- Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
Institut für Arabistik & Islamwissenschaft
Schlaunstraße 2
48143 Münster
https://www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIslam/Mitarbeiter/Bockholt.html - +49 251 83-24571
- Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Islamwissenschaft, AlumnusUniversität Leipzig, Orientalisches Institut, Post-Doc, and 2 moreadd
- Islamic History, Arabic/Persian Manuscripts, codicology, Islamic philosophy, early Islamic history and thoughts, Medieval Islam, Islamic Studies, Islam, Historiography, and 11 morePersian and Ottoman Turkish historical writing, Seljuk, Mongol, post-Mongol, and Ottoman Anatolia (1200-1500), Medieval Islamic and Turco-Iranian world, Mongol world empire, Islam and Sufism in South Asia, Manuscripts; Codicology; Bookmaking; IslamicManuscripts; Islamic Codicology; Islamic Bookmaking; Arabic Manuscripts; Arabic Codicology; Arabic Bookmaking;al-Rāzī; Zinat al-Katabah, Zinat al-Kuttāb), Arabic Codicology, Persian manuscripts, Persian and Indian Miniature Painting, Translation of Islamic Religious Texts, Central Asia (History), and Central Asian Studiesedit
- Philip Bockholt is Junior Professor for the History of the Turco-Persian world at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic... morePhilip Bockholt is Junior Professor for the History of the Turco-Persian world at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Münster (since October 2022). From 2022 to 2028, he will head the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group, “Inner-Islamic knowledge transfer in Arabic-Persian-Ottoman translation processes in the Eastern Mediterranean (1400–1750)”. He was formerly a research associate at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Leipzig and received his PhD in Islamic Studies from Freie Universität Berlin in 2018. His PhD dissertation examined historiography in Iran in the early Safavid period (16th century) and provided an analysis of Khvāndamīr’s Ḥabīb al-Siyar (Beloved of Careers) and its readership. It was published in two separate volumes by Brill (Leiden/Boston) as Weltgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Schia und Sunna and Austrian Academy of Sciences Press (Vienna) as Ein Bestseller der islamischen Vormoderne in 2021–2. A series of research fellowships took him to Istanbul, Jerusalem, Madrid, Paris and Saint Petersburg.edit
Empire in Translation: Perso-Arabic Knowledge and the Making of Early Modern Ottoman Civilisation University of Münster, 15–17 January 2025 TRANSLAPT is inviting contributions for a conference titled ‘Empire in Translation: Perso-Arabic... more
Empire in Translation: Perso-Arabic Knowledge and the Making of Early Modern Ottoman Civilisation
University of Münster, 15–17 January 2025
TRANSLAPT is inviting contributions for a conference titled
‘Empire in Translation: Perso-Arabic Knowledge and the Making of Early
Modern Ottoman Literature and Scholarship’, to be held at the University of
Münster (Germany) on 15–17 January 2025. This conference is organised by the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group TRANSLAPT, Inner-Islamic Transfer of Knowledge within Arabic-Persian-Ottoman Translation Processes in the Eastern Mediterranean (1400–1750), which aims to investigate the transregional transfer of knowledge holistically by focusing on translation as a concept, process, and product in a large portion of the Islamic world.
https://www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIslam/translapt/call_for_papers/index.html
University of Münster, 15–17 January 2025
TRANSLAPT is inviting contributions for a conference titled
‘Empire in Translation: Perso-Arabic Knowledge and the Making of Early
Modern Ottoman Literature and Scholarship’, to be held at the University of
Münster (Germany) on 15–17 January 2025. This conference is organised by the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group TRANSLAPT, Inner-Islamic Transfer of Knowledge within Arabic-Persian-Ottoman Translation Processes in the Eastern Mediterranean (1400–1750), which aims to investigate the transregional transfer of knowledge holistically by focusing on translation as a concept, process, and product in a large portion of the Islamic world.
https://www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIslam/translapt/call_for_papers/index.html
Research Interests: Ottoman History, Persian Literature, Arabic Literature, Arabic, Iranian Studies, and 15 moreOttoman Studies, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Islamic Studies, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish, Early modern Ottoman History, Safavids (Islamic History), Arabic translation, Ottoman-Safavid Relations, Persian Culture, Turco-Iranian World, Turkish Language, Safavid Persia, Ottoman Turkish historical writing, and Arabic Language and Literature
The conference “Texts as Living Objects” at the Institut d’études avancées de Paris from November 14th to 16th, organised by Philip Bockholt and Sacha Alsancakli, aims to examine how texts remained relevant throughout the pre-modern and... more
The conference “Texts as Living Objects” at the Institut d’études avancées de Paris from November 14th to 16th, organised by Philip Bockholt and Sacha Alsancakli, aims to examine how texts remained relevant throughout the pre-modern and modern periods in the Islamic world, with a focus on the phenomenon of dhayl (pl. dhuyūl) in Arabic, or ẕayl/ẕeyl in Persian and Turkish. As a prominent feature of Islamic manuscript transmission, the term dhayl refers to the act of continuing the narrative of a given text, typically a historical chronicle, up to the time of the amendment.
