Before I hand over @HistorianofIran to my successor, the one and only @Mar_Musa. Here is a meta-thread linking all the threads from this week in, hopefully, chronological order. Thank you all for this week. It was great, and now I need some rest.~tw 1/
Monday we started out with #bookhistory, still an emerging field interesting to every #twittistorian. Starting out with evening the playing field and some general remarks:
~tw 2/
Linking that to the 16th-century Damascene scholar and author Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn. ~tw 3/
More interesting for #bookhistory than the person Ibn Ṭūlūn is his book endowment... ~tw 4/
and its dissolution in the 19th century. It is indeed time to talk about provenance! ~tw 5/
Adding additional information about those institutions that housed the books.~tw 6/
Provenance research is not restricted to manuscript sources. New technologies like the photostat can offer new perspectives on older questions.
~tw 7/
Print can be understood as either a rupture from or a continuation of manuscript cultures. Either way, print needs to be considered too when thinking about #bookhistory ~tw 8/
Next, the manuscript trade in its multiple form became a topic. First, you made me go back to Damascus around 1500 (where we also ended up the week as a whole). Look out for @ATQuickel's thread on the Cairo book market in there.
~tw 9/
Second, we looked at MS trade connections between, on the one hand, Istanbul and Aleppo, and, on the other hand, Ireland and England in three threads. The 1st one addresses the Irish/British infrastructure.
~tw 10/
2ndly, we examined more closely the manuscript markets in Istanbul, Aleppo, and some other places. @Matt_J_Chalmers added a Samaritan perspective to it.

~tw 11/
3rdly, we investigated the provenance of this beautiful manuscript, now held @TCDResearchColl.
~tw 12/
And back to Cairo it is, with more on 19th- and 20th-century #bookhistory. First the context:
~tw 13/
And then a case study on one family central to the emergence of several Western collections of Arabic MSS.
~tw 14/
Finally, we switched to a much more urgent topic today. #BlackLivesMatter Mubārak al-Ḥabashī al-Qābūnī, a central figure in Late Mamluk Damascus and a fighter against injustice (3 threads all linked). Thank you, @stephenniem, for your warm words.


~tw 16/
The two articles I linked in this thread are available #openaccess for download and give more information on Mubārak from different perspectives ("Between Beirut" less than the other). For convenience, here they are again:
thecamel.hypotheses.org/2082
knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/967

~tw
With this I am signing off from a wonderful, engaging, and exhausting week @HistorianofIran. I learned a lot in this week and am grateful to all who made that happen, first of all to @sasanianshah for inviting me.👋👋👋
~tw 18/18
Off to you, @Mar_Musa!
One more thing, any questions about this week's content please direct add @DrWorsTen so I still see them after signing off.

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More from @HistorianofIran

21 Jan
As promised, tonight I'll talk about religious storytelling or Pardeh Dari with a focus on Pardeh paintings. This is Golnar Touski, tweeting from Historians of Iran./1 @GolnarNemat
While reenactment and recitation of Shi’a tragedies were established by Safavid rulers (1501-1736) the practice gained popularity in Qajar Persia where Tekieyeh (تکیه) was a place of congregation for religious ceremonies. Here's a painting of one by Kamal al-Molk./2 @GolnarNemat
The stories were taken from existing Safavid literature of martyrology such as Rowzat-Al-Shohada or Toufan al-Boka. In Qajar Persia these were reproduced as lithographed books. In fact, emergence of printing was partly responsible for Pardeh./3 @GolnarNemat
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20 Jan
If you ever watched a Morshed (storyteller) performing from scenes of battles,heroes,infernal serpents and paradise birds, you know the absolute joy of Naqali,the art of storytelling. This is Morshed Mirza Ali whose family have been storytellers for generations. 1/17 @GolnarNemat Image
These days brilliant women storytellers are part of this traditionally male-exclusive profession. This is Sara Abbaspour; one of Morshed women today. The staff stick is a crucial part of performing, used to dramatize and to point to the painted scenes. 2/17 @GolnarNemat Image
In 19th century Persia forms of storytelling ranged from literature and oral anecdotes to themes of romance, chivalry and history of Shi'a Islam. Today we know Naqali mainly as reciting the epic of Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by 10-11th c. poet, Ferdowsi. 3/17 @GolnarNemat Rostam and Sohrab, from the...
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11 Jan
Thank you all for your support this week. It's been a blast! If you missed anything, here's a "thread of threads" of everything I talked about this week.

Please follow me at @IranChinaGuy for more posts like this! Also please check out my other project, @iranstudiesUS
1/ How far back can ties between ancient China and early Iranian societies in Central Asia be traced?

2/ On Sassanian-Tang relations, especially after the Muslim conquest of Persia.

Read 16 tweets
11 Jan
1/ In 1965, a leftist Iranian student movement in Europe declared its support for Mao Zedong's theories. The Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party (Sāzmān-e Enghelābi-ye Ḥezb-e Tūdeh) would become a major faction of the student opposition.

#IranChina by @IranChinaGuy ImageImageImage
2/ The ROTPI claimed “Comrade Mao has evolved Marxism, [and] we must solve issues from the point of view of Mao Zedong Thought." They began circulating translations of the works of Mao Zedong and other militant texts among Iranian students abroad. In pamphlets and periodicals... Image
3/ they extolled the virtues of andishe-ye māu se dūn (Mao Zedong Thought). They were an offshoot of the Tudeh, and bitterly opposed to its leadership. To them, the Tudeh were ineffective, disconnected from the situation in Iran, and excessively under Soviet influence. Image
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9 Jan
1/ Persian was an important admin. and religious language during the Yuan and Ming, but declined under the Qing (1644-1912).

On the rise (and fall) of Persian language use in China and the decline of traditional Sino-Iranian ties by the 20th century.

#iranchina by @IranChinaGuy
2/ During the Yuan, China and Persia were linked by Mongol rule, and Persian was one of the official administrative languages. A few Persians held important status as members of the semuren (色目人), an administrative class made up of non-Mongol, non-Chinese subjects.
3/ For example, Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari, a Persian Muslim from Bukhara, was appointed by Kublai as governor of Yunnan in 1274, a fact mentioned by Marco Polo. Chinese sources record him as Sàidiǎnchì Zhānsīdīng (赛典赤·赡思丁).

(Img: Tomb in modern Yunnan)
Read 17 tweets
9 Jan
1/ Religion was another important link between #China and #Iran in both ancient and medieval times. This thread will briefly explore the Sino-#Iranian connection in the spread of three religions in China: #Buddhism, #Zoroastrianism, and #Islam.

#iranchina by @IranChinaGuy - B.F
2/ (Disclaimer: Each of these could be an entire topic, but as I am do this in my limited free time, I simply can't cover all three as well as I'd like. Please forgive anything left out, simplified, or overlooked. Follow me @IranChinaGuy and I will post more on each next week!)
3/ We have already discussed the Parthian origins of Buddhism in China via An Shigao. In general, Buddhism entered China via Central Asian contacts with Parthia, Kushan, and other Indian and Iranian cultures. Many of the early translators came from these areas, although...
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