During two and a half centuries of rule by Mamluk sultans, Cairo acquired some of its most impressive medieval architecture, including the historical monuments that today define the city’s architectural heritage. In this comprehensive work of analysis and description, Islamic art historian Doris Behrens-Abouseif highlights the most important factors in the evolution of Mamluk urban architecture, along with the social and political reasons for their patronage as builders of mosques, schools, hospitals, and mausolea. Copiously illustrated with color photographs and architectural plans, Cairo of the Mamluks highlights sixty of the most important Mamluk buildings in Cairo, in chronological order, from the mausoleum built by Shagar al-Durr, in honor of her late husband, the last Ayyubid ruler, to the magnificent madrasa of Sultan Hasan and the funerary complex of al-Ghuri, the last powerful Mamluk sultan. Long a scholar of Cairo’s historic architecture, Doris Behrens-Abouseif draws on Arabic chronicles as well as the latest in contemporary scholarship to offer a remarkably complete history of Cairo’s justly-famous monuments.
Cairo of the Mamluks
A History of the Architecture and Its Culture
Doris Behrens-Abouseif
380 pp.
258 color illus., 63 line drawings and maps
23.5X29cm
ISBN 9789774160776
For sale only in the Middle East
$59.95
Related products
Arab Cinema
History and Cultural Identity: Revised and Updated Edition
Viola ShafikSince it was first published in 1998, Viola Shafik’s Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity has become an indispensable work for scholars of film and the contemporary Middle East. Combining detailed narrative history—economic, ideological, and aesthetic—with thought-provoking analysis, Arab Cinema provides a comprehensive overview of cinema in the Arab world, tracing the industry’s development from colonial times to the present. It analyzes the ambiguous relationship with commercial western cinema, and the effect of Egyptian market dominance in the region. Tracing the influence on the medium of local and regional art forms and modes of thought, both classical and popular, Shafik shows how indigenous and external factors combine in a dynamic process of “cultural repackaging.” Now updated to reflect cultural shifts in the last two decades, this revised edition contains a new afterword highlighting the latest developments in popular and in art-house filmmaking, with a special focus on Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and the Gulf States. While exploring problematic issues such as European co-production for Arab art films, including their relation to cultural identity and their reception in the region and abroad, this new edition introduces readers to some of the most compelling cinematic works of the last decades.
...read more
5 January 2017
Paperback
320 pp.50 b/w illus.
15X23cm
$24.95
Egypt and Nubia / The Holy Land
Deluxe Gift edition
Drawings byDavid Roberts, R.A.With historical descriptions byWilliam Brockedon
Lithographed byLouis Haghe
The genius and sensitivity of the justly celebrated nineteenth-century Scottish artist David Roberts are fully revealed in this outstanding new two-volume edition that reproduces for the first time since the original editions of the 1840s all 247 of Roberts’ published drawings of Egypt and the Holy Land. In 1838 and 1839, Roberts spent eleven months traveling and sketching throughout Egypt from Alexandria to Abu Simbel and through Sinai to Petra, Jerusalem, Palestine, and Lebanon. The 247 lithographs that Belgian engraver Louis Haghe then produced at the rate of one a month from the drawings executed during Roberts’ extraordinary trip were published in six volumes by Francis Graham Moon, as The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia (1842–46) and Egypt and Nubia (1846–49). This monumental work assured the artist of a fame that has lasted until the modern day. Once again in this new edition, the wonders that Roberts saw on his trip and the style of life in the Middle East in the middle of the nineteenth century are brought vividly to life by the pictures and the original accompanying texts by the Reverend George Croly and William Brockedon. All admirers of David Roberts will want to own this very special boxed edition.
...read more
3 volume boxed set
320 + 288 + 32 pp.247 color plates
21X29cm
$125.00
The Churches of Egypt
From the Journey of the Holy Family to the Present Day
Edited by Carolyn LudwigGertrud J.M. van Loon
Gawdat Gabra
Photographs by Sherif Sonbol
With over 300 full-color photographs, this is the first fully illustrated book devoted to Christian houses of worship in Egypt. The text incorporates the latest research to complement the broad geographic scope covering nearly all significant Coptic sites throughout the country, from the ancient Coptic churches in Old Cairo to the churches in the monasteries of Wadi al-Natrun, the Red Sea, and Upper Egypt. Churches associated with the Holy Family’s sojourn in Egypt, including Gabal al-Tayr and Dayr al-Muharraq, enrich the volume. Churches of all other Christian denominations in Egypt are also described and beautifully illustrated here. A number of Greek Orthodox churches, Evangelical Coptic, Catholic, Armenian, and Anglican churches are included. Introductory chapters on the history of Christianity in Egypt, the architecture of the Coptic Church, and Coptic wall paintings help readers to appreciate fully the great cultural, artistic, and architectural heritage of Egypt’s Christians.
...read more
1 November 2012
Flexibound
330 pp.350 color illus.
25X30.5cm
$49.95
Gaza Graffiti
Messages of Love and Politics
Mia GröndahlGraffiti began in Gaza in 1987, during the first Intifada, when there was no Palestinian television or radio in the Gaza Strip, and no newspapers: the messages that spread along the walls became an important means of communication. Over the years, all political groups have had their own graffiti artists. Scrawl is not tolerated—it has to look good. Hamas even offers evening classes in graffiti. Documenting the writings on the walls of Gaza over a period of seven years, celebrated Swedish photojournalist Mia Gröndahl lays before us the many roles that they perform, the colorful and surprising range of their artistic expression, and their reflection of the changing political situation. And apart from political slogans, the walls bear witness too to joy and sadness: the wedding celebrations, the many victims of the conflict, and the ever present hope of peace and freedom. For us on the outside, Mia Gröndahl’s photographs offer an exciting and unexpected view of life in Gaza.
...read more
15 March 2010
Paperback
152 pp.150 color illus.
24X21cm
$29.95