Research Interests:
Translation processes in the Islamic world of the early modern period, especially in the Ottoman Empire, have hardly been researched so far. The new Emmy Noether Junior Research Group TRANSLAPT aims to change this and invites you to its... more
Translation processes in the Islamic world of the early modern period, especially in the Ottoman Empire, have hardly been researched so far. The new Emmy Noether Junior Research Group TRANSLAPT aims to change this and invites you to its inaugural event on 19 October in Münster.
In addition to the presentation of the TRANSLAPT team, the event will also feature a lecture by the renowned scholar Andrew Peacock (St. Andrews) on the topic of "Translation and the Making of Islamic Intellectual Culture", as well as a muscial contribution by Maktub Trio.
All interested are cordially invited!
In addition to the presentation of the TRANSLAPT team, the event will also feature a lecture by the renowned scholar Andrew Peacock (St. Andrews) on the topic of "Translation and the Making of Islamic Intellectual Culture", as well as a muscial contribution by Maktub Trio.
All interested are cordially invited!
Research Interests: Translation Studies, Ottoman History, Persian Literature, Arabic Literature, Arabic Language and Linguistics, and 15 morePersian Language, Ottoman Studies, Turkish and Middle East Studies, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish, Early modern Ottoman History, Safavids (Islamic History), Ottoman-Safavid Relations, Persian Culture, Turkish Language, Safavid Persia, Turkish Language and Literature, Ottoman Turkish historical writing, Ottoman Anatolia (1200-1500) Comparative empire, and Arabic Language and Literature
International Conference in Gotha, 27-29 April 2023 Multilingualism, Translation, Transfer: Persian in the Ottoman Empire The conference brings together scholars with expertise in Persian and Ottoman Turkish language contacts who are... more
International Conference in Gotha, 27-29 April 2023
Multilingualism, Translation, Transfer: Persian in the Ottoman Empire
The conference brings together scholars with expertise in Persian and Ottoman Turkish language contacts who are interested in the fields of language, literature, and history, and to explore the role of multilingual practices – especially translation – which are an essential part of knowledge production in the respective traditions. In addition, the conference provides a forum for discussion and collaboration between scholars of Ottoman, Iranian and Arabic studies and beyond who are concerned with the interactions of the three languages in the Ottoman Empire (elsine-i se̱lāse̱) and examine their functions as well as the interrelationships between languages, (literary) genres, and disciplines.
#Transottomanica #gotharesearchlibrary
Multilingualism, Translation, Transfer: Persian in the Ottoman Empire
The conference brings together scholars with expertise in Persian and Ottoman Turkish language contacts who are interested in the fields of language, literature, and history, and to explore the role of multilingual practices – especially translation – which are an essential part of knowledge production in the respective traditions. In addition, the conference provides a forum for discussion and collaboration between scholars of Ottoman, Iranian and Arabic studies and beyond who are concerned with the interactions of the three languages in the Ottoman Empire (elsine-i se̱lāse̱) and examine their functions as well as the interrelationships between languages, (literary) genres, and disciplines.
#Transottomanica #gotharesearchlibrary
Research Interests: Translation Studies, Ottoman History, Persian Literature, Arabic Language and Linguistics, Iranian Studies, and 9 moreOttoman Studies, Ottoman Empire, Translation, Turco-Iranian World, Persian Language and Literature, Ottoman Anatolia (1200-1500) Comparative empire, Arabic Language and Literature, Turkish and Persian Poetry, and Persian and Ottoman Turkish historical writing
The newly published collective volume by Sacha Alsancakli and Philip Bockholt (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, Paris) addresses dynamic and collective authorship by examining how authors and scribes in the Persianate parts of the Islamic world... more
The newly published collective volume by Sacha Alsancakli and Philip Bockholt (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, Paris) addresses dynamic and collective authorship by examining how authors and scribes in the Persianate parts of the Islamic world produced, copied, and interpreted texts during the manuscript age within specific cultural contexts, out of political necessity and as a result of professional choices.
