In this unique look at a key figure in the ‘Islamic enlightenment’, Samer Akkach examines the life and works of ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (1641-1731). Often characterized solely as a Sufi saint, his thought and teachings were of a much wider remit, and symptomatic of a growing rationalism among Islamic scholars during his lifetime. Through a fresh reading of his large body of mostly unpublished works, Akkach argues that ‘Abd al-Ghani helped to herald the beginning of modernity in the Arab world. Samer Akkach is Senior Lecturer in Architecture, History, and Theory, and Founding Director of the Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Based on micro-level research of the District of Jerusalem, this book addresses some of the most crucial questions concerning the Ottoman empire in a time of crisis and disorientation: decline and decentralization, the rise of the notable elite, the urban-rural-pastoral nexus, agrarian relations and the encroachment of European economy. At the same time it paints a vivid picture of life in an Ottoman province. By integrating court record, petitions, chronicles and even local poetry, the book recreates a historical world that, though long vanished, has left an indelible imprint on the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings.
Damascus was for centuries a center of learning and commerce. Drawing on the city's dazzling literary tradition-a rich collection of poetry, chronicles, travel accounts, and biographical dictionaries-as well as on Islamic court records, James Grehan explores the material culture of premodern Damascus, reconstructing the economic infrastructure, social customs, and private consumer habits that dominated this cosmopolitan hub in the 1700s. He sketches a lively history of diet, furniture, fashion, and other aspects of daily life, providing an unusual and intimate account of the choices, constraints, and compromises that defined consumer behavior. Coffee, tobacco, and light firearms had arisen as new luxury items in preceding centuries, and Grehan traces the usage of such goods in order to get a picture of the overall standard of living in the premodern Middle East. He looks particularly at how wealth and poverty were defined and how consumption patterns expressed notions of taste, class, and power, illuminating the prominent role played by Damascus in shaping the economy and culture of the Middle East. In assessing the magnitude of social change in modern times, we have few benchmarks from the period preceding the onset of modernity in the nineteenth century. This informative study will make possible more precise cultural and economic comparisons between different parts of the world as it stood on the brink of a radically new economic and political order. The book's focus on a little-examined period and region will appeal to scholars and students of urban social history and Arab popular culture.
Before they had an empire in the East, the British travelled into the Islamic world to pursue trade and to form strategic alliances against the Catholic powers of France and Spain. First-hand encounters with Muslims, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and other religious communities living together under tolerant Islamic rule changed forever the way Britons thought about Islam, just as the goods they imported from Islamic countries changed forever the way they lived. Britain and the Islamic World tells the story of how, for a century and a half, merchants and diplomats travelled from Morocco to Istanbul, from Aleppo to Isfahan, and from Hormuz to Surat, and discovered a world that was more fascinating than fearful. Gerald MacLean and Nabil Matar examine the place of Islam and Muslims in English thought, and how British monarchs dealt with supremely powerful Muslim rulers. They document the importance of diplomatic and mercantile encounters, show how the writings of captives spread unreliable information about Islam and Muslims, and investigate observations by travellers and clergymen who reported meetings with Jews, eastern Christians, Armenians, and Shi'ites. They also trace how trade and the exchange of material goods with the Islamic world shaped how people in Britain lived their lives and thought about themselves.
Honouring Erica Cruikshank Dodd, Art and Material Culture in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds analyzes aspects of the constructed narratives and reconstructed realities of the visual-material record of diverse Mediterranean faith communities from medieval into contemporary times.
In 1860, Damascus was a sleepy provincial capital of the weakening Ottoman Empire, a city defined in terms of its relationship to the holy places of Islam in the Arabian Hijaz and its legacy of Islamic knowledge. Yet by 1918 Damascus had become a seat of Arab nationalism and a would-be modern state capital. How can this metamorphosis be explained? Here Leila Hudson describes the transformation of Damascus. Within a couple of generations the city changed from little more than a way-station on the Islamic pilgrimage routes that had defined the city's place for over a millennium. Its citizens and notables now seized the opportunities made available through transport technology on the eastern Mediterranean coast and in the European economy. Shifts in marriage patterns, class, education and power ensued. But just when the city's destiny seemed irrevocably linked to the Mediterranean world and economy, World War I literally starved the urban centre of Damascus and empowered its Bedouin hinterland. The consequences shaped Syria for the rest of the twentieth century and beyond.
On the basis of new evidence from the Ottoman archives in Istanbul, Karl Barbir challenges the current interpretation of Ottoman rule in Damascus during the eighteenth century. He argues that the prevailing themes of decline and stagnation--usually applied to the entire century--in fact apply only to the latter half of the century. This discovery, he contends, affords a more balanced and realistic view of the Near East's Ottoman past than previous studies have suggested. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Indonesian Islam is often portrayed as being intrinsically moderate by virtue of the role that mystical Sufism played in shaping its traditions. According to Western observers--from Dutch colonial administrators and orientalist scholars to modern anthropologists such as the late Clifford Geertz--Indonesia's peaceful interpretation of Islam has been perpetually under threat from outside by more violent, intolerant Islamic traditions that were originally imposed by conquering Arab armies. The Makings of Indonesian Islam challenges this widely accepted narrative, offering a more balanced assessment of the intellectual and cultural history of the most populous Muslim nation on Earth. Michael Laffan traces how the popular image of Indonesian Islam was shaped by encounters between colonial Dutch scholars and reformist Islamic thinkers. He shows how Dutch religious preoccupations sometimes echoed Muslim concerns about the relationship between faith and the state, and how Dutch-Islamic discourse throughout the long centuries of European colonialism helped give rise to Indonesia's distinctive national and religious culture. The Makings of Indonesian Islam presents Islamic and colonial history as an integrated whole, revealing the ways our understanding of Indonesian Islam, both past and present, came to be.
Historical Dictionary of Syria, Fourth Edition covers the recent events in Syria as well as the history that led up to these events. The cross-referenced dictionary section has over 500 entries on significant persons, places and events, political parties and institutions, literature, music and the arts. .