Table of Contents

1. A Mosaic of ʿAbbāsid Studies (Monique Bernards)
2. Of Mummies, Poets, and Water Nymphs: Tracing the Codicological Limits of Ibn Khurradādhbih’s Geography (Travis Zadeh)
3. Who Invited the Microcosm? (Emily Selove)
4. Tyrant Dreamers Face Abrahamite Interpreters: A Recurring Motif in al-Ṭabarī’s History (Johan Weststeijn)
5. The Rhetoric of Gifts, Or When Objects Talk (Antonella Ghersetti)
6. A Grammarian’s Life in His Own Voice: Autobiographical Fragments in Arabic Biographical Literature (Letizia Osti)
7. A Preliminary Study of al-Shāfiʿī’s Ibṭāl al-Istiḥsān: Appearance, Reality, and Legal Interpretation (Joseph E. Lowry)
8. Abū Isḥāq al-Naẓẓām: The Ultimate Constituents of Nature Are Simple Properties and Rūḥ (David Bennett)
9. The Enigmatic Reign of al-Wāthiq (John P. Turner)
10. Ibn Qutayba and the Ahl Khurāsān: The Shuʿūbiyya Revisited (Ignacio Sánchez)
11. Al-Maʾmūn’s Military Units and Their Commanders up to the End of the Siege of Baghdad (Amikam Elad)

About the Author

Monique Bernards specializes in the intellectual and social history of the early and classical periods of Islam and, more specifically, in the history of the development of Arabic grammatical theories and their espousers. She was previously involved in the publication of the Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān as an assistant general editor and she is currently Secretary of the School of ʿAbbāsid Studies.