Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization

Demonstrating the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society through a study of the natural sciences in seventeenth-century Morocco, Revealed Sciences examines how the natural sciences flourished during this period, without developing in a similar way to the natural sciences in Europe. Offering an innovative analysis of the relationship between religious thought and the natural sciences, Justin K. Stearns shows how nineteenth and twentieth-century European and Middle Eastern scholars jointly developed a narrative of the decline of post-formative Islamic thought, including the fate of the natural sciences in the Muslim world. Challenging these depictions of the natural sciences in the Muslim world, Stearns uses numerous close readings of works in the natural sciences to a detailed overview of the place of the natural sciences in scholarly and educational landscapes of the Early Modern Magreb, and considers non-teleological possibilities for understanding a persistent engagement with the natural sciences in Early Modern Morocco.

From 1260 to 1323, the Mamluk state in Egypt and Syria was at war with the Ilkhanid Mongols based in Persia. This is a comprehensive study of the political and military aspects of the early years of the war, from the battle of 'Ayn Jalut in 1260 to the battle of Homs in 1281.

Analysing the spread and survival of Islamic legal ideas and commentaries in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean littorals, Islamic Law in Circulation focuses on ShafiE ism, one of the four Sunni schools of Islamic law. It explores how certain texts shaped, transformed and influenced the juridical thoughts and lives of a significant community over a millennium in and between Asia, Africa and Europe. By examining the processes of the spread of legal texts and their roles in society, as well as thinking about how Afrasian Muslims responded to these new arrivals of thoughts and texts, Mahmood Kooria weaves together a narrative with the textual descendants from places such as Damascus, Mecca, Cairo, Malabar, Java, Aceh and Zanzibar to tell a compelling story of how Islam contributed to the global history of law from the thirteenth to the twentieth century.

In Muslim Tradition G. H. A. Juynboll undertakes a broad-ranging review of the closely linked questions of date, authorship and origin of hadiths, i.e. the traditions of the prophet. Hadiths, which record the sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad, are central to Islamic teaching and beliefs and command a respect in the Islamic world second only to the Qur'an. The question of when, how and where particular hadiths came into existence is basic to the understanding of the formative period of Islam. This statement of a sceptical position, which can be visualized as located between, on the one hand, the orthodox Muslim view and, on the other, that of Western scholars, uses all the rich material available and explores the possibilities it opens up. The book faces major issues and reaches conclusions which may provide a basis for future debate in which, it is hoped, both Muslim and Western scholars will participate.

The rulers of the premodern Islamic world employed vast numbers of non-Muslim officials. Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and others rose to positions of influence at the courts of Muslim caliphs and sultans. This book traces and analyzes how Muslims thought and wrote about these non-Muslim officials who helped to administer their governments.

Bringing together previously unpublished sources in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, Peacock focuses on the period of Mongol domination in Anatolia in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries to offer new understanding of the process of Islamisation in Anatolia and integrate its study with that of the broader Islamic world.

Examines how ideological and administrative crises within Islamic lands in the late fifteenth century brought about a new conception of kingship for the early modern period. Through Idris Bidlisi, a major intellectual and statesman, this book paints a picture of a changing Ottoman Empire: shifting from regional dynastic kingdom to global empire.

This in-depth study of the slave trade that spurred the Russian conquest of Central Asia offers an unprecedented window into slaves' lives from eyewitness accounts, autobiographies, and newly-uncovered interviews which demonstrate that the slaves brought about their own emancipation by fomenting the largest slave uprising in the region's history.

This book explores the Christian provinces of Armenia and Caucasian Albania as caliphal provinces and part of the larger Iranian cultural sphere. It is aimed at historians of Islam, Iran and the Caucasus, and for those studying themes of memory, diversity and Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East.

Retelling the well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire, this book illuminates the pivotal roles that women played in politics, empire, and succession. As such, this is a key read for scholars of Mongol history, world history, and medieval women and gender, as well as for a general audience.

This book explores Ottoman intellectual life, politics and reform during the eighteenth century through the study of the key statesmen and historian Ahmed Vasif. It is for students and researchers of intellectual history, the Enlightenment period, the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.

