From Institute of Ismaili Studies
February 2008
Dr Amira Bennison of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Cambridge spoke on the urban life of three pre-modern cities under Muslim rule, as responses to specific social, political and religious needs. ‘The Umma in the City: Cordoba, Marrakesh and Isfahan’, was delivered at The Institute of Ismaili Studies on 14 February 2008.
Dr Bennison began her talk by highlighting issues of language relating to cities in the Muslim world – such as the uncritical use of the ‘Islamic city’ as a unit of analysis. The dominant Orientalist view of Muslim cities as disorganised and ill-planned was linked to what was seen as an irrational ‘Muslim mind’. This was rooted, according to Dr. Bennison, not only in the general colonial tendencies of Euro-centrism, but also the case-studies from which generalisations were offered. Fez in French-colonial Morocco was a favourite, serving repeatedly as a model of the ‘Islamic city’ at large, as Janet Abu-Lughod famously noted in her 1987 article, ‘The Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance’, in the International Journal of Middle East Studies.
Complete at Institute of Ismaili Studies
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