David S. Powers, Ph.D. 1979
The Islamic claim to supersede Judaism and Christianity is embodied in the theological assertion that the office of prophecy is hereditary but that the line of descent ends with Muhammad, who is the seal, or last, of the prophets.
While Muhammad had no natural sons who reached the age of maturity,…
Co-editor Edmund Burke, III, Ph.D. 1970.
Since around 1500 C.E., humans have shaped the global environment in ways that were previously unimaginable. Bringing together leading environmental historians and world historians, this book offers an overview of global environmental history throughout this remarkable 500-year period. In…
Co-editor Vassilios Christides, Ph.D. 1970.
Table of Contents
Preliminary note / V. Christides Across the history L'Afrique dans les Ethnika de Stéphane de Byzance / Jehan Desanges Arabs, Turks and Chinese in central Asia during the first third of the 8th century, under the light of the Turkic Orkhon…
Although scholars have begun to revise the traditional view that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked a decline in the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, Baki Tezcan’s book proposes a radical new approach to this period. While he concurs that decline did take place in certain areas, he constructs a new framework by foregrounding the…
John H. Lorentz, Ph.D. 1974.
Iran is a country with a deep and complex history. Over several thousand years, Iran has been the source of numerous creative contributions to the spiritual and literary world, and the site of many remarkable manifestations of material culture. The…
A documentary by Brigid Maher; [Tiny Leaps Productions & School of Communication at American University present]; produced and directed by Brigid Maher; co-produced [and written] by Karen Bauer].
"Women across the Middle East are trying to reclaim their role as leaders in Islam. Veiled voices goes in-depth into the world of three…
In the Middle Ages, a varied and vibrant Islamic culture flourished in all its aspects, from religious institutions to legal and scientific endeavors. Lassner, Reisman, and Bonner detail how all three montheist traditions are linked to the same sacred history. They trace the most current scholarship on the Arabian background to Islam, the…
Since 2007, five volumes of the collection of Modarressi's early (pre-1979) Persian articles have been published. These include volumes entitled Ijtima'iyat, Qummiyat, Sanadiyat, Kitabiyat, and Tarikhiyat. Having access to these reprints is most welcome given the fact that most of the articles…
The Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World covers an area of Jewish history, religion, and culture which until now has lacked its own cohesive, discrete reference work. The Encyclopedia fills the gap in academic reference literature on the Jews of Muslim lands particularly in the late medieval, early modern and modern periods.
…
Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.
The origins of Islam have been the subject of increasing controversy in recent years. The traditional view, which presents Islam as a self-consciously distinct religion tied to the life and revelations of the prophet…
Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) is one of the most controversial thinkers in Islamic history. Today he is revered by what is called the Wahhabi movement and championed by Salafi groups who demand a return to the pristine golden…
Co-authored by Barbara Sude, Ph.D. 1975.
This monograph analyzes the finances of the militant group al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar province during 2005 and 2006, at the peak of the group's power and influence. The authors draw on captured documents that give details on the daily…
Co-authored by Barbara Sude, Ph.D. 1975.
This monograph analyzes the finances of the militant group al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar province during 2005 and 2006, at the peak of the group's power and influence. The authors draw on captured documents that give details on the daily…
In Violent Modernity: France in Algeria, Abdelmajid Hannoum examines the advent of political modernity in Algeria and shows how colonial modernity was not only a project imposed by violence but also a violent project in and of itself, involving massive destruction and significant transformation of the population of Algeria. The author…
For four decades Abraham L. Udovitch has been a leading scholar of the medieval Islamic world, its economic institutions, social structures, and legal theory and practice. In pursuing his quest to understand and explain the complex phenomena that these broad rubrics entail, he has published widely, collaborated internationally with other…
Aḥmad Ṭāhir Ḥasanayn, Ph.D. 1977.
