Islamic History and Thought
Publisher: Gorgias Press
Series Board: Prof. Dr Peter Adamson, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Prof. Dr Beatrice, Gründler Freie Universität Berlin; Prof. Dr Ahmad Khan, Universität Hamburg; Prof. Dr Isabel Toral-Niehoff (Chair), Freie Universität Berlin; Prof. Dr Jack Tannous, Princeton University; Dr Manolis Ulbricht, University of Göttingen
The Islamic History & Thought series provides a platform for scholarly research on any geographic area within the expansive Islamic/Muslim world, stretching from the Mediterranean to China, and dated to any period from the eve of Islam until the early modern era. All accepted submissions are peer-reviewed by two specialists and the series is overseen by an editorial board made up of leading scholars in the field. Various books published under this series have been recognised for their important contribution to field of Islamic Studies through journal reviews, academic awards and digital platforms. The first book in the series joined a prestigious list of previous winners of the 26th World Award for the Book of the Year, and two further titles from this series and another title from the Gorgias Islamic Studies series are ranked among the '94 Best Islamic History Books of All Time' by Book Authority.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 329
ISBN: 9781463207199
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2020
Description:
This study of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) teachings on creation offers close analysis of all of his extant works of falsafa and kalām. Some of these were not known to previous scholars, yet they bear witness to key facets of the interaction between the historically inimical traditions of Hellenic philosophy and rational theology at this important intellectual moment.
Al-Āmidī is seen to grapple with the encounter of two paradigms for the discussion of creation. On the one hand, Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysical concept of necessity of existence is the basis of his doctrine of the world’s pre-eternal emanation. On the other, for the mutakallimūn, the physical theory of atomism bolsters the view that God created the world from nothing. This study is of interest to scholars of Ibn Sīnā and Ash‘arism alike, as it advances our understanding of the ongoing tradition of rational theology in the Islamic world, long past Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) famous attack on the philosophers.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 543
ISBN: 9781463206512
Pub Date: 03 Jun 2019
Description:
A diachronic study of the development of Aqaba castle, an important Islamic khan at the junction of two major pilgrim routes, both based on Arabic and Crusader sources and the results of the excavations undertaken by Ghent University in Aqaba.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 493
ISBN: 9781463207274
Pub Date: 12 Apr 2019
Description:
The fact that many features are standard to the oldest surviving mosques suggests that a canonical type, mostly a courtyard surrounded by four porticoes, did exist early in Islamic history. While the structure built by the Prophet in Madina, soon after the Hijra in 622 AD, is believed by many to have later provided the prototype of the mosque, the dominant theory that it was only a private residence casts doubt on that belief. The current study provides fresh evidence, based on the Qurʾān, ḥadīth and early poetry, that this structure was indeed built to be a mosque.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 402
ISBN: 9781463207267
Pub Date: 13 Feb 2019
Description:
What is the nature and social role of women? In today’s Shi‘ism, these questions are often answered through the “separate-but- equal” ideology which emphasizes the role of women as wives and mothers, and places men in authority. But is this the only ideology which can be derived from Shi‘i scriptural sources?
This book takes a more nuanced approach to that question by exploring how women are portrayed in hadith on ancient sacred narrative – the stories of the prophets. It shows far more diverse views on what it means to be a woman (and, by extension, a man) – and that early Shi‘is held competing views about ideals for women.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 515
ISBN: 9781463239411
Pub Date: 06 Feb 2019
Description:
The present work provides a new edition and substantial German commentary of the important theological Arabic work Al-Tamhīd fī bayān al-tauḥīd (“Introduction to the explanation of monotheism”) by the 5th/11th century scholar Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī. The work and its author belong to the theological school that succeeded Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (died 333/944) and still serve as important markers of Sunnī theology into the nineteenth century.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 221
ISBN: 9781463206451
Pub Date: 20 Dec 2018
Description:
Translated from Hebrew, this groundbreaking study sets out to answer one simple question: who were the commanders of the early Islamic navy? Using the prosopographical method, Elmakias unearths fresh information about early Islam's inexperienced and pioneering naval commanders. Through their fascinating biographies, we learn about the people who led the Islamic navy during the first conquests of the Islamic empire and helped to realise the spread and expansion of Islamic influence.
Pages: 309
ISBN: 9781463239374
Pub Date: 07 Dec 2018
Pages: 309
ISBN: 9781463242367
Pub Date: 17 Sep 2020
Description:
As Abû ʿAbd Allâh al-Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlî and Fâṭima and grandson of Muḥammad, moved inexorably towards death on the field of Karbalâʾ, his sister Zaynab was drawn ever closer to the centre of the family of Muḥammad, the ‘people of the house’ (ahl al-bayt). There she would remain for a few historic days, challenging the wickedness of the Islamic leadership, defending the actions of her brother, initiating the commemorative rituals, protecting and nurturing the new Imâm, al-Ḥusayn’s son ʿAlî b. al-Ḥusayn b.
