This first of the ultimately three-volume Who’s Who in Islamic Studies presents the scholarly world at long last with its own biographical encyclopaedia. Taking as a starting point the inventory of authors from the renowned Index Islamicus, the author, Wolfgang Behn (Berlin), has systematically collected numerous data on the lives and works of the tens of thousands of authors listed in the Index Islamicus from 1665 to 1980. This Biographical Companion will be an indispensable reference tool for the serious student and scholar of Islamic Studies. It enables the user to quickly gain knowledge on the life, work, and professional background of almost every major and minor author, and thus to place each author in his/her proper perspective. A tremendous achievement and a true must for every library.

"Philogiae Turcicae fundamenta tomus tertius "

Islam today is a truly global faith, yet it remains somewhat of an enigma to many of us. Each and every day our newspapers are saturated with references to Islam; Quran, Taliban, Hijab, Fatwa, Allah, Sunni, Jihad, Shia, the list goes on. But how much do we really understand? Are we, in fact, misunderstanding? The Penguin Dictionary of Islam provides complete, impartial answers. It includes extensive coverage of the historical formations of the worldwide Muslim community and highlights key modern Muslim figures and events. Understanding Islam is vital to understanding our world and this text is the definitive authority, designed for both general and academic readers.

This book will be immensely helpful to those who wish to orient themselves to what has become a very large body of literature on medieval Islamic history. Combining a bibliographic study with an inquiry into method, it opens with a survey of the principal reference tools available to historians of Islam and a systematic review of the sources they will confront. Problems of method are then examined in a series of chapters, each exploring a broad topic in the social and political history of the Middle East and North Africa between A.D. 600 and 1500. The topics selected represent a cross-section of Islamic historical studies, and range from the struggles for power within the early Islamic community to the life of the peasantry. Each chapter pursues four questions. What concrete research problems are likely to be most challenging and productive? What resources do we possess for dealing with these problems? What strategies can we devise to exploit our resources most effectively? What is the current state of the scholarly literature for the topic under study?