Arabic-L:GEN:New Book

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 06 Oct 1999
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1) Subject: New Book: Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans

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1)
Date: 06 Oct 1999
From: msyfried at mscc.huji.ac.il
Subject: New Book: Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans

		The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
		The Institute of Asian and African Studies
		The Max Schloessinger Memorial Foundation

		wishes to announce the publication of

			Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans:
			A study of power relationships

					 by
					David Ayalon

The Magnes Press 1999; 376 pp., including bibliography and index.

	The study of the eunuch phenomenon in Islam is still in its infancy in
spite of its unique importance within Muslim civilization until the early
twentieth century. There has existed an aversion to the study of the
subject among scholars in general. For its study within Islam, there was
yet another obstacle: the misunderstandings of the terms by which eunuchs
were designated. The book covers a period from the beginning of Islam
until the beginning of the sixteenth century, and deals mainly with
eunuchs in the major centers of Islam in the East (Umayyads, 'Abbasids,
Seljuks, Zangids, Ayy›bis, Mamluks and, to some extent, the Fatimids of
Egypt). It is not a history of the eunuchs in that wide area, but is
rather concerned with the power accumulated by the eunuchs militarily,
socially and even economically (especially as trustees of financial
affairs and property).
	The ultimate aim of the study is to bring out the close ties
connecting  the harem, the eunuchs and the Mamluks. In all these areas,
the dominant  element had been slaves (Islamized and often enfranchised)
who were  imported from beyond the frontiers of Islam. The eunuchs were
usually the  trainers of the young Mamluk›s andquite often their
commanders. The  Mamluks themselves, in various and changing forms,
constituted the mainstay of Islam's military might through the greatest
part of its
history. The book also discusses castrations, the eunuchs' prices, and
their so-called sexual life, romances and marriages.

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End of Arabic-L: 06 Oct 1999