The reigns of the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his successor al-Ma'mun have long been viewed as the golden age of the medieval Islamic caliphate. Yet how did chroniclers represent this crucial period? Tayeb El-Hibri's book applies a new literary-critical reading to the sources to demonstrate how medieval narrators devised various elusive ways of shedding light on controversial religious, political and social issues, while ostensibly presenting a history loyal to the 'Abbasid dynasty. This is an important book that represents a landmark in the field of early Islamic historiography.

This intellectual biography of Muhammad al-Shawkani, one of the founding fathers of modern Islamic reformism, is also a study of an important transitional period in Yemeni history which saw the shift from traditional Shi'ism to Sunni reformism. The transition propelled political, religious and social change. While Shawkani espoused a socio-religious order which echoed aspects of Western thinking, the book demonstrates that it was indigenous to Islamic thought. Shawkani's ideas remain vital to the intellectual debates happening in Islam today.

A wide-ranging study of the critical roles that women played in the history of the Mongol conquests and empire.

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).

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.

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.

The Sunni saint cult and shrine of Ahmad-i Jam has endured for 900 years. The shrine and its Sufi shaykhs secured patronage from Mongols, Kartids, Tamerlane, and Timurids. The cult and shrine-complex started sliding into decline when Iran's shahs took the Shiʿi path in 1501, but are today enjoying a renaissance under the (Shiʿi) Islamic Republic of Iran. The shrine's eclectic architectural ensemble has been renovated with private and public funds, and expertise from Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization. Two seminaries (madrasa) that teach Sunni curricula to males and females were added....

In 874 CE, the eleventh Imam died, and the Imami community splintered. The institutions of the Imamate were maintained by the dead Imam's agents, who asserted they were in contact with a hidden twelfth Imam. This was the beginning of 'Twelver' Shiʿism. Edmund Hayes provides an innovative approach to exploring early Shiʿism, moving beyond doctrinal history to provide an analysis of the socio-political processes leading to the canonisation of the Occultation of the twelfth Imam. Hayes shows how these agents cemented their authority by reproducing the physical signs of the Imamate, including...