PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION: "Humphreys brings a historian's deep and dispassionate perspective to the modern Middle East. In Between Memory and Desire, he poses incisive questions, elaborates convincing arguments and does not shy from tackling the prickliest of topics. All this is achieved with an eye for telling detail and a concise style that is rare in academic writing. . . . Humphreys's work is in the best tradition of writing on foreign cultures. Objective yet sympathetic, scholarly yet accessible, his book ends up revealing as much about our own society as about those it...
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION: "Humphreys brings a historian's deep and dispassionate perspective to the modern Middle East. In Between Memory and Desi...
This book will be immensely helpful to those who wish to orient themselves to what has become a very large body of literature on medieval Islamic history. Combining a bibliographic study with an inquiry into method, it opens with a survey of the principal reference tools available to historians of Islam and a systematic review of the sources they will confront. Problems of method are then examined in a series of chapters, each exploring a broad topic in the social and political history of the Middle East and North Africa between A.D. 600 and 1500. The topics selected represent a...
This book will be immensely helpful to those who wish to orient themselves to what has become a very large body of literature on medieval Islamic h...
In this beautifully realized study, Peter Schafer investigates the origins of a female manifestation of God in Jewish mysticism. The search itself is a fascinating exploration of the idea of a feminine divinity. And Schafer's surprising but persuasive conclusions yield deeper understanding of the complex but frequently intimate relationship between Christianity and Judaism--and of the development of religious concepts more generally.
Toward the end of the twelfth century, a small book titled the Bahir (Light) appeared in Provence. The first document of Judaism's emerging...
In this beautifully realized study, Peter Schafer investigates the origins of a female manifestation of God in Jewish mysticism. The search itself ...
In this accessible study, Stephen Humphreys introduces the most elusive of the early caliphs, Mu'awiya ibn abi Sufyan (602-680). Throughout history, some have accused him of being the first caliph to diverge from Muhammed's model of ideal Muslim leadership whilst others credit him with uniting an empire in disarray and transforming the Caliphate into a practicable form of government. In light of this, Humphreys critically analyses his sources, and seeks to get as close as possible to a historical account of the great man.
In this accessible study, Stephen Humphreys introduces the most elusive of the early caliphs, Mu'awiya ibn abi Sufyan (602-680). Throughout history, s...
Before the caliphate of the 'Uthman b. 'Affan, the Muslim community had grown from strength to strength in spite of a series of major crises--the Hirah, the death of the Prophet, the Riddah wars, the assassination of 'Umar by a Persian slave. But 'Uthman's reign ended in catastrophe. His inability to manage the social and political conflicts that were now emerging among various factions within the community led to his death at the hands of Muslim rebels. The consequences of this tragic event were bitter: not only a century of civil war, but also political and religious schisms of such depth...
Before the caliphate of the 'Uthman b. 'Affan, the Muslim community had grown from strength to strength in spite of a series of major crises--the Hira...