The processes of scribal adaptation faced by scholars studying the Islamic world in the pre-modern period took many different forms, most of which are still unexplored. The changes applied consist of minor corrections and amendments, as well as full-fledged reworkings of a text and modifications to its core ideological components.
Under the label “ideological variations”, this volume intends to discuss any deliberate changes in content, rather than form, made by authors, copyists, and readers intervening at various stages in the processes of textual production and transmission.
The processes of scribal adaptation faced by scholars studying the Islamic world in the pre-modern period took many different forms, most of which are still unexplored. The changes applied consist of minor corrections and amendments, as well as full-fledged reworkings of a text and modifications to its core ideological components.
Under the label “ideological variations”, this volume intends to discuss any deliberate changes in content, rather than form, made by authors, copyists, and readers intervening at various stages in the processes of textual production and transmission.
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The Persian world history “Ḥabīb al-siyar” is one of the most copied historiographical works in Islamic intellectual history. Written by the Iranian historian Khvāndamīr in Herat during the rule of the Shiʿi Safavids in the 1520s, the... more
The Persian world history “Ḥabīb al-siyar” is one of the most copied historiographical works in Islamic intellectual history. Written by the Iranian historian Khvāndamīr in Herat during the rule of the Shiʿi Safavids in the 1520s, the book was subsequently adapted to the religious and political expectations of his later patrons, the Sunni Mughals in India, and circulated through hundreds of copies spread across the entire eastern Islamic world.
In „Ein Bestseller der islamischen Vormoderne“ (“An Early Modern Bestseller”), Philip Bockholt analyses copies of the work and offers new insights into their readership at various locations in the premodern Islamic world. Taking cues from reception, provenance, and historical readership studies, he examines ownership and readership notes, endowment seals and illustrations in order to shed light on the owners and readers of the work between the 16th and early 20th centuries. By giving an in-depth analysis of marginal notes found in the extant copies, he situates the “Ḥabīb al-siyar” within the broader framework of Islamic book culture and shows that the chronicle was part of a larger canon of texts. This canon was read within a greater Persianate world including not only the Safavid court in Iran and the Mughal court in India, but also places on the Deccan as well as in Central Asia and the Ottoman Empire. This study thus offers comprehensive insights into the transregional transmission of Persian historiography as well as regionally specific readership practices.
In „Ein Bestseller der islamischen Vormoderne“ (“An Early Modern Bestseller”), Philip Bockholt analyses copies of the work and offers new insights into their readership at various locations in the premodern Islamic world. Taking cues from reception, provenance, and historical readership studies, he examines ownership and readership notes, endowment seals and illustrations in order to shed light on the owners and readers of the work between the 16th and early 20th centuries. By giving an in-depth analysis of marginal notes found in the extant copies, he situates the “Ḥabīb al-siyar” within the broader framework of Islamic book culture and shows that the chronicle was part of a larger canon of texts. This canon was read within a greater Persianate world including not only the Safavid court in Iran and the Mughal court in India, but also places on the Deccan as well as in Central Asia and the Ottoman Empire. This study thus offers comprehensive insights into the transregional transmission of Persian historiography as well as regionally specific readership practices.
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In Weltgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Schia und Sunna, Philip Bockholt addresses the question of how history was written in the premodern Islamic world, and offers new insights into one of the most important chronicles composed in Persian,... more
In Weltgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Schia und Sunna, Philip Bockholt addresses the question of how history was written in the premodern Islamic world, and offers new insights into one of the most important chronicles composed in Persian, Khvāndamīr’s universal history Ḥabīb al-siyar. Taking into account the political events which occurred in Iran and India around 1500, he examines the manuscript tradition of the work, and gives an in-depth analysis of how the author adapted his chronicle to the Shiʿi and Sunni religio-political outlook of his Safavid and Mughal overlords. Making use of new approaches in the fields of history and philology, Philip Bockholt convincingly proves how texts were transmitted and modified for various audiences during premodern times.
Research Interests:
How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed in this book, from the early centuries in the central lands of Islam to... more
How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed in this book, from the early centuries in the central lands of Islam to 19th century Sudan. The composition of poetry appears as the most fertile area for authorship among rulers. Prose writings show a wide variety, from astrology to bookmaking, from autobiography to creeds. Some of the rulers made claims to special knowledge, but in all cases authorship played a special role in the construction of the rulers' authority and legitimacy.
Contributors: Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk, Sean W. Anthony, María Luisa Ávila†, Teresa Bernheimer, Philip Bockholt, Sonja Brentjes, Christiane Czygan, David Durand-Guédy, Anne-Marie Eddé, Sinem Eryılmaz, Maribel Fierro, Adam Gaiser, Angelika Hartmann†, Livnat Holtzman, Maher Jarrar, Robert S. Kramer, Christian Mauder, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Letizia Osti, Jürgen Paul, Petra Schmidl, Tilman Seidensticker.
