The new year is coming, and it is time to see what we will find in the near future in our libraries about Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, with a focus on ‘medieval period’.

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P. Adamson, Studies on Early Arabic Philosophy, Ashgate Publishing, June 2015
Philosophy in the Islamic world from the 9th to 11th centuries was characterized by an engagement with Greek philosophical works in Arabic translation. This volume collects papers on both the Greek philosophers in their new Arabic guise, and on reactions to the translation movement in the period leading up to Avicenna.

P. Adamson, Studies on Plotinus and al-Kindi, Ashgate Publishing, January 2015
This book collects 15 papers on the greatest philosopher of late antiquity and founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (d.270), and the founding figure of philosophy in the Islamic world: al-Kindī (d. ca. 873). A number of the contributions focus on the text that joins the two: the so-called Theology of Aristotle, in fact an Arabic version of Plotinus’ Enneads produced in al- Kindī’s translation circle.

K. Bauer, Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’ān, Cambridge University Press, April 2015
This book explores how medieval and modern Muslim religious scholars (‘ulamā’) interpret gender roles in Qur’ānic verses on legal testimony, marriage, and human creation. Citing these verses, medieval scholars developed increasingly complex laws and interpretations upholding a male-dominated gender hierarchy; aspects of their interpretations influence religious norms and state laws in Muslim-majority countries today, yet other aspects have been discarded entirely.

P. Brummett, Mapping the Ottomans, Cambridge University Press, May 2015
Enriched throughout by examples of Ottoman self-mapping, this book examines how Ottomans and their empire were mapped in the narrative and visual imagination of early modern Europe’s Christian kingdoms.

G. Burak, The Second Formation of Islamic Law, Cambridge University Press, January 2015
The Second Formation of Islamic Law is the first book to deal with the rise of an official school of law in the post-Mongol period. The author explores how the Ottoman dynasty shaped the structure and doctrine of a particular branch within the Hanafi school of law. In addition, the book examines the opposition of various jurists, mostly from the empire’s Arab provinces, to this development.

A. E. Elinson, Looking Back at al-Andalus, Brill, January 2015
Looking Back at al-Andalus focuses on Arabic and Hebrew Literature that expresses the loss of al-Andalus from multiple vantage points. In doing so, this book examines the definition of al-Andalus’ literary borders, the reconstruction of which navigates between traditional generic formulations and actual political, military and cultural challenges.

D. Hollenberg, C. Rauch, S. Schmidtke (eds.), The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition, Brill, February 2015
The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition contributes to the study of the manuscript codex and its role in scholastic culture in Yemen. Ranging in period from Islam’s first century to the modern period, all the articles in this volume emerge from the close scrutiny of the manuscripts of Yemen.

O. Kahl, The Sanskrit, Syriac and Persian Sources in the Comprehensive Book of Rhazes, Brill, April 2015
This work offers a critical analysis of the Sanskrit, Syriac and Persian sources in Rhazes’ (d. 925 CE) Comprehensive Book (or al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), a hugely famous and highly unusual medico-pharmaceutical encyclopedia originally written in Arabic.

A. Kaplony,  D. Potthast, C. Römer (eds.), From Bāwīṭ to Marw. Documents from the Medieval Muslim World, Brill, February 2015
The dry climate of Egypt has preserved about 130,000 Arabic documents, mostly on papyrus and paper, covering the period from the 640s to 1517. Up to now, historical research has mostly relied on literary sources; yet, as in study of the history of the Ancient World and medieval Europe, using original documents will radically challenge what literary sources tell us about the Islamic world.

M. Nazim, The Life and Times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, Cambridge University Press, January 2015
Originally published in 1931, this book presents a historical account regarding the life and times of Mahmud of Ghazni. Detailed information is given on Mahmud’s seventeen expeditions into northwestern India, with a particular emphasis on their geographical setting.

A.C.S. Peacock, B. De Nicola and S. N. Yıldız (eds.), Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia, Ashgate Publishing, April 2015
Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia offers a comparative approach to understanding the spread of Islam and Muslim culture in medieval Anatolia.

H. Touati (ed.), De la figuration humaine au portrait dans l’art islamique, Brill, April 2015
This book presents an art historical and cultural study of human figuration and portraiture in a medieval islamic context, based on literary and iconographic sources. With contributions by: Sheila Blair; Éloïse Brac de la Perrière; Oleg Grabar; Kata Keresztely; Mika Natif; Yves Porter; Houari Touati.

D. R. Sarrió Cucarella, Muslim-Christian Polemics across the Mediterranean, Brill, January 2015
In Muslim-Christian Polemics across the Mediterranean Diego R. Sarrió Cucarella provides an exposition and analysis of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī’s (d. 684/1285) Splendid Replies to Insolent Questions (al-Ajwiba al-fākhira ‘an al-as’ila al-fājira). Written in response to an apology for Christianity by the Melkite Bishop of Sidon, Paul of Antioch, the Splendid Replies is among the most extensive and most important medieval Muslim refutations of Christianity, and the primary significance of this study is to provide detailed access to its argumentation and intellectual context for the first time in a western language.

VV. AA., Age of Transition: Byzantine Culture in the Islamic World, Yale University Press, May 2015
In 2012 the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, a groundbreaking exhibition that explored the transformations and continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 9th century. During this time of historic upheaval, Christian and Jewish communities encountered the world of Islam, resulting in unprecedented cross-cultural exchange. The catalogue for Byzantium and Islam received the 2014 World Book Award as the best new book on Islamic studies, presented by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Religious Guidance. This new volume bring together eleven papers by internationally distinguished scholars delivered in symposia and Scholars’ Days during the exhibition, with a new introduction by Helen C. Evans. These writings provide new information about the impact of Byzantine culture, both Christian and Jewish, during the development and early years of Islamic rule in the eastern Mediterranean and across North Africa, and reconsider traditional concepts about the origin of Islamic art.