 |
GetTextbooks.co.uk
Compare Prices & Save up to 90% |
|
|
|
| Login | Sign up | My Wish List |
 | | Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) by Tayeb El-Hibri ISBN-10: 9780521650236 ISBN-10: 0-521-65023-2 ISBN-13: 9780521650236 ISBN-13: 978-0-521-65023-6 Hardcover 1999-12-28 Cambridge University Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description The reigns of the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his successor al-Ma'mun have long been viewed as the golden age of the medieval Islamic caliphate. Yet how did chroniclers represent this crucial period? Tayeb El-Hibri's book applies a new literary-critical reading to the sources to demonstrate how medieval narrators devised various elusive ways of shedding light on controversial religious, political and social issues, while ostensibly presenting a history loyal to the 'Abbasid dynasty. This is an important book that represents a landmark in the field of early Islamic historiography. | ||
Book Description The reigns of the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his successor al-Ma'mun have long been viewed as the golden age of the medieval Islamic caliphate. Yet how did chroniclers represent this crucial period? Tayeb El-Hibri's book applies a new literary-critical reading to the sources to demonstrate how medieval narrators devised various elusive ways of shedding light on controversial religious, political and social issues, while ostensibly presenting a history loyal to the 'Abbasid dynasty. This is an important book which represents a landmark in the field of early Islamic historiography. | ||
Reviews | ||
narrating caliphate from Rashid to Mutawakkil El-Hibri has taken a new approach to the historical sources relating to the Abbasid caliphate in order to clarify the factual from the fanciful. I personally would summarize it as follows. The early historical narratives that we read were written without a concern for the most prominent questions modern intellectuals desire to be answered (e.g., political causation, economic realities, psychological motivations, etc.); therefore, the best way to approach these text before pursuing our questions is to ask what the aims and questions of the authors of these works were trying to accomplish and answer. Rather than these modern questions, the narratives of the Abbasid caliphate, he argues, were more interested in events from a moralizing and religious perspective. Thus, El-Hibri makes the convincing case that these are not factual recollections of political realities or events but are rather embellished narratives either serving ideology or in the service of demonstrating some religious moral. Taking invdividual accounts relating to caliphal reigns from Harun al-Rashid to al-Mutawakkil, he makes a convincing case for the 'literary character' of narratives while providing useful methodological tools for identifying these moralizing currents. | ||