Mapping Frontiers Across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation and the 'Abbasid Empire

by Travis Zadeh

Overview

The story of the 9th-century caliphal mission from Baghdad to discover the legendary barrier against the apocalyptic nations of Gog and Magog mentioned in the Quran, has been either dismissed as superstition or treated as historical fact. By exploring the intellectual and literary history surrounding the production and early reception of this adventure, Travis Zadeh traces the conceptualization of frontiers within early 'Abbasid society and re-evaluates the modern treatment of marvels and monsters inhabiting medieval Islamic descriptions of the world. Examining the roles of translation, descriptive geography, and salvation history in the projection of early 'Abbasid imperial power, this book is essential for all those interested in Islamic studies, the 'Abbasid dynasty and its politics, geography, religion, Arabic and Persian literature and European Orientalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786721310
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/28/2017
Series:	Library of Middle East History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Travis Zadeh is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Haverford College, Pennsylvania. He received his PhD from Harvard University in Comparative Literature (2007), and has published articles on Islamic intellectual and cultural history in the Journal of Arabic Literature, the Journal of Qur'anic Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, and the Journal of the American Oriental Society. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Vernacular Qur'an: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies), which examines early debates over translating the Qur'an and the development of Persian exegetical literature

Table of Contents

Introduction
Section One: Geography, Translation, and the Apocalypse
Chapter One: Routes and Kingdoms
Chapter Two: Models of Translation
Chapter Three: al-Wathiq and the Translators

Section Two: Marvelous Alterity
Chapter Four: A Geography of Neighbours
Chapter Five: Pictura ut poesis

Section Three: Beyond the Barrier
Chapter Six: To Live to Tell
Chapter Seven: Past the Walls of the Orient
Chapter Eight: Translating along the Margins

Postscript: Royal Graffiti

Index
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"[This] is a worthy and often brilliant discussion of the themes of wonder, translation from one medium to another and other major concepts in medieval Islamic writing — both in Persian and in Arabic." — Roy Mottahedeh, Gurney Professor of History and Chair, Committee on Islamic Studies, Harvard University

From the Publisher