Content area
Abstract
Historians perceive classical Islamdom as monolithic and modern Islam as divided in nations. These perceptions, in spite of contributions to the field of Islamic history, have left untreated the history of cultural fusions in the classical period and its supra-national implication for contemporary Islam. Left largely untreated is one of the primary cultural fusions with important contributions to Islamic and human civilizations, the Turco-Persian culture. The present dissertation is a work of documentation and analysis of this cultural fusion. It focuses on scholarly exchange as a contributor to this fusion. Within the context of scholarly exchange particular attention is given to travel and migration of scholars.
The documentation of the Turco-Persian culture from its origins through the 9th/15th century in this dissertation consists of an enumeration of its distinguishing components, and the documentation of lives and careers of scholars who contributed to its formation, consolidation, renewal and development through migration and travel.
This dissertation reveals a dynamic and productive culture formed under cosmopolitan Perso-Islamic cultural norms; cultivated under Turkic appanage system of rule and its patronage for Perso-Islamic scholars; developed by scholarly exchange through travel and migration from one linguistically defined region to another; and matured when the Turco-Persian cultures contributed to learning and civilization in both Persian-speaking and Turkish-speaking regions, namely the Tîmûrid and Ottoman states.
A salient aspect of the documentation and analysis of this culture is the discovery that it was a viable and productive culture that renewed itself and its urban cosmopolitan inclination each time it declined in face of external nomadic invasions or internal political weaknesses. This civilization renewed and developed by relying on the primary source of its fusion, namely the Perso-Islamic culture. The vehicle by which this primary aspect of the fusion was continually renewed was scholarly exchange, which found its most effective expression through migration and travel between the two regions.
