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Fred Astren

San Francisco State University, Jewish Studies, Emeritus

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Fred Astren is Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University. He received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. He holds a B.E.S. degree from the University of Minnesota with specialization in medieval history and an M.A. in Arabic from UC Berkeley. Areas of research include late antique and early medieval Jewish history in both the East and West, minority/sectarian history and sacred history in the premodern Mediterranean, Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations, and the Karaite Jewish sect.

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Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Fred Astren

ʿAbbāsid Book Culture and Ninth-Century Jewish Sectarianism

Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam, 2024

Astren, “Non-Rabbinic and Non-Karaite Religious Movements,” in Phillip I. Lieberman (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5, Jews in the Medieval Islamic World (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 606–633.

The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5, Jews in the Medieval Islamic World, 2021

Jewish religious movements in the Islamic Middle Ages were shaped by messianic speculation, apoca... more Jewish religious movements in the Islamic Middle Ages were shaped by messianic speculation, apocalypticism, and interpretive disagreement over Scripture and law, and also by distinct socio-historical conditions of the Islamic environment. The literary evidence—in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, and other languages—indicates four periods of Jewish religious diversity. Events in the seventh century, including the rise of Islam and the Muslim conquests, stimulated Jewish messianism and apocalypticism. In the eighth century, reports of an ill-defined messianic movement are connected to a figure named Severus, perhaps also known as the Shepherd. Shortly thereafter, the better-known movement of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī, and his successor Yudghān, mirrored aspects of Shi‘ite Islam and popular Iranian religion. In the ninth-century, a number of messianic and sectarian figures and their followers are known from the writing of the tenth-century Karaite al-Qirqisānī. These include Mīshawayh al ʿUkbarī, whose movement impacted Karaite and rabbinic Judaism, as well as Anan ben David, later claimed by Karaites. In the fourth period, several twelfth-century messianic figures, known only from Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen, can be framed by the Almoravid and Almohad movements in North Africa and Muslim Spain. In the same period, David al-Rōʾī is known from a number of sources.

Astren, “The Gibeonite Gambit: Hạrrānians, Karaites, and Khaybarī Jews on the Margins of Medieval Islamic Society,” Journal of Medieval Worlds 1:2 (2019), 2–26.

Journal of Medieval Worlds, 2019

Embedded in the literature of Muslims, Christians, and Jews are historicized narratives that purp... more Embedded in the literature of Muslims, Christians, and Jews are historicized narratives that purport to rationalize and contextualize the place of minority and sectarian groups in medieval Islamic society. Among these are those that, at first reading, tell the story of an intentional fictionalizing of history on the part of a minority group with the intent to deceive Muslim authorities and thereby gain advantage. A prototype for this narrative strategy is observed in the Book of Joshua, wherein the "pagan" Gibeonites employ a ruse to secure recognition and protection from the conquering monotheistic Israelites, who had been commanded by God to exterminate pagans. Three case studies (on the Sabians of Ḥ arrān, Karaite Jews, and Khaybarī Jews) reveal that similar stories in medieval Islam are often the result of co-production, a phenomenon which constitutes a kind of cultural negotiation between the dominant culture and a sub-culture; between rulers and subject peoples, between Muslims and non-Muslims, and even between competing subaltern groups. Reshaped narratives about the caliph al-Ma'mūn, the Prophet Muh ̣ammad, or other key figures offered narrativized permission for the dominant Muslim religion and culture to tolerate the existence of groups whose theologies or practices challenged Muslim assumptions of collectivity, and correspondingly, might or might not be otherwise deemed unacceptable. These narratives also provided subalterns a kind of myth of origin for their place in Islamic society. What is at stake in these complex interweavings of memory, history, and literary construction are the rights and duties of the subordinate groups.

Astren, “Jews” in Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (eds.), A Companion to Mediterranean History (Wiley Blackwell, 2014), 392–408.

A Companion to Mediterranean History, 2014

Astren, “Goitein, Medieval Jews, and the ‘New Mediterranean Studies’,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102:4 (2012), 513–531.

Jewish Quarterly Review, 2012

Astren, “Re-reading the Muslim Sources: Jewish History and the Muslim Conquests,” in Yohanan Friedmann (ed.), Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 35 (2009), 83–130.

Astren, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Medieval Jewish Studies: Methods and Problems,” Dead Sea Discoveries 8:2 (2001), 105–123.

Dead Sea Discoveries, 2001

... Cairo Genizah: Its Discovery, Early Study and Historical Significance,&quot; The Damascus... more

Astren, “De-Paganizing Death: Aspects of Mourning in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Islam,” in John C. Reeves (ed.), Bible and Qur’an: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (Atlanta: American Academy of Religion, 2003), pp. 183–199.

