Books in the Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture series

Transforming our understanding of Persian art, this impressive interdisciplinary book decodes some of the world's most exquisite medieval paintings.

In the 12th - 14th centuries, Sufism ('Islamic mysticism') became extraordinarily popular across Egypt. Elites and non-elites, rulers and ruled, the wealthy and the poor, even Jews, all embraced a variety of Sufi ideas and practices. This book is the first systematic investigation of how and why this popularisation occurred. It surveys several Sufi groups, from different regions of Egypt, and details how each of them promulgated, performed, and popularised their specific Sufi doctrines and practices. This popularisation would have a profound impact on the Egyptian religious landscape and on the subsequent history of Islam more broadly.

This book shows how political and administrative forces shaped the way justice was applied in medieval Egypt. It introduces the model that evolved during the 7th to the 9th centuries, which involved four judicial institutions: the cadi, the court of complaint (mazalim), the police/shurta (responsible for criminal justice) and the Islamized market law (hisba) administrated by the market supervisor/muhtasib. Literary and non-literary sources are used to highlight how these institutions worked in real-time situations such as the famine of 1024-1025, which posed tremendous challenges to the market supervisors in Cairo. The inner workings of the court of complaint during the 11th-12th century Fatimid state are revealed through array of documentary sources. Further, non-Muslim communities, their courts and their sphere of responsibilities are treated as integral to how justice was dispensed in medieval Islam. Documentary sources offers significant insights into these issues and illuminate the scope and limits of non-Muslims self-rule/judicial autonomy.In sum, the book shows that the administrative and political history of the judiciary in medieval Egypt implicitly and explicitly illuminates broader questions about religious and social forces that shaped the lives of medieval people in the Middle East, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The collected papers of one of the world's leading experts on medieval Islamic history Organised into 3 distinct volumes - on the Crusades, the Medieval Turks and Classical Islam - this collection represents several decades of scholarship. Islam and the Crusades showcases multiple perspectives, especially as viewed from the Muslim side. It explores the distinctive nature of Islamic jihad as expressed in poetry, sermons and inscriptions; the development of the counter-crusade; and the careers of major Muslim leaders including Zengi and Saladin. Key Features - Collects in one place 20 papers from a pre-eminent scholar in the field - Allows the reader to trace the evolution of thought over several decades - Includes many papers located in out-of-print or hard-to-find works - Includes a preface that outlines Professor Hillenbrand's interest in the Crusades over the course of her career, and an index of names, places and terms Carole Hillenbrand is Honorary Professorial Fellow, Professor Emerita at the University of Edinburgh and Professor of Islamic History at the University of St Andrews since 2013. In 2005 she became the first non-Muslim scholar to be awarded the prestigious King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies, reflecting her 'revolutionary approach to the largely one-sided subject of the Crusades'. Cover image: the now lost Nur al-Din minbar once in the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, c. 1168. Photograph by Mr Alastair Duncan and used with his kind permission. Cover design: www.paulsmithdesign.com. [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-8590-6 Barcode

Reassembles the books of a medieval Arabic library that are today dispersed around the world In the late medieval period, manuscripts galore circulated in Middle Eastern libraries. Yet very few book collections have come down to us as such or have left a documentary trail. This book discusses the largest private book collection of the pre-Ottoman Arabic Middle East for which we have both a paper trail and a surviving corpus of the manuscripts that once sat on its shelves: the Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī Library of Damascus. The book suggests that this library was part of the owner's symbolic strategy to monumentalise a vanishing world of scholarship bound to his life, family, quarter and home city. Key Features - Sets out a new approach to the study of Arabic book culture - Edits the most important Arabic medieval book list - Provides a new angle on the history of ḥadīth in the late-medieval period - Reconceptualises the mobility of endowed books - Reproduces the entire catalogue in colour Konrad Hirschler is Professor of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library; The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices and Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors.

From the shadow of the Kantian critique it to the Oxford debates over Darwinism that shook the discipline to the core, and from the death of God to the rise of new Evangelical movements, 19th-century theology was fundamentally reshaped by both internal struggles and external developments.

