Edited by Samer Traboulsi, Ph.D. 2005.
The Ikhwan al-Safa' (Brethren of Purity), the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity based in Basra and Baghdad, hold an eminent position in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia, the Rasa …
Peter Poullada, B.A. 1975.
In the mid-eighteenth century the Russian tsar sent two expeditions across the Caspian Sea in response to an extraordinary plea for assistance from the recently subjugated Kalmyk Khan. The official journals of these expeditions, here translated into English for the first time, record the encounters of…
Much of what we know about life in the medieval Islamic Middle East comes from texts written to impart religious ideals or to chronicle the movements of great men. How did women participate in the societies these texts describe? What about non-Muslims, whose own religious traditions descended partly from pre-Islamic late antiquity?
…
Leslie Peirce, Ph.D. 1988.
In Empress of the East, historian Leslie Peirce tells the remarkable story of a Christian slave girl, Roxelana, who was abducted by slave traders from her Ruthenian homeland and brought to the harem of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in…
Edited by Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad, Ph.D. 2000.
The Universal Science (ʿIlm-i kullī) by Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī, is a concise, but authoritative, outline of the fundamental discussions in Islamic…
Orit Baskin, Ph.D. 2005.
Co-Winner of the 2018 Nikki Keddie Book Award, sponsored by the Middle East Studies Association.
Between 1949 and 1951, 123,000 Iraqi Jews immigrated to the newly established Israeli state. Lacking the resources to absorb them all, the Israeli government resettled them in maabarot, or…
Special Issue title: Insularity in the Ottoman World
Guest editor: Antonis Hadjikyriacou
Islands have no single obvious attribute, geographic or otherwise. Insularity, then, should not be taken literally, i.e. isolation. Rather, it addresses the question of what it means to be, and be perceived as,…
Translation by Victoria Rowe Holbrook, Ph.D. 1985
This visual tour of every one of Le Corbusier's buildings across the world represents the most comprehensive photographic archive of the architect's work. In 2010, photographer Cemal Emden set out to document every building designed by the master architect Le Corbusier. Traveling…
This volume has its origins in a conference held at the UCLA G. E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies in October 2013 and brings together scholars from various disciplines and fields to consider Islamic revelation, with particular focus on the Qur'an. The collection provides a wide-ranging survey of the development and current state…
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…
Amit Bein, Ph.D. 2006.
To better understand the lasting legacy of international relations in the post-Ottoman Middle East, we must first re-examine Turkey's engagement with the region during the interwar period. Long assumed to be a period of deliberate disengagement and ruptured ties between Turkey and its neighbours, Amit Bein…
Edited by Petra Sijpesteijn, Ph.D. 2004.
This volume is a tribute to the work of legal and social historian and Arabist Rudolph Peters (University of Amsterdam). Presenting case studies from…
Ruth Miller, Ph.D. 2003.
Proposes a new feminist theory of nonhuman biopolitics. Argues that gender and sexuality are essential in understanding nostalgia as a political force. Reconceptualizes the politics of reproduction. Decenters the brain as the sole site of political thought.Biopolitics and posthumanism have been passé…
Co-translated by Mona Zaki, Ph.D. 2015.
Longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award for poetry.
The Operating System is honored to publish the first Arabic-English full translation of Ashraf Fayadh's singular volume of poetry, INSTRUCTIONS WITHIN, which was published by the Beirut- based Dar al-Farabi in 2008 and later…
Co-translated by Mona Zaki, Ph.D. 2015.
Longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award for poetry.
The Operating System is honored to publish the first Arabic-English full translation of Ashraf Fayadh's singular volume of poetry, INSTRUCTIONS WITHIN, which was published by the Beirut- based Dar al-Farabi in 2008 and later…
Co-edited by Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.
The papers in this first volume of the new Oriental Institute series LAMINE are derived from a conference entitled “Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians in the Umayyad State,” held at the University of Chicago on June 17–18,…
Edited by Robert Wisnovsky, Ph.D. 1994.
Understanding how medieval textual cultures engaged with the heritage of antiquity (transmission and translation) depends on recognizing that reception is a…
Translated by David Selim Sayers, Ph.D. 2014.
“In the midst of the daily toil for food and shelter, the struggle for survival and their daily bread, in indescribably harsh conditions, the Turkish-speaking Anatolian refugees penned poetry whose inner depths portray it all. The death of loved ones during the flight from their…
Edited by Abdelmajid Hannoum, Ph.D. 1996.
Islam in Africa is deeply connected with Sufism, and the history of Islam is in a significant way a history of Sufism. Yet even within this continent, the practice and role of Sufism varies across the regions.
Ali S. Shihabi, B.A. Politics, Certificate in Near Eastern Studies, 1981.
"The Saudi Kingdom presents a candid and insightful analysis of Saudi Arabia’s political instability in light of the mounting domestic and international challenges facing the country today. Directly addressing Saudi Arabia’s inert monarchical ruling system, its…
Translated by Luke Yarbrough, Ph.D. 2012.
