ABOUT US
BOOKS
SUBJECTS
SERIES
PUBLISH WITH US
CONTACT
LOGIN
PROFILE
ORDERS
LOGOUT
0
vikramjain@sanctumbooks.com
×
x
x
LOGIN
PROFILE
ORDERS
LOGOUT
x
ABOUT US
BOOKS
SUBJECTS
SERIES
PUBLISH WITH US
CONTACT
Home:
Subjects:
Christianity
Islam & Sufism
History, Culture & Politics
Literature & Poetry
Middle Eastern Studies
x
Front Cover
Back Cover
The Book of Monasteries
Authors:
Al-Shābushtī (author)
,
Hilary Kilpatrick (translator)
,
Wiebke Denecke (foreword)
,
Tahera Qutbuddin (editor)
Series:
Library of Arabic Literature
ISBN:
9789395474993
Binding:
Hardcover
Year:
2026
Pages:
388
Size:
15 x 23 x 3 cm
Weight:
642 grams
Price:
INR
2495.00
About the Book
A literary tour of Christian monasteries of the medieval Middle East.
The Book of Monasteries
takes readers on a tour of the monasteries of the Middle East by presenting the rich variety of poetry and prose associated with each monastery. Starting with Baghdad, readers are taken up the Tigris into the mountains of south-eastern Anatolia before moving to Palestine and Syria, along the Euphrates down to the old Christian center of Ḥīrah and onward to Egypt. For the literary anthologist al-Shābushtī, who was Muslim, monasteries were important sites of interactions with Christian communities that made up about half the population of the Abbasid Empire at the time.Each section in this anthology covers a specific monastery, beginning with a discussion of its location and the reason for its name. Al-Shābushtī presents poems, anecdotes, and historical reports related to each. He selects heroic and spectacular incidents, illustrations of caliphal extravagance, and events that gave rise to memorable verse. Important political personalities and events that were indirectly linked with monasteries also appear in the collection, as do scenes of festive court life and gruesome murders. Al-Shābushtī uses these accounts not to teach history but to offer a meditation on the splendor of Abbasid culture as well as moral and philosophical lessons: the ephemerality of power; the virtues of generosity and tolerance; the effectiveness of eloquence in prose and poetry; the fleeting nature of pleasure and beauty. Translated into English for the first time,
The Book of Monasteries
offers an entertaining panorama of religious, political, and literary life during the Abbasid era.
About the Authors
Al-Shābushtī
Al-Shābushtī (d. 388/998 or 389/999) was a scribe from Baghdad who traveled around Iraq, southern Anatolia, and Syria before moving to Cairo, where he became a court companion and librarian to the Fatimid caliph al-ʿAzīz.
Hilary Kilpatrick
Hilary Kilpatrick received her DPhil from Oxford. She has taught at universities in the UK, the Netherlands, and Switzerland and is now an independent scholar based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She has published a major study of al-Iṣbahānī’s
Book of Songs
and many articles on modern, classical, and Ottoman Arabic literature.
Wiebke Denecke
Wiebke Denecke is Professor of East Asian Literatures at MIT and the founding editor-in-chief of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature. Her publications include
The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi
, and as editor,
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
and
The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature
.
Tahera Qutbuddin
Editorial Reviews
“Not only has [Kilpatrick] rendered what one suspects is rather challenging Arabic in readable and often stylish English prose, but she has also provided a great many helpful notes and a useful introduction and bibliography.”
—
Al-Ahram Weekly
“An intriguing read for those interested in Muslim-Christian relations within the Abbasid empire and...medieval monasticism.”
—
Medievalists.net
Customer Reviews
Books of related interest
The Requirements of the Sufi Path: A Defense of th...
The Rules of Logic
The Essence of Reality: A Defense of Philosophical...
Bedouin Poets of the Nafūd Desert
In Deadly Embrace: Arabic Hunting Poems
The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Th...
The Divine Names: A Mystical Theology of the Names...
The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt an...
The Doctors’ Dinner Party
Fate the Hunter: Early Arabic Hunting Poems
Love, Death, Fame: Poetry and Lore from the Emirat...
Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice
The Book of Charlatans
Impostures
The Philosopher Responds: An Intellectual Corresp...
The Book of Travels
Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and...
A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poet...
