The Political Significance of Religious Wealth in Burmese History: Some Further Thoughts

1980 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor B. Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
The Political

This article examines the recent assertion by a scholar of Burmese history that extensive landholding by the Buddhist monkhood helped to undermine every dynasty between the ninth and nineteenth century. It argues that religious wealth, possibly before the fifteenth century and certainly after that period, was less significant than has been suggested, and that the institutional relation between throne and monkhood was by no means static. During the later dynasties, secular elites represented the principal threat to the centralization of resources. Further, in certain instances, royal purification of the Religion sought not to deprive the monkhood of wealth, but to strengthen both the Religion and the crown at the expense of private lay interests.

Islamic theology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
Islamic Thought

‘Ilm al-kalam (literally ‘the science of debate’) denotes a discipline of Islamic thought generally referred to as ‘theology’ or (even less accurately) as ‘scholastic theology’. The discipline, which evolved from the political and religious controversies that engulfed the Muslim community in its formative years, deals with interpretations of religious doctrine and the defence of these interpretations by means of discursive arguments. The rise of kalam came to be closely associated with the Mu‘tazila, a rationalist school that emerged at the beginning of the second century AH (seventh century ad) and rose to prominence in the following century. The failure of the Mu‘tazila to follow up their initial intellectual and political ascendancy by imposing their views as official state doctrine seriously discredited rationalism, leading to a resurgence of traditionalism and later to the emergence of the Ash‘ariyya school, which attempted to present itself as a compromise between the two opposing extremes. The Ash‘arite school gained acceptability within mainstream (Sunni) Islam. However, kalam continued to be condemned, even in this ‘orthodox’ garb, by the dominant traditionally-inclined schools. In its later stages, kalam attempted to assimilate philosophical themes and questions, but the subtle shift in this direction was not completely successful. The decline of kalam appeared to be irreversible, shunned as it was by traditionalists and rationalists alike. Although kalam texts continued to be discussed and even taught in some form, kalam ceased to be a living science as early as the ninth century AH (fifteenth century ad). Attempts by reformers to revive it, beginning in the nineteenth century, have yet to bear fruit.

To Be a Sikh King

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-42
Author(s):  
Priya Atwal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Changing World

This chapter provides a sense of the political, cultural and intellectual context in which Ranjit Singh was able to claim the title of ‘Maharajah’. It examines the development of ‘Sikh’ ideas about monarchy, power and rulership that first emerged within the earliest writings of the first Sikh ‘master’, Guru Nanak, in the fifteenth century; whilst considering how attempts to practically interpret and set into action such ideas also evolved within the changing world of the Punjab, leading up to the early years of Ranjit Singh’s reign. This chapter draws upon recent scholarly research that has re-evaluated the dynamics between the Sikhs and the Mughal imperial dynasty, and about the emergence of the Khalsa and Sikh sardars as powers in their own right across eighteenth-century Punjab: studies that casts doubt on earlier scholarly contentions about the ‘republican’ nature of the Khalsa. It thereby aims to outline ideas of Sikh kingship that may have inspired and legitimised Ranjit Singh’s rise to power as a self-styled monarch by the turn of the nineteenth century.

Capital californiano, necesidad presupuestal y cambio político: Juan Temple y el arrendamiento de la Casa de Moneda de México, 1827–1857

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-351
Author(s):  
Omar Velasco Herrera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Las Casas ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
The Government

Durante la primera mitad del siglo xix, las necesidades presupuestales del erario mexicano obligaron al gobierno a recurrir al endeudamiento y al arrendamiento de algunas de las casas de moneda más importantes del país. Este artículo examina las condiciones políticas y económicas que hicieron posible el relevo del capital británico por el estadounidense—en estricto sentido, californiano—como arrendatario de la Casa de Moneda de México en 1857. Asimismo, explora el desarrollo empresarial de Juan Temple para explicar la coyuntura política que hizo posible su llegada, y la de sus descendientes, a la administración de la ceca de la capital mexicana. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the budgetary needs of the Mexican treasury forced the government to resort to borrowing and leasing some of the most important mints in the country. This article examines the political and economic conditions that allowed for the replacement of British capital by United States capital—specifically, Californian—as the lessee of the Mexican National Mint in 1857. It also explores the development of Juan Temple’s entrepreneurship to explain the political circumstances that facilitated his admission, and that of his descendants, into the administration of the National Mint in Mexico City.

The Swiss and their Neighbours, 1460-1560

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Scott
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Buffer Zone ◽  
The Political ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Political Principle ◽  
Mutual Obligation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Identity

Renewed interest in Swiss history has sought to overcome the old stereotypes of peasant liberty and republican exceptionalism. The heroic age of the Confederation in the fifteenth century is now seen as a turning point as the Swiss polity achieved a measure of institutional consolidation and stability, and began to mark out clear frontiers. This book questions both assumptions. It argues that the administration of the common lordships by the cantons collectively gave rise to as much discord as cooperation, and remained a pragmatic device not a political principle. It argues that the Swiss War of 1499 was an avoidable catastrophe, from which developed a modus vivendi between the Swiss and the Empire as the Rhine became a buffer zone, not a boundary. It then investigates the background to Bern’s conquest of the Vaud in 1536, under the guise of relieving Geneva from beleaguerment, to suggest that Bern’s actions were driven not by predeterminate territorial expansion but by the need to halt French designs upon Geneva and Savoy. The geopolitical balance of the Confederation was fundamentally altered by Bern’s acquisition of the Vaud and adjacent lands. Nevertheless, the political fabric of the Confederation, which had been tested to the brink during the Reformation, proved itself flexible enough to absorb such a major reorientation, not least because what held the Confederation together was not so much institutions as a sense of common identity and mutual obligation forged during the Burgundian Wars of the 1470s.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
State Of Israel

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.

Looking Backward 2000-1887

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
Ideal Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Utopian Fiction ◽  
Socialist Utopia ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
The Ideal

‘No person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity.’ Julian West, a feckless aristocrat living in fin-de-siècle Boston, plunges into a deep hypnotic sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000. America has been turned into a rigorously centralized democratic society in which everything is controlled by a humane and efficient state. In little more than a hundred years the horrors of nineteenth-century capitalism have been all but forgotten. The squalid slums of Boston have been replaced by broad streets, and technological inventions have transformed people’s everyday lives. Exiled from the past, West excitedly settles into the ideal society of the future, while still fearing that he has dreamt up his experiences as a time traveller. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) is a thunderous indictment of industrial capitalism and a resplendent vision of life in a socialist utopia. Matthew Beaumont’s lively edition explores the political and psychological peculiarities of this celebrated utopian fiction.

American Custom, Ritual, and Holidays

2018 ◽  
pp. 255-276
Author(s):  
Jack Santino
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life Course ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Events ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Since the nineteenth century, attention in folklore and folklife studies has shifted from viewing certain customary symbolic actions such as “calendar customs” and rituals of the life course to a more inclusive performance-oriented perspective on holidays and customs. Folklorists recognize the multiplicity of events that people may consider ritual and festival, and the porous nature of these categories. The concept of the “sacred” has expanded to include realms other than the strictly religious, so as to include the political and other domains, both official and unofficial. A comprehensive study of ritual and festival incorporates a close study of folk and popular actions as well as institutional ceremony. In the twenty-first century, approaching events as both carnivalesque and ritualesque allows folklorists to describe purpose and intention in public events, and to account for political, commemorative, celebratory, and festive elements in any particular event.

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