Genealogical History in the Persianate World

While ancestry and lineage were fundamental preoccupations of Persianate societies, generating a mass of documentation in many different genres, such sources have rarely been analyzed in a systematic way that places nasab at the center of discussion. This agenda-setting volume finally does so, combining fascinating case studies from Hunza, Badakhshan, Bukhara,Fergana, Balochistan, the Gulf, and Qandahar. * Nile Green, Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, UCLA *Through insightful empirical studies spanning diverse milieus—from the towering heights of the Pamirs to the blue waters of the Persian Gulf, this volume highlights the rich potential of genealogical materials for advancing historical studies of the Persianate world and beyond. A must-read for scholars engaging with Persianate and Islamicate genealogical literature. * Kazuo Morimoto, Professor, University of Tokyo, Japan *Jo-Ann Gross and Daniel Beben have made a major contribution to Persianate historiography by bringing together scholarship on the role genealogy has played in embedding the past in the present while claiming for it a timeless validity. The studies in this volume provide a comprehensive view across the Persianate world—from the Persian Gulf in the west to Central Asia in the north and northern India in the east—of how genealogy was wielded and manipulated to create social capital. * R.D. McChesney, author of An Afghan Prince in Victorian England: Race, Class and Gender in an Afghan-Anglo Imperial Encounter *

Daniel Beben is Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. He is the co-author with Daryoush Mohammad Poor of The First Aga Khan: Memoirs of the 46th Ismaili Imam: A Persian edition and English translation of the ‘Ibrat-afza of Muhammad Hasan al-Husayni, also known as Hasan ‘Ali Shah (I.B. Tauris and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2018).

Jo-Ann Gross is Professor Emerita of Middle Eastern and Central Eurasian History at The College of New Jersey, USA. Her book publications include Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries, co-edited with Devin DeWeese (2018); The Letters of Khwaja ‘Ubayd Allah Ahrar and his Associates, co-authored with Asom Urunbaev (2002), and the edited volume Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change (1992).