Abigail Balbale, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU
We are pleased to announce that the next meeting of the Columbia University Seminar on Medieval Studies will take place on Thursday, March 31, at 5:30 PM EST at Faculty House and on Zoom. Dr. Abigail Balbale will present "Contesting the Caliphate: Genealogies of Power in the Islamic West." Abigail Balbale is an assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU. Her research focuses on the intersection of political power, religious ideology, and visual and material culture in the medieval Islamic world. Her first book, The Wolf King: Ibn Mardanish and the Construction of Power in al-Andalus is forthcoming at Cornell University Press. The abstract for her talk can be found below.
In the twelfth century, as Iberian Christian kingdoms fought to expand into the peninsula’s Muslim territories and the Almohad caliphate conquered much of the Islamic west, one king fought the Almohads and served as vassal to the Castilians. At its peak, his kingdom constituted nearly half of al-Andalus and served as an important buffer between the Almohads, Castile, and Aragon. Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Mardanīsh was celebrated in Castilian and Latin sources as “the Wolf King,” and denigrated by Almohad and later Arabic sources as irreligious and disloyal to fellow Muslims. A close examination of contemporary sources across the region shows that his short-lived dynasty actually constituted an attempt to integrate al-Andalus more closely with the Islamic East—particularly the Abbasid caliphate—than ever before. This talk uses the lens of genealogy to trace two contradictory trajectories: how Ibn Mardanīsh sought to connect himself to the Islamic east, and how modern scholars have used this figure to emphasize the difference of al-Andalus from the east, as a particularly advanced, cosmopolitan and "European" part of the Islamic world.
Registration is required by the University Seminar Office. If you wish to join us at the Faculty House, please complete this in-person registration form by no later than Wednesday March 23rd. If you plan to attend online, please register via Zoom by Wednesday March 30th.
Please note that non-CU ID-holders who plan to attend in-person are required to submit an Electronic COVID-19 Symptom Attestation Form in advance OR fill out a printed paper Attestation Form. The symptom attestation form and proof of vaccination will be checked at the entrance of the building. Registration for in-person attendance is now closed, but if you would like to attend online, please register via Zoom.
