Author: Brynn Boyer

On Sunday, July 1, Nabil Al-Tikriti delivered a paper entitled “Grim Advice, Bold Solutions: Idris-i Bitlisi’s 1513 Treatise on the Caliphate and Sultanic Protocols” to the 20th annual CIÉPO [Comité International des Études Pré-Ottomanes et Ottomanes] Conference in Rethymno, Crete, Greece.  The abstract of the paper was as follows:

“Following the intensely chaotic violence of the 1511-13 Şahkulu rebellion and fraternal succession struggle, a wholesale changing of the palace guard ensued. In the course of this transition, several imperial elites applied for court employment and patronage via submissions of poetry, advice treatises, and other forms of cultured knowledge production. While the historical narratives commonly known as Selim-nāmes have attracted a modicum of scholarly attention, treatises submitted at the very beginning of Selim’s reign remain largely unknown. Three examples of such submissions include the anonymous 1512 Risala fi Sharh Qasida Julus Sultan Selim Khan, Idris-i Bitlisi’s 1513 Risala fi al-Khilafa wa Adab al-Salatin, and Shams al-Din Jahrami’s 1514 Risala Siyasiyya Bara-yi Sultan Selim.

In this paper, I shall summarize, analyze, and contextualize the second of the aforementioned three works, the nearly forgotten treatise presented by Idris-i Bitlisi (d. 1520) to “Yavuz” Sultan Selim (d. 1520) in February 1513. In order to place this submission within its immediate context, I shall also detail Idris-i Bitlisi’s biography during the chaotic transition years and briefly summarize the contents of the other two aforementioned treatises. While each of these authors presumably had self-aggrandizing motivations for their respective submissions, the arguments which they put forth in support of Selim’s rule and reign should provide nuanced views of the political theories and public arguments mobilized to support the new Ottoman ruler during a sensitive and divisive period of social upheaval.”

Drema Khraibani of Woodbridge, Va., has been named the 2012-2013 recipient of the University of Mary Washington’s Citizenship Award for Diversity Leadership.

The annual award is given to a rising senior enrolled as a full-time student in an undergraduate degree program at UMW. The student must possess characteristics of leadership and a personal commitment to advocating an appreciation for diversity and inclusion on campus.

As the award recipient, Khraibani will serve as an active spokesperson for diversity inclusion, a peer mentor to students and a voice for underrepresented populations, while maintaining high academic standards.

Khraibani, an environmental science and secondary education double major, is a student representative for the President’s Council on Sustainability, the Fredericksburg Forum and the RISE Peer Mentor Program. She is a member and past president of the Islamic Student Association and is an active member of Kappa Delta Pi, an education honor society. Khraibani, daughter of Mohamed Khraibani of Lorton and Donna Bailey of Woodbridge, is a 2009 graduate of Freedom High School.