The Crisis of Kingship in Late Medieval Islam

Christopher Markiewicz is Lecturer in Ottoman and Islamic History at the University of Birmingham. He was the Bennett Boskey Fellow in Extra-European History at Exeter College, Oxford between 2015 and 2017. In recognition of his research, he was awarded the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award by the Middle East Studies Association in 2016.

• Introduction; Part I: 1. The realm of generation and decay: Bidlisi in Iran, 1457–1502; 2. Patronage and place among the Ottomans: Bidlisi and the Court of Bayezid II, 1502–1511; 3. The return East (1511–1520); Part II: 4. The Timurid vocabulary of sovereignty; 5. The canons of conventional histories; 6. Ottoman sovereignty on the cusp of Universal Empire; Conclusion.

'This belongs among the best treatments that combine intellectual and sociopolitical history based on Islamic materials. Markiewicz's dense presentation of the life and work of Idris Bidlisi shows both how ideas matter for the conduct of politics and why they must be understood as responses to specific historical situations. The book is essential reading for scholars concerned with the Ottoman, Aqquyunlu, and Safavid empires as well as with Persian as a medium for historiography and the chancery.' Shahzad Bashir, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities, Brown University, Rhode Island