Power And Knowledge In Medieval Islam: Shi\u27i And Sunni Encounters In Baghdad

During the period of Mongol occupation from 1258-1386, Baghdad was a site of intense intellectual debate and dialogue between Shi\u27i and Sunni communities. In this long-established centre of learning in the Islamic world, scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya and the influential Imami Shi\u27i scholar Allamah al-Hilli participated extensively in the transmission of knowledge across sectarian lines, as both students and teachers. Tarqi al-Jamil here contextualizes the social and political climate of Iraq during this time, examining the dynamic and complex nature of Shi\u27i-Sunni relations and their competition for authority and legitimacy. This significant new history provides a challenge to contemporary discourses – both scholarly and in the popular media – that tend to falsely attribute the current political conflict in Iraq to pre-modern Shi\u27i-Sunni relations in the region. Instead, al-Jamil articulates a framework for understanding the negotiation of boundaries between Shi\u27i-Sunni religious communities, broadening the consensus of critical historical knowledge concerning what it meant to be Shi\u27i or Sunni