The Travels of Ibn Jubayr

The Travels of Ibn Jubayr
Author: Ibn Jubayr
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 502
Release: 2019-11-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786726599

Ibn Jubayr's account of his journey from his home in then Islamic Spain to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Syria, the Crusader Kingdoms and ultimately Egypt is a landmark text for the study and understanding of the Medieval Islamic World. Broadhurst's translation gives voice to Ibn Jubayr's vivid impressions of the 12th century Mediterranean. He recounts his experiences in Saladin's Egypt in contrast to rule of the Almohads in the Maghreb, and gives a positive assessment of the conditions of Muslims in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He also takes detailed note of and interest in the great architecture of period, both Muslim and non Muslim, as well as his experiences with the learned Sufi teachers of the East. With a new introduction by Robert Irwin, this classic first-hand account remains of upmost value to historians of the Medieval Mediterranean and Islamic World.

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta
Author: Ross E. Dunn
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2005
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520243854

Ross Dunn's classic retelling of the travels of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim of the 14th century.

One Thousand Roads to Mecca

One Thousand Roads to Mecca
Author: Michael Wolfe
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 701
Release: 2015-09-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802192203

“Wolfe does an exemplary job of detailing the ceremonies performed at Mecca and the reasons behind them . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review This updated and expanded edition of One Thousand Roads to Mecca collects significant works by observant travel writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries—including two new contemporary narratives—creating a comprehensive, multifaceted literary portrait of the enduring tradition. Since its inception in the seventh century, the pilgrimage to Mecca has been the central theme in a large body of Islamic travel literature. Beginning with the European Renaissance, it has also been the subject for a handful of adventurous writers from the West who, through conversion or connivance, managed to slip inside the walls of a city forbidden to non-Muslims. These very different literary traditions form distinct impressions of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the common subject of inquiry. Along with an introduction by Reza Aslan, featured writers include Ibn Battuta, J. L. Burckhardt, Sir Richard Burton, the Begum of Bhopal, John F. Keane, Winifred Stegar, Muhammad Asad, Lady Evelyn Cobbald, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, and Malcolm X. One Thousand Roads to Mecca is a historically, geographically, and ethnically diverse collection of travel writing that adds substantially to the literature of Islam and the West. “Serves as an excellent introduction to a religion, people, culture, and philosophy.” —Santa Cruz Sentinel

Remembering the Crusades

Remembering the Crusades
Author: Nicholas Paul
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421406993

Few events in European history generated more historical, artistic, and literary responses than the conquest of Jerusalem by the armies of the First Crusade in 1099. This epic military and religious expedition, and the many that followed it, became part of the collective memory of communities in Europe, Byzantium, North Africa, and the Near East. Remembering the Crusades examines the ways in which those memories were negotiated, transmitted, and transformed from the Middle Ages through the modern period. Bringing together leading scholars in art history, literature, and medieval European and Near Eastern history, this volume addresses a number of important questions. How did medieval communities respond to the intellectual, cultural, and existential challenges posed by the unique fusion of piety and violence of the First Crusade? How did the crusades alter the form and meaning of monuments and landscapes throughout Europe and the Near East? What role did the crusades play in shaping the collective identity of cities, institutions, and religious sects? In exploring these and other questions, the contributors analyze how the events of the First Crusade resonated in a wide range of cultural artifacts, including literary texts, art and architecture, and liturgical ceremonies. They discuss how Christians, Jews, and Muslims recalled and interpreted the events of the crusades and what far-reaching implications that remembering had on their communities throughout the centuries. Remembering the Crusades is the first collection of essays to investigate the commemoration of the crusades in eastern and western cultures. Its unprecedented multidisciplinary and cross-cultural approach points the way to a complete reevaluation of the place of the crusades in medieval and modern societies.

The Book of Contemplation

The Book of Contemplation
Author: Usama ibn Munqidh
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2008-07-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0141919175

The volume comprises lightly annotated translation of a key medieval Arabic text that bears directly on the Crusades and Crusader society and the Muslim experience of them.

Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614

Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614
Author: Brian A. Catlos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2014-03-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521889391

An innovative study which explores how the presence of Muslim communities transformed Europe and stimulated Christian society to define itself.

Rethinking Norman Italy

Rethinking Norman Italy
Author: Joanna H. Drell
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526138557

This volume on Norman Italy (southern Italy and Sicily, c. 1000–1200) honours and reflects the pioneering scholarship of Graham A. Loud. An international group of scholars reassesses and recasts the paradigm by which Norman Italy has been conventionally understood, addressing varied subjects across four key themes: historiographies, identities and communities, religion and Church, and conquest. The chapters revise and refine our understanding of Norman Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, demonstrating that it was not just a parochial Norman or Mediterranean entity but also an integral player in the medieval mainstream.

Islamic Art and Spirituality

Islamic Art and Spirituality
Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1987-02-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780887061752

This is the first book in the English language to deal with the spiritual significance of Islamic art including not only the plastic arts, but also literature and music. Rather than only dealing with the history of the various arts of Islam or their description, the author relates the form, content, symbolic language, meaning, and presence of these arts to the very sources of the Islamic revelation. Relying upon his extensive knowledge of the Islamic religion in both its exoteric and esoteric dimensions as well as the various Islamic sciences, the author relates Islamic art to the inner dimensions of the Islamic revelation and the spirituality which has issued from it. He brings out the spiritual significance of the Islamic arts ranging from architecture to music as seen, heard, and experienced by one living within the universe of the Islamic tradition. In this work the reader is made to understand the meaning of Islamic art for those living within the civilization which created it.

Pious Pilgrims, Discerning Travellers, Curious Tourists: Changing Patterns of Travel to the Middle East from Medieval to Modern Times

Pious Pilgrims, Discerning Travellers, Curious Tourists: Changing Patterns of Travel to the Middle East from Medieval to Modern Times
Author: Paul Starkey
Publisher: Archaeopress Archaeology
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9781789697520

This volume comprises a varied collection of seventeen papers presented at the biennial conference of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) held in York in July 2019, which together will provide the reader with a fascinating introduction to travel in and to the Middle East over more than a thousand years.