ʿAlî b. Abî Ṭâlib, until he could take his rightful place. This is her story.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 484
ISBN: 9781463207571
Pub Date: 06 Dec 2018
Description:
A study of the identity-formation process that the Christians of Syria-Palestine experienced during the Umayyad Caliphate. It approaches this subject by using John of Damascus and his writings on Islam as a case-study. This provides an exhaustive study of the available historical data in order to stimulate some further thought on John of Damascus’s theology and legacy from a contextual and intercultural methodology.
Such an examination has not yet been pursued in the scholarship of Byzantine Christianity during that era. Proceeding from a centralizing ‘context’, the monograph revisits John of Damascus’s legacy (and the Umayyad Christians’ identity-formation of that era) from the perspective of his historical, Islamic-Arabic context, and not from any assumed, metanarrative, common to contemporary pro-Byzantine theology scholars.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781463239176
Pub Date: 30 Oct 2018
Description:
This study challenges the conventional image of the tenth-century Sufi mystic Al-Husayn Ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ (d. 929) as an anti-philosophical mystic. Unlike the predominantly theological or text-historical studies which constitute much of the scholarly literature on Ḥallāğ, this study is completely philosophical in nature, placing Ḥallāğ within the tradition of Graeco-Arabic philosophy and emphasizing, in a positive light, his continuity with the pagan Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 379
ISBN: 9781463239008
Pub Date: 03 Jul 2018
Description:
This book focuses on the production, sale, and consumption of portable arts in regions covered today by the modern polities of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestine Authority. The reprinted chapters in this volume have been revised and updated. They offer interdisciplinary approaches to the material culture of the region from the twelfth to the early twentieth centuries, combining evidence from primary written sources, archaeology, and objects in museums and private collections.
Topics include the production and distribution of pottery, importation of glazed wares into the Middle East, shadow puppetry, economic activity associated with the Syrian hajj, the manufacturing practices of the crafts operating in Damascus during the last decades of Ottoman rule, and the decoration of artillery shell cases during and after World War I. Also included are an introduction containing a critical evaluation of the main sources of information, a cumulative bibliography, and a previously unpublished study of leatherworking in the late Ottoman period.
Pages: 373
ISBN: 9781463239336
Pub Date: 28 Nov 2017
Pages: 373
ISBN: 9781463239398
Pub Date: 13 Feb 2019
Description:
The only child of Muhammad to survive him, Fâṭima was from early times taken up by Shî’a Islam, for whose adherents she is the virgin mother, the heavenly intercessor with untold power before God’s throne, and the grieving mother of al-Husayn, the Shî’a's most important martyr. During her life she was impoverished and weak, neglected, marginalized, and divested of justice: but her reward in heaven comprises incalculable riches, all those in heaven will bow their heads to her, and her company will be the angels and the friends of God. Here, for the first time, her story is told.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 378
ISBN: 9781463206185
Pub Date: 13 Oct 2017
Description:
This in-depth study examines the relation between legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) and speculative theology (ʿīlm al-kalām). It compares the legal theory of four classical jurists who belonged to the same school of law, the Shāfiʿī school, yet followed three different theological traditions. The aim of this comparison is to understand to what extent, and in what way, the theology of each jurist shaped his choices in legal theory.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 379
ISBN: 9781463206307
Pub Date: 03 Oct 2017
Description:
This volume explores aspects of religious culture in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula across Late Antiquity – the period of dynamic and historically crucial developments, culminating in the emergence of Islam. While it would be impossible to provide an exhaustive examination of the topic in a single volume, it is the main aim of this book to further stimulate scholarly research on the Late Antique context of the origins of Islam and the history of early Arab-Muslim culture.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 385
ISBN: 9781463206529
Pub Date: 14 Jun 2017
Description:
Die folgende Studie beschäftigt sich mit der Rezeption Konstantins in der arabischen Historiographie, sowoh christlicher- als auch muslimischerseits. Eine genauere Analyse der Texte wird zeigen, wie die Geschichte des ersten christlichen Kaisers eine Projektionsfläche für Identitätskonstrutkionen werden konnte, auch über Religionsgrenzen hinaus.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 230
ISBN: 9781463206321
Pub Date: 02 Jun 2017
Description:
‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Marwān (d. 86/705) reigned as the amīr of Egypt and walī al-‘ahd (heir apparent) to the Islamic caliphate for over 20 years.
This book intends to revive this largely forgotten amīr and demonstrate the critical role he played in the formation of the Marwānid dynasty. The founding thesis of this study is that ‘Abd al-‘Azīz was appointed the amīr of Egypt and second heir apparent due to the legitimacy his maternal lineage brought the nascent dynasty.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 150
ISBN: 9781463206598
Pub Date: 15 May 2017
Description:
This important work is a source-critical study of a group of traditions (aḥādīth) found in Ibn Isḥāq's Biography (Sīra) of the prophet Muḥammad, widely considered one of the most important early historical texts on the Prophet's life. Through a meticulous isnād-cum-matn analysis, the author reveals that Ibn Isḥāq relied on Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad, a hitherto undocumented source of his.
Important new light is also shed on problems with Ibn Hishām’s recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra.
