Publications

725 Publications

The Koran has constituted a remarkably resilient core of identity and continuity for a religious tradition that is now in its fifteenth century. In this Very Short Introduction, Michael Cook provides a lucid and direct account of the significance of the Koran both in the modern world and in that of traditional Islam. He gives vivid accounts of…

Edited by Ralph M. Coury, Ph.D. 1984

Arab debates about the critical relationship between religion and modernity began in the early nineteenth century. Such debates are now integral to the struggle for power between a variety of political groups and their opponents, and are vital to understanding the modern Middle East. This unique…

Ralph M. Coury, Ph.D. 1984

Examines the early years of Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, the first Secretary-General of the Arab League from 1945 to 1952 and addresses the development of his nationalism through a richly textured study of Azzam's early years, including his student activism, his resistance during the war, and his emergence as…

“Rugged, remote, riven by tribal rivalries and religious violence, Afghanistan seems to many a country frozen in time and forsaken by the world. Afghan Modern presents a bold challenge to these misperceptions, revealing how Afghans, over the course of their history, have engaged and connected with a wider world and come to share in our…

This is a controversial study of the origins of Islamic civilisation, first published in 1977. By examining non-Muslim sources, the authors point out the intimate link between the Jewish religion and the earliest forms of Islam. As a serious, scholarly attempt to open up a new, exploratory path of Islamic history, the book has already…

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."

Looks at the emergence of Shiism as a distinct communal identity within Islam.

The Charismatic Community examines the rise and development of Shiite religious identity in early Islamic history, analyzing the complex historical and intellectual processes that shaped the sense of individual and communal religious vocation. The…

Bridging the pragmatic and the theoretical, leading scholars and policy analysts delve into the critical issues facing Afghanistan today. Their exploration of questions relating to security and peacekeeping, the rule of law, institutional design, mobilization of the economy,…

Raphael Danziger, Ph.D. 1974.

As the Commander of the Faithful in the 1830s and 40s, Abd al-Qadir's task was twofold: to resist the incursions of the French with whatever resources he could muster, and to bring some measure of unitiy to the tribal peoples of Algeria.

Olga M. Davison, Ph.D. 1983

This work, a collection of seven essays, centers on classical Persian poetics, primarily the epic art of Ferdowsi's Shâhnâma. It combines traditional literary approaches with new comparative methods, especially those developed by Albert B. Lord in his ethnographic fieldwork on living oral traditions and by…

Edited by Olga M. Davidson, Ph.D. 1983

Many spectacular works of classical Persian art—miniature paintings as well as architectural decorations—survive to the present day, safeguarded in Istanbul and beyond. But the fragmentation of these works over time calls for careful historical research in reconstructing the history of the art…

Edited by Olga M. Davidson, Ph.D. 1983

Ferdowsi's Shahnama: Millennial Perspectives celebrates the ongoing reception, over the last thousand years, of a masterpiece of classical Persian poetry. The epic of the Shahnama or Book of Kings glorifies the spectacular achievements of Iranian civilization…

Olga M. Davidson, Ph.D. 1983

A milestone in Persian Classical literature, Ferdowsi’s Book of Kings evokes a long span of Iranian history and myths following a chronicle of its kings from the creation of the world to the conquest of Iran by the armies of the Moslem Arabs in the latter half of the seventh century. Drawing on…

Edited by Petra Sijpesteijn, Ph.D. 2004.

Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands. Measures of direct control – land…

Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries brings together ten original studies on historical aspects of Sufism in this region. A central question, of ongoing significance, underlies each contribution: what is the relationship between Sufism as it was manifested in this region prior to the Russian…

Yoav Di-Capua, Ph.D. 2004.

It is a curious and relatively little-known fact that for two decades—from the end of World War II until the late 1960s—existentialism’s most fertile ground outside of Europe was in the Middle East, and Jean-Paul Sartre was the Arab intelligentsia’s uncontested champion. In the Arab world, neither before nor…

Special Issue of Historical Reflaxion/Reflexions Historiques, Vol. 41, no. 3 (2015)

Table of Contents:

Di-Capua, Yoav. “Trauma and Other Historians: An Introduction.”

Archambeau, Nicole. “Miraculous Healing for the Warrior Soul: Transforming Fear, Violence, and Shame in Fourteenth-Century Provence.”