Contributors: Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk, Sean W. Anthony, María Luisa Ávila†, Teresa Bernheimer, Philip Bockholt, Sonja Brentjes, Christiane Czygan, David Durand-Guédy, Anne-Marie Eddé, Sinem Eryılmaz, Maribel Fierro, Adam Gaiser, Angelika Hartmann†, Livnat Holtzman, Maher Jarrar, Robert S. Kramer, Christian Mauder, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Letizia Osti, Jürgen Paul, Petra Schmidl, Tilman Seidensticker.
Research Interests: Ottoman History, Ottoman Studies, Ottoman Empire, Safavids (Islamic History), Medieval Islamic History, and 7 moreOttoman-Safavid Relations, Safavid Persia, History of Iran during Safavid period (1501/1736), Ego documents, Persian Historiography, Islamic Kingship, and kingship (in post-classical Islamicate world)
Khvāndamīr’s (d. 942/1535–36) Ḥabīb al-Siyar is one of the major historiographical narratives of the Persianate world. Originally a court chronicle written for the founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, Shah Ismāʿīl, this text was... more
Khvāndamīr’s (d. 942/1535–36) Ḥabīb al-Siyar is one of the major historiographical narratives of the Persianate world. Originally a court chronicle written for the founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, Shah Ismāʿīl, this text was ideologically reshaped by its author at Bābur’s Timurid-Mughal court in India some years later. Then, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the book was repeatedly copied across the eastern Islamic lands and, judging by the sheer number of extant manuscripts, the Ḥabīb al-Siyar might be called a premodern bestseller. There was little awareness of the different versions of the work until modern times, partly because of the shift from manuscripts to “standard” printed editions. Using manuscript analysis techniques, this article explores how Khvāndamīr changed and integrated additional information about various Islamic dynasties in the main narrative in order to provide a Shia narrative for the Safavids in Iran and a Sunni view of history for the Mughals in India. Moreover, it addresses issues related to textual transmission and translation as well as the transformation of the work into print.
Research Interests: Ottoman History, Persian Literature, Iranian Studies, Ottoman Studies, Ottoman Empire, and 8 moreOttoman-Safavid Relations, Turco-Iranian World, Indo-Persian Historiography, Indo-Persian Cultural History, Ottoman Turkish historical writing, Persian Historiography, Persian History of the Turko Mongol Period, and Persian and Ottoman Turkish historical writing
This special issue of Cahiers de Studia Iranica gathers contributions from the conference “Authorship and Textual Transmission in the Manuscript Age: Contextualising Ideological Variants in Persian Texts from the 11th to 19th Centuries”.... more
This special issue of Cahiers de Studia Iranica gathers contributions from the conference “Authorship and Textual Transmission in the Manuscript Age: Contextualising Ideological Variants in Persian Texts from the 11th to 19th Centuries”. Originally planned to take place at the University of Leipzig in Autumn 2020, and eventually held online in Autumn 2021 because of the pandemic, the conference endeavoured to study how authors and scribes produced, copied, and interpreted texts within certain cultural contexts, out of political necessity, and based on professional choice in the Persianate parts of the Islamic world during the manuscript age, i.e., until the early 20th century. The processes of scribal adaptation faced by researchers studying the Islamic world in the pre-modern period took many different forms, most of which remain unexplored. The changes applied consist of minor corrections and amendments, as well as full-fledged reworkings of a text and modifications to its core ideological components. Such alterations impacted the text as a whole, which led us to question the legitimacy of a strict separation between “authors” and “copyists”. Subject to changing approaches, reappropriations and shifts in focus, texts were creatively altered, manipulated, and transformed by new actors in various ways including through the extraction of particular sections that were then presented as stand-alone publications, the production of appendices for specific chapters, and the translation of a work.
