Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies

Sarah Bowen Savant is a historian of religion and an Associate Professor at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London. Her publications include The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion (Cambridge University Press, 2013), as well as book chapters and journal articles treating early Islamic history and historiography. Helena de Felipe is Lecturer at the Universidad de Alcalá (Arabic and Islamic Studies). Her publications include Identidad y onomástica de los bereberes de al-Andalus (CSIC, 1997) and, co-edited with F. Rodríguez Mediano, El Protectorado español en Marruecos: Gestión colonial e identidades (CSIC, 2002). She is the author of articles and book chapters on Berbers in the medieval period and the Spanish-Moroccan relationship in the colonial period.

• Introduction, Sarah Bowen Savant and Helena de Felipe; Part I: The Generation of Genealogical Knowledge; 1. Keeping the Prophet’s Family Alive: Profile of a Genealogical Discipline, Kazuo Morimoto; 2. Techniques of Genealogical Forgery and Procedures of Genealogical Verification in Pre-Modern Muslim Societies, Zoltán Szombathy; 3. The Genealogy of Power and the Power of Genealogy in Morocco: History, Imaginary and Politics, Zakaria Rhani; Part II: Empowering Political and Religious Elites; 4. Berber Leadership and Genealogical Legitimacy: The Almoravid Case,Helena de Felipe; 5. Ways of Connecting with the Past: Genealogies in Nasrid Granada, Maribel Fierro; 6. Embarrassing Cousins: Genealogical Conundrums in the Central Sahara, Judith Scheele; Part III: Genealogy as Source for Writing History; 7. Was Marwan ibn al-Hakam the First “Real” Muslim?, Fred Donner; 8. Genealogy and Ethnogenesis in al-Masʿudi’s Muruj al-dhahab, Sarah Bowen Savant; 9. Genealogical Prestige and Marriage Policy among the Ahl al-Bayt: The Case of the al-Sadr Family in Recent Times, Raffaele Mauriello; About the Contributors; Index.