This is the first modern, annotated translation of the Christian chronicles of Georgia, adapted by the Armenians in the thirteenth century. An important source for writers on Armenia after 1200, the chronicles deal with the history of Georgia from its mythical origins to the time of their composition--and are of particular interest to the historian for the way that they were then altered in a pro-Armenian manner.

Classical Arab civilization produced the most extensive and highly developed bacchic tradition in world literature, In this book, Kennedy traces the history of wine poetry from its origins in sixth century Arabia to its heyday in Baghdad at the turn of the ninth century. He focusses on the work of the great Ab? Nuw=as (d. c.813), placing his wine songs in context with those of his contemporaries and with other poetic genres such as amatory, invective, ascetic, and gnomic verse.

The tension between tradition and reform in the Arab world is one of the most urgent and problematic issues of today. The Sufis of Egypt are one of the most important sects in the Islamic world. Using material recorded at Sufi gatherings over the last five years, this book presents a contemporary, balanced study of their attempts to reform Sufism from within and maintain its traditions in defence of hostile criticism.

This accessible study is the first critical investigation of the cult of saints among Muslims and Jews in medieval Syria and the Near East. Through case studies of saints and their devotees, discussion of the architecture of monuments, examination of devotional objects, and analysis of ideas of "holiness," Meri depicts the practices of living religion and explores the common heritage of these two faiths.

The tale of a devout Buddhist girl who separates from her family and through suffering and death finally achieves divine status is a myth of religious celibacy, of filial piety, and of ritual salvation of the dead. It also presents a major symbol of the tension in women's lives between individual spiritual fulfillment and the imperatives of family duty. This is a new edition of the first full study of this important and influential Chinese legend.

In third-century CE Palestine, the leading member of the rabbinic movement put together a highly popular wisdom treatise entitled Tractate Avot. Though Avot has inspired hundreds of commentaries, this book marks the first comprehensive effort to situate Avot within the socio-political and intellectual context of the Graeco-Roman Near East. Probing comparable Jewish, Greek, Roman and Christian sources, Amram Tropper interprets Avot in light of the local Jewish context as well as the ambient cultural atmosphere of the contemporary Near East.

This book examines religious transformation in South Asia in the 19th century, perhaps the most important period of religious change in the history of the region. By looking at some outstanding individuals from different religions the book sheds light on the questions that lie at the heart of later nationalist discourse: Who is a Hindu? Who is a Buddhist? What is the relationship between the religious communities of South Asia?

The epistle ascribed to Salim Ibn Dhakwan is a tract against 'wrong' doctrines regarding the classification and treatment of opponents. Written by an Ibadi before AD 800 and taking issue with both Kharijite extremists and Murji'ites, it was brought to the attention of Western Islamicists in the early 1970s by Amr Khalifa Ennami, and is here edited, translated, and discussed in full for the first time.
The early centuries of Islamic religious thought have become a dynamic field in the last few years, and there is renewed interest in the attempt to use the early literature of the Muslim...

The anecdotal literature of late-medieval China is not unknown, but it is under-used. Glen Dudbridge explores two collections of anecdotal memoirs to construct an intimate portrait of the first half of the tenth century as seen by people who lived through it. The author Wang Renyu's adult life coincided closely with that period, and his memoirs, though not directly transmitted, can be largely recovered from encyclopaedia quotations. His experience led from early life on the north-west border with Tibet, through service with the kingdom of Shu, to a mainstream career under four successive...

Printed editions of midrashim, rabbinic expositions of the Bible, flooded the market for Hebrew books in the sixteenth century. First published by Iberian immigrants to the Ottoman Empire, they were later reprinted in large numbers at the famous Hebrew presses of Venice. This study seeks to shed light on who read these new books and how they did so by turning to the many commentaries on midrash written during the sixteenth century. These innovative works reveal how their authors studied rabbinic Bible interpretation and how they anticipated their readers would do so. Benjamin WIlliams focuses...