Apr 1, 2024
Part of the “Source of Life: Water
Management in the Premodern Middle East” project (Radboud Institute
for Culture and History).
Ep2. Mesopotamia: Taming the Euphrates
Mesopotamia means “the land between the rivers.”
The fertile silt and life-giving waters from the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates allowed the...
Mar 1, 2024
This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.
The cities of the medieval Middle East were some of the largest in the world, dwarfing the major cities of western Europe, for example. So how did they support large populations in relatively arid conditions?...
Feb 18, 2024
Hayrettin Yücesoy is a historian with a specialization in the premodern Middle East. His scholarly interests revolve around the intricate realm of political thought and practice, covering themes such as political messianism, monarchy, republican practices, visions of social order throughout premodern literature, and...
Feb 18, 2024
Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥarīrī was an Arab poet, scholar and Seljuk government official who died in 1122CE aged 68 years old. His work al-Maqāmāt, a compilation of 50 highly-stylised comic anecdotes about the exploits of trickster Abū Zayd, received widespread renown in his time across the Muslim world and is regarded...
Feb 17, 2024
In 1319 Roger de Stangrave, a Hospitaller knight, and a Jew named Isaac arrived in England. For a ransom of 10,00 gold florins, Isaac had freed Stangrave, a stranger to him, from over 30 years of Mamluk captivity and then accompanied the knight home to be repaid. By 1322, Isaac has converted to Christianity and become...