Steinberg,…

This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a Middle Eastern intellectual tradition, Gatekeepers of the Past examines a system of knowledge that replaced the intellectual and…

Introduced and described by Martin B. Dickson, Ph.D. 1958, and Stuart Cary Welch.

Michael W. Dols, Ph.D. 1971

In the middle of the fourteenth century a devastating epidemic of plague, commonly known in European history as the “Black Death,” swept over the Eurasian continent. This book, based principally on Arabic sources, establishes the means of transmission…

Michael W. Dols, Ph.D. 1971

This is a study of madness in the medieval Islamic world. Using a wide variety of sources--historical, literary, and art--the late Michael Dols explores beliefs about madness in Islamic society and examines attitudes towards individuals afflicted by mental illness or disability. The book demonstrates the…

Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.

This volume reprints nineteen articles that deal with the formation of the first Islamic state under the "rightly-guided" and Umayyad caliphs (632-750 CE). The articles (five of which originally appeared in languages other than English and…

Fred M. Donner, BA 1968, PhD 1975.

How did Islam’s sacred scripture, the Arabic Qurʾān, emerge from western Arabia at a time when the region was religiously fragmented and lacked a clearly established tradition of writing to render the Arabic language?

The studies in this volume, the proceedings of a scholarly conference,…

Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.

In this contribution to the ongoing debate on the nature and causes of the Islamic conquests in Syria and Iraq during the sixth and seventh centuries, Fred Donner argues for a necessary distinction between the causes of the conquests, the…

Edited by Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.

This volume presents a selection of the key studies in which leading scholars since the beginning of the 20th century attempt to explain the phenomenally rapid expansion of the early Islamic state during the 7th century CE. The…

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…

Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.

How and why did Muslims first come to write their own history? The author argues in this work that the Islamic historical tradition arose not out of "idle curiosity," or through imitation of antique models, but as a response to a variety of challenges facing the…

This book aims to alter profoundly the accepted version of the history of post-World War II Egyptian foreign policy. To this end, Doran convincingly demonstrates the absence of any true pan-Arab front from the very beginning of the Arab League. Reconsidering Cairo's policy decisions during the critical years from 1944 to 1948, he proves that…

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…

Law and Empire provides a comparative view of legal practices in Asia and Europe, from Antiquity to the eighteenth century. It relates the main principles of legal thinking in Chinese, Islamic, and European contexts to practices of lawmaking and adjudication. In particular, it shows how legal procedure and legal thinking could be used…

Edited and translated by Lawrence I. Conrad, Ph.D. 1981; introduction by Fred M. Donner, Ph.D. 1975.

This is the first translation of a classic work (Bath fī nashʾat ʻilm al-tārīkh ʻinda al-ʻArab) by the eminent Arab historian A. A. Dūrī. Published in…

Translated by Lawrence I. Conrad, Ph.D. 1981

Translation of: al-Takwīn al-Tārīkhī lil-ummah al-ʻArabīyah.

This book is a comprehensive examination of the historical process of social formation that gave rise to the communal consciousness of the Arab nation and determined its sense of identity. It aims to provide a…

A stunning collection of annotated plates of thirty military ranks and roles in the early nineteenth-century Imperial Ottoman army

English writings on the Ottoman Empire grew in the seventeenth century, following the establishment of official commercial relations between London and the…

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…

Co-edited by Aḥmad Ṭāhir Ḥasanayn, Ph.D. 1977.

Thematic issue of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 6 (Spring 1986). Text of articles in either English or Arabic; table of contents in English and Arabic. Second edition: al-Dār al-Bayḍā’: ‘Uyūn al-Maqālāt, 1988.

Translated by Robert Finn, Ph.D. 1978.

A novel of magical realism that encompasses love, aging, and the role of memory, The Black Rose of Halfeti takes readers on a journey through the landscapes of Turkey.

The first English translation of a novel by popular Turkish writer Nazlı Eray.

The myth of Orpheus has inspired revisions and retellings from writers and artists around the world—from poet Rainer Maria Rilke, to novelist Salman Rushdie, to filmmakers Jean Cocteau and Marcel Camus. In this version, celebrated Turkish author Nazlı Eray…