Description
Book SynopsisA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Persian is one of the great lingua francas of world history. Yet despite its recognition as a shared language across the Islamic world and beyond, its scope, impact, and mechanisms remain underexplored. A world historical inquiry into pre-modern cosmopolitanism,The Persianate Worldtraces the reach and limits of Persian as a Eurasian language in a comprehensive survey of its geographical, literary, and social frontiers. From Siberia to Southeast Asia, and between London and Beijing, this book shows how Persian gained, maintained, and finally surrendered its status to imperial and vernacular competitors. Fourteen essays trace Persian's interactions with Bengali, Chinese, Turkic, Punjabi, and other languages toidentify the forces that extended Persographia, the domain of written Persian. Spanning the ages of expansion and contraction,The Persianate Worldoffers a critical survey of both the supports and constraints of one of history's key languages of global exchange.
Trade Review"A tour de force of erudition." * Asian Review of Books *
"Disassociated from methodological nationalist agendas, the collection presents a comprehensive overview of the contributions and constraints of cosmopolitanism in the Persianate world, spanning from the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India, China, and of course, Iran." * Middle East Journal *
Table of ContentsList of Maps and Illustrations
A Note on Transliteration
Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: The Frontiers of the Persianate World (ca. 800–1900)
Nile Green Part I. Pan-Eurasian Expansions, ca. 1400–1600
1. Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian Learning in the
Ottoman World
Murat Umut Inan 2. Persian at the Court or in the Village? The Elusive Presence of Persian
in Bengal
Thibaut d’Hubert 3. The Uses of Persian in Imperial China: Translating Practices at the
Ming Court
Graeme Ford 4. Persian and Turkic from Kazan to Tobolsk: Literary Frontiers in
Muslim Inner Asia
Devin DeWeese Part II. The Constraints of Cosmopolitanism, ca. 1600–1800
5. Marking Boundaries and Building Bridges: Persian Scholarly
Networks in Mughal Punjab
Purnima Dhavan 6. A Lingua Franca in Decline? The Place of Persian in Qing China
David Brophy viii Contents
7. Speaking “Bukharan”: The Circulation of Persian Texts in
Imperial Russia
Alfrid Bustanov 8. Lingua Franca or Lingua Magica? Talismanic Scrolls from
Eastern Turkistan
Alexandre Papas Part III. New Empires, New Nations, ca. 1800–1920
9. Conflicting Meanings of Persianate Culture: An Intimate Example
from Colonial India and Britain
Michael H. Fisher 10. De-Persifying Court Culture: The Khanate of Khiva’s Translation
Program
Marc Toutant 11. Dissidence from a Distance: Iranian Politics as Viewed from
Colonial Daghestan
Rebecca Ruth Gould 12. From Peshawar to Tehran: An Anti-imperialist Poet of the Late
Persianate Milieu
Abbas Amanat Epilogue: The Persianate Millennium
Brian SpoonerGlossary
List of Contributors
Index
