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Showcases the best recent research on epigraphy across the medieval Islamic world

The first illustrated, architectural history of the 'Alid shrines, increasingly endangered by the conflict in SyriaThe 'Alids (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) are among the most revered figures in Islam, beloved by virtually all Muslims, regardless of sectarian affiliation. This study argues that despite the common identification of shrines as 'Shi'i' spaces, they have in fact always been unique places of pragmatic intersectarian exchange and shared piety, even - and perhaps especially - during periods of sectarian conflict. Using a rich variety of previously unexplored sources, including textual, archaeological, architectural, and epigraphic evidence, Stephennie Mulder shows how these shrines created a unifying Muslim 'holy land' in medieval Syria, and proposes a fresh conceptual approach to thinking about landscape in Islamic art. In doing so, she argues against a common paradigm of medieval sectarian conflict, complicates the notion of Sunni Revival, and provides new evidence for the negotiated complexity of sectarian interactions in the period.

Winner of the Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies Book Award 2009This beautifully illustrated history of Safavid Isfahan (1501-1722) explores the architectural and urban forms and networks of socio-cultural action that reflected a distinctly early-modern and Perso-Shi'i practice of kingship.An immense building campaign, initiated in 1590-91 at the millennial threshold of the Islamic calendar (1000 A.H.), transformed Isfahan from a provincial, medieval, and largely Sunni city into an urban-centered representation of the first Imami Shi'i empire in the history of Islam. The historical process of Shi'ification of Safavid Iran and the deployment of the arts in situating the shifts in the politico-religious agenda of the imperial household informs Sussan Babaie's study of palatial architecture and urban environments of Isfahan and the earlier capitals of Tabriz and Qazvin.Babaie argues that since the Safavid claim presumed the inheritance both of the charisma of the Shi'i Imams and of the aura of royal splendor integral to ancient Persian notions of kingship, a ceremonial regime was gradually devised in which access and proximity to the shah assumed the contours of an institutionalized form of feasting. Talar-palaces, a new typology in Islamic palatial designs, and the urban-spatial articulation of access and proximity are the architectural anchors of this argument. Cast in the comparative light of urban spaces and palace complexes elsewhere and earlier-in the Timurid, Ottoman, and Mughal realms as well as in the early modern European capitals-Safavid Isfahan emerges as the epitome of a new architectural-urban paradigm in the early modern age.

This is a comprehensive study of the surviving monuments of the Qarakhanids an important yet little-known medieval dynasty that ruled much of Central Asia between the late 10th and early 13th centuries.

Studies the illustrated 16th-century Ottoman manuscripts of a major hagiography of Rumi and his spiritual descendants Picturing the life story of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, an outstanding poet, mystic and founder of the Sufi Mawlawi order (later popularly known as 'The Whirling Dervishes'), the paintings in three extant manuscripts of Aflaki's Wondrous Feats of the Knowers of God provide a unique way to interpret the text. Part One's three chapters, under the heading 'History and Context', provide the medieval Anatolian historical setting; the broad contours of literary and artistic works of Islamic hagiography; and the specific details of the three manuscripts to be explored. Part Two - 'Text and Image' - proposes a method for interpreting a hybrid literary-visual document as a grand narrative of the family Rumi at the inspirational and ethical core of a virtuous community flourishing within a complex Muslim society under divine providence. The paintings in the three manuscripts were produced by studios of painters under the patronage of major late 16th-century Ottoman sultans. The result of their efforts is a kind of 'visualised hagiography' uniquely capable of suggesting distinctive and often surprising twists on the narratives, enhancing the text with images of striking beauty and rich detail. Key Features - Presents a visualised hagiography in three 16th-century Ottoman manuscripts - Includes colour images of all the paintings from the three manuscripts, accompanied by a summary of the text illustrated in each picture - Focuses on the specific relationships between literary narrative and its visual representation in late medieval Islamic art - Provides Anatolian and Ottoman historical background as context for the life story of Rumi and the Mawlawi Sufi order John Renard is Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. He has written many books including Crossing Confessional Boundaries: Exemplary Lives in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Traditions (2020), Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment and Servanthood (2008) and All the King's Falcons: Rumi on Prophets and Revelation (1994).

