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Futūḥ al-buldān
Sources for the study
of Islamic societies
1Series edited by Nicola Melis, University of Cagliari Mauro Nobili, University of Cape Town Editorial board Pejman Abdolmohammadi, University of Genoa Abdessamad Belhaj, Pazmany Peter Catholic University – Piliscsaba-Budapest Luca Berardi, University of Naples, “L‟Orientale” Andrea Brigaglia, University of Cape Town Wasim Dahmash, University of Cagliari Alessandro Gori, University of Florence Francesco Alfonso Leccese, LUSPIO, Roma Francesco Zappa, Aix-Marseille Université All inquiries should be directed to: Futūḥ al-buldān Nicola Melis Di.S.S.I. Università degli Studi di Cagliari Viale S. Ignazio 78, 09123 Cagliari futuh.al.buldan@gmail.com www.nicolamelis.org Futūḥ al-buldān is a refereed series. It is indexed by Index Islamicus, Abstracta Iranica, Turkologischer Anzeiger/Turkology Annual, ATLA Religion Database. The series will accept contributions in English, French and/or Italian. Each contribution will be read by two referees (three, if discordant). Miṣbāh al-arwāh fī uṣūl al-falāḥ by Muḥammad b. „Abd al-Karīm al-Maġīlī (fl. late 15th cen- tury). Ms. 2145, Institut des Hautes Etudes e de Recherches Islamiques – Ahmed Baba (Timbuktu) Timbuktu Script & Scholarship: A Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Exhibition, Cape Town, Iziko Museum of Cape Town, 2008. Image courtesy of Shamil Jeppie, editor of the volume
فتوح البلدان
Futūḥ al-buldān
Series edited by Nicola Melis e Mauro Nobili
Futūḥ al-buldān is a well-known work of al-Balāḏurī (d. 297/892), one
of the most important Muslim historians who lived in the third century
of hiğra. The reference to classical Muslim historiography in the se-
ries’ title is coupled with the semantic spectrum of the Arabic root of
the word fatḥ. It refers to ‘military conquest,’ as well as to the ideas of
to ‘open,’ ‘begin,’ and/or ‘reveal.’ Thus, the title of the series is a trib-
ute to a great Muslim historian, but it also represents a synthesis of the
ideological framework that underpins he series, which is to disclose
pieces of history of Islamic societies.
The series aims at publishing original works with a multidisciplinary
approach, in the field of Islamic history and culture, drawing connec-
tions between the past and the present. Futūḥ al-buldān will priviledge
case studies from areas and languages which are often – and question-
ably – regarded as ‘peripheral.’Copyright © MMXII
ARACNE editrice S.r.l.
www.aracneeditrice.it
info@aracneeditrice.it
via Raffaele Garofalo, 133/A–B
00173 Roma
(06) 93781065
isbn 978–88–548–5668–4
I diritti di traduzione, di memorizzazione elettronica,
di riproduzione e di adattamento anche parziale,
con qualsiasi mezzo, sono riservati per tutti i Paesi.
Non sono assolutamente consentite le fotocopie
senza il permesso scritto dell’Editore.
I edizione: novembre 2012Collectanea islamica
edited by
Nicola Melis
Mauro NobiliCONTENTS
Contents p. V
Notes on Transliteration p. VII
Notes on Contributors p. IX
INTRODUCTION
A plurality of historical and linguistic experiences
Nicola Melis – Mauro Nobili p. 1
SECTION I: HORN OF AFRICA
A short note on a silsila of the Qādiriyya brotherhood in Ethiopia
Alessandro Gori p. 17
World War II: “Islam and Freedom” in the East African Campaign
Silvia Bruzzi p. 27
SECTION II: WESTERN AFRICA
Aḥmad b. Furṭū, portrait d’un ‘ālim soudanais du XVIe siècle
Rémi Dewière p. 45
Risāla min Maryam bt. Fūdī ila al-ibn. A brief contribution to the
study of Muslim eschatology in 19th century Nigeria
Mauro Nobili p. 71
SECTION III: OTTOMAN “PERIPHERY”
L’emprise ottomane en Géorgie occidentale à l’époque de
Süleymân Ier
Güneş Işıksel p. 89VI
The “talking machine” affair in Ottoman Yemen (1907)
Nicola Melis p. 107
SECTION IV: MISCELLANEA
‘Voi sì che avete una religione!’ Identità e alterità alla frontiera greco-
albanese
Antonio Maria Pusceddu p. 155
Il pensiero politico di Moḥammad Moṣaddeq: costituzionalismo, pa-
