Overview

When we speak of 'Islamic societies' or 'Islamic civilisation', we often imply that there is something distinctive about cultures wherever Islam is prominent. Yet historians have rarely examined in detail how these cultures that we call 'Islamic' were formed in relation to neighbouring ones. This volume addresses that gap by focusing on cultural brokerage: the process by which an individual mediates between different cultural spheres, transferring and translating ideas, practices and institutions across boundaries, often with lasting effects. The collection proposes a robust, historically grounded theory of cultural brokerage and demonstrates its significance for understanding the formation and evolution of culture in Islamic societies. It illustrates this theory with empirical case studies that range from early Islamic Egypt to early modern China, and from spheres as diverse as medicine, theology and art.

Full Product Details

Author:   Uriel Simonsohn (Associate Professor, University of Haifa) ,  Luke Yarbrough (Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399528689

ISBN 10:   1399528688
Pages:   512
Publication Date:   28 February 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Abbreviations Note on the Contributors List of Illustrations Introduction: Towards a Theory of Cultural Brokerage in Islamic Societies Uriel Simonsohn and Luke Yarbrough ‘Those Who Follow the Guidance’: Cross-Cultural Junctures in Early Islamic Documentary Conventions Eugenio Garosi Christians Facing the Rise of Islam in the Levant: Places of Worship, Building Materials and Figural Images Mattia Guidetti Transcultural Taste: Brokers of the Arab Cuisine Limor Yungman Moving beyond Post-Colonial Approaches: Grammar as an Item of Cultural Brokerage between Byzantium and the Islamic World (Seventh to Eleventh Centuries) Maria Mavroudi The Whirlpool at Work: Divine Attributes in a Polemical Milieu Sarah Stroumsa The Arabic Translation of the Ghazālian Naṣīḥat al-mulūk: A Case Study in Intra-Cultural Brokerage Louise Marlow ‘The Abode of Afrāsiyāb’: Muslim Cultural Brokers in Mongol Qaraqorum Michal Biran Chinese Medicine as Tajriba in Medieval Iran: On Cultural Brokerage, Translation and Empire Jonathan Brack Cultural Brokers between Persianate and Arab Islam: ʿAjamī-Ḥanafī Immigrants in the Mamlūk Sultanate Or Amir The Cultural Brokerage of Nanjing’s Muslim Scholars and the Formation of Islamic Society in Premodern China Hua Tao Trailing Clouds of Vagueness: On Cultural Transfers between Anthropology and History Dionigi Albera Cultural Brokerage: Macro-historical Fluctuations of a Communicative Infrastructure Daniel G. König

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Author Information

Uriel Simonsohn is Associate Professor at the University of Haifa. His books include A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) and Female Power and Religious Change in the Medieval Near East (Oxford University Press, 2023). He is also co-editor and author of several publications focusing on inter-religious ties and encounters in the early and medieval Islamic periods. Luke Yarbrough is Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. His books include Friends of the Emir: Non-Muslim State Officials in Premodern Islamic Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and The Sword of Ambition: Bureaucratic Rivalry in Medieval Egypt (New York University Press, 2016).

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