Publisher description

Publisher description

Medieval Islamic Civilization examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the seventh and sixteenth century. This important two-volume work contains over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, contributed and signed by international scholars and experts in fields such as Arabic languages, Arabic literature, architecture, art history, history, history of science, Islamic arts, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Near Eastern studies, politics, religion, Semitic studies, theology, and more. This reference provides an exhaustive and vivid portrait of Islamic civilization including the many scientific, artistic, and religious developments as well as all aspects of daily life and culture. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit www.routledge-ny.com/middleages/Islamic.

Islamic civilization flourished in the Middle Ages across a vast geographical area that spans today's Middle and Near East. First published in 2006, Medieval Islamic Civilization examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the 7th and 16th centuries. This important two-volume work contains over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, contributed and signed by international scholars and experts in fields such as Arabic languages, Arabic literature, architecture, history of science, Islamic arts, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Near Eastern studies, politics, religion, Semitic studies, theology, and more. Entries also explore the importance of interfaith relations and the permeation of persons, ideas, and objects across geographical and intellectual boundaries between Europe and the Islamic world. This reference work provides an exhaustive and vivid portrait of Islamic civilization and brings together in one authoritative text all aspects of Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages. Accessible to scholars, students and non-specialists, this resource will be of great use in research and understanding of the roots of today's Islamic society as well as the rich and vivid culture of medieval Islamic civilization.

Examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the 7th and 16th century. This two-volume work contains 700 alphabetically arranged entries, and provides a portrait of Islamic civilization. It is of use in understanding the roots of Islamic society as well to explore the culture of medieval civilization.

Jewish studies has been a vibrant academic discipline for many decades, and since the establishment of the Association for Israel Studies in 1985 to engage in research on the history, politics, society, and culture of the modern state of Israel, the two disciplines have worked along parallel tracks in universities. This book focuses on the vibrant academic field of Israel studies and its complex and dynamic relations and intersections with its “older sibling” Jewish studies. Scholarly contributions from around the globe illustrate that the ongoing and growing interest in Israel studies, in particular since the early 2000s, must be analyzed and understood in its relationship to Jewish studies. Only this will allow scholarship to reflect on not only the intersections between the two fields but also on the prospects of cross-pollination between the disciplines for research and teaching. This will become ever more vital in an increasingly globalized world with shifting concepts, borders, and identity concepts.

Zusammenfassung: The book, divided into two major parts, discusses the evolution of the concept and symbols of zero and the history of pi. Both the topics are discussed from the Neolithic Age to the nineteenth century. The book also clears the assumption that Johann Heinrich Lambert (AD 1761) only invented the irrationality of pi by crediting Lambert jointly with André Marie Legendre (AD 1794). Part 1, consisting of six stages spread in six chapters, meets a challenge to the authors as eminent scholars of the history of mathematics have diverse opinions based on conjectures. This part primarily discusses how the symbol O, in the Vedic religious practices, considered a replica of the universe prescribed for meditation on the unknown Brahman (conceived of as the space supreme in the Upanishads), was later transcended to the symbol of an unknown quantity in mathematics along with a dot for zero in an arena of atheism. It also highlights how the zero notation and the decimal system of Indian numerals embellished with the algebraic thoughts of Brahmagupta passed on to China and Europe via Arabia. Topics in this part have traced the development from the origin to the final form as seen today after the western practice and try to put an end to the long-standing debate over history. Appendices contain the Sanskrit verses (transliterated with meanings into English) along with the essential mathematical deduction referred to in the body of the part to help the reader to have a better understanding. Part 2 speaks of a novel idea of unveiling the nature of pi interwoven with threads of historical ups and downs in the world scenario. This part, containing five chapters, collects all available up-to-date data in every field of history to make the presentation complete in all respects. This part discusses the origin of the definition of pi as the rim of a wheel is thrice its diameter at the Indus Valley in the fourth millennium BC. This part also discusses the enlightenment of China in circle-squaring (classical method), Indian mathematics with astronomical knowledge along the Buddhist channel, and India's discovering circumference/diameter as a non-Euclidean number

“How could I allow my soldiers to sail on this disloyal and cruel sea?” These words, attributed to the most powerful caliph of medieval Islam, Umar Ibn al-Khattab (634–644), have led to a misunderstanding in the West about the importance of the Mediterranean to early Islam. This body of water, known in Late Antiquity as the Sea of the Romans, was critical to establishing the kingdom of the caliphs and for introducing the new religion to Europe and Africa. Over time, it also became a pathway to commercial and political dominion, indispensable to the prosperity and influence of the Islamic world. Sea of the Caliphs returns Muslim sailors to their place of prominence in the history of the Islamic caliphate. As early as the seventh century, Muslim sailors competed with Greek and Latin seamen for control of this far-flung route of passage. Christophe Picard recreates these adventures as they were communicated to admiring Muslims by their rulers. After the Arab conquest of southern Europe and North Africa, Muslims began to speak of the Mediterranean in their strategic visions, business practices, and notions of nature and the state. Jurists and ideologues conceived of the sea as a conduit for jihad, even as Muslims’ maritime trade with Latin, Byzantine, and Berber societies increased. In the thirteenth century, Christian powers took over Mediterranean trade routes, but by that time a Muslim identity that operated both within and in opposition to Europe had been shaped by encounters across the sea of the caliphs.