The Sword of Ambition

Bureaucratic Rivalry in Medieval Egypt

ʿUthmān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nābulusī (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

478 Seiten

2016
New York University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4798-8945-7 (ISBN)

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The Sword of Ambition belongs to a genre of religious polemic written for the rulers of Egypt and Syria between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. Unlike most medieval Muslim polemic, the concerns of this genre were more social and political than theological. Leaving no rhetorical stone unturned, the book’s author, an unemployed Egyptian scholar and former bureaucrat named 'Uthman ibn Ibrahim al-Nabulusi (d. 660/1262), poured his deep knowledge of history, law, and literature into the work. Now edited in full and translated for the first time, The Sword of Ambition opens a new window onto the fascinating culture of elite rivalry in the late-medieval Islamic Middle East. It contains a wealth of little-known historical anecdotes, unusual religious opinions, obscure and witty poetry, and humorous cultural satire. Above all, it reveals that much of the inter-communal animosity of the era was conditioned by fierce competition for scarce resources that were increasingly mediated by an ideologically committed Sunni Muslim state. This insight reminds us that seemingly timeless and inevitable “religious” conflict must be considered in its broader historical perspective.

The Sword of Ambition is both the earliest and most eclectic of several independent works composed in medieval Egypt against the employment of Coptic and Jewish officials, and is vivid testimony to the gradual integration of Islamic scholarship and state administration that was well underway in its day.

A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

ʿUthmān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nābulusī (Author) ʿUthmānibn Ibrāhīm al-Nābulusī (d. 660/1262), of Palestinian origin, was a leading Egyptian bureaucrat in the court of the Ayyubid sultans. In addition to his pivotal work, The Sword of Ambition, he wrote several works on Egyptian administration and government, including A Presentation of the Living, Eternal God's Work in Regulating the Fayyum, the most extensive tax record that survives from the medieval Middle East. Luke Yarbrough (Edited and Translated by) Luke Yarbrough is Assistant Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at UCLA. His research is concerned with the history of the pre-modern Middle East and North Africa, including inter-communal relations, law and prescriptive discourses, Arabic historiography, the oral transmission of knowledge, and comparative history. Sherman 'Abd al-Hakim Jackson (Foreword by) Sherman Jackson is King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

Erscheinungsdatum	22.06.2016
Reihe/Serie	Library of Arabic Literature
Übersetzer	Luke Yarbrough
Vorwort	Sherman 'Abd al-Hakim Jackson
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	612 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Anthologien
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Östliche Philosophie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
ISBN-10	1-4798-8945-8 / 1479889458
ISBN-13	978-1-4798-8945-7 / 9781479889457
Zustand	Neuware