Essential C++

1999

مجلة الدراسات القانونية

(with Christopher Markiewicz) International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2024

In the mid-16th century, the Ottoman government sought to expand its tax revenue from Egypt through a controversial initiative to levy taxes on endowments (waqf). The controversy produced a diverse range of responses from Ottoman scholar-bureaucrats, such as Ebussuud Efendi, who supported the initiative; Egyptian scholars, including Ibn Nujaym and al-Ghayti, who opposed it; and the Ottoman governor, who worked to resolve it. Despite the opposing positions of the diverse actors, shariʿa served as the common medium for the articulation and negotiation of their opinions and helped produce a compromise that became foundational for the Ottoman tax regime in Egypt. In this episode, shariʿa constituted an instrument of governance. Such a role for shariʿa differs from its conception as an autonomous field of scholarly interpretation, or the understanding of it as an inclusive normative system encompassing rules emerging from both the interpretative activities of scholars and the definitive edicts and orders of rulers. Shariʿa did not constitute the endpoint of rulemaking; rather, it provided the shared language of terms and concepts through which different actors participated in the process of formulating rules.

Andrews University Seminary Studies, 2023

In this article I examine the paratextual features of the ninthcentury four-Gospel manuscript Codex Koridethi (Θ 038). I argue that a thorough study of this manuscript's paratextual features gives fascinating insight into its history. There are thirty-three marginal notes contained within this manuscript, nine of which are in Greek, and twenty-four in Georgian. These notes are unusual because they do not relate to the biblical text. Instead, they attest to various prayers, endowments, and laws which the community found important enough to record in this holy book. The notes are broken down into three categories. First, several give historical data which makes it possible to trace the history of the codex. Based on these notes, I argue against Beermann and Gregory (1913), who claimed that some marginal notations date to the ninth century. Instead, the earliest objectively dated inscription comes from the eleventh century. Next, I discuss the pietistic notes within the manuscript, which show how the Koridethi community used the manuscript to communicate with God. Finally, I highlight how several legal documents copied into the manuscript should cause us to rethink how Christians in medieval times understood holy books.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2023

The Qaŋlï (Qangli) Turks were a numerous people, active in Eurasia in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, but their ultimate origins remain a matter of debate. Often considered by modern scholars to be a part of the Kipchaks (Cumans), others have different opinions. One of these links them to cart-riding early medieval Turkic tribes called Tägräks, known in Chinese sources as Tiele 鐵勒, among other forms. This article examines the earliest possible (eighth-century) references to the Qaŋlïs in the historical sources, and points to the potential links between them and various tribes seen among Turko-Mongol groupings of the ninth to tenth centuries mentioned in the Chinese sources, such as the Black Carts (Heichezi 黑車子). Another aspect that this article focuses on is how both historical and mythological texts of the Mongol period show the Qaŋlïs to be a people distinct from the Kipchaks. Ultimately, this study, which is based on both historical sources and modern research, proposes to locate the origins of the Qaŋlï Turks among Tägräk tribes.