The Second Formation of Islamic Law is the first book to deal with the rise of an official school of law in the Ottoman Empire and argues that some of the supposedly nineteenth-century developments, such as the codification of Islamic law, are rooted in much earlier centuries.

This book describes the emergence of Muslim scholarly communities from the origins of Islam until the mid-tenth century through the examination of early Muslim texts and discourse. It is for scholars and advanced students studying Middle Eastern history, Islamic studies, Islamic law and early Islamic literature.

Through a close examination of legal, historical, and theological sources, this book considers a largely neglected area of Islamic law, calling into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a divine legal tradition that has little room for discretion or doubt, particularly in Islamic criminal law.

This book reconstructs the role of midwives in medieval to early modern Islamic history through a careful reading of a wide range of classical and medieval Arabic sources. It takes a broad historical view of midwifery in the Middle East by examining the tensions between learned medicine (male) and popular, medico-religious practices (female) from early Islam into the Ottoman period.

This book is the first on the history of both physical and mental disabilities in the Middle East and North Africa. A sociocultural history, it seeks to explain how disabilities were understood and experienced in the Arab-Islamic context within the geographical area that includes present-day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel under Ottoman rule in the early modern period.

Asma Sayeed's book traces the history of Muslim women's religious education over the course of nearly ten centuries. This fascinating history is relevant for anyone interested in the history of Muslim women as well as those seeking a fuller understanding of developments in Muslim educational and social history.

The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule provides a perspective on the previously ignored history of the Shiites as a constituent of Lebanese society, calling into question the historic place within 'Lebanon' of what has today become the country's largest and most activist sectarian community.

This book explores Muslim interpretations of Qur'anic verses on gender roles in testimony, human creation and marriage. Karen Bauer traces the evolution of these interpretations, showing how they have been adopted, adapted, rejected or replaced over time, by comparing the Qur'an with a wide range of Qur'anic commentaries and interviews.

The Islamic tradition has always held animals in high esteem. This original book examines the status of animals in the Qur'an, in which they are portrayed as spiritual, moral and accountable beings. The study challenges the prevalent view of man's superiority over animals and suggests new ways of interpreting the Qur'an.

Centered on legal discourses of the first six centuries of Islam, this book provides a detailed analysis of Islamic scholarly writings on the topic of rape and argues that classical Islamic jurisprudence contained highly nuanced and substantially divergent doctrines of sexual violation as a punishable crime.

This pioneering study examines the process of reasoning in Islamic law. By analysing rulings from the Hanafi school, the author questions whether sacred law operated differently from secular law, why laws changed and how different cultural and historical settings impacted on the development of legal rulings. The result is a fascinating overview of the evolution of Islamic law.

This book shows how regulations that applied to minorities in early Islamic societies were based on traditions originating from the conquerors and the conquered.

This revisionist account of the history of Islamic political thought from the early to the late medieval period focuses on Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most brilliant theologians of his day. In reassessing the influence and philosophy of Ibn Taymiyya's work, this book marks a major departure from traditional interpretations of medieval Islamic thought.

The Ayyubid and Mamluk periods were some of the most intellectually fecund in Islamic history. Megan H. Reid's book recovers the stories of medieval men and women who were renowned not only for their intellectual prowess but also for their devotional piety, uncovering previously unseen trends in voluntary religious practice.

A rigorous scholarly appraisal of the legendary biographies of Tamerlane. The book sheds light not only on the character of Tamerlane and how he was remembered by many generations after his demise, but also on the era in which the biographies were written and how they were received by the local populace during an age of crisis.

This book is a study of the writings of Ibn Barrajan, an influential Sunni mystic who introduced a worldview to the Muslim West based in Muslim scripture and Neoplatonic cosmology. It will be of interest to researchers of the medieval Islamic world, and those studying the history of mysticism and Sufism in the Muslim West.

This book proposes a radical approach to history of the late Ottoman Empire. Baki Tezcan constructs a new framework by foregrounding the proto-democratization of the Ottoman polity in this era, and shows how the empire embarked on a period of seismic change in the political, economic, military, and social spheres.