Arabic Pasts 2024 is happening from 3rd - 4th of October.
This annual exploratory and informal workshop co-hosted with SOAS University and the University of Oxford offers the opportunity to reflect on history writing in Arabic.
Download a pdf of our programme here.
Click here to register to attend the conference in person, or online.
Day One (Face-to-face and Online)
Thursday, 3 October 2024
Welcome Address (10:00 – 10:15am)\
Session 1: Comparing Narrations (10:15 – 11:45pm)
Chair: Hugh Kennedy, School of Oriental and African Studies
Shibli’s Ride: The Production of a Druze Hero of Nineteenth-Century Syria
Peter Hill, Northumbria University
“Send Him to Me as a Prisoner!”: The Fall of Kisrā II Abarwīz and the Prophetic Advent of Islam in Sasanian Iran. A Case Study on the Nihāyat al-Irab
Matteo Cecchetti, University of Pisa
An Alternative History of Mālikism: The Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt of Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Ghamrī (d. 392/1002)
Salah Clément, Sorbonne University/University of Lausanne (Online via Zoom)
Coffee Break 11:45 – 12:00pm
Session 2 Digital Methods: Beyond Human Capacities (12:00 – 13:00)
Chair: Peter Verkinderen, AKU-ISMC, Centre for Digital Humanities
Navigating Seas of Biographies: A Computational Pipeline for Biography Identification in Historical Corpora
Alicia González Martínez, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Universität Hamburg
Identifying Textual Reuse in Ottoman Fatwas: Applying Novel Methodologies in Ottoman Legal Historiography
Sefer Korkmaz, Istanbul University
Lunch Break
13:00 – 14:15
Session 3: Session 3 Thinking Strategies (14:15 -15:15)
Chair: Karen Bauer, Institute of Ismaili Studies
Kinship and Governance in Kūfa: The Political Dynamics of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān’s Caliphate (r. 24-36/644-656)
Aliya A. Ali, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Clare College, University of Cambridge
Druze, the “Sword of Islam”
Rami Abou Diab, Université La Sagesse (Online via Zoom)
Coffee Break 15:15 – 15:45
Session 4 Fiction and Its Windows onto the Past (15:45–17:15)
Chair: Alex Bellem, AKU-ISMC
A Novel Approach to Khalid Ibn al-Walid
Bruce Fudge, Université de Genève
Imagining the Past: Can Fiction unveil History
Lucy McNeece, Professor (Retired)
How Is Arab-Islamic History Televised? The Tradition of Egyptian Historical-Religious TV Drama and its Way of Representing the Premodern Islamic Past
Egor Korneev, Middle East Studies Department, University of Michigan
Coffee Break 17.15 – 17:30
Session 5 Displaying History, Hiding History (17:30)
Chair: Aslisho Qurboniev, Institute of Ismaili Studies
The Jabirites of the Nile Delta
Mohamed Elsayed, Independent Researcher and Educator & Pascale Ghazaleh, Chair and Associate Professor of History, The American University in Cairo
Constructed Loyalties in the Mahdist Sudan: A Histo-museological Approach
Ahmed Idrees & Ezzeldin Hajjaj, Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, Qatar / Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum, Sudan
Group dinner 19:00
End of Day 1
Day Two (Face-to-face and Online)
Friday, 4 October 2024
Session 1 Making Connections, Thinking Connections (10:00 – 11:30)
Chair: Luay Mohammed, AKU-ISMC
Virtual Journey of the Past Nusantara Ulama to Mecca: Connecting with the Arabic World
Arskal Salim, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Indonesia
The Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt: A Vehicle for Prophetic Ethics
Nadirah Mansour, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Producing Genealogical Knowledge: The Prophetic Descent of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d. 561/1166) in Biographical Collections and Hagiographical Literature
Natalie Kraneiß, Institut für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft, Universität Münster
Coffee Break 11:30 – 12:00 pm
Session 2 Putting the Margins in the Centre (12:00 - 13:00)
Chair: Shainool Jiwa, Institute of Ismaili Studies
A Historical Study of Twelver-Imāmī Shīʿī Liturgical Manuscript Transmission as a Source for Intellectual History
Vinay Khetia, Shia Research Institute, Toronto
The Reception of Kalīla wa-Dimna Approached through the Manuscript Notes
Yousry Elseadawy, Freie Universität Berlin
Lunch Break 13:00 – 14:15
Session 3 Digital Methods: Building Corpora, Building Networks (14:15 – 15:15 pm)
Chair: Mathew Barber, AKU-ISMC Centre for Digital Humanities
Automatic Recognition of Arabic Characters in Yemeni Manuscripts from the Rasūlid Period: Problems and Advantages
Clarck Junior Membourou Moimecheme, Department of Arabic Studies, University of Strasbourg
Isnāds as a Source of History of the Book in the Framework of Ibn Saʿd’s Sīra Text
Tuba Nur Saraçoğlu, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Mardin Artuklu University
Coffee Break 15:15 – 15:30
Session 4 Revisiting, Shifting the Focus (15:30 – 17:00)
Chair: Lorenz Nigst, AKU-ISMC Centre for Digital Humanities
Exploring Muslim Sicily: Towards a New Approach
Nuha Alshaar, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London
Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī (d. 1036/1627), Precursor of West African Historiographical Thought
Marta G. Novo, Departamento de Estudios Árabes e Islámicos y Estudios Orientales, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Online via Zoom)
Islamic Responsa Literature as a Historical Source: The Fatwas of Ahmad al-Wansharīsī and the History of Medieval North Africa
Russell Hopley, Independent Scholar (Online via Zoom)
Coffee Break 17:00 – 17:30 pm
Session 5 Investigating Archives (17:30)
Chair: Arezou Azad, Oxford-Invisible East Project/Inalco
Islam’s Extramural Memory Banks: The Ḥanbalī Archives of al-Ṣāliḥiyya
Rodrigo Adem, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Georgetown University
Monks and Muslims in the Judaean Desert: The Record-Keeping of the Communities of Khirbet Mird
Robert Hoyland, New York University
End of Day Two