Rifa‘at Abou-El-Haj (Ph.D., Princeton, 1963) started teaching at California State University, Long Beach, in 1964, and moved to the State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton, in 1992. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, as well as two books, The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics (1984;…
Translated with an introduction & notes by Eric L. Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981
The Book of Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment is the thirty-sixth chapter of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious Sciences. This was the first treatise which established not merely the possibility but the necessity for the love…
Co-editor Abderrahmane El Moudden, Ph.D. 1992
Food is a marker of identity, culture, and class, and it denotes power, routine, leisure, and celebration. Despite its importance to every aspect of historical research, this topic has not been sufficiently explored in Ottoman history. This volume places the study of food in the mainstream of Ottoman history by analizing major issues--origins,…
The volume contains highly original articles on Islamic history, law, and thought, each either proposing new hypotheses or readjusting existing ones. The contributions range from studies in the formulation of the pre-Islamic Arabian calendar to notes on the "blood-money group" in Islamic law, and to transformations in Arabic logic in the post…
Edited by Ehud R. Toledano, Ph.D. 1979
The undeniable presence of the past and its cultural vestiges in the daily lives of displaced populations has been a noticeable feature of diasporas across the globe. The world of spirits and the…
Aḥmad Ṭāhir Ḥasanayn, Ph.D. 1977
This classic learning aid, popular with teachers and students alike, has now been fully revised and substantially expanded for a complete new edition. With a fully vocalized Arabic text in clear, legible type, this invaluable lexicon now contains more than 3,500 Arabic verbs from 1,450 verb roots…
This volume is an annotated edition of a 9th/15th-century literary anthology of Persian poetry on the affection and love for the House of Prophet Muhammad in pre-Safavid Iran. The book is edited on the basis of a unique manuscript dated 849/1445. It contains 81 panegyrics in praise of the Prophet Muhammad and his House, many by poets who are…
Much traditional historiography consciously and unconsciously glosses over certain discourses, narratives, and practices. This book examines silences or omissions in Middle Eastern history at the turn of the twenty-first century, to give a fuller account of the society, culture and politics.
With a particular focus on the Ottoman…
Arabic and Persian panegyric poetry was one of the most important genres of literature in the medieval Middle East and Central Asia. Jocelyn Sharlet argues that panegyric poetry is important not only because it provides a commentary on society and culture in the medieval Middle East, but also because panegyric writing was one of the key means…
"In A Common Justice Uriel I. Simonsohn examines the legislative response of Christian and Jewish religious elites to the problem posed by the appeal of their coreligionists to judicial authorities outside their communities. Focusing on the late seventh to early eleventh centuries in the region between Iraq in the east and present-day…
For some historians, medieval Iberian society was one marked by peaceful coexistence and cross-cultural fertilization; others have sketched a harsher picture of Muslims and Christians engaged in an ongoing contest for political, religious, and economic advantage culminating in the fall of Muslim…
Eric L. Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981
Fine Incisions is a collection of twenty-four gracious, intelligent and occasionally fractious essays, wide-ranging in their interests and rigorous in their analyses. Ormsby’s reverence for language is luminously clear as he examines his international travels, the work of James Merrill, the state of…
David S. Powers, Ph.D. 1979
The first eleven essays in this collection treat the application of Islamic law in qadi courts in the Maghrib in the period between 1100 and 1500 CE. Based on preserved legal documents and the expert opinions of Muslim jurists (Muftis), the essays examine family law cases involving legal minority,…
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Ottoman state identified multiple threats in its eastern regions. In an attempt to control remote Kurdish populations, Ottoman authorities organized them into a tribal militia and gave them the task of subduing a perceived Armenian threat. Following the story of this militia, Klein explores the…
One hundred years after the deportations and mass murder of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other peoples in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, the history of the Armenian genocide is a victim of historical distortion, state-sponsored falsification, and deep divisions between Armenians and Turks. Working together for the first time,…
Translated with notes by Asad Q. Ahmed, Ph.D. 2007.
This book offers for the first time a complete scholarly translation, commentary, and glossary in a modern European language of the logic section of Ibn Sina's (d. 1037 CE) very important compendium al-Najat (The Deliverance). The original, written in Arabic, is the product…
"After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants: freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsical fourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of American pop culture. Enchanted by Layla's stories and…
İ. Metin Kunt, Ph.D. 1970
In recent decades the history of premodern states and empires has undergone major revision. At the heart of this process stood the court, encompassing the household as well as government institutions. This volume for…
The Sunnī-Shi'a schism is often framed as a dispute over the identity of the successor to Muhammad. In reality, however, this fracture only materialized a century later in the important southern Iraqi city of Kūfa (present-day Najaf). This book explores the birth and development of Shī'i identity. Through a critical analysis of legal texts,…
This volume contains case studies that examine how medieval cultures (western European, Arab/Islamic and Jewish) adopted ideas from the past and from each other in fields such as philosophy, literature, religion, and medicine.
In this volume the McGill University Research Group on Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in…
"Politik und Religion ist wieder Thema wissenschaftlicher Agenda. Mit dem Zuwachs an Diskursen geht auch deren Ausdifferenzierung einher. Ein Teilbereich dieser Auseinandersetzungen beinhaltet die Analyse des Verhältnisses von Demokratie und Religion. Dieser Sammelband untersucht diesbezüglich drei Loslösungsprozesse und verfolgt zum einen die…
This volume presents articles on the topics of biography and autobiography in a range of sources produced within Iran and the larger Persianate world. In the context of a growing scholarly literature devoted to these subjects, especially in the Arabic literary tradition, the volume presents studies that explore still neglected areas, including…
Infectious Ideas is a comparative analysis of how Muslim and Christian scholars explained the transmission of disease in the premodern Mediterranean world.
How did religious communities respond to and make sense of epidemic disease? To…