Sufism and Power in the Ottoman Empire: The Writin...
Religion, Orientalism and Modernity: Mahdi Movemen...
Kings and Dervishes: Sufi World Renunciation and t...
A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poet...
From Ravidas and Nanak to Waris Shah: Texts, Langu...
City of Lyrics: Ordinary Poets and Islamicate Popu...
Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and...
Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Lit...
Songs of Home & Loss: Reconstructions of a Tam...
The Center of the World: A Global History of the P...
The Politics of Muslim Identities in Asia
After Belsen: Christian Encounters with Holocaust ...
God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, an...
Indian Poetics (Kavya Śastra) and Narratology Towa...
Nationhood and Identity in Indian Adaptations of S...
Literary Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and Univers...
The Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Str...
The Literary Thing: History, Poetry and the Making...
Outsiders and Insiders: Perspectives of Third Worl...
The Audacious Raconteur: Sovereignty and Storytell...
The House of the Satrap: The Making of the Ancient...
Emotion, Mission, Architecture: Building Hospitals...
The Breakup of India and Palestine: The Causes and...
Islamic Law on Trial: Contesting Colonial Power in...
God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, an...
Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern Sout...
Muslim Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Diversity and...
Locating Hybridity: Creole, Identities and Body Po...
Un-Disciplining Literature: Literature, Law, and C...
Serendipitous Translations: A Sourcebook on Sri La...
Old Stacks, New Leaves: The Arts of the Book in So...
Shelter for the Night: On Afghanistan, Language, a...
Myth and History in Ancient Persia: The Achaemenid...
Exile and the Nation: The Parsi Community of India...
Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature...
Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at th...
The Rise of the Modern West: Europe, 1600-1799
Recognition: The Poetics of Narrative: Interdiscip...
Indian Writers: Transnationalisms and Diasporas
US Hegemony Global Ambitions and Decline- Emergenc...
Hidden Paradigms: Comparing Epic Themes, Character...
Ancient India: Insights into Social & Economic...
Colonial Indology: Sociopolitics of the Ancient In...
Insecurities of Expulsion: Afro-Asian Entanglement...
Life at a Distance: Medicine and Nationalism in In...
L’idee separatiste dans la presse anglo-musulmane ...
Turning Wind into Power Effects of Stakeholder Net...
Iran to India: The Shansabānīs of Afghanistan, c. ...
Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Sinc...
Democracy’s Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Pub...
A Story of Ambivalent Modernization in Bangladesh ...
A Post-Liberal Peace: How Emergent Powers Are Resh...
The Life of Shariʿa: A Comparative Anthropology of...
The Retrospective Raj: Medicine, Literature and Hi...
Ethnicity and Tribal Theology: Problems and Prospe...
Earthquake Disaster Management: Focussing on the E...
Towards a Relevant Christology in India Today: An ...
The Rise of a Multipolar World: Papers presented a...
Ireland: Looking East
Civilisation, Education and School in Ancient and ...
Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work ...
Lineages of the Global City: Occult Modernism and ...
An Environmental History of Postcolonial North Ind...
Indian Agents: Rulers of the Reserves
Sufis and Sharīʿa: The Forgotten School of Mercy
"The Ethos of Britain": Delderfieldʼs Sw...
Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature...
Sojourners, Sultans, and Slaves: America and the I...
Comparative Constitutional Traditions
Meditation, Vol. I: History And Present Time
Across the Color Line: Indians, Blacks, and Landsc...
Media, Knowledge, and Contemporary India
The Mahabharata and the Yugas: India's Great E...
The Japanese Image of India: From the Heavenly Wor...
Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of World Histor...
Across Literary and Linguistic Diversities: Essays...
Negotiating Historical Change Hindu Style
Transoceanic Dialogues: Coolitude in Caribbean and...
Emerging South Asian Women Writers: Essays and Int...
Machiavelli on War
Christianity in South and Central Asia
Killing in the Name of the State: State-Sponsored ...
The Political Economy of Education in South Asia: ...
Warriors after War: Indian and Pakistani Retired M...
Origin and Growth of Satī in Early Medieval India:...
Decolonization and the Struggle for National Liber...
Tracing the Contours of the Unseen: Sufi Poetry, M...
Fictionalising Trauma: The Aesthetics of Marguerit...
