamic authority. Here Blain Auer investigates the ways three historians living in India during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Minhaj Siraj Juzjani, Ziya' al-Din Barani and al-Din…
Public Violence in Islamic Societies: Power, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th-19th Centuries CE
This exploration of the role of violence in the history of Islamic societies considers the subject particularly in the context of its implementation as a political strategy to claim power over the public sphere. Violence, both among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims, has been the object of research in the past, as in the case of jihad, martyrdom, rebellion or criminal law. This book goes beyond these concerns in addressing, in a compreh…
Public Violence in Islamic SocietiesPower, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th-19th Centuries CE
This exploration of the role of violence in the history of Islamic societies considers the subject particularly in the context of its implementation as a political strategy to claim power over the public sphere. Violence, both among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims, has been the object of research in the past, as in the case of jihad, martyrdom, rebellion or criminal law. This book goes beyond these concerns in addressing, in a compreh…
Pre-modern intellectual debates on the knowledge of history and Ẓiyā al-Dīn Baranī’s Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī
This article connects the Delhi Sultanate historian Ẓiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī (ca. 684–758/1285–1357) and his thinking on the knowledge of history (ʿilm-i tārīkh) to the broader intellectual milieu developing across South Asia and the Middle East during the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. It situates his contributions within intense debates to define knowledge and the various fields of knowledge traditionally divided between the al-…
Early Modern Persian, Urdu, and English Historiography and the Imagination of Islamic India under British Rule
This paper analyses the early modern transformations of South Asian literary cultures through the production of historiography in Persian, English, and Urdu. In the 18th-19th centuries, South Asian communities experienced and participated in a major restructuring of the languages of the subcontinent. Urdu and English were institutionalized as governmental languages and utilized in new literary productions as Persian was gradually marginalized fro…
Encountering Buddhism and Islam in Premodern Central and South Asia
This volume brings together a variety of historians, epigraphists, philologists, art historians and archaeologists to address the understanding of the encounter between Buddhist and Muslim communities in South and Central Asia during the medieval period. The articles collected here provoke a fresh look at the relevant sources. The main areas touched by this new research can be divided into five broad categories: deconstructing scholarship on Budd…
Public Violence in Islamic Societies: Power, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th-19th Centuries CE
This exploration of the role of violence in the history of Islamic societies considers the subject particularly in the context of its implementation as a political strategy to claim power over the public sphere. Violence, both among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims, has been the object of research in the past, as in the case of jihad, martyrdom, rebellion or criminal law. This book goes beyond these concerns in addressing, in a compreh…
Public Violence in Islamic SocietiesPower, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th-19th Centuries CE
This exploration of the role of violence in the history of Islamic societies considers the subject particularly in the context of its implementation as a political strategy to claim power over the public sphere. Violence, both among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims, has been the object of research in the past, as in the case of jihad, martyrdom, rebellion or criminal law. This book goes beyond these concerns in addressing, in a compreh…
Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam: History, Religion, and Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate
With the execution of the Abbasid caliph in Al-Musta'sim in 1258, Sunni authority and legitimacy in Baghdad began to disintegrate, and the recently established Delhi Sultanate became a new focus for the development of Muslim societies amidst a global shift in Islamic authority. Here Blain Auer investigates the ways three historians living in India during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Minhaj Siraj Juzjani, Ziya' al-Din Barani and al-Din…
Dial M for Murder: A case of passion killing, criminal evidence and sultanic power in Medieval India
This paper considers the structures and applications of the criminal judicial system in the Islamic Later Middle Period as it developed in India under the sultans of Delhi (1200–1400 CE). A fundamental issue in crime and punishment is the relationship between sultanic power and religious authority. Particularly at stake in this relationship is the question of who can sanction the highest form of punishment, i.e. the death penalty ( siyāsa ). Cont…
Early Modern Persian, Urdu, and English Historiography and the Imagination of Islamic India under British Rule
This paper analyses the early modern transformations of South Asian literary cultures through the production of historiography in Persian, English, and Urdu. In the 18th-19th centuries, South Asian communities experienced and participated in a major restructuring of the languages of the subcontinent. Urdu and English were institutionalized as governmental languages and utilized in new literary productions as Persian was gradually marginalized fro…
Pre-modern intellectual debates on the knowledge of history and Ẓiyā al-Dīn Baranī’s Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī
This article connects the Delhi Sultanate historian Ẓiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī (ca. 684–758/1285–1357) and his thinking on the knowledge of history (ʿilm-i tārīkh) to the broader intellectual milieu developing across South Asia and the Middle East during the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. It situates his contributions within intense debates to define knowledge and the various fields of knowledge traditionally divided between the al-…
A Translation of the Prolegomena to Żiyāʾ al-Dīn Baranī’s Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī
Encountering Buddhism and Islam in Premodern Central and South Asia
This volume brings together a variety of historians, epigraphists, philologists, art historians and archaeologists to address the understanding of the encounter between Buddhist and Muslim communities in South and Central Asia during the medieval period. The articles collected here provoke a fresh look at the relevant sources. The main areas touched by this new research can be divided into five broad categories: deconstructing scholarship on Budd…
The Origins and Evolution of Sufi Communities in South Asia Revisited
This article offers a reevaluation of studies on the origins of Sufism in South Asia. Generally, scholars have pointed to the thirteenth century as the genesis of Sufi orders in Northern India. However, this period supplies no textual evidence to support this claim. The vague picture of the thirteenth century is one of individual shaykhs unattached to specific Sufi orders or distinct religious teachings. By contrast, in the fourteenth century the…
Finding the Local in Islamicate History Writing in India (1200–1400 CE)
This paper discusses the idea of the “local” as it applies to Persian history writing across the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and produced in South Asia. Geographers ordered land and space with the concepts of climes (s. iqlīm ) and regions ( kishvar ) which reflected different peoples and climates. Historians more generally related geography to power, and kingdoms (s. mamlakat ) served as the primary geographical framework. How did imperi…
Cornell, Rkia Elaroui: Rabiʿa from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam’s Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya
In the Mirror of Persian Kings: The Origins of Perso-Islamic Courts and Empires in India
Political Advice, Translation, and Empire in South Asia
Works in Sanskrit that deal with governance and ethics are an important repository for moral precepts of kingship. Classic examples of this form of political advice literature, recounted through the fables of animals, are the Pañcatantra and the Hitopadeśa. In various recensions and myriad translations, these works spread throughout Asia. Authors writing in Arabic and Persian displayed a fascination for these texts, beginning significantly with t…
Marriage, Political Alliance, and Imperial Polities in Early Ghaznavid History
This article considers how marriages were utilized in early Ghaznavid history to forge political alliances, establish relationships of power and to bind together different royal family households. Marriage was employed as a diplomatic tool to ease political tensions and to strengthen coalitions. The Ghaznavid ruler Maḥmūd (r. 388–421/998–1030) utilized marriage alliances with great success to consolidate and expand his territories. In 391/1001, h…
History (13 works) · Islamic Studies and History (12 works) · Islam (11 works) · Ancient history (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Archaeology (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East (6 works)