Astren, “History or Philosophy? The Construction of the Past in Medieval Karaite Judaism,” Medieval Encounters, 1:1 (1995), 114–143.

Medieval Encounters, 1995

Selected Encyclopedia Entries by Fred Astren

Astren, “al-Qirqisani, Jacob,” entry in the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, edited by Norman A. Stillman (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 4:136–40.

Selected Book Reviews by Fred Astren

Astren, review of: Jacob Lassner, Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam: Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities (University of Chicago Press, 2012) in Bustan: The Middle East Book Review 4 (2013), 166–170.

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, 2013

Astren, “The Meaning of a Bibliography,” review of: Barry Dov Walfish and Mikhail Kizilov, Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism (Brill, 2011), in H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews (June, 2012), no. 2012–149.

Astren, review of: Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Cornell University Press, 2008) in The American Historical Review 115:3 (June, 2010), 919–920.

The American Historical Review, 2010

Astren, review of: Review of: David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton University Press, 2003) in Muslim World 97:2 (2007), 360–63.

The Muslim World, 2007

Astren, review of: Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Brill, 2004), in Speculum 81:3 (2006), 847–49.

Speculum, 2006

Conference Presentations by Fred Astren

Umayyads, Early ʿAbbāsids, and Historical Periodization

by Fred Astren, Antoine Borrut, and Muriel Debié

Flyer for roundtable, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley

Navigating-Language-Program1.pdf

by Muriel Debié, Antoine Borrut, Alison M . Vacca, Fred Astren, and Judith A. Lerner

Marco Symposium, Knoxville, TN

Books by Fred Astren

Antoine Borrut, Manuela Ceballos, and Alison M. Vacca (eds.), Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024)

by Antoine Borrut, Fred Astren, and Robert Haug

TOC: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503603018-1 Traditional accounts of Arabicization ... more TOC: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503603018-1
Traditional accounts of Arabicization have often favoured linear narratives of language change instead of delving into the diversity of peoples, processes, and languages that informed the fate of Arabic in the early Islamic world. Using a wide range of case studies from the caliphal centres at Damascus and Baghdad to the provinces of Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, and Central Asia, Navigating Language reconsiders these prevailing narratives by analysing language change in different regions of the early Islamic world through the lens of multilingualism and language change. This volume complicates the story of Arabic by building on the work of scholars in Late Antiquity who have abundantly demonstrated the benefits of embracing multilingualism as a heuristic framework. The three main themes include imperial strategies of language use, the participation of local elites in the process of language change, and the encounters between languages on the page, in the markets, and at work. This volume brings together historians and art historians working on the interplay of Arabic and other languages during the early Islamic period to provide a critical resource and reference tool for students and scholars of the cultural and social history of language in the Near East and beyond.

ʿAbbāsid Book Culture and Ninth-Century Jewish Sectarianism

Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam, 2024

Astren, “Non-Rabbinic and Non-Karaite Religious Movements,” in Phillip I. Lieberman (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5, Jews in the Medieval Islamic World (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 606–633.

The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5, Jews in the Medieval Islamic World, 2021

Jewish religious movements in the Islamic Middle Ages were shaped by messianic speculation, apoca... more Jewish religious movements in the Islamic Middle Ages were shaped by messianic speculation, apocalypticism, and interpretive disagreement over Scripture and law, and also by distinct socio-historical conditions of the Islamic environment. The literary evidence—in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, and other languages—indicates four periods of Jewish religious diversity. Events in the seventh century, including the rise of Islam and the Muslim conquests, stimulated Jewish messianism and apocalypticism. In the eighth century, reports of an ill-defined messianic movement are connected to a figure named Severus, perhaps also known as the Shepherd. Shortly thereafter, the better-known movement of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī, and his successor Yudghān, mirrored aspects of Shi‘ite Islam and popular Iranian religion. In the ninth-century, a number of messianic and sectarian figures and their followers are known from the writing of the tenth-century Karaite al-Qirqisānī. These include Mīshawayh al ʿUkbarī, whose movement impacted Karaite and rabbinic Judaism, as well as Anan ben David, later claimed by Karaites. In the fourth period, several twelfth-century messianic figures, known only from Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen, can be framed by the Almoravid and Almohad movements in North Africa and Muslim Spain. In the same period, David al-Rōʾī is known from a number of sources.

Astren, “The Gibeonite Gambit: Hạrrānians, Karaites, and Khaybarī Jews on the Margins of Medieval Islamic Society,” Journal of Medieval Worlds 1:2 (2019), 2–26.

