This book introduces an innovative approach to sustainable and regenerative mountain development. Transdisciplinary to biophysical and biocultural scales, it provides answers to the "what, when, how, why, and where" that researchers question on mountains, including the most challenging: So What! Forwarding thinking in its treatment of core subjects, this decolonial, non-hegemonic volume inaugurates the Series with contributions of seasoned montologists, and invites the reader to an engaging excursion to ascend the rugged topography of paradigms, with the scaffolding hike of ambitious curiosity typical of mountain explorers. Chapter 8 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book is the second volume in a series on montology dedicated to the transdisciplinary reflection of mountain research, considering the diversity of views on mountains and their problemata in the context of rapid technological development and unprecedented accumulation and dissemination of information around the world. The necessity for a new orderly and structured lexicon arose from the need to critically reassess the colonial past in the development of mountain territories, the development of a new and alternative understanding of mountain topics in the light of decolonized epistemology. The creation of coordinated and ordered terms for the main parts of mountain research creates the basis for an unorthodox understanding of the ontology of mountains and helps to better understand the complex cultural and natural essence of mountain socio-ecological systems. At the same time, a local episteme of mountains, considering local values, small scales, and vernacular visions are of particular importance, which must be taken into account in the current terminology. The purpose of the book is to provide methodological support for montology as a convergent and transdisciplinary science of mountains, based on the harmonization of its terminological base. The book pays special attention to onomastics, toponymy, standardization and other nuances of terms used in mountain research. According to this goal, three dozen articles in a relatively small format (about 3 pages) vividly, attractively and innovatively reflect the modern view of one or more related terms. Articles include definition(s) of the term, description of etymology, onomastics or toponymy used, examples of local characteristics compared to traditional sources, possible vernacular terms. Articles are grouped into four main areas: 1) Basic glossary of montology terminology, 2) Towards mountain socio-ecological systems, 3) Innovative disciplinary systemic realm, 4) Mountain classifications, onomastics, critical toponomy and rediscovery of meaning. The authors of the articles are leading experts in the field of mountain research from around the world. The book is intended for scientists, experts and teachers. It is provided with an annotated list of the most important montology terms.

In Pamirian Crossroads and Beyond Hermann Kreutzmann offers insights in his fieldwork-based research in High Asia during four decades. A human-geographical perspective is pursued in which case studies about colonial and post-colonial boundary-making, exchange relations of mountain communities across international borders, the transformation of agricultural and pastoral practices and the effects of modernisation strategies in neighbouring countries are centred in the Hindukush, Wakhan Quadrangle, Pamirian Crossroads, Karakoram Mountains and Himalaya. Empirical evidence is augmented by in-depth archival research, thus allowing a perspective from the 19th to the 21st century. By shifting the focus to mountain peripheries and emphasising spaces in between urban centres of power in Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the Central Asian Republics different arenas of confrontation and effective changes emerge.

This encyclopedic work on Islam comprises English translations of all canonical ḥadīths, complete with their respective chains of transmission (isnāds). By conflating the variant versions of the same ḥadīth, the repetitiveness of its literature has been kept wherever possible to a minimum. The latest methods of isnād analysis, described in the general introduction, have been employed in an attempt to identify the person(s) responsible for each ḥadīth. The book is organized in the alphabetical order of those persons. These are the so-called ‘common links’. Each of them is listed with the tradition(s) for the wording of which he can be held accountable, or with which he can at least be associated. Within each article, the traditions are referred to in bold figures in the numerical order as they were distilled from the more than 19,000 isnāds listed in Tuḥfat al-ashrāf bi maʿrifat al-aṭrāf by the Syrian ḥadīth scholar Yusuf b. ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341). Medieval commentaries as well as assorted biographical lexicons were drawn upon to illustrate the text of each tradition in all theological, social, legal and other noteworthy aspects discernible in it. Thus no details of eschatology, superstitions, miraculous phenomena, Jahili practices etc. were left without the clarifying comments of contemporary and later theologians, historians and ḥadīth experts culled from such works as the Fatḥ al-bārī, a major commentary of Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1448) or the commentary by Yaḥya b. Sharaf an-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) of the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj. The encyclopedia concludes with an exhaustive index and glossary of names and concepts, which functions at the same time as a concordance. In short, this work presents an indispensable sourcebook of the development of Islam in all its facets during the first three centuries since its foundation as reflected in canonical ḥadīth.

Our attitude to nature has changed over time. This book explores the historical, literary and philosophical origins of the changes in our attitude to nature that allowed environmental catastrophes to happen. It presents a philosophical reflection on human societies’ attitude to the environment, informed by the history of the concept of landscape and the role played by the concept of nature in the human imagination and features a wealth of examples from around the world to help understand the contemporary environmental crisis in the context of both the built and natural environment. Thinking Through Landscape locates the start of this change in human labour and urban elites being cut off from nature. Nature became an imaginary construct masking our real interaction with the natural world. The book argues that this gave rise to a theoretical and literary appreciation of landscape at the expense of an effective practical engagement with nature. It draws on Heideggerian ontology and Veblen’s sociology, providing a powerful distinction between two attitudes to landscape: the tacit knowledge of earlier peoples engaged in creating the landscape through their work - "landscaping thought"- and the explicit theoretical and aesthetic attitudes of modern city dwellers who love nature while belonging to a civilization that destroys the landscape - "landscape thinking". This book gives a critical survey of landscape thought and theory for students, researchers and anyone interested in human societies’ relation to nature in the fields of landscape studies, environmental philosophy, cultural geography and environmental history.