The language of «patronage» in islamic societies before 1700

Authors

  • Sonja Brentjes Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Germany

Keywords:

patronage, Islamic societies, vocabulary

Abstract

It is by no means easy to write a meaningful paper about the language of «patronage» in Islamic societies, because in medieval Arabic and Persian there is no unambiguous term for it. Over the centuries and in diff erent contexts, there were various terms to describe this reality. Sometimes only a few words suffi ced to express relationships of hierarchy, promotion and knowledge between people, while at other times a veritable linguistic manifold was tapped into for narrating, diff erentiating and evaluating. Th e use of the words and their meaning diff ered also territorially and socially. Th is work off ers a description of some of the basic problems when dealing with this vocabulary, illustrating them with examples primarily from medicine, astrology and occasionally mathematics, philosophy and theology.

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Published

2012-02-01

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Brentjes, Sonja. 2012. “The Language of «patronage» in Islamic Societies before 1700”. Cuadernos del CEMYR, no. 20 (February): 11-22. https://www.ull.es/revistas/index.php/cemyr/article/view/4166.