The Court Cuisine of Medieval Cyprus

This chapter explores a system of dietetics, possibly particular to Cyprus, in which foods are divided into two classes, red or white, according to whether they contain blood. Blood foods were carnal, while white foods were vegan and thus appropriate for religious fasting. This system then synchronized red and white foods according to their Galenic humors and thus led to a decorative play on colors in Cypriot court cuisine whereby fasting dishes were colored to resemble meat, and meat dishes were made to look white—in short, visual puzzles and puns intended to amuse. The Frankish nobility thus transformed cuisine into entertainment: religious fasting without suffering and inconvenience.

Cross-Gender “Acting” and Gender-Bending Rhetoric at a Princely Party

This chapter focuses on episodes from “The Phantom,” by Ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310), showing how they contain a substantial amount of cross-gender acting. Guo also argues that such gender-bending is to a certain degree a literary device for characterization. It was also an element of the art of a one-man-band type of performer, who was able not only to play both sexes but also to sing and dance—and was thus a highly versatile entertainer.

Performing Court Literature in Medieval Byzantium

This chapter argues that, outside Constantinople, court literature was dominated by storytelling—and that most of this form of entertainment took place in tents: “tent poems” survive; some major tales also seem to be associated with tents; and letters also apparently were received and performed in tents. There are clear connections between the emperor and these stories.

Performances of Advice and Admonition in the Courts of Muslim Rulers of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries

This chapter discusses the Arabic “Advice to Kings” (Naṣīḥat al-mulūk) attributed to Pseudo-Māwardī. Marlow shows how rulers not only solicited and received advice (the education of princes being a prominent function of mirrors for princes) but also dispensed and performed it themselves. Marlow argues that what made advice compelling was its grounding in established authorities, including the sacred sources, the examples of venerated figures of the early Islamic era, and the conduct and sayings of caliphs, kings, and sages of the past. The roles of the monarch as wise dispenser or humble recipient of advice exposed him to potential challenges, and advisory literature prescribes the spatial and temporal boundaries within which caliphs and kings received advice but also attests to their transgression.

Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the volume, setting forth the major themes and approaches. It lays out the geographical and temporal boundaries of the volume, as well as providing the theoretical introduction to theories of performance and definitions of the pre-modern Middle Eastern court.

Mystical Poetics

Orfali in this chapter demonstrates how Sufi mystics adopted the poetic themes of Abbasid poetry and refashioned them for a part of Sufi ritual known as “beatific audition” (samâʿ), in which believers were supposed to find rapture through the recollection (dhikr) of God. Orfali’s chapter shows how Sufis adapted themes of court poetry, such as standing at the ruins of the beloved’s campsite, recalling the journey of a poet through the desert, and love poetry (ghazal), demonstrating the ways that court performance profoundly influenced modes of religious experience.

Conversation as Performance

In this chapter, El Cheikh explores how Abbasid courtiers during the ninth to eleventh centuries regulated their speech and gestures in order to impress and to be persuasive. The chapter demonstrates how courtiers conformed to prescriptive codes of literary cultivation known as adab and reveals how courtiers sometimes managed to subvert or elude them.

Khālid Ibn Ṣafwān

Despite the esteem in which the history of the oratorical tradition in Arabic has been held, it has been difficult to study because of a lack of reliable source material from the first century of Islam. This chapter discusses the survival of the oral performances of one famous orator’s preaching (khuṭbas) and asks what the literary preservation of his preaching might have to do with its performance.

Bloodthirsty Emperors

This chapter focuses on the theatrical character of the imperial punishments imposed on male iconophile saints, as seen in Byzantine hagiographical works of the middle Byzantine period. The descriptions of the performance of these punishments are lurid and violent—though the accounts may reflect a literary tradition more than a historical reality.

Epilogue

The epilogue ties many of the themes of the volume together and suggests avenues for further research on courts and performance in the pre-modern Middle East.