This full-color chronicle begins with the seventh-century origin of Islam in the desert oasis of Mecca and an account of the Bedouin society in which the Prophet Muhammad was raised. Then it moves on to explore the dynamic development of Islamic culture and society under the first ‘rightly guided’ caliphs and the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, a golden age in which Islamic philosophy, science, and literature flourished to the full. The last chapter explores the main aspects of classical Islamic culture, looking particularly at theology and law, knowledge and science, mysticism and faith, and art and architecture.
Islamic Civilization
History and Treasures
Text by
Francesca Romana Romani
192 pp.
260 color illus.
28.5X31.5cm
ISBN 9789774162107
For sale only in the Middle East
34.5
Related products
Egypt as a Woman
Nationalism, Gender, and Politics
Beth BaronThis original and historically rich book examines the influence of gender in shaping the Egyptian nation from the nineteenth century through the revolution of 1919 and into the 1940s. In Egypt as a Woman, Beth Baron divides her narrative into two strands: the first analyzes the gendered language and images of the nation, and the second considers the political activities of women nationalists. She shows that even though women were largely excluded from participation in the state, the visual imagery of nationalism was replete with female figures. Baron juxtaposes the idealization of the family and the feminine in nationalist rhetoric with transformations in elite households and the work of women activists striving for national independence. ‘’With evenhandedness and generosity, Baron shows how vital women were to mobilizing opposition to British authority and modernizing Egypt.’’—Robert L. Tignor, author of Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire ‘’A wonderful contribution to understanding Egyptian national and gender politics between the two world wars.’’—Donald Malcolm Reid, author of Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I
...read more
Paperback
304 pp.30 b/w photographs
15X23cm
18.95
Alexandria
A History and a Guide
E.M. ForsterIntroduction byLawrence Durrell
“Alexandria is still alive and alters even when one tries to sum her up . . . . Only the climate, only the north wind and the sea remain as pure as when Menelaus, the first visitor, landed three thousand years ago.” In the autumn of 1915, in a “slightly heroic mood”, E.M. Forster arrived in Alexandria, full of lofty ideals as a volunteer for the Red Cross. Yet most of his time was spent exploring “the magic, antiquity and complexity” of the place in order to cope with living in what he saw as a “funk-hole.” With a novelist’s pen, he brings to life the fabled, romantic city of Alexander the Great, capital of Greco-Roman Egypt, beacon of light and culture symbolized by the Pharos, where the doomed love affair of Antony and Cleopatra was played out and the greatest library the world has ever known was built. Threading three thousand years of history with vibrant strands of literature and punctuating the narrative with his own experiences, Forster immortalized Alexandria, painting an incomparable portrait of the great city and, inadvertently, himself.
...read more
Hardbound
320 pp.12.5X20cm
19.95
Caliph of Cairo
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, 996–1021
Paul E. WalkerOne night in the year 411/1021, the powerful ruler of the Fatimid empire, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, rode out of the southern gates of Cairo and was never seen again. Was the caliph murdered, or could he have decided to abandon his royal life, wandering off to live alone and anonymous? Whatever the truth, the fact was that al-Hakim had literally vanished into the desert. Yet al-Hakim, though shrouded in mystery, has never been forgotten. To the Druze, he was (and is) God, and his disappearance merely indicated his reversion to non-human form. For Ismailis, al-Hakim was the sixteenth imam, descended from the Prophet, and infallible. Jews and Christians, by contrast, long remembered him as their persecutor, who ordered the destruction of many of their synagogues and churches. Using all the tools of modern scholarship, Paul Walker offers the most balanced and engaging biography yet to be published of this endlessly fascinating individual. To some, al-Hakim was God incarnate, to others an infallible imam, to still others he was a capricious tyrant. This book examines myth and fact, document and opinion, to present the most complete and detailed history yet written of the life and times of one of the medieval Islamic world’s most controversial figures.
...read more
Paperback
336 pp.15X23cm
19.95
Coptic Identity and Ayyubid Politics in Egypt, 1218–1250
Kurt J. WerthmullerUsing the life and writings of Cyril III Ibn Laqlaq, 75th patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, along with a variety of Christian and Muslim chroniclers, this study explores the identity and context of the Christian community of Egypt and its relations with the leadership of the Ayyubid dynasty in the early thirteenth century. Kurt Werthmuller introduces new scholarship that illuminates the varied relationships between medieval Christians of Egypt and their Muslim neighbors. Demonstrating that the Coptic community was neither passive nor static, the author discusses the active role played by the Copts in the formation and evolution of their own identity within the wider political and societal context of this period. In particular, he examines the boundaries between Copts and the wider Egyptian society in the Ayyubid period in three “in-between spaces”: patriarchal authority, religious conversion, and monasticism.
...read more
Hardbound
224 pp.8 color illus.
15X23cm
24.95