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| Iranian Studies Seminar December 2007 |
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Iranian Studies Seminar
December 6, 2007
5:30 pm at Faculty House, Columbia University
“The Islamization of Central Asia: Sogdian and Turkish Elites in Abbasid Policy”
Speaker: Professor Etienne de la Vaissiere
Synopsis:
One of the results of the Arab conquest of Central Asia at the beginning of the 8th century was the incorporation of the Central Asian elites and armies into the Muslim empire. The importance of their historical role becomes apparent when we recall that armies from Eastern Iran and Central Asia twice conquered the Muslim world, first in 750 and later in 811.
These Sogdian and Turkish elites and armies were active in Northern China before the Arab conquest and details of their social background can be drawn from historical sources in Chinese, which should be used and compared with the more familiar accounts in Arabic texts. The various strategies used by the caliphs to deal with these powerful nobles will also be discussed in the Seminar.
Speaker’s Bio:
Etienne de la Vaissière (b. 1969) is an Assistant Professor at the Ecole pratique des hautes études in Paris, France. He currently teaches Central Asian history, both pre-Islamic and Early Islamic, mainly from a social and economic perspective. He has published Sogdian Traders: A History (Brill, 2005) and Samarcande et Samarra: Elites d'Asie centrale dans l'empire abbasside (Peeters, 2007), and has edited the proceedings of various conferences (Les Sogdiens en Chine, Paris, EFEO, 2005, Royal Nawruz in Samarkand, Roma, 2007, Hephtalites, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 2007).
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