<i>The Pyropolitics of Sacred Kingship</i> : Fireworks and the Performance of Messianic Sovereignty in the Early Modern Mediterranean
Journal: Comparative Studies in Society and History
Year: 2026

Abstract What made a sovereign, and a messianic one at that? Such questions were repeatedly posed in the sixteenth century, when vigorous new imperialisms compelled the articulation of grand visions of universal rule across Eurasia. In the Islamic world, now bereft of a living Abbasid caliph to serve as a touchstone of sovereignty and ruled by Turkic dynasties seeking to emulate Mongol and Timurid patterns of sacred kingship, the answers to these questions were articulated in ad hoc and heterodo