Books in the Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization series

The comparative study of Persian historiography of the early modern Islamic empires, the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, presenting in-depth case analyses alongside a wide array of primary sources to illustrate the extensive universe of literary-historical writing that Persian historiography can be found within.

Demonstrating the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society through a study of the natural sciences in seventeenth-century Morocco, Revealed Sciences examines how the natural sciences flourished during this period, without developing in a similar way to the natural sciences in Europe. Offering an innovative analysis of the relationship between religious thought and the natural sciences, Justin K. Stearns shows how nineteenth and twentieth-century European and Middle Eastern scholars jointly developed a narrative of the decline of post-formative Islamic thought, including the fate of the natural sciences in the Muslim world. Challenging these depictions of the natural sciences in the Muslim world, Stearns uses numerous close readings of works in the natural sciences to a detailed overview of the place of the natural sciences in scholarly and educational landscapes of the Early Modern Magreb, and considers non-teleological possibilities for understanding a persistent engagement with the natural sciences in Early Modern Morocco.

In this major contribution to Muslim intellectual history, Andrew Hammond offers a vital reappraisal of the role of Late Ottoman Turkish scholars in shaping modern Islamic thought. Focusing on a poet, a sheikh and his deputy, Hammond re-evaluates the lives and legacies of three key figures who chose exile in Egypt as radical secular forces seized power in republican Turkey: Mehmed Akif, Mustafa Sabri and Zahid Kevseri. Examining a period when these scholars faced the dual challenge of non-conformist trends in Islam and Western science and philosophy, Hammond argues that these men, alongside Said Nursi who remained in Turkey, were the last bearers of the Ottoman Islamic tradition. Utilising both Arabic and Turkish sources, he transcends disciplinary conventions that divide histories along ethnic, linguistic and national lines, highlighting continuities across geographies and eras. Through this lens, Hammond is able to observe the long-neglected but lasting impact that these Late Ottoman thinkers had upon Turkish and Arab Islamist ideology.

From 1260 to 1323, the Mamluk state in Egypt and Syria was at war with the Ilkhanid Mongols based in Persia. This is a comprehensive study of the political and military aspects of the early years of the war, from the battle of 'Ayn Jalut in 1260 to the battle of Homs in 1281.

Analysing the spread and survival of Islamic legal ideas and commentaries in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean littorals, Islamic Law in Circulation focuses on ShafiE ism, one of the four Sunni schools of Islamic law. It explores how certain texts shaped, transformed and influenced the juridical thoughts and lives of a significant community over a millennium in and between Asia, Africa and Europe. By examining the processes of the spread of legal texts and their roles in society, as well as thinking about how Afrasian Muslims responded to these new arrivals of thoughts and texts, Mahmood Kooria weaves together a narrative with the textual descendants from places such as Damascus, Mecca, Cairo, Malabar, Java, Aceh and Zanzibar to tell a compelling story of how Islam contributed to the global history of law from the thirteenth to the twentieth century.

In Muslim Tradition G. H. A. Juynboll undertakes a broad-ranging review of the closely linked questions of date, authorship and origin of hadiths, i.e. the traditions of the prophet. Hadiths, which record the sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad, are central to Islamic teaching and beliefs and command a respect in the Islamic world second only to the Qur'an. The question of when, how and where particular hadiths came into existence is basic to the understanding of the formative period of Islam. This statement of a sceptical position, which can be visualized as located between, on the one hand, the orthodox Muslim view and, on the other, that of Western scholars, uses all the rich material available and explores the possibilities it opens up. The book faces major issues and reaches conclusions which may provide a basis for future debate in which, it is hoped, both Muslim and Western scholars will participate.

Revealing how an aesthetic of wonder underlies classical Arabic treatments of poetry, the Quran, and Aristotelian poetics, this fresh look at the question of literary quality, using the framework of aesthetic theory, is essential reading for scholars and students of Arabic literature, Islamic Studies, literary theory and Islamic art history.

The rulers of the premodern Islamic world employed vast numbers of non-Muslim officials. Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and others rose to positions of influence at the courts of Muslim caliphs and sultans. This book traces and analyzes how Muslims thought and wrote about these non-Muslim officials who helped to administer their governments.

In this pioneering research, Hassan S. Khalilieh sheds light on the often ignored Islamic law of the sea, and customary practices that were influential in the development of many of the fundamental principles of the pre-modern international law governing the legal status of the high seas and the territorial sea.

