Organized by:
 Sacha Alsancakli, The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research and Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University
 Yui Kanda, ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
 Maria Szuppe, CNRS-CeRMI UMR8041

※時間はすべて現地時間。

Conceived as a follow-up to the workshop “Amir Hamza and Beyond: Historical Narratives and Romances across the Muslim World”, held in September 2023 at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA) in Tokyo, this international conference explores how communities in the Eastern Islamic world expressed themselves through the composition, transmission, and reception of popular romances. These narratives, centred around historical figures such as Alexander the Two-Horned (d. 323 BC), Ḥamza b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (d. 625), Muḥammad Ḥanafiyya (d. 701), Abū Muslim (d. 755), and others, often originated in Persian literary traditions. Turkish lore also served as an important source of inspiration, particularly through stories related to the Oghūznāme. These stories formed cohesive narrative cycles and were adapted into localized versions in Arabic, Bengali, Javanese, Malay, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Turkish, and Urdu, among other languages, thus extending their influence over the longue durée in the multilingual space stretching from Southeast Asia to the Balkans.

In epics like the Iskandarnāma, Ḥamzanāma, Jangnāma-yi Muḥammad Ḥanafiyya, Abūmuslimnāma, and Oghūznāme, these figures are reimagined as heroes embodying the chivalrous ideals of the Persian javānmardī tradition and are sometimes endowed with supernatural powers. With their transregional presence, seen in shrines across the Turco-Persianate world and in the widespread transmission of localized textual versions, these figures also offer opportunities to examine key aspects of the cultural history of the Eastern Islamic lands, including:

1. The reinvention of early Islamic figures as folk heroes through literature and material culture;
2. The role of orality in the development of this literary tradition and the devotional practices tied to its material culture;
3. The hierarchization of languages and processes of vernacularization in the region;
4. The didactic function of these texts and artifacts in conveying core Islamic values, such as devotion to the ahl al-bayt (family of the Prophet) and the struggle against heresy and injustice.

By addressing these and other questions, the conference aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the cultural and devotional practices related to the veneration of these popular historical-legendary figures across time and space. Through the examination of texts and artifacts from across the Eastern Islamic world, the project also seeks to bridge institutional divides between Iranian, Turkish, Central Asian, and South Asian studies. Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodology that draws on history, art history, and anthropology, the contributions will notably highlight the role of material culture – such as architecture, objects, and manuscripts – in the analysis of the chosen case studies.

Abstracts and Bios

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