askhistorians

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Early Islamic battles featured duelling champions, but what did the duel consist of and how was a champion picked? Was this for show, to the death, did it have any greater significance for the battle?	111
Women of the Abbasid family are known to have owned their own palaces. How did these women run households within the Islamic rules of female seclusion? Could a woman use her status and power to bend the rules?	108
There has been vocal American religious backlash to Harry Potter and other pieces of fiction that contain magic. Did previous works (like Disney, Lord of the Rings, Conan, Narnia) suffer backlash?	95
Did Hitler have plans to eventually turn on Imperial Japan, just as he did to The Soviet Union?	79
Iranian texts about Hell describe it as bitterly cold. European traditions have Hell being unbearably hot. Was this an intentional diversion or simply a regional influence?	78
Sharyn Eastaugh's History of the Crusades Podcast makes repeated mention of the intentional use of mass rape by the crusaders as an acceptable form of reward for military service. In the medieval christian world, to what extent was this considered normal and when did it become unacceptable? NSFW	69
Were there any significant Zoroastrian revivalist movements in Persia after its people largely converted to Islam?	62
Premodern European scholars dating back to Herodotus lumped many different steppe cultures together as simply Scythian. Did premodern Asian scholars have a more refined understanding of their various nomadic neighbors?	51
I'm a Persian woman in medieval urban Central Asia. What are my roles, expectations and limits? Can I move freely? How much skin be modestly exposed?	46
Classic texts such as the Ramayana, the Shahnameh and the Bible include mention of earthly creatures that we now know to be mythical. Was this simply an expected trope in semi-historical tales or did the audience believe these creatures to be real?	45

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