This first chapter traces the characteristics and development of the mirror literatures in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. It discusses the range of forms and styles, and the varied functions, of these advisory texts, and their generic designations in the original languages. The chapter identifies and discusses four major periods: the Early or Formative Period (eighth and ninth centuries); the Early Middle Period (tenth to twelfth centuries); the Later Middle Period (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries); the Early Modern Period. At several points, the discussion indicates parallels and affinities among the mirror literatures produced in contemporaneous Muslim and Christian settings. The chapter ends with a discussion of the appearance, presentation and reception of mirrors for princes.

The Mamluks’ patronage of literary and scholastic arts inspired written products remarkable for theirdiversity. During the era of Mamluk rule, bureaucrats, jurists, essayists, poets, scholars, and theologians generated legal compendia, religious commentaries, political treatises, trust documents, literary anthologies, historical chronicles, manuals of diplomatic and statecraft, and handbooks of urban/rural topography. These works have enabled contemporary researchers to revise long-standing interpretations of traditional disciplines, and to reconsider subjects previously regarded as inaccessible due to a presumed lack of sources. Topics addressed: literary theory, popular culture, historical method, rural life, gender relations, and religious diversity. Since the Sultanate presided over the central Islamic lands during their transition from the medieval to early modern periods (7th/13th-10th/16th centuries), the insights provided by these sources, and their revisionists, are reshaping the field of Islamic History. The chapter analyzes the context of patronage of literary products by the Mamluk ruling class, and other social groups with the means and inclination to do so. It considers the audiences reflected in their contents, the evolution of languages in which they were written (primarily Arabic, but representation of Persian and Turkish as well), their principal genres (poetry/prose), and the development of Historiography.

This chapter addresses how Arabic, besides being the scriptural and liturgical language of Islam, came to be the lingua franca of a world empire and its literary heritage. The chapter is divided into two parts, with the first subdivided into three sections examining the professional and literary careers of three chancellery secretaries of the late Umayyad empire, namely, Sālim Abū-l-ʿAlāʾ, ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib, and Ibn-al-Muqaffaʿ, who briefly also served the early ʿAbbāsid dynasty; and how their contributions, both of translations and original works, laid the foundations of Islamicate imperial culture and of adab literature—a new style of Arabic written prose which, by way of translation, was to become part of premodern world literature. The second part of the chapter provides a brief survey of the genres, subgenres, and audiences of the literatures of adab within the Arabic literary tradition of the Middle Ages.

This chapter canvasses information available in the Arab/Islamic canon on the subject of violence exercised against women in the early Islamic period. The Qur’anic verse in Surat al-Nisa’ (4:34) which gives the husband the right to correct a disobedient or recalcitrant wife, generated a massive exegetical. This chapter begins with a discussion of the exegetical tradition pertaining to this verse and comments on the divergences between the Islamic legal schools and the differences of textual interpretations between theologians and jurisconsults. The second section refers to anecdotes that reveal the conflicts and tensions in private relations, the harmfulness of domestic intimacy, and the dynamics of household violence. The final section discusses episodes describing public violence against women, especially in the streets of Baghdad, the ʿAbbāsid capital. Beyond the rich exegetical tradition, the information tends to be scarce and fragmentary and relies mostly on literary texts makes it difficult to disentangle fact from fiction.The material draws for us, nevertheless, illustrations of certain widespread conceptions in Muslim medieval literary approaches to violence against women and the social context in which the textual edifice was constructed.

Chapter 2 presents a detailed analysis of what we mean by Islamic rationalism. It explains the emphasis Islamic rationalism places on adherence to a madhhab, rational theology, and deep mystical experience, and how this approach is credited to Al-Ghazali. The chapter shows how Islamic rationalism was the mainstream Sunni orthodoxy until colonial rule displaced traditional Islamic learning practices in most Muslim countries. The chapter also shows how understanding the approach of the scholars leading this network requires understanding not just these conceptual debates but also their actual method of teaching. Emphasis is placed on acting as a model for the student.