The Development of a Locker System at al-Azhar
In: Islamic Law and SocietyThere is widespread scholarly agreement that al-Azhar rose to prominence as an Islamic center of learning in the sixteenth century, as Arab provinces were adjusting to Ottoman administration. This article examines the development of a locker system at al-Azhar, one of several structural changes that took place between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, in addition to the expansion of fraternities. I argue that this material infrastructure, which was supported by modest endowments, served as a crucial scaffold for teaching and learning at al-Azhar and contributed to its rising status as an educational institution. Shari‘a court records reveal that the growing importance of lockers was the result of (1) decisions made by ordinary men and women about the endowment, subdivision, and circulation of lockers and (2) Ottoman legal reforms and innovations. In this way, a seemingly peripheral material object may serve as a site for exploring al-Azhar’s development as an educational institution.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
1
Between 1919 and 1953, Hubble worked at Mount Wilson Observatory, leaving in 1942 to enlist in the U.S. army during World War II. He was away until 1946.
-
17
Leslie Peirce, “Polyglottism in the Ottoman Empire: A Reconsideration,” in Braudel Revisited: The Mediterranean World, 1600-1800, ed. G. Piterberg et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 76-98, at 91.
-
22
Daniel Lord Smail, “The Linguistic Cartography of Property and Power in Late Medieval Marseille,” in Medieval Practices of Space, ed. Barbara Hanawalt et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 37-63, at 37.
-
63
Dina Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450-1700 (Albany: State University of Albany Press, 2005), 48-50. Le Gall demonstrates that a less lucrative mode of patronage supported many Naqshbandiinstitutions, namely “packages” of small endowments established by the founding shaykh and his rank-and-file disciples. Modest in scale, these endowments assured the continued existence of these institutions.
-
69
See Marion Katz, Women in the Mosque: A History of Legal Thought and Social Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 195.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 229 | 58 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 75 | 13 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 77 | 31 | 0 |
The Development of a Locker System at al-Azhar
In: Islamic Law and SocietyThere is widespread scholarly agreement that al-Azhar rose to prominence as an Islamic center of learning in the sixteenth century, as Arab provinces were adjusting to Ottoman administration. This article examines the development of a locker system at al-Azhar, one of several structural changes that took place between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, in addition to the expansion of fraternities. I argue that this material infrastructure, which was supported by modest endowments, served as a crucial scaffold for teaching and learning at al-Azhar and contributed to its rising status as an educational institution. Shari‘a court records reveal that the growing importance of lockers was the result of (1) decisions made by ordinary men and women about the endowment, subdivision, and circulation of lockers and (2) Ottoman legal reforms and innovations. In this way, a seemingly peripheral material object may serve as a site for exploring al-Azhar’s development as an educational institution.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 229 | 58 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 75 | 13 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 77 | 31 | 0 |