The Classical Age Of Islam

The Venture of Islam has been honored as a magisterial work of the mind since its publication in early 1975. In this three-volume study, illustrated with charts and maps, Hodgson traces and interprets the historical development of Islamic civilization from before the birth of Muhammad to the middle of the twentieth century. This work grew out of the famous course on Islamic civilization that Hodgson created and taught for many years at the University of Chicago. "This is a nonpareil work, not only because of its command of its subject but also because it demonstrates how, ideally, history should be written."—The New Yorker Volume 1, The Classical Age of Islam, analyzes the world before Islam, Muhammad's challenge, and the early Muslim state between 625 and 692. Hodgson then discusses the classical civilization of the High Caliphate. The volume also contains a general introduction to the complete work and a foreword by Reuben Smith, who, as Hodgson's colleague and friend, finished the Venture of Islam after the author's death and saw it through to publication.

In a book written with the poignancy and beauty appropriate to its subject matter, the author opens by reminding us that the essence of a society is in a sense identical with its history. Classical Islam also serves as a reminder that in the case of Islam, despite its triumphs on the fields of battle, telling its history is the only way open to us to render that essence accessible and show it from all sides. The work offers a grand narrative of a faith that offers an interpretation of the world, a way of life, and a style of thinking, that goes far beyond institutional or political supports. The relevance of this historical perspective is beyond dispute. The period from 610 A.D. when Muhammad received his call until the conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 is known as the classical period of Islam. This was the period of the great expansion of Islam both as a political structure and as a religious and intellectual community. It established the base for the development of the high Islamic civilization of North Africa, the Near East, Persia, and India, as well as further expansion of the Islamic religious and intellectual community throughout the world. This book presents an authoritative history of the period written by one of the world's leading experts on the subject.Classical Islam examines the relationships, both cultural and political, between the Islamic world and the Mediterranean countries and India and elaborates on the economic, social, and intellectual factors and forces that shaped the Muslim world and molded its interactions with infidels. The work is written in a clear and direct narrative form, emphasizing simultaneously the major intellectual trends and the political events and tendencies of the formative period in Islamic history that still resonates today.

The Venture of Islam has been honored as a magisterial work of the mind since its publication in early 1975. In this three-volume study, illustrated with charts and maps, Hodgson traces and interprets the historical development of Islamic civilization from before the birth of Muhammad to the middle of the twentieth century. This work grew out of the famous course on Islamic civilization that Hodgson created and taught for many years at the University of Chicago. "This is a nonpareil work, not only because of its command of its subject but also because it demonstrates how, ideally, history should be written."—The New Yorker Volume 1, The Classical Age of Islam, analyzes the world before Islam, Muhammad's challenge, and the early Muslim state between 625 and 692. Hodgson then discusses the classical civilization of the High Caliphate. The volume also contains a general introduction to the complete work and a foreword by Reuben Smith, who, as Hodgson's colleague and friend, finished the Venture of Islam after the author's death and saw it through to publication.

This book, a milestone of Islamic scholarship, calls attention to those aspects of Arab Islamic culture that excite modern controversy. Professor Khalidi examines the classical period, when the basic cultural patterns of Islamic civilization were established, the various branches of religious and nonreligious scholarship defined, and the religious life-styles had become embedded in the subconscious of an ancient society. The topics covered are: The Foundations God and His Community Islamic Paideia Attitudes Towards the past The Mystic Quest The Place of Reason The World of Nature The Governance of the Umma Ibn Khaldun--The Great Synthesist Past and Present in Contemporary Arabic Thought.

A survey of an entire tradition of historical thought and writing across a span of eight hundred years.

In recent decades, scholars have come to recognize the importance of classical Islamic philosophy both in its own right and in its preservation of and engagement with Western philosophical ideas. At the same time, the period immediately following the so-called classical period has often beenseen as a sort of dark age, in which Islamic thought entered a long period of decline. In this monumental new work, Frank Griffel seeks to overturn this conventional wisdom, arguing that what he calls the "post-classical" period has been unjustly maligned and neglected by previous generations ofscholars.The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam is a comprehensive study of the far-reaching changes that led to a re-shaping of the philosophical discourse in Islam during the twelfth century. Earlier Western scholars thought that Islam's engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy endedduring that century. More recent analyses suggest that Islamic thinkers instead integrated Greek thought into the genre of rationalist Muslim theology (kalam). Griffel argues that even this view misses a key point. In addition to the integration of Greek ideas into kalam, Muslim theologians pickedup the discourse of philosophy in Islam (falsafa) and began to produce books on philosophy. Books in these two genres, kalam and philosophy, argue for opposing teachings on the nature of God, the world's creation, and on the afterlife - even when written by the same authors. Griffel explains theemergence of a new genre of philosophical books called "hikma," works that stand opposed to Islamic theology and at the same wish to complement it. Offering a detailed history of philosophy in Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia during the twelfth century, together with an analysis of the way philosophywas practiced during this time, Griffel shows how works of falsafa, written by major Muslim theologians such as al-Ghazali developed step-by-step into critical assessments of philosophy that try to improve philosophical teachings, and eventually become fully fledged philosophical summas in the workof Fakhr al-Din al-Razi. Griffel's examination of the different methods of kalam and hikma demonstrate both the coherence and ambiguity of a Muslim post-classical philosopher's oeuvre.A work of extraordinary breadth and depth, The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Philosophy or the history of Islam.

The influence of classical antiquity on the religious disciplines, theology, mysticism and law of Islam cannot be overestimated. This work demonstrates the significance of the classical heritage by drawing together a great range of literary renderings, paraphrases, commentaries and imitations, as well as independent Islamic elaborations. Professor Rosenthal's collection includes the work of early authors, authors of the Golden Age and later writers who imitated their works. The Classical Heritage in Islam reveals that the Muslim adoption of and dependence on classical texts was not blind imitation or a casual compounding of traditions, but rather an original synthesis and therefore a unique achievement.