This laudable work offers a study, translation and partial edition of one of the most important early Mamluk sources and its author. In addition to the work's contribution to Mamluk history, it also makes a significant contribution towards the ultimate goal of having the key texts of early Mamluk historiography accessible to scholars. Volume II is an edition of the years 1297-1302 (697-701 AH) of al-Yūnīnī's Chronicle, collated with the extant fragments of al-Jazarī's (d. 1338) ḥawādith al-zamān.

This first in-depth scholarly study of the institution of ziyāra (visiting tombs), and its central role in the cult of Muslim saints in late medieval Egypt (1200-1500 A.D.), makes an original contribution to the social history of religion. It explores the range of meanings that saints held for the contemporary imagination through richly textured descriptions and analysis of the great cemetery of al-Qarāfa, the rituals of the ziyāra, and the entertaining stories told to pious visitors about the saints. It thus provides a vivid sense of this vital expression of...

This volume is a translation from Chaghatay (medieval Turkic literary language of Central Asia) of a work written by Uzbek historians Mūnis and Āgahī in the early 19th century. It contains the history of Khorezm, especially detailed for the 18th and early 19th centuries, and it is an outstanding example of Central Asian historiography. The book is the first Western translation of this historical work and the first such translation of a major Chaghatay source for the history of Central Asia in the 18th-19th centuries. Besides the translation, the book includes extensive...

This volume focuses on how legitimate leadership came to be defined in the formative period of Islam in terms of two key Qur'anic concepts: moral excellence (faḍl/faḍīla) and precedence (sābiqa). These two concepts undergirded a specific discourse on leadership which developed in the first century of Islam. This discourse is reconstructed through careful scrutiny of the manāqib literature in particular, which contains detailed accounts of the excellences attributed to the Rāshidūn caliphs. This book stresses that all early factions,...

This volume gives an in-depth account of the relations between the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria and the Armenian Kingdom, centred on Cilicia in southern Asia Minor, in the period after the collapse of the Crusader States. As well as diplomatic encounters, the work describes in detail, for example, the course of the Mamluk invasions of Cilicia, and the Armenian involvement with the Mongol invasions of Mamluk Syria.
The work is substantially based on sources written in Arabic in the Mamluk Sultanate. Using them in conjuction with more 'pro-Armenian' sources, it demonstrates the value...

Demonstrating the central role of third/ninth century ḥadīth scholars in the articulation of Sunnī Islam, this book bases its findings largely upon the analysis of multiple biographical dictionaries, such as al-Dhahabī's Tadhkirat al-ḥuffāẓ, Ibn Saʿd's Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, and collections of the critical comments of Ibn Maʿīn and Ibn Ḥanbal. Part I establishes conceptual and historical frameworks for the study of Sunnī ḥadīth scholarship. Part II examines in...

In 385 AH/AD 995 the Qāḍī 'Abd al-Jabbār, well known for his Mu'tazilī theological writings, wrote the Confirmation of the Proofs of Prophecy, a work that includes a creative polemic against Christianity. 'Abd al-Jabbār reinterprets the Bible, Church history (especially the lives of Paul and Constantine) and Christian practice to argue that Christians changed the Islamic religion of Jesus. The present work begins with an examination of the controversial theory that this polemic was borrowed from an unkown Judaeo-Christian group. The author argues that...

The Unveiling of Secrets (Kashf al-Asrār) is the visionary autobiography of one of the most significant mystics of twelfth-century Iran, Rūzbihān al-Baqlī (522/1128-606/1209). Written in Arabic, it describes the life of the author primarily as comprised of his mystical visions. Rūzbihān depicts himself in the unseen world (ʿālam al-ghayb) in the company of God, saints, prophets, and angels. His self-portrait in this manner communicates his special status with God. The sublime quality of these visions is well captured in the style of...

This collection of essays provides a timely reassessment of nineteenth-century Islamic art and architecture. The essays demonstrate that the arts of that era were vibrant and diverse, making ingenious use of native traditions and materials or adopting imported conventions and new technologies. However, traditionalists, revivalists and modernists all referred in one way or another to an Islamic heritage, whether to reinvent, revive or reject it. Beginning with an historical introduction and an assessment of changing attitudes towards the visual arts the following essays provide case studies of...

Although the early thirteenth century was a critical period in the development of Sufism, it has received little scholarly attention. Based on heretofore unexplored sources, this book examines a pivotal figure from this period: the scholar, mystic, statesman, and eponym of one of the earliest ṭarīqa lineages, ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī. In situating Suhrawardī's life work in its social, political, and religious contexts, this book suggests that his universalizing Sufi system was not only enmeshed within a broader economy of Muslim religious learning, but also...