triottismo e democrazia
Pejman Abdolmohammadi p. 179
“Nous n’avions pas d’autre choix.” Colonialisme et guerre de libéra-
tion au Maroc à travers les témoignages des protagonistes de la Résis-
tance
Manuela Deiana p. 199
SECTION V: NOTES
Una nota sull’apporto fornito da Sībawayhi alla grammatica araba
Ali Kadem Kalati p. 219
A note on authorship in al-Suyūṭī’s works: Observations on the ‘Arf
al-wardī fī aḫbār al-Mahdī
Michele Petrone p. 227
Recensione di due numeri recenti (2009) delle riviste tagiche “Adabiët
va San’at” [Letteratura e Arte] e “Toǧikiston” [Tagikistan]
Evelin Grassi p. 235NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION Arabic: ā, b, t, ṯ, ğ, ḥ, ḫ, d, ḏ, r, z, s, š, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, ʽ, ġ, f, q, k, l, m, n, h, w, y-ī-ū; à (alif maqṣūra); tā’ marbūṭa is translitterated only in the annexation; article al- (both “lunar” and “solar” consonants); ay, aw, ayy, iyy; li-; bi-; wa-. New Persian: ā, b, p, t, s, j, č, ḥ, ḫ, d, ẕ, r, z, ž, s, š, ṣ, ż, ṭ, ẓ,, ʽ, ġ, f, q, k, g, l, m, n; ow/v/u; h/-e; -at, ī/i, o, a, e -iye), ḫw, ʼ, \. Osmanlıca: ā, b, t, s, c, ç, ḥ, ḫ, d, ẕ, j, s, ş, ṣ, ż, ṭ, ẓ, ʽ, ġ [ğ/g], f, k, q [ḳ], g/ğ, l, m, n, h/-e, v/ū/ö/ü, -at, ı/i/ī, ŋ, ʼ. Türkçe (ortografia odierna): a, b, c, ç, d, e, f, g, ğ, h, ı, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, ö, p, r, s, ş, t, u, ü, v, y, z. Greek: Both accented and non-accented transliterations are acceptable. Transliterations for other languages, such as Armenians, Slavic lan- guages etc., should be agreed with the editors of the series.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Alessandro Gori (alessandro.gori@unifi.it) is a full-time research-
er at the University of Florence where he teaches Islamic Studies and
Arabic Language and Literature. His research activities focus on the
manuscript tradition of the Muslims of Ethiopia and the Horn of Afri-
ca. Gori has contributed in his field of research with several publica-
tions among which Studi sulla letteratura agiografica islamica somala
in lingua araba, Dipartimento di Linguistica, Firenze, 2003; Contatti
culturali nell’Oceano Indiano nel Mar Rosso e processi di islamizza-
zione in Etiopia e Somalia, Cafoscarina, Venezia, 2006; “Italy in the
Horn of Africa and the Ethiopian Islamic literary tradition: L. Robec-
chi Bricchetti and his collection of manuscripts,” Manuscripta Orien-
talia 15, 2, 2009, pp. 25-37.
Pejman Abdolmohammadi (azadi70@hotmail.com) is Adjunct
Professor and Researcher of International Relations and Middle East-
ern Studies at the University of Genoa. Abdolmohammadi is also Sen-
ior Researcher at the Institute for Global Studies in Rome. His PhD
dissertation has been published as book with the title La Repubblica
Islamica dell’Iran: il pensiero politico dell’Ayatollah Khomeini, De
Ferrari, Genova, 2009. His research activities focus on history and
politics of modern Iran, geopolitcs of the Persian Gulf and history of
islamic political thought. He also collaborates as an analyst with BBC
Persian TV and as a journalist of Middle East with the Italian newspa-
per Il Secolo XIX and Limes, the Italian Review of Geopolitics and
international affairs.
Silvia Bruzzi (silvia.bruzzi3@unibo.it) is adjunct lecturer at the
University of Bologna where she teaches “Gender, Cultures and Con-
flicts in the Mediterranean Region.” She is also visiting research fel-
low at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at the Uni-
versity of Bergen. Her research activities focus on gender, Islam and
colonialism in Northeast Africa. Bruzzi has contributed in her field
with publications such as “Una medicina per l’Anima: il ruolo delle
figure femminili nelle confraternite islamiche,” in Irma Taddia – Be-X
atrice Nicolini (a cura di), Il Corno d’Africa tra medicina, politica e
storia, Novalogos, Roma, 2011; “Sainthood,” in The [Oxford] Encyclo-
pedia of Islam and Women, Oxford University Press, 2013 (forthcoming).