Bringing together previously unpublished sources in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, Peacock focuses on the period of Mongol domination in Anatolia in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries to offer new understanding of the process of Islamisation in Anatolia and integrate its study with that of the broader Islamic world.

Examines how ideological and administrative crises within Islamic lands in the late fifteenth century brought about a new conception of kingship for the early modern period. Through Idris Bidlisi, a major intellectual and statesman, this book paints a picture of a changing Ottoman Empire: shifting from regional dynastic kingdom to global empire.

Abu Ma'ali al-Juwayni (d. 478/1085) is a lauded figure in Islamic intellectual history but his thought remains underexplored. Living during a politically precarious period, he became preoccupied with questions of religious certainty and continuity. Siddiqui reveals the dynamism of his thinking on the relationship between theology, law and politics.

Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Carlson explores Christianity in fifteenth-century Iraq and opens new possibilities for understanding this religiously-diverse pre-industrial society and culture. This book expands the possibilities for global Christianity and shows that 'Islamic Civilization' can't be understood through Muslim sources alone.

This in-depth study of the slave trade that spurred the Russian conquest of Central Asia offers an unprecedented window into slaves' lives from eyewitness accounts, autobiographies, and newly-uncovered interviews which demonstrate that the slaves brought about their own emancipation by fomenting the largest slave uprising in the region's history.

This book explores the Christian provinces of Armenia and Caucasian Albania as caliphal provinces and part of the larger Iranian cultural sphere. It is aimed at historians of Islam, Iran and the Caucasus, and for those studying themes of memory, diversity and Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East.

Examining the Ibadi Muslims of North Africa, this book traces the history of Arabic texts to tell the story of how people and their networks build religious traditions. Combining the study of Arabic manuscripts with digital tools, it explains how this religious community created and maintained a tradition over nearly a millennium.

In this longitudinal history of Islamic child custody law, Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim challenges Euro-American exceptionalism and unveils developments akin to the Euro-American concept of the best interests of the child, enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Retelling the well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire, this book illuminates the pivotal roles that women played in politics, empire, and succession. As such, this is a key read for scholars of Mongol history, world history, and medieval women and gender, as well as for a general audience.

This book explores Ottoman intellectual life, politics and reform during the eighteenth century through the study of the key statesmen and historian Ahmed Vasif. It is for students and researchers of intellectual history, the Enlightenment period, the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.

The Second Formation of Islamic Law is the first book to deal with the rise of an official school of law in the Ottoman Empire and argues that some of the supposedly nineteenth-century developments, such as the codification of Islamic law, are rooted in much earlier centuries.

This book describes the emergence of Muslim scholarly communities from the origins of Islam until the mid-tenth century through the examination of early Muslim texts and discourse. It is for scholars and advanced students studying Middle Eastern history, Islamic studies, Islamic law and early Islamic literature.

By offering both an economic and legal analysis of legal practice in a sharia court in the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this book highlights how different gender, religious, and socioeconomic groups participated in legal practice and interacted with other groups.

Mimi Hanaoka offers an innovative interdisciplinary approach to the literary aspects of local histories from the Persianate world between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. She highlights the preoccupation with authority to rule and legitimacy within disparate regional, provincial, ethnic, sectarian, ideological, and professional communities.

Through a close examination of legal, historical, and theological sources, this book considers a largely neglected area of Islamic law, calling into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a divine legal tradition that has little room for discretion or doubt, particularly in Islamic criminal law.

This book reconstructs the role of midwives in medieval to early modern Islamic history through a careful reading of a wide range of classical and medieval Arabic sources. It takes a broad historical view of midwifery in the Middle East by examining the tensions between learned medicine (male) and popular, medico-religious practices (female) from early Islam into the Ottoman period.

This book is the first on the history of both physical and mental disabilities in the Middle East and North Africa. A sociocultural history, it seeks to explain how disabilities were understood and experienced in the Arab-Islamic context within the geographical area that includes present-day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel under Ottoman rule in the early modern period.

This is the first book-length study of the emergence of Medina, in modern Saudi Arabia, as an Islamic holy city, with a particular focus on the first three Islamic centuries (the seventh to ninth centuries CE).

Asma Sayeed's book traces the history of Muslim women's religious education over the course of nearly ten centuries. This fascinating history is relevant for anyone interested in the history of Muslim women as well as those seeking a fuller understanding of developments in Muslim educational and social history.