Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project
Although al-Maqrizi is recognised as the most influential historian of pre-modern Egypt, he has never received the probing historical treatment warranted by his standing and scholarly output. This book fills that gap. Arranged in three sections, it tells al-Maqrizi’s life story in the first, weaves it with historiographical, textual and methodological analysis of his oeuvre in the second, and reconstructs the afterlife of the author and his work down to the present in the third part.
al-Maqrizi is presented both as a man of his age who forged a distinct and unique scholarly persona and a historian with a structured and principled project aiming to reconstruct the history of Islamic Egypt in all its facets. His, however, was a critical stance with moral overtones, conceived from within the epistemological framework of a medieval Muslim thinker, which ensured not only his reputation in his own historiographical tradition, but also his reclamation in the modern Egyptian consciousness as one of the most original voices of Egypt.

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Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project
Although al-Maqrizi is recognised as the most influential historian of pre-modern Egypt, he has never received the probing historical treatment warranted by his standing and scholarly output. This book fills that gap. Arranged in three sections, it tells al-Maqrizi’s life story in the first, weaves it with historiographical, textual and methodological analysis of his oeuvre in the second, and reconstructs the afterlife of the author and his work down to the present in the third part.
al-Maqrizi is presented both as a man of his age who forged a distinct and unique scholarly persona and a historian with a structured and principled project aiming to reconstruct the history of Islamic Egypt in all its facets. His, however, was a critical stance with moral overtones, conceived from within the epistemological framework of a medieval Muslim thinker, which ensured not only his reputation in his own historiographical tradition, but also his reclamation in the modern Egyptian consciousness as one of the most original voices of Egypt.

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Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project

Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project

by Nasser Rabbat
Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project

Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project

by Nasser Rabbat

Hardcover

$125.00 
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Overview

Although al-Maqrizi is recognised as the most influential historian of pre-modern Egypt, he has never received the probing historical treatment warranted by his standing and scholarly output. This book fills that gap. Arranged in three sections, it tells al-Maqrizi’s life story in the first, weaves it with historiographical, textual and methodological analysis of his oeuvre in the second, and reconstructs the afterlife of the author and his work down to the present in the third part.
al-Maqrizi is presented both as a man of his age who forged a distinct and unique scholarly persona and a historian with a structured and principled project aiming to reconstruct the history of Islamic Egypt in all its facets. His, however, was a critical stance with moral overtones, conceived from within the epistemological framework of a medieval Muslim thinker, which ensured not only his reputation in his own historiographical tradition, but also his reclamation in the modern Egyptian consciousness as one of the most original voices of Egypt.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781399502818
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 01/12/2023
Pages: 332
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nasser Rabbat is Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT.

Table of Contents

    Foreword

    Introduction

    Part 1: The Life of al-Maqrizi

    Chapter 1: The Formative Years

  • The Sources on al-Maqrizi’s Life
  • A Family of Scholars
  • The Loving Presence of Women in al-Maqrizi's Life
  • A Solid Scholarly Formation
  • Ibn Khaldun: Teacher and Interlocutor
  • A Glorious Lineage?
  • Al-Maqrizi’s Representation of the Fatimids
  • Chapter 2: Career, Moral Crisis, and Withdrawal

  • A Question of Madhhab?
  • Building a Career
  • Quest for Patrons
  • The Hisba Saga
  • Rivalry with Badr al-Din al-‘Ayni
  • The Damascus Interlude
  • The Beginning of Estrangement
  • Last Attempts at Finding Patronage?
  • Withdrawal
  • Death
  • Part 2: The Writing of al-Maqrizi

    Chapter 3: Harvest of a Lifetime

  • A Tentative Inventory of al-Maqrizi’s Works
  • Notebooks and Abridgments: A Window into al-Maqrizi’s Sourcing Method
  • The Beginnings: From Abridger to Author
  • The Concept of Kharab: Looking Back as Method
  • The History of Egypt: An Integrated Project
  • Chapter 4: The Khitat: History and Belonging

  • The Khitat: A Cumulative Book?
  • Al-Mawa‘iz wa-l-I‘tibar: What’s in a Title
  • Al-Maqrizi’s Notion of History
  • Khitat and Athar: The Totality of the Urban Space
  • The Patriotic Impulse
  • Structuring the Khitat on the Tempo of Ruination
  • Al-Maqrizi and the Khaldunian Cyclical History
  • Part 3: The Afterlife of al-Maqrizi’s Writing

    Chapter 5: Al-Maqrizi and the Orientalists

  • The Khitat as Urban History
  • Al-Maqrizi and the Ottomans
  • Al-Maqrizi, Napoléon, and the Early Orientalists
  • Arabic Editions of al-Maqrizi’s Khitat
  • Translating al-Maqrizi’s Khitat
  • Re-Editing al-Maqrizi
  • Chapter 6: Reading al-Maqrizi in Modern Egypt

  • Al-Maqrizi’s Readers on the Eve of the Nahda: al-Jabarti and Hasan al-‘Attar
  • Publishing al-Maqrizi’s Khitat
  • Reviving the Khitat Genre: ‘Ali Mubarak and Muhammad Kurd‘ali
  • Architectural History Comes to Egypt: From Coste to Creswell
  • Nationalist Egyptian Architectural History: ‘Abdel-Wahab, Fikri, and Shafe‘i
  • Al-Maqrizi in the Modern Narratives of Cairo: Mahfouz and al-Ghitani
  • Al-Maqrizi in the Egyptian Consciousness: Shalabi and Surur
  • In the Guise of a Conclusion

    Bibliography

     

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