The Lineaments of Islam ─ Studies in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner

Scholars of Islamic religion and history look at history and society; historiography; Qur'an, law, and narrative; and texts and artifacts--all areas of interest for Donner (Near Eastern history, U. of Chicago). Among specific topics are scholars and charlatans on the Baghdad-Khurasan circuit from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, the Umayyads and 'Abbasids in Mujir al-Din's 15th-century history of Jerusalem and Hebron, Al-Ma'mun's letter to Theophilus in 833 CE as an example of Qur'anic rhetoric in ninth-century Muslim-Byzantine diplomacy, the revolt of al-Harith ibn Surayj and the countermarking of Umayyad dirhams in early eighth century CE Khurasan, and collective memory and textual transmission in descriptions of the Pharos of Alexandria in Islamic and Chinese sources. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Paul M. Cobb, Ph.D. (1997), University of Chicago, is Professor of Islamic History in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published numerous books, translations, and articles dealing with medieval Islam, including his translation of Usama ibn Munqidh's Book of Contemplation (Penguin Classics, 2008).