Journal of Medieval Worlds, 2019

Embedded in the literature of Muslims, Christians, and Jews are historicized narratives that purp... more Embedded in the literature of Muslims, Christians, and Jews are historicized narratives that purport to rationalize and contextualize the place of minority and sectarian groups in medieval Islamic society. Among these are those that, at first reading, tell the story of an intentional fictionalizing of history on the part of a minority group with the intent to deceive Muslim authorities and thereby gain advantage. A prototype for this narrative strategy is observed in the Book of Joshua, wherein the "pagan" Gibeonites employ a ruse to secure recognition and protection from the conquering monotheistic Israelites, who had been commanded by God to exterminate pagans. Three case studies (on the Sabians of Ḥ arrān, Karaite Jews, and Khaybarī Jews) reveal that similar stories in medieval Islam are often the result of co-production, a phenomenon which constitutes a kind of cultural negotiation between the dominant culture and a sub-culture; between rulers and subject peoples, between Muslims and non-Muslims, and even between competing subaltern groups. Reshaped narratives about the caliph al-Ma'mūn, the Prophet Muh ̣ammad, or other key figures offered narrativized permission for the dominant Muslim religion and culture to tolerate the existence of groups whose theologies or practices challenged Muslim assumptions of collectivity, and correspondingly, might or might not be otherwise deemed unacceptable. These narratives also provided subalterns a kind of myth of origin for their place in Islamic society. What is at stake in these complex interweavings of memory, history, and literary construction are the rights and duties of the subordinate groups.

Astren, “Jews” in Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (eds.), A Companion to Mediterranean History (Wiley Blackwell, 2014), 392–408.

A Companion to Mediterranean History, 2014

Astren, “Goitein, Medieval Jews, and the ‘New Mediterranean Studies’,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102:4 (2012), 513–531.

Jewish Quarterly Review, 2012

Astren, “Re-reading the Muslim Sources: Jewish History and the Muslim Conquests,” in Yohanan Friedmann (ed.), Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 35 (2009), 83–130.

Astren, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Medieval Jewish Studies: Methods and Problems,” Dead Sea Discoveries 8:2 (2001), 105–123.

Dead Sea Discoveries, 2001

... Cairo Genizah: Its Discovery, Early Study and Historical Significance,&quot; The Damascus... more

Astren, “De-Paganizing Death: Aspects of Mourning in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Islam,” in John C. Reeves (ed.), Bible and Qur’an: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (Atlanta: American Academy of Religion, 2003), pp. 183–199.

Astren, “History or Philosophy? The Construction of the Past in Medieval Karaite Judaism,” Medieval Encounters, 1:1 (1995), 114–143.

Medieval Encounters, 1995

Astren, “al-Qirqisani, Jacob,” entry in the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, edited by Norman A. Stillman (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 4:136–40.

Astren, review of: Jacob Lassner, Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam: Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities (University of Chicago Press, 2012) in Bustan: The Middle East Book Review 4 (2013), 166–170.

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, 2013

Astren, “The Meaning of a Bibliography,” review of: Barry Dov Walfish and Mikhail Kizilov, Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism (Brill, 2011), in H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews (June, 2012), no. 2012–149.

Astren, review of: Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Cornell University Press, 2008) in The American Historical Review 115:3 (June, 2010), 919–920.

The American Historical Review, 2010

Astren, review of: Review of: David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton University Press, 2003) in Muslim World 97:2 (2007), 360–63.

The Muslim World, 2007

Astren, review of: Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Brill, 2004), in Speculum 81:3 (2006), 847–49.

Speculum, 2006

Umayyads, Early ʿAbbāsids, and Historical Periodization

by Fred Astren, Antoine Borrut, and Muriel Debié

Flyer for roundtable, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley

Navigating-Language-Program1.pdf

by Muriel Debié, Antoine Borrut, Alison M . Vacca, Fred Astren, and Judith A. Lerner

Marco Symposium, Knoxville, TN

Antoine Borrut, Manuela Ceballos, and Alison M. Vacca (eds.), Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024)

by Antoine Borrut, Fred Astren, and Robert Haug

TOC: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503603018-1 Traditional accounts of Arabicization ... more TOC: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503603018-1
Traditional accounts of Arabicization have often favoured linear narratives of language change instead of delving into the diversity of peoples, processes, and languages that informed the fate of Arabic in the early Islamic world. Using a wide range of case studies from the caliphal centres at Damascus and Baghdad to the provinces of Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, and Central Asia, Navigating Language reconsiders these prevailing narratives by analysing language change in different regions of the early Islamic world through the lens of multilingualism and language change. This volume complicates the story of Arabic by building on the work of scholars in Late Antiquity who have abundantly demonstrated the benefits of embracing multilingualism as a heuristic framework. The three main themes include imperial strategies of language use, the participation of local elites in the process of language change, and the encounters between languages on the page, in the markets, and at work. This volume brings together historians and art historians working on the interplay of Arabic and other languages during the early Islamic period to provide a critical resource and reference tool for students and scholars of the cultural and social history of language in the Near East and beyond.