Social Life Under the Abbasids, 170-289 Ah, 786-902 Ad (Arab Background Series) 

Muhammad Manazir Ahsan

Some thirty years have passed since the original publication of M. M. Ahsan’s Social Life Under the Abbasids, but it remains an invaluable resource for the study of the material culture of Abbasid life in the ninth and tenth centuries. Ahsan arranges his material thematically-costume, food, housing, hunting, indoor and outdoor games, and festivities and festivals. Moreover, that arrangement together with the eclectic mix of citations, also give readers a taste of what it is like to browse through the many kinds of adab works that are Ahsan’s main sources, including, among numerous others, anecdotal, biographical, culinary, geographical, and literary texts.

M. Manazir Ahsan received his PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of London in 1972. In 1973, Dr Ahsan joined the Islamic Foundation. In 1980 he founded the Muslim World Book Review, of which he is still Editor. He was Director-General of the Islamic Foundation from 1985 to 2010. In 2000, he was awarded an M.B.E. in recognition of his interfaith, charitable, and educational work. In 2010, he assumed the role of Rector of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, and he continues to serve on the board of numerous charities. Julia Bray is Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at St John’s College. She studied Arabic and Persian at Oxford, was an archivist at the India Office Library & Records, and has taught modern Arabic, medieval Arabic literature and Islamic history at the universities of Manchester, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Paris 8-Saint Denis.

Language: English
ISBN: N/A
1979, Hardback with Jacket, 300 pages, 17.5 x 22.5 cm

Book Condition: New, unread, in an Excellent Condition depite its age.
Publisher: Librairie du Liban