The New Cambridge History of Islam

The New Cambridge History of Islam

1,300 Years of History and Culture

Offering a comprehensive history of every aspect of Islamic civilisation, from its history and politics to its art, religion and even its cuisine, this is the first major reference work of its kind. It is an ambitious enterprise directed and written by a team of established authorities and innovative younger scholars and promises to be the standard reference for years to come. In the early 7th century, under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammed, the Islamic community grew from a scattered desert population to an empire that, by the 8th century, stretched from India to Spain. By the 18th century the Muslim world extended from West Africa to South-East Asia, and had fostered great achievements in art, architecture, astronomy and medicine. On the eve of the modern era, Islam was the most widespread of the world’s religions. The New Cambridge History of Islam shows how this came about, through a series of individual essays that illuminate an oftendisputed history.

The extraordinary diversity of Islamic civilisation in six thematic volume

VOLUMES 1-3 explore the growth of Islam and how it took root in the Middle East as the Byzantine empire waned. Following Mohammed’s desert wars against his polytheistic foes, Islam spread both as a religion and a new political order under the Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphs of the 7th, 8th and 9th dynasties. Their empire extended by conquest across al-Andalus, North Africa and the lands of the Ottomans. As Muslims expanded their activities along the trade routes of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, the trader and the mystic assumed as great an importance as the soldier and the administrator. In the Far East Islam interacted with Hinduism and Buddhism, and became a world religion.

VOLUME 4 reveals the richness and dynamism of Islamic culture and society from its origins to circa 1800. This series of essays addresses such topics as Sufism, Islamic law, Arabic, Persian and Urdu literature, education, music and cookery. We learn that Sufis were given the nickname ‘sufiyya’ or ‘wool-people’ after the rough woollen habits that they wore as a sign of their asceticism, and that the prohibition against figural art does not originate in the Qu’ran but in the hadith (the collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet). Innovations in mathematics and science, which in the late medieval period were at their most advanced in the Muslim world, are discussed in individual chapters. Great works of art are considered in detail, from the epic Persian poem of the Shahnama to the miniature showing prince Humay meeting the Chinese princess Humayun, produced in Herat around 833 in the Muslim calendar (1430 AD).

VOLUME 5 explores the impact on the Islamic world of Western conquest and domination from circa 1800 to the present. The onset of Western power in Muslim lands was swift and often brutal, beginning symbolically with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in June 1798. In the space of 120 years all the Muslim peoples of the world – with the exception of Afghanistan, Yemen and Central Arabia – were under European rule. The upheavals of the 20th century, from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to the Sudanese civil war, are considered in this volume.

VOLUME 6 covers such broad topics as migrations and communications, Islamic reform, Muslims in Europe, women, family and the law, the press and publishing, and the modern art of the Middle East. Individual essays discuss contemporary trends in Muslim legal thought and ideology, and reveal changing concepts in citizenship and human rights. In introducing this final volume, editor Robert W. Hefner discusses how today’s Muslims face the question of ‘how to balance the interests of Islamic morality with individual freedoms, intellectual openness with the respect for religious tradition.’