Manuela Deiana (manuela_deiana@hotmail.com) currently works
at the Institut supérieur des Langues de Gabès (ISLG) in Tunisia. She
received a PhD in History and International Relations of Contempo-
rary Africa from the University of Cagliari (Italy). Deiana focuses on
the history of the Maghreb and has carried out several fieldwork re-
searche projects, particularly in Morocco and Tunisia. She has con-
tributed in this field with publications like “Algériens ‘producteurs’ de
culture en Italie. Un regard sur l’ ‘Autre’ pour alimenter le dialogue
italo-algérien,” in Revue d’Histoire Maghrébine, 142, 2011, pp. 7-21
Rémi Dewière (remi.dewiere@orange.fr) is a PhD candidate at the
CEMAf - Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. His research activities fo-
cus on early modern history of Borno Sultanate (Nigeria) and its diplomat-
ic relations. Among his contributions on the topic, “Le Discours historique
de l’estat du royaume de Borno, genèse et construction d’une histoire du
Borno par un captif de Tripoli au XVIIe siècle,” Afriques (in press).
Evelin Grassi, (evelgra@libero.it) is a specialist in modern Tajik
literature. She obtained her doctoral degree at the University of Naples
“L’Orientale” in 2012, with a PhD dissertation on the history of mod-
ern Tajik Literature between 1870 and 1954. Grassi is a post-doctoral
fellow at the University Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris 3, where she is affil-
iated to the Mixed Unit of Research of the CNRS “Mondes iranien et
indien.” She has contributed to her field with translations of Tajik au-
thors and articles among wich “Soviet studies on the literature of the
Tajik enlightenment (second half of the 19th century),” Eurasian Stud-
ies, VII, 1-2, 2009, pp. 51-70 and “Alcune considerazioni sul racconto
Margi sudkhūr ‘La morte dell’usuraio’ dello scrittore tagico Sadriddin
Ajnī,” Oriente Moderno, N.S. 1, 2009, pp. 67-86.
Güneş Işıksel (gunesisiksel@yahoo.com) is currently a post-
doctoral fellow at the University Paris 1 – Sorbonne. He is working on
two books, one on the Ottoman foreign policy in the third quarter ofXI
the 16th century and the second one on the commercial litigations between
Ottoman and non-Ottoman traders in Istanbul between 1670 and 1740.
Ali Kadem Kalati (ali_kalatiit@yahoo.it) is lecturer in Arabic lan-
guage at the University of Sassari. He is a specialist in the Arabic
grammar in the early Islamic period. Kalati received a PhD in Arabic
literature with a dissertation on the importance of Sībawayh’s works.
He also worked on the the history of the spread of endowed institu-
tions of learning and teaching Arabic language in Italy and Russia. Kalati
is a cultural and linguistic mediator for the public administration in Italy.
Michele Petrone (patrone.michele@gmail.com) is a PhD candi-
date at at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” with a dissertation on
authorship and plagiarism in the late Mamluk era. He is currently li-
brarian at the Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi dell’Islam of the
University of Bologna.
Antonio Maria Pusceddu (ampusceddu@gmail.com) holds a PhD
in anthropology from the University of Siena. His research activities
focus on the anthropology of borders in the Southern Balkans. He has
carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork on the Nortwest Greek
frontier and is currently engaged in a research on migration and reli-
gious identities on the Southern Albanian frontier. Pusceddu has con-
tributed in his field of research with several publications among which
“Border (hi)stories. Literacy and the making of history in an Epirote
village,” in Vassilis Nitsiakos et al. (eds.), “Balkan Border Crossings.
First Annual of the Konitsa Summer School,” LIT, Munster, 2008, pp.
