Investigates how women, religion and culture have interacted in the context of 19th and 20th century Iran, covering topics as seemingly diverse as the social and cultural history of Persian cuisine, the work and attitudes of 19th century Christian missionaries, the impact of growing female literacy, and the consequences of developments since 1979.

Muslims in India today are responding to the challenge of religious pluralism in a variety of ways. This book explores the attempts being made by scholar-activists and Muslim organisations to develop new understandings of Islam to relate to people of other faiths and to the modern nation-state, and to deal with issues such as democracy and secularism. It examines how a common predicament, characterised by a sense of siege and the perception of being an oppressed minority, is producing new expressions of Islam, some of which seek to relate to non-Muslims in terms of confrontation, and others...

This famous work from the Royal Asiatic Society is an indispensable tool for all serious students of Persian literature, history and culture, and a welcome companion to Persian literature in its most glorious period. This volume is the second, revised edition of three parts published in 1992 and 1994.

This is the original History of the Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain reprinted from the first edition of 1840-43. A masterpiece of typography in its own right, it is an early, ingenious and fascinating history of Muslim Spain. One hundred and fifty years on, it represents the foundations of our modern understanding of a great civilisation, and a fresh and vibrant introduction to the history of the time.

The tea ceremony and the martial arts are intimately linked in the popular and historical imagination with Zen Buddhism, and Japanese culture. They are commonly interpreted as religio-aesthetic pursuits which express core spiritual values through bodily gesture and the creation of highly valued objects. Ideally, the experience of practising the Zen arts culminates in enlightenment.
This book challenges that long-held view and proposes that the Zen arts should be understood as part of a literary and visual history of representing Japanese culture through the arts. Cox argues that these...

This book investigates how the material culture of South Indian courts was perceived by those who lived there in the pre-colonial period. Howes peels away the standard categories used to study Indian palace space, such as public/private and male/female, and replaces them with indigenous descriptions of space found in court poetry, vastu shastra and painted representations of courtly life. Set against the historical background of the events which led to the formation of the Ramnad Kingdom, the Kingdom's material circumstances are examined, beginning with the innermost region of the palace and...

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Brian Hodgson lived in Nepal from 1820 to 1843 during which time he wrote and published extensively on Nepalese culture, religion, natural history, architecture, ethnography and linguistics. Specialist contributors critically examine Hodgson's life and his achievements.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.