In the absence of a tradition of self-portraiture, how could artists signal their presence within a painting? Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this book reveals that pictures could function as the painter's delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist's likeness. Influenced by the culture of the majlis, an institutional gathering devoted to intricate literary performances and debates, late Timurid painters used a number of strategies to shift manuscript painting from an illustrative device to a self-reflective object, designed to highlight the artist's imagination and manual dexterity. These strategies include visual abundance, linear precision, the incorporation of inscriptions addressing aspects of the painting and the artist's signature. Focusing on one of the most iconic manuscripts of the Persianate tradition, the Cairo Bustan made in late Timurid Herat and bearing the signatures of the painter Bihzad, this book explores Persian manuscript painting as a medium for artistic performance and self-representation, a process by which artistic authority was shaped and discussed.

This book investigates the neglected, interdisciplinary contexts of medieval poetics and optics and through comparative study of Islamic court ceremonials.

This lavishly illustrated volume presents the major surviving monuments of the early period of the Rum Seljuqs, the first major Muslim dynasty to rule Anatolia.

When was the Dome of the Rock built and what meanings was the structure meant to convey. This book returns to one of the important pieces of evidence: the mosaic inscriptions running around the two faces of the octagonal arcade. Detailed examination of the physical characteristics, morphology and content of these inscriptions provides new evidence.

Explains how the worship requirements of the mosque and the Chinese architectural system converged. What happens when a monotheistic, aniconic, foreign religion needs a space in which to worship in China, a civilisation with a building tradition that has been largely unchanged for several millennia?

Greater Iranian arts from the 10th to the 16th century are technically some of the finest produced anywhere. Focusing on objects found in the main media at the time, the author shows how artisans played with form, material and decoration to engage their audiences.

Illustrates the history of iconic element of Islamic architecture. This title reveals that the Minaret, long understood to have been invented in the early years of Islam as the place from which the muezzin gives the call to prayer, was actually invented some two centuries later to be a visible symbol of Islam.

This illustrated book aims to provide a fresh insight into medieval Islamic art through the prism of Chinese elements in Iranian art under the Mongols.

A beautifully illustrated study of the so-called London QazviniThe London Qazvini is an early fourteenth-century illustrated Arabic copy of al-Qazvini's The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existing Things. One of a handful of extant illustrated codices produced under the Mongols of Iran, this unique manuscript gathers earlier Mesopotamian painting traditions, North Jaziran-Seljuq elements, Anatolian inspiration, the latest changes brought about after the advent of Mongols and a large number of illustrations of extraordinary subjects which escape proper classification.In this lavishly illustrated volume Stefano Carboni offers a stylistic analysis and discussion of the manuscript's miniatures, a presentation and description of the 368 extant paintings that illustrate the codex and a partial critical translation of the related Arabic text. This is the first time that sections throughout the whole text are available in English.Stefano Carboni is the Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia. He is author and editor of several books including Glass from Islamic Lands. The Al-Sabah Collection (2001) and Venice and the Islamic World 828¿1797 (2007).Cover image: The Planet Mercury, Fol. 8r; 87x165 mm, British LibraryCover design:[EUP logo]www.euppublishing.com

The first illustrated, architectural history of the 'Alid shrines, increasingly endangered by the conflict in Syria

Explores how Islamic art and architecture were made: their materials and their social, political, economic and religious context

Explores the Ka'ba as it has been conceptualised, represented and used by Muslims from the earliest period of Islam onwards.

This beautifully illustrated history of Safavid Isfahan (1501-1722) explores the architectural and urban forms and networks of socio-cultural action that reflected a distinctly early-modern and Perso-Shi'i practice of kingship.