Patronage, power, and competition in the Sultan’s court. The Sword of Ambition opens a new window onto interreligious rivalry among elites in medieval Egypt. Written by the unemployed…
Shahab Ahmed, Ph.D. 1999.
What is Islam? How do we grasp a human and historical phenomenon characterized by such variety and contradiction? What is "Islamic" about Islamic philosophy or Islamic art? Should we speak of Islam or of islams? Should we distinguish the Islamic (the religious) from the Islamicate (the cultural)? Or should we…
Boaz Shoshan, Ph.D. 1978
The early Arab conquests pose a considerable challenge to modern-day historians. The earliest historical written tradition emerges only after the second half of the eighth century- over one hundred years removed from the events it contends to describe, and was undoubtedly influenced by the motives and…
Covering the period from the early nineteenth century to the present day, Modern Iran: A History in Documents brings together primary sources in translation that shed light on aspects of the political, social, cultural, and intellectual history of modern Iran. It makes use of a combination of…
Jessica Marglin, Ph.D. 2012.
A previously untold story of Jewish-Muslim relations in modern Morocco, showing how law facilitated Jews’ integration into the broader Moroccan society in which they lived
Morocco went through immense…
Louise Marlow, Ph.D. 1987
A textual and contextual study of an early Arabic mirror for princes
Mirrors for princes form a substantial and important genre in many pre-modern literatures. Their ostensible purpose is to advise the king; at the same time they assert that the king, if he is truly virtuous, will appreciate being…
Kenneth J. Perkins, Ph.D. 1973.
The demographically modest, but strategically significant, country of Tunisia has experienced profound and revolutionary change in the almost two decades since the publication of the previous edition of this volume (1997). Most dramatically, a populist uprising in 2011 ousted the entrenched dictatorship…
Nevzat Uyanık, Ph.D. 2012.
“Prior to World War I, American involvement in Armenian affairs was limited to missionary and educational interests. This was contrary to Britain, which had played a key role in the diplomatic arena since the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, when the Armenian question had become a subject of great power…
Martin S. Kramer, Ph.D. 1982
In 'The War on Error', historian and political analyst Martin Kramer presents a series of case studies, some based on pathfinding research and others on provocative analysis, that correct misinformation clouding the public's understanding of the Middle East. He also offers a forensic exploration of how…
Translated by Victoria Rowe Holbrook, Ph.D. 1985
As the midfiwe announces the birth of a girl at the home of a government minister, a bomb exploding at the Istanbul mosque where the Sultan is attending the congregational prayer resounds over the Bosphorus.
Rana will grow up amidst the frenzied politics of the fall of the…
Translated by Eric L. Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981
Two major events occurred in the early centuries of Islam that determined its historical and spiritual development in the centuries that followed: the formation of the sacred scriptures, namely the Qur'an and the Hadith, and the chronic violence that surrounded the succession of the Prophet,…
Zachary Lockman, B.A. 1974.
Field Notes reconstructs the origins and trajectory of area studies in the United States, focusing on Middle East studies from the 1920s to the 1980s. Drawing on extensive archival research, Zachary Lockman shows how the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations played key roles in conceiving, funding,…
Ruth A. Miller, Ph.D. 2003.
Insightful reinterpretation of data-gathering, surveillance, cloning, and reproductive tissue and their implications for democratic politics.
Challenging the posthumanist canon that celebrates the preeminence of matter, Ruth Miller, in Flourishing Thought contends that what…
Caner K. Dagli, Ph.D. 2006.
Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240) was one of the towering figures of Islamic intellectual history, and among Sufis still bears the title of al-shaykh al-akbar, or "the greatest master."
Michael S. Doran, Ph.D. 1997.
In 1956 President Nasser of Egypt moved to take possession of the Suez Canal, thereby bringing the Middle East to the brink of war. The British and the French, who operated the canal, joined with Israel…
A groundbreaking reassessment of Foucault’s writings on one of the greatest political upheavals of our time
Were the thirteen essays Michel Foucault wrote in 1978–1979 endorsing the Iranian Revolution an aberration of his earlier work or an inevitable pitfall of his stance on Enlightenment rationality, as critics have long alleged?…
Translated by Robert D. McChesney, B. A. 1967, Ph.D. 1973.
Through years of neglect, deliberate modernization, and the effect of decades of war, Kabul’s architectural history has virtually disappeared. By meticulous use of all available records including written works, photographs,…
Ami Ayalon, Ph.D. 1980
In a brief historic moment, printing presses, publishing ventures, a periodical press, circulation networks, and a mass readership came into being all at once in the Middle East, where none had previously existed, with ramifications in every sphere of the community's life. Among other outcomes, this significant…
"In the United States and Europe, the word 'caliphate' has conjured historically romantic and increasingly pernicious associations. Yet the caliphate’s significance in Islamic history and Muslim culture remains poorly understood. This book explores the myriad meanings of the caliphate for Muslims around the…
Set in the tumultuous aftermath of the Iranian revolution in 1979, Remembering Akbar weaves together the stories of a group of characters who share a crowded death row cell in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. A teeming world is evoked vividly through the relationships, memories, and inner lives of these…