Medieval Riverlogues & Riverine Liminalities

Collaborators: Manu P. Sobti, Sahar Hosseini, Kate Malaia, Benjamin B. Schaefer & KInghi Thao

Positioned within the context of the Arab invasions on Central Asia, this research examines medieval borderlands that witnessed passage, journey and abandonment along the Oxus or Amu Darya - the region’s most significant river. Through the course of these invasions, and within the river’s critical role as a liminal zone between two distinct cultural realms - the Arab versus the Persian - the Amu Darya served as the selectively permeable, border/boundary condition for the Arab armies moving across the region of Khorasan. They forded the river at two crossing points along its length, both of which have retained this significant role through time. In revisiting these crossing points, we lend voice to the river’s tumultuous history and to the seemingly ‘inconsequential’ cultural landscape on its banks, re-formulating its engaging role as the only geographic truism in Eurasia, and in marked contrast to the region’s arbitrary Soviet era, state boundaries. Our research archive and fieldwork combine interpretations of critical Arab and Persian texts that document these ‘journeys’, alongside introspective fieldwork, and a plethora of re-drawn maps and animations. Besides the story of this riverine journey - its many trials and tribulations - we also highlight the destinations cities for the moving hordes. How cultural indigeneity is transmitted across geographical space is perhaps as important as the contestations that these migrations encouraged upon arrival of these contingents across this legendary river.