Description
Book SynopsisThe recorded history of gypsy communities in Europe begins with the arrival of the Roma in the fourteenth century, although genetic and linguistic evidence demonstrates that this group left northwest India sometime before the seventh. Remarkably, this leaves a 700-year unexplored void as the communities migrated across the Middle East. The main problem facing historians studying so-called gypsies and gypsy-like communities is a linguistic one – namely not knowing how to identify or recognise them in the medieval Arabic and Persian sources. Drawing on ground-breaking linguistic research, Kristina Richardson here demonstrates that the Banû Sâsân – literally `from the tribe of Sâsân’ and commonly identified in scholarship as a fringe criminal gang or underworld brotherhood – should be less creatively imagined and viewed as an ordinary tribal confederation: the `missing’ gypsy community. Having established this, Richardson fleshes out the existence of these communities across the medieval Middle East, touching on topics as diverse as their professions, their migration patterns, the art they left behind, the urban spaces they lived in and influenced, their daily life and their literature. Richardson’s ground-breaking book will provide the foundation for future studies of the Romani in the period, in addition to revealing a great deal about the cities, communities, religions and cultures that they lived within as they moved and settled across the medieval Islamic world.
Trade ReviewThis book is nothing short of a radical remapping of the Global Middle Ages that decenters sedentary peoples and refuses territorial partition. Kristina Richardson brilliantly illuminates the sophisticated literary, technological, and intellectual cultures of the
Ghuraba' (Strangers), the Roma, and other traveling communities as they moved along the margins of Afro-Eurasian societies between the eighth and the sixteenth centuries. Methodologically wide-ranging and analytically bold,
Roma in the Medieval Islamic World will change the way we write medieval history. * Professor of History and International Studies, Zayde Antrim, Trinity College, USA *
Fascinating! Like watching a wonderful and unexpected landscape emerge as a master jigsaw puzzler fits the pieces together. * Richard Bulliet, Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia University, USA *
"In this brilliant work, Dr. Kristina Richardson illustrates the fundamental importance of studying peoples that transcend geographical and cultural boundaries. Attention to the 'marginal' Ghuraba' across time and space shows them to be anything one of the major groups responsible for facilitating Afro-Eurasian cultural exchange. Of the many notable contributions of this work, her intervention in the history of the printed book is a stunning contribution to the field. Through meticulous linguistic and material analysis, she shows that the Ghuraba' are the most likely candidates for the transmission of 'print culture' from East Asia to the West. Her findings are sure to win many converts and provide a new methodological approach for exploring the vital importance of minority groups to the emergence of Afro-Eurasian material cultures." * Devin Fitzgerald, Curator of Rare Books and History of Printing, UCLA, USA *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Reimagining the Ban? S?s?n and Their Language Chapter 2: Professional Niches, Migrations and Diaspora Chapter 3: Material Culture Chapter 4: Urban Spaces Chapter 5: A Gypsy Littérateur from B?b al-L?q, Cairo Chapter Six: Conclusion