392-412; “Pellegrinaggi di frontiera. Pratiche interconfessionali, mo-
bilità e confini etnici nell’Albania meridionale,” in Dionigi Albera –
Melissa Blanchard (cur.), Pellegrini del nuovo millennio: aspetti economici
e politici delle mobilità religiose, Mesogea, Messina, (forthcoming).Collectanea Islamica
ISBN 978-88-548-5668-4 – DOI 10.4399/97888548566841
pp. 15-27 (novembre 2012)
INTRODUCTION
A plurality of historical and
linguistic experiences
Nicola Melis (University of Cagliari)
Mauro Nobili (Univ. of Cape Town – Tombouctou Manuscripts Project)
Futūḥ al-buldān is the well known work of the renowned Muslim histo-
rian of Persian origin Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balāḏurī (d. 297/892).1 The
reference to classic Muslim historiography in the series’ title is coupled
with the semantic spectrum of the Arabic root of the word “fatḥ” (sing.
of “futūḥ”). The noun refers mainly to “conquest of a country,” but the
verb “fataḥa,” from which the noun derives, is linked to the idea of
“open,” “conquer,” “take by force,” as well as to that of “explain,” “in-
form.”2 Thus the series’ title is not just a tribute to a great Muslim histo-
rian. It also refers to the last two meanings of the Arabic root f-t-ḥ,
which synthesizes the theoretical framework underlying Futūḥ al-
buldān. Sources for the study of Islamic societies (hereafter, FB), that is
to disclose fragments of history of the Muslim societies.
The aim of the series is to publish original works with a multidisci-
plinary approach to Islamic history and societies, spanning from the
ancient past to the present. FB’s focus is on the plurality of Muslim
experiences, in different times and places, and on the importance of
sources written in Islam’s different languages. This short introduction
1
Charles H. Becker [– Franz Rosenthal], s.v. “al-Balādhurī,” in Clifford E. Bosworth et al.
(eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Brill, Leiden, 1960-2005 (hereafter EI2).
2
Edward W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, Librairie du Liban, Beirut, 1968-2004.2 Nicola Melis – Mauro Nobili
addresses such double focus of FB and delineates the constitutive
premise of the series.
1. Plurality in Islam
In the title of al-Balāḏūrī’s work, both terms of the annexation, iḍāfa
in the Arabic language, are declined in the plural. The imaginary of a
multiplicity of lands introduces the first concern of FB’s theatrical
framework: plurality in Islam. Since its emergence in the first half of
7th century a.D., Islam spilled beyond the borders of the Arabic penin-
sula, overflowing Persia and the Mediterranean shores of the Middle
East. In 640 a.D., the Muslim army entered Egypt and, less than a cen-
tury later, in 711 a.D., it invaded Spain. In the East, Muslims reached
the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia in a short time. In the mid 8th
century, the Umayyads governed a caliphate extending from Spain to
the Indus river, while Islam began to spread among the conquered
peoples. After the ‘Abbasids’ overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty, in
750 a.D., no Muslim power was ever able to control such an extended
territory anymore. However, Islam slowly penetrated into other lands
by means of traders, “saints” and Sufis,3 becoming “the religion of
peoples who inhabit the middle regions of the planet from the Atlantic
shores of Africa to the South Pacific, from the steppes of Siberia to the
remote islands of South Asia […]. Some one-and-a-quarter billion
people adhere to Islam.”4
As a consequence of its expansion Islam includes, in the words of
Ira M. Lapidus, “innumerable variations of human experience.”5 In
Western scholarly production there has been a tendency to hier-
archize the Muslim world, dividing it into a supposed “heartland”
and some “peripheral areas,” such as central and southeast Asia, as
well as Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. According to this ap-
proach, in such areas, Islam bears so-called “pagan traces,” i.e. local
3
See Nehemia Levtzion, “Toward a comparative study of Islamization,” in Idem (ed.),
Conversion to Islam, Holmes & Meier, New York – London, 1979, pp. 1-23.
4
Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, C.U.P., Cambridge, 2002, p. XVIII.
