Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies

Saladin, the great twelfth century Middle East leader, not only created an empire, but also reduced the Crusader presence in the Holy Land. In a comprehensive manner and clear prose, Peter Gubser describes how Saladin rose to power, conquered lands, governed peoples, and raised armies. In addition, he clearly addresses Saladin’s imperial motives, a combination of ambition and devotion to the ideal of unity in Islam.

Edwin Fay's mathematical model for the patterns of mutations in nasal Sanskrit verbs.

Given the twenty-first century association between the Holy Land and the Bible, we may assume that such a relationship just exists, and that the land is like the Book and contains a timeless quality. Eothen requires us to question this supposition. Alexander Kinglake describes a Palestine which is largely a wilderness on the verge of being defined by the political and religious forces of the west. He offers us a glimpse into the past of a society as it begins to engage with the West.

Victorian perceptions of Islam were not monochrome; some saw beyond stereotypical images, others reproduced them. In this study, the accounts of six Victorians outline the contrast of the two perceptions. It suggests that presuppositions, not encounters per se, determine how we see cultural and religious others.

Was there an active Jewish-Christian polemic in fourth-century Persia? Aphrahat’s Demonstrations, a fourth-century adversus Judaeos text, clearly indicates that fourth-century Persian Christians were interested in the debate. Is there evidence of this polemic in the rabbinic literature? Despite the lack of a comparable Jewish or rabbinic adversus Christianos literature, there is evidence, both from Aphrahat and the Rabbis that this polemic was not one sided.

Descriptions of the Holy Lands abound, yet each offers a unique perspective. Anton Baumstark publishes here an Arabic version of one such description accompanied by a brief introduction to the text and a Latin translation.

The Franciscan Tommaso Obicini (1585-1632) was an early pioneer of Oriental studies. This large volume of his is a classified vocabulary list in three languages: Arabic, Syriac, and Latin. A table of contents and index (in Latin) are included.

The life and work of al-Ghazali, published for the Christian Literature Society of India. Bibligraphic appendix of Egyptian publications on and by al-Ghazali.

Islam and the Muslim world, for missionaries, as of 1916; extensive survey of the subject, notes on missionary strategy and tactics. Extensive bibliographic appendix

In this translation based on the original Arabic text, Averroes defends the compatibility of philosophical investigation and Islam.

The account of the Martyrs of Najran has hitherto been known only through the Greek and the Syriac textual tradition, but this book offers an analysis of the original Arabic account to provide information about the most important details, and for identifying the original text of the Arabic version. A comparative study of the contents and structure of the tragic events which took place in the South Arabian city of Najran as they were narrated in the Arabic recension contained in the MS Sinaitic Arabic 535.

This collection of articles explores identity amongst the Alevis, a religious minority from Turkey.

A list of 159 manuscripts in the Royal Asiatic Society's collections is presented in this volume; each entry is equipped with title, translation, description of the book and of its contents, script, donor, and date.

This volume is a compilation of notes from six lectures on the development and nature of Sufism.

The life, sayings, and character of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadi movement, which were written during his lifetime in Urdu by a close follower are documented here.

The present work, Michel Feghali’s doctoral dissertation, is the first large scale investigation of the survival of Syriac linguistic features in Arabic dialects; he examines in particular, the Lebanese dialects.

The focus of this study is the final part of Dionysius bar Salibi’s polemical work against the Muslims, which contains a number of quotations from the Qur’an in Syriac translation.

At the court of a fictitious King of Persia, first the Christians debate the pagans, with a rabbi as referee, and then the Christians debate the Jews, with a pagan referee. Standard edition, long unavaiable, with commentary and indices.

Sbath here publishes the Arabic text of The Medical Garden, a compendium of medical-philosophical definitions, the work of the last prominent member of the famous Bakhtishu‘ family of physicians, with notes and a brief introduction.

Lilias Trotter moved from England to Algiers in 1888, at the age of 35, and died there in 1928. In the latter stages of her mission there, she wrote specifically for Muslims influenced by mysticism. Lilias based The Way of the Sevenfold Secret on Christ’s seven ‘I am’ sayings in John’s gospel, and attempted to link them to the traditional seven steps taken by members of Sufi orders in their quest for union with God. This republication should enable readers to capture the essence of a woman whose legacy is vitally alive for our times.

This book describes the Arabian peninsula on the eve of the First World War.

An anthology of Arab writings on language and grammar, in the original Arabic with French translation and notes.

Tabaqat-I Nasiri is an Islamic universal history, from Adam to the historian's own time, about 1260. Particularly valuable on the Mongols and on the Sultanate of Delhi

A bibliography of over 200 works on Islam and its history, chiefly in German and English, with an index by subject classification.

Leak provides a survey of Islam, and its relations to Christendom. His work involves the history, distribution, doctrines, and practice of Islam, and argues that the utter unlikeness of Allah is equivalent to agnosticism.