Edited by Intisar Rabb, Ph.D. 2009.

"The papers in this volume largely arise out of proceedings from a conference organized in honor of Professor Roy Mottahedeh upon the occasion of his retirement."

This book presents an in…

Intisar A. Rabb, Ph.D. 2009.

This book considers an important and largely neglected area of Islamic law by exploring how medieval Muslim jurists resolved criminal cases that could not be proven beyond a doubt. Intisar A. Rabb calls into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a…

High rates of divorce, often taken to be a modern and western phenomenon, were also typical of medieval Islamic societies. By pitting these high rates of divorce against the Islamic ideal of marriage,Yossef Rapoport radically challenges usual assumptions about the legal inferiority of Muslim women and their economic dependence on men. He argues…

Yossef Rapoport, Ph.D. 2002.

About a millennium ago, in Cairo, an unknown author completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features, and inhabitants. This treatise, known as

Yossef Rapoport, Ph.D. 2002.

Richly annotated and with a detailed introduction, this volume offers the first academic edition and translation of a first-hand account of the Egyptian countryside, offering a key insight into the rural economy of medieval Islam.

Medieval Islamic society was overwhelmingly a society of peasants,…

Yossef Rapoprt, Ph.D. 2002.

Spanning the Islamic world, from ninth-century Baghdad to nineteenth-century Iran, this book tells the story of Islamic cartography and the key Muslim map-makers who shaped the art over the centuries. Muslim geographers like al-Khwārazmī and al-Idrīsī developed distinctive styles, often based on geometrical…

Yossef, Rapoport, Ph.D. 2002.

Winner of the 2019 Middle East Medievalists biennial Book Prize, which recognizes significant contributions to the study of the medieval Middle East. Authors must be current members in good standing of Middle East Medievalists to be considered. 

This study of a unique and unparalleled thirteenth…

Edited by Michael A. Reynolds, Ph.D. 2003.

"The Caucasus has fascinated humanity for millennia. A natural crossroads and perpetual borderland, the Caucasus has often been described as the meeting place of East and West, Europe and Asia, Christendom and Islam. The Caucasus Mountains are home to a bewildering diversity of languages and…

Kristina Richardson, Certificate in Near Eastern Studies 2003.

In Middle Eastern cities as early as the mid-8th century, the Sons of Sasan begged, trained animals, sold medicinal plants and potions, and told fortunes. They captivated the imagination of Arab writers and playwrights,…

"Did you know that blue eyes, baldness, bad breath and boils were all considered bodily 'blights' by Medieval Arabs, as were cross eyes, lameness and deafness? What…

Translated by Victoria Rowe Holbrook, Ph.D. 1985.

Rumi’s six-volume Masnavi is recognized as a classic of the mystical epic, which employs narratives in verse form to convey the terms of spiritual experience. Due to its complexity and the layers of symbolism, the Masnavi has typically been read through the medium of a commentary.

Aaron Rock-Singer, Ph.D. 2015

Following the ideological disappointment of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, an Islamic revival arose in Egypt. Yet, far from a mechanical reaction to the decline of secular nationalism, this religious shift was the product of impassioned competition among Muslim Brothers, Salafis and state institutions and…

Aaron Rock-Singer, Ph.D. 2015

Salafis explicitly base their legitimacy on continuity with the Quran and the Sunna, and their distinctive practices—praying in shoes, wearing long beards and short pants, and observing gender segregation—are understood to have a similarly ancient pedigree. In this book, however, Aaron Rock-Singer draws…

  Olivier Roy combines intimate…

“In a book with a bold new view of medieval Jewish history, written in a style accessible to nonspecialists and students as well as to scholars in the field, Marina Rustow changes our understanding of the origins and nature of heresy itself. Scholars have long believed that the Rabbanites and Qaraites, the two major Jewish groups under Islamic…

Editors: Arnold E. Franklin, Ph.D. 2001; Roxani Eleni Margariti, Ph.D. 2002; Uriel Simonsohn, Ph.D. 2008; and Marina Rustow, Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East.

"This volume brings together articles on the cultural, religious, social and commercial interactions among Jews, Christians and Muslims in…

Winner of the 2022 Haskins Medal awarded by The Medieval Academy of America.

The lost archive of the Fatimid caliphate (909–1171) survived in an unexpected place: the storage room, or geniza, of a synagogue in Cairo, recycled as scrap paper and deposited there by…