5
Ibidem.A plurality of historical and linguistic experiences 3 beliefs that would have survived islamization and entered Islam, transforming its supposedly “authentic” nature into something alien. For example, referring to South-East Asia, Azyumardi Azra criti- cizes this approach, arguing that “Islam is viewed as an obscure phe- nomenon and only a ‘thin veneer of symbols attached to a supposed- ly solid core of animistic and Hindu-Buddhist meaning’. In short, Is- lam is regarded as having no significant impact on Southeast Asian social and cultural lives.”6 The pioneering contribution of the Italian scholar Alessandro Bau- sani challenges this approach, disputing not only the existence of “pa- gan traces,” but also that of a “central,” supposedly “pure,” Islam. Ac- cording to Bausani, the traditional approach conceals an “ahistorical” perception of Islam that interprets it as something identical to Muḥammad’s preaching.7 But this hypothetical Islam “is just an ab- straction, a ‘possibility of Islam.’ When it entered the arena of Histo- ry, it started being subjected to certain rules, coming in touch with the real world, choosing, assimilating, but not ceasing, as some ‘romantic’ historians would maintain, to be Islām.”8 Bausani suggests that the development of Islam can be divided into three historical cycles. He names the first cycle “Primitive Islam,” re- 6 Azyumardi Azra, Islam in Southeast Asia: Between Tolerance and Radicalism, Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (Muis), Singapore, 2008, p. 2. Azra’s refers to Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java, Yale University, New Haven – London, 1960, but his quotation is from Mark R. Woodward, “Bali and Southeast Asian Islam: Debunking the myths,” in Kumar Ramakrishna – See Seng Tan (eds.), After Bali: The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies – Nanyang Technological University – World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2004, p. 40. Woodwart’s quotation appears also in Fauza Saleh, Modern Trends in Islamic Theological Discourse in Twentieth Century Indonesia: A Critical Study, Brill, Leiden – Boston – Köln, 2001, p. 2. On the notion of “periphery” in Islam, see Abdul Hamid el-Zein, “Beyond ideology and theology: The search for the anthropology of Islam,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 6, 1977, pp. 227-254; Gabriele Marranci, “Sociology and anthropology of Islam: A critical debate,” in Bryan Turner (ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Blackwell, Oxford, 2010, pp. 364-387. 7 Alessandro Bausani, “L’Islam: integrazione o sincretismo religioso?” in Lionello Lanciotti (a cura di), Incontro di religioni in Asia tra il III e il X secolo d. C.: atti del Convegno internazionale di studi storico-religioso promosso e organizzato dalla Fondazione Giorgio Cini e dall'Istituto italiana per il medio ed estremo oriente (Is.M.E.O.) Venezia, 16-18 novembre 1981, Olschki, Firenze, 1984, pp. 100-101. 8 Ibidem, p. 102 (italics in text; authors’ translation from Italian).
4 Nicola Melis – Mauro Nobili
ferring to the intermingling of Muḥammad’s teachings with elements
peculiar to the pre-Islamic Arab civilization (e.g., the sacred pilgrim-
age to the Ka‘ba in Mecca). The second historical cycle, the “Umay-
yad-‘Abbasid Islam,” is defined by the assimilation within Primitive
Islam of high cultural markers, peculiar to different societies annexed
and absorbed by the Muslim caliphate (e.g., the dialectic of the kalām
whose origin pertains to the Greek-Hellenistic culture). The third cy-
cle inaugurates what Bausani calls “Local Islam.” This cycle implies
the spread of Islam, in the form consolidated at the end of the two pre-
ceding cycles, across geographical and cultural contexts that had so
far remained untouched by Islam.9 It is only because the first two cy-
cles are more ancient and have been the object of the researches of
classical Orientalist studies, that they appear to be more “central” –
more “Islamic” – than the other. However, as it appears from Bau-
sani’s theoretical approach, in every place where Islam has penetrated,
it has come to include elements that pre-dated it and are peculiar to lo-
cal cultures. These elements do not survive as syncretic pre-Islamic
traces, they are rather assimilated within the new religious context as
“integrated elements.”10
To explain the integration in Islam of elements that antedated it, in-
stead of reporting the example of the blessed crocodiles of Dhaka of-
ten quoted by Bausani,11 his methodology can be further applied to a
different context. A chronicle on the Wangarawa community of Kano,
titled Ta’rīḫ aṣl al-Wanqariyyīn and dated 1061/1650-1, records a sig-
nificant episode. One of the most ancient mosques of Kano, the
Chronicle reports, was built where once stood the tamarind tree
“where the inhabitants of the city practiced their idolatry.”12 This epi-
sode appears to be a typical example of pre-Islamic beliefs that resists
9
Alessandro Bausani, “L’Islam non arabo,” in Pietro Tacchi Venturi – Giuseppe Castellani (a
cura di), Storia delle religioni, UTET, Torino, 1970, pp. 183-184 (authors’ transl. from
Italian).
10
Bausani, “L’Islam: integrazione o sincretismo,” p. 111.
11
To our best knowledge, this example appeared for the first time in Alessandro Bausani,
“Sopravvivenze pagane nell’Islam o integrazione islamica?” Studi e materiali di storia delle
religioni, 37, 1965, p. 195.