Independent Kashmir: An Incomplete Aspiration
Youth Violence and Pastoral Care: Pastoral Respons...
South Asian Technospaces - Hardcover
Becoming Poets: The Asian English experience
Federalism and Second Chambers: Regional Represent...
Education and Training in a Globalized World Socie...
Brotherhood of the Cross and Star: A New Religious...
Translation and the Accommodation of Diversity: In...
Martin Luther on Social and Political Issues: - Hi...
Die Rani von Jhansi – Rebellin wider Willen: Biogr...
The Failure of Islamic Modernism?: Syed Ameer Ali&...
Motilal Tejawat: Life and Work
The Physics of Capitalism: How a New Political Eco...
Economic Dimensions of Buddhism in Early India: Fr...
The Road to Empire: The Political Education of Kha...
Education, Labour & Science: Perspectives for ...
The Rise of the Modern West: Europe, 1400-1599
Cultural Contexts and Literary Forms: Essays on Ge...
On the Outside Looking In(dian): Indian Women Writ...
India in the World since 1947: National and Transn...
Remembering Empire: Power, Memory, & Place in ...
Narayan: A Study in Transcendence (Studies of Worl...
Requiem for a Lightning Bolt
Migrant Epistemologies in Indian Nonfiction of the...
Defining the Indefinable: Delimiting Hindi
Global Literary Journalism: Exploring the Journali...
The Supreme Refuge, Volume 2: History, Myths, Wors...
R.K. Narayan: A Painter of Modern India
Global Literary Journalism: Exploring the Journali...
The Role of the Petrine Ministry in the Ecumenical...
Catching Butterflies: Bringing Magical Realism to ...
Women, Wealth and the State in Early Colonial Indi...
Between Life and Death: Governing Populations in t...
Female Militants in South Asia: Fighters and Facil...
India in Translation through Hindi Literature: A P...
J.S. Mill’s Encounter with India
Confronting Fear in Faith: A Psycho-Pastoral Appro...
Re/Membering Place
Rule-extension Strategies in Ancient India: Ritual...
The Literary Thing: History, Poetry and the Making...
Asians ahead after the first round?: Indo-British ...
Contemporary Global Governance: Multipolarity vs N...
Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labo...
Medieval Worlds: Origins, Nature, Debates, and Exc...
Tasting Difference: Food, Race, and Cultural Encou...
License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passp...
Determinants, Consequences and Perspectives of Lan...
The Discovery of Insulin: Special Centenary Editio...
Fictions of 1947: Representations of Indian Decolo...
The Guardian of the Hills: Devata Culture and Livi...
The Culture Shocks of Rudyard Kipling (American Un...
A Mandala of Words: Cultural Realities in the Poem...
Palimpsests Past and Present: The Sufis and Sultan...
Visions of Empire and Other Imaginings: Cinema, Ir...
Versailles Meets the Taj Mahal: François Bern...
Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional F...
The Socialist Opposition in Nehruvian India 1947–1...
South Asian Technospaces
Women and Contemporary World Literature: Power, Fr...
Bishop Stephen Neill: From Edinburgh to South Indi...
Anti-Christian Violence in India
The Supreme Refuge, Volume 2: History, Myths, Wors...
Artificially Intelligent: The Very Human Story of ...
Sacred Sovereignty: Kingship, Heritage, and Politi...
Haram in the Harem: Domestic Narratives in India a...
The Quest for Postcolonial Utopia: A Comparative I...
Strategic Dynamics and Nuclear Weapons Proliferati...
Images of India in British Fiction: Anglo-India vs...
Globalisation and the Changing Face of Port Infras...
Pakistan and the New Nuclear Taboo: Regional Deter...
The Other Jesus: Christology in Asian Perspective
Ethnic Identity and Christianity: A Socio-Historic...
Issues of Identity in Indian English Fiction: A Cl...
Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional F...
The Prophetic Novel
The Divine Body in History: A comparative study of...
Literarische Selbstverortung als historische Handl...
Word, Chant, and Song: Spiritual Transformation in...
Compact Atlas of Global Christianity
Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse in the Novels ...
The Greater Second World War: Global Perspectives
Midnight’s Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Post/Colonial...
Global South Rising?: BRICS and the Reconfiguratio...
ADD REVIEW
Review Title
Review
Reviewer Name
Email