Of the available sources for Islamic history published before the 9th century of the Christian Era, few are of greater importance than Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (The Book of the Conquest of Lands), by al-Baladhuri, a ninth-century administrator at the Abbasid court. The text has been heavily relied upon by scholars for centuries as they have compiled the history ... Show More
Today
Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)
Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. And he died in 1975, the start of the Lebanese Civil War. But who was Imad Nuwayhid? Was he a leftist intellectual? A self-intereste ... Show More
1h 11m
Yesterday
Mostafa Hussein, "Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British Palestine" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In the decades before the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948, native and immigrant Jews in Palestine mediated between Jewish and Arab cultures while navigating their evolving identities as settler colonists. Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in ... Show More
1h 32m
Apr 23
Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Slavery was a key part of pre-modern Islamic society, spanning from soldiers to concubines. And one of the most revealing repositories of evidence we have for how slavery worked in practice comes from the Cairo Geniza, a cache of hundreds of thousands of discarded documents from ... Show More
47m 11s
Jul 2021
Supriya Gandhi, "The Emperor Who Never Was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India" (Harvard UP, 2020)
In her magnificent and lyrical new book, The Emperor Who Never Was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India (Harvard UP, 2020), Supriya Gandhi reorients and adds unprecedented depth to our understanding of the much memorialized but less understood Mughal prince and thinker Dara Shukoh (d. 16 ... Show More
1 h
Dec 2023
Xavier Luffin, "Another Look at Congolese History: Arabic and Swahili Documents in the Belgian Archives" (Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, 2020)
Another Look at Congolese History: Arabic and Swahili Documents in the Belgian Archives (Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer, 2020), edited by Xavier Luffin, unlocks an unprecedented journey through the tapestry of Congo's past in Central Africa and the Indian Ocean world. T ... Show More
1h 8m
Nov 2021
The Ottoman “Age of Discovery”
The “Age of Discovery” is traditionally known as a period between the 15th and 16th centuries, when European Christian powers sailed west and encountered lands and peoples previously unknown to them. However, speaking to David Musgrove, Professor Marc David Baer contends that thi ... Show More
33m 43s