12
Muhammad Al-Hajj, “A seventeenth century chronicle on the origins and missionary
activities of the Wangarawa,” Kano Studies, N.S. 1, 1968, p. 12.A plurality of historical and linguistic experiences 5
Islamization. However, the text records that the Muslims of the city
“were engaged in cutting down the tamarind tree from sun-rise to sun-
set, at which time they dispersed and went to their homes. But when
they returned the following morning they found the tamarind tree in
its original shape with no parts cut down. This exercise continued until
they realized that their effort was futile.”13 No one was able to cut the
tree until a certain šayḫ ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Zaġaytī, chief of the
Wangarawa, “took an axe from one of them and recited some secret
incantations which the Lord had taught him. He repeated this three
times and in every time he spit on the head of the axe.”14
Many interesting issues arise from reading this episode, like the
ones regarding the use of charms in the Muslim world15 or the power
of saliva as a means to transmit the Baraka.16 Of value to this argu-
ment is how the place where the tamarind tree stood radically changed
the sources of its sacredness. The chronicle states that every non-
Islamic element was destroyed by Islam personified by šayḫ ‘Abd al-
Raḥmān Zaġaytī: “out of its trunk came forth strange devils that no
one can describe.”17 Nothing remains of the past sacredness in the
place that has become “holy” within the new Islamic cultural frame-
work. The place witnesses a struggle between two contending cultural
forces, the pre-Islamic beliefs and Islam, that saw the latter victorious.
Employing Bausani’s methodology, the tamarind tree represents the
pre-Islamic element which Islamization process transformed, while
the site where the Mosque was built in place of the tamarind tree is not
a “pagan trace” but an “integrated element.”
The deconstruction of the idea of a hierarchized Islam prompts a
reconsideration of what can be defined as Islam. Following Bausani’s
approach, Islam is what the original “impulse that Muḥammad and the
13
Ibidem.
14
Ibidem.
15
On this topic, see Constant Hamès (dir.), Coran et talismans. Textes et pratiques magiques
en milieu musulman, Karthala, Paris, 2007.
16
See the case of a woman bitten by a snake mentioned in Yahya Ould El Bara, “The life of
Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti,” in Shamil Jeppie – Souleymane B. Diagne (eds.), The
Meanings of Timbuktu, HSRC, Cape Town, 2008, pp. 206-207.
17
Al-Hajj, “A seventeenth century chronicle,” p. 12.6 Nicola Melis – Mauro Nobili Qur’ān has created, absorbing and assimilating whatever was found in the places where it spread.”18 Since Islamic civilization has spread across a vast extension of lands, including peoples and cultures originally different among them- selves, many different Muslim historical experiences have come into existence: “Islam was so assimilated into the local cultures as to be considered an indigenous religion. Diversity, however, did not break the unity of Islam, and the many local forms should be considered as variations of one universal religion.”19 These heterogeneous experi- ences will be the subjects of the contributions of FB. 2. The languages of Islam To further develop on Arabic etymology, another noun derived from the root f-t-ḥ of futūḥ is miftāḥ, meaning “key,” but also “any- thing with which a thing is opened.” 20 What would be the miftāḥ employed by the series to “disclose” the societies that will be the subject of FB’s contributions? Instead of focusing on secondary sources, primarily written in European languages, the series aims at analyzing sources in “Islamic languages.” As Francesco Zappa underlines, the category “Islamic languages” is often employed in the scientific literature without a proper theoretical basis.21 FB, on the other hand, uses the expression “Islamic languages” as developed by Bausani. Following the latter’s definition, an Islamic language is “a language that, at a specific moment in its history, has been deeply influenced, lexically, graphically, and to a certain degree also morphologically and syntaxically and even phonologically by the two main cultural languages of Islam: Arabic and Persian.”22 18 Bausani, “L’Islam non arabo,” p. 181 (authors’ transl. from Italian). 19 Levtzion, “Toward a comparative study of Islamization,” p. 1. 20 Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon. 21 Francesco Zappa, “La nozione di lingue e letterature islamiche dopo Bausani: sviluppi ulteriori e percorsi paralleli,” in Wasim Dahmash et al. (a cura di), Scritti in onore di Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, Edizioni Q, Roma, 2008, v. 3, pp. 1191-1208. 22 Alessandro Bausani, “Le lingue islamiche: interazioni e acculturazioni,” in Alessandro Bausani – Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti (a cura di), Il mondo islamico tra interazione e
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