A peer-reviewed, open access journal since 2015, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists defines
the medieval Middle East expansively to include all geographies with
prominent Muslim political, religious, or social presences between the
rough parameters of 500-1500 CE. We seek previously unpublished articles
featuring original research and analysis, including those that push the
boundaries of the medieval Middle East as defined above. We are open to
scholarship from any discipline or interdisciplinary formation and are
committed to balancing pieces addressing new or underrepresented areas
of inquiry with those contributing to more well-established fields.
We publish research articles on a rolling
basis, as they complete the review and production process, and we
welcome submissions at any time. In addition, we publish short critical
editions and translations, essays on pedagogy, conference reports, and
book reviews. Full issues of al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā are released
toward the end of each calendar year, usually in conjunction with the
annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association.
The open access publication of al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā is made possible by Middle East Medievalists (MEM), an international, non-profit association of scholars. To support the journal, please consider joining MEM or renewing your MEMbership today!
MEM Awards
Remarks by the Recipient of the 2024 MEM Lifetime Achievement Award
Given at the Annual Meeting of Middle East Medievalists (13 December 2024)
November 14, 2025
Research Articles
ibn khaddūn’s muqaddima and the maps of al-idrīsī
January 13, 2025
Tim Greenwood, Alasdair Grant, Kieran Hagan, Leone Pecorini Goodall, Lewis Read
A Neglected Armenian Source of the Late Umayyad Era
The Martyrdom of Vahan of Gołt‘n
January 15, 2025
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš: An Armenian Bishop as Pillar of the Aqquyunlu State?
Synchronisms in the Armenian and Aqquyunlu History of Diyarbakır, 1430–1450 CE
January 21, 2025
‘Masʾalatun or Mas’ʾalatun? That Is the Question!
The Implications of Traditional Persian Metrics for Classical Arabic Stress
July 10, 2025
Emotional Manipulation, Coercion, and Precarity in the Tales of Jamīl and Buthayna
July 17, 2025
The Tatars of the Sūdān
Race, Place, and Power in Ibn Saʿīd’s Geography
September 27, 2025
Selenocentrism and Heliocentrism in Early Modern Persianate Imperial Cultures: ʿAlī versus Jesus, with Hermes Presiding
A Harranian Essay in Astro-Decoloniality
October 29, 2025
Thematic Dossier
Jyoti Gulati Balachandran
Connections and Reflections
November 14, 2025
White Camphor and Peppercorn Hair
Blackness in Medieval Arabo-Asia
November 14, 2025
Transmitting and Receiving Caliphal Sovereignty Claims between the
Late Medieval Cairo Sultanate and the Sultanates of India
November 14, 2025
The “Lamp of Hind” in Cairo
How an Indian Jurist Became the Chief Hanafi Judge of the Mamluk Sultanate in the Fourteenth Century
November 14, 2025
The “Indian Ocean World” as a Research Framework
November 14, 2025
Roundtable
Roundtable on The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
November 14, 2025
November 14, 2025
November 14, 2025
Faith, Freedom, and Favors
November 14, 2025
November 14, 2025
November 14, 2025
The Natural and Supernatural on the Deck of a Dhow
November 14, 2025
Editions & Translations
Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Jāzim, Daniel Martin Varisco
A Book on the Management of Travel by a Yemeni Rasulid Sultan
November 14, 2025
Notes and Brief Communications
The Relative Lenience or Strictness of the Sunni Schools of Law
November 14, 2025
Pedagogy Files
The Multiplicity of Mosque Architecture in China
November 14, 2025
Conference Reports
Beyond the Jest-Earnest Binary in Classical Arabic Literature
November 14, 2025
Book Reviews
Review of Alillet,
November 14, 2025
Review of Thaver, Beyond Sectarianism
November 14, 2025
Review of Ibn Buṭlān, The Doctor’s Dinner Party
November 14, 2025
Review of Hollenberg and Asatryan, The Nusayri Path of Knowledge
November 14, 2025
Review of Muhammad, Sufis in Medieval Baghdad
November 14, 2025
Review of Brack, An Afterlife for the Khan
November 14, 2025
Review of Morimoto and Rizvi, Knowledge and Power in Muslim Societies
November 14, 2025
