Tribute Payments to Non-Believers in Classical Islamic Law and Diplomacy - A talk by Michael Lower October 11, 2011

1210 Heller Hall - Organized by the Center for Medieval Studies

Michael Lower is a Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. He is a historian of medieval Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, focusing on Christian, Muslim, and Jewish interaction within and across these regions in the central and later middle ages. Among other works, Professor Lower is the author of The Barons' Crusade: A Call to Arms and Its Consequences (2005) and "Ibn al-Lihyani: sultan of Tunis and would-be Christian convert" (2009).

Professor Lower is currently working on a comparative history of Christian mercenaries in North Africa and Muslim mercenaries in Spain in the medieval and early modern periods, tentatively titled Fighting for the Enemy. He is particularly interested in the ease with which medieval mercenaries crossed the religious divide and carved out an established presence for themselves in their host societies, sometimes for centuries. Because medieval mercenary guards were a genuinely cross-cultural phenomenon, they open up rich possibilities for comparative study of trans-Mediterranean contact and assimilation based on Arabic and European-language sources.

Official Website: http://www.cmedst.umn.edu