A radical re-interpretation of the nature of medieval Arabic love poetry in the classical age This book examines in detail the concept of the body in Arabic love poetry in the 'Udhri tradition. Avoiding familiar clichés about the purity of love in 'Udhri poetry - broadly speaking, an Arabic counterpart to the western medieval concept of unconsummated courtly love - it instead questions the traditional much-vaunted emphasis on chastity and the assumption that this poetry omits any concept of the body. Challenging this view, Jokha Alharthi re-appraises the relationship between love, poetry and Arab society in the 8th to 11th centuries. She focuses on the key differences between what the poetry itself says and the views of later sources about 'Udhri poets and their works. She also documents how the representation of the beloved in the 'Udhri ghazal was influenced by pre-Islamic poetry, showing how this tradition developed, with a series of overlapping historical layers. And she breaks new ground by examining how this poetry treats not only the body of the beloved but also that of her lover, the poet himself. Key Features  Challenges the stereotypical idea about the absence of the body in 'Udhri love poetry  Investigates the 'Udhri tradition through close readings of the classical 10th-century Arabic sources including anthologies such as the Kitab al-Aghani  Contributes to literary studies on the representations of the body  Includes close readings of difficult literary texts in classical Arabic including the work of 'Urwah b. Hizam, Majnun Layla, Qays b. Dharih, Jamil Buthaynah and Kuthayyir 'Azzah Jokha Alharthi is Associate Professor of Classical Arabic Literature at the Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat. She obtained her PhD in classical Arabic literature from the University of Edinburgh. She is the winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2019 for her novel Celestial Bodies (Sayyidat al-Qamar). To date, translation rights in the novel have been sold in 21 languages.

This book examines the life and work of Rashid al-Din Tabib (d. 1318), the most powerful statesman working for the Mongol Ilkhans in the Middle East.

Reassembles the books of a medieval Arabic library that are today dispersed around the worldIn the late medieval period, manuscripts galore circulated in Middle Eastern libraries. Yet very few book collections have come down to us as such or have left a documentary trail. This book discusses the largest private book collection of the pre-Ottoman Arabic Middle East for which we have both a paper trail and a surviving corpus of the manuscripts that once sat on its shelves: the Ibn ¿Abd al-Hadi Library of Damascus. The book suggests that this library was part of the owner's symbolic strategy to monumentalise a vanishing world of scholarship bound to his life, family, quarter and home city.Key Features. Sets out a new approach to the study of Arabic book culture . Edits the most important Arabic medieval book list. Provides a new angle on the history of ¿adith in the late-medieval period. Reconceptualises the mobility of endowed books . Reproduces the entire catalogue in colourKonrad Hirschler is Professor of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library; The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices and Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors.

Through a close, contextualized, and interdisciplinary reading in Hadith compilations, theological treatises, and historical sources, this book offers an evaluation and understanding of the traditionalistic endeavours to define anthropomorphism in the most crucial and indeed most formative period of Islamic thought.

'Chad Kia convincingly demonstrates the poetic richness and cultural depth of the late fifteenth-century paintings produced in the spiritually imbued intellectual and artistic atmosphere of the Herat elite. Written in rich language and with intellectual sharpness, this book is a pleasure to read.'Rachel Milstein, The Hebrew University, JerusalemTransforming our understanding of Persian art, this impressive interdisciplinary book decodes some of the world's most exquisite medieval paintings. It reveals the hidden meaning behind enigmatic figures and scenes that have puzzled modern scholars, focusing on five 'miniature' paintings. Chad Kia shows how the cryptic elements in these works of art from Timurid Persia conveyed the mystical teachings of Sufi poets like Rumi, Attar and Jami, and heralded one of the most significant events in the history of Islam: the takeover by the Safavids in 1501 and the conversion of Iran to Shiism.Key Features. Interprets celebrated but enigmatic paintings from collections in the Metropolitan Museum, the British Library and the Freer Gallery. Brings poetry and art together in a transformative reading of Persian illustrated manuscripts. Bridges art history, literature and religion to reconsider Shia and Safavid cultural and intellectual history. Connects Persian figural painting to the rise of the Safavids and Shiism in IranCHAD KIA has been a Smithsonian Fellow at the Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art in Washington DC, and has taught Persian and Arabic literatures and Islamic art and intellectual history at Harvard University and Brown University.Cover image: 'Majnun on Layla's Tomb' from Khamsa of Nizami, 1494 © The British Library Board, Or. 6810, f.144vCover design: www.paulsmithdesign.com[EUP logo]edinburghuniversitypress.comISBN 978-1-4744-5038-6

This book explores the impact of Greek (as well as Indian and Persian) medical heritage on the evolution of Arab medicine and pharmacology, investigating it from the perspective of materia medica - a reliable indication of the contribution of this medical legacy.