Research Interests: Ottoman History, Persian Literature, Indonesian History, Iranian Studies, Persian Language, and 13 moreOttoman Studies, Ottoman Empire, Safavids (Islamic History), Iranian History, Ottoman-Safavid Relations, Persian Culture, Turco-Iranian World, Persian, Safavid Persia, Persian Poetry, Ottoman Turkish historical writing, Turkish and Persian Poetry, and Persian and Ottoman Turkish historical writing
In the 1720s, the Ottoman grand vizier Dāmād İbrāhīm Pasha ordered a translation of the Persian world history Ḥabīb al-Siyar into Turkish. The chronicle deals with the history of the Islamic world until the 1520s and was penned 200... more
In the 1720s, the Ottoman grand vizier Dāmād İbrāhīm Pasha ordered a
translation of the Persian world history Ḥabīb al-Siyar into Turkish. The chronicle
deals with the history of the Islamic world until the 1520s and was penned 200
years earlier by the historian Khvāndamīr in Iran for the ruling dynasty of the
Safavids. As its author composed it for the archenemies of the Ottomans and gave
it a Shiʿi outlook, the committee of eight translators assigned by the grand vizier
faced the challenge of translating explicitly anti-Ottoman and pro-Shiʿi sections
within the text. By contextualizing the Turkish version of the Ḥabīb al-Siyar, the
article sheds light on the question of how texts were translated during the so-called
Tulip Age. Specifically, it analyzes the approach taken by the translators concerning
historical events of utmost importance to the Ottomans, such as Sultan Bāyezīd I’s
defeat by Timur at Ankara in 804/1402 and Sultan Selīm’s victory over Shah Ismāʿīl
at Chāldirān in 920/1514. Another point of interest is the depiction of the Sayyid
lineage of the Safavids as given in both texts, which was a controversial issue
between the two dynasties for centuries.
translation of the Persian world history Ḥabīb al-Siyar into Turkish. The chronicle
deals with the history of the Islamic world until the 1520s and was penned 200
years earlier by the historian Khvāndamīr in Iran for the ruling dynasty of the
Safavids. As its author composed it for the archenemies of the Ottomans and gave
it a Shiʿi outlook, the committee of eight translators assigned by the grand vizier
faced the challenge of translating explicitly anti-Ottoman and pro-Shiʿi sections
within the text. By contextualizing the Turkish version of the Ḥabīb al-Siyar, the
article sheds light on the question of how texts were translated during the so-called
Tulip Age. Specifically, it analyzes the approach taken by the translators concerning
historical events of utmost importance to the Ottomans, such as Sultan Bāyezīd I’s
defeat by Timur at Ankara in 804/1402 and Sultan Selīm’s victory over Shah Ismāʿīl
at Chāldirān in 920/1514. Another point of interest is the depiction of the Sayyid
lineage of the Safavids as given in both texts, which was a controversial issue
between the two dynasties for centuries.
Research Interests: Ottoman History, Persian Literature, Iranian Studies, History of Iran, Ottoman Studies, and 10 moreOttoman Turkish, Early modern Ottoman History, Safavids (Islamic History), Iranian History, Ottoman-Safavid Relations, Safavid Persia, Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkish historical writing, Persian Historiography, and Der Islam
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Mana Kia’s book, Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin Before Nationalism, was published by Stanford University Press in 2020. The work discusses issues related to identity, memory, and a sense of belonging in 18th-century Iran... more
Mana Kia’s book, Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin Before Nationalism, was published by Stanford University Press in 2020. The work discusses issues related to identity, memory, and a sense of belonging in 18th-century Iran and (Mughal) India.
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The past two decades have seen an unprecedented revival in the study of manuscripts in Oriental languages like Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. With the steady progress of cataloguing and digitising collections in Europe, North America, and... more
The past two decades have seen an unprecedented revival in the study of manuscripts in Oriental languages like Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. With the steady progress of cataloguing and digitising collections in Europe, North America, and the Middle East, manuscript copies of works which had been previously either unknown or inaccessible to scholars have come to light. As discussed at the conference Authorship and Textual Transmission in the Manuscript Age (Leipzig 2021), which focused on the contextualisation of ideological variants in Persian texts from the 11th to 19th centuries, the processes of textual transmission in extant copies and the variants found therein lead us to reconsider our understanding of the production, circulation, and reception of texts, and furthermore, the notion of knowledge transfer in the pre-modern Islamic context as a whole. This reassessment has the potential to significantly enrich our view of authorship and copying practices in the "manuscript age", which in the Middle East only ended in the early nineteenth century with the broader accessibility of the printing press.
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The conference “Multilingualism, Translation, Transfer: Persian in the Ottoman Empire” is located within the research framework of the DFG Priority Programme 1981: “Transottomanica: Eastern European-Ottoman-Persian Mobility Dynamics” and... more
The conference “Multilingualism, Translation, Transfer: Persian in the Ottoman Empire” is located within the research framework of the DFG Priority Programme 1981: “Transottomanica: Eastern European-Ottoman-Persian Mobility Dynamics” and will take place at the Gotha Research Library in Thuringia (Germany) from 27 to 29 April 2023.
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Call for Applications: PhD Position "Arabic/Persian-Ottoman Turkish Translations of Works of Biography/Hagiography" (4 years)