Search results for ""Azimuth Editions""

Beginning in the world of late antiquity and the pre-Islamic period, the book takes the reader through Islam’s formative era and early development in the Arabian Peninsula, the rise and decline of major Muslim dynasties and finally into its place in the modern world. Lavishly illustrated and written in an accessible style, Islam: An Illustrated Journey tells the story of Islam, a faith that is today practised by more than a billion people and is the fastest growing religion in the world. The book contains a multitude of images, graphics, maps and charts, features many of the masterpieces of art, architecture and literature produced by Muslims along with a detailed bibliography, and will appeal to both general audiences and enthusiasts of Islamic societies and cultures and world civilizations.

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Despite their distinct theological differences, Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, followers of the two main branches of Islam, share a number of core beliefs including an allegiance to and love for the Prophet Muhammad and members of his family. For Shi'a Muslims, reverence for the Prophet and allegiance to his household (Ahl al-bayt, 'People of the House'), comprising his immediate family and their descendants, constitutes an essential principle of belief that has directly impacted how Shi'i artists, rulers, patrons and ritual participants have conveyed their love and loyalty through material culture and religious ritual. The 22 essays in this volume, richly illustrated with over 200 coloured images, present a diversity of beliefs and practices expressed through the arts, architecture, material culture and ritual that spans Shi'i history from the tenth century to the present day. With contributions from experts in the fields of anthropology, religious studies, art and architectural history, numismatics, film studies and contemporary art, the book also calls attention to the global diversity of the artistic and devotional expressions ofShi'a Muslims from across Trinidad, Senegal, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India and China. Additionally, some essays draw upon important female Shi'i figures and female ritual practices and many chapters underscore the theme oflove for the Ahl al-bayt beyond Sunni and Shi'i demarcations. This work contributes to a growing body of scholarship dedicated to the religious arts and rituals ofShi'a Muslims around the world.

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The history of Cairo is usually presented in terms of periods and dynasties such as the Fatimid or Ayyubid. The modern history of Egypt is generally held to begin in the last decades of the nineteenth century with the emergence of a new, modern city, constructed by the Khedives of Egypt along European lines. This illustrated book examines Cairo from the first century AH / seventh century AD until the present, considering the relationships between the physical layout of the city and its historic buildings, its economy, and its social, cultural, and religious life. The book discusses the programs of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, both for restoring historic monuments in the district of al-Darb al-Ahmar and for reviving and improving the social and economic life of the old city. It also seeks to convey what the residents of the old city think about these projects, to clarify what, if any, is the felt relationship between the great monuments like Bab al-Zuwayla and the people who live nearby and what can be learned from this experience for similar restoration projects in other parts of the world. No previous book has dealt with Cairo across so wide a range of periods and subjects, examining the relationships between the inhabitants of Cairo and their city and the relationships between past and present. Economics, architecture, and religious practices in past ages all have reverberations in the present. The contributors range from academics with expertise in Islamic history and architecture, such as Nasser Rabbat and Roy Mottahedeh, to the personnel who were engaged in the restoration projects. A DVD of the film Living with the Past: Historic Cairo (2001, 56 minutes, directed by Maysoon Pachachi for Echo Productions, produced by Elizabeth Fernea) accompanies the book. It portrays al-Darb al-Ahmar, a neighborhood in the heart of the old city, and follows several interwoven restoration projects undertaken with a unique approach combining conservation with social, cultural, and economic neighborhood schemes that aim not only to rescue endangered monuments but also to preserve the spirit and vitality of the community.

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In Western Europe the Golden Age of Islamic metalwork in Iran was (and is) generally considered to be the earlier period, and later metalwork was collected almost by accident and has been correspondingly little studied and poorly published, though in recent decades the imbalance has been somewhat modified. The Hermitage Collection, which numbers 162 pieces is the largest collection in the world of later Iranian Islamic metalwork, from the West of Iran as far as the Punjab. The great majority of these are household utensils, and their manufacture is characteristic of the middling levels of urban societies, though in Khurasan in the late-15th and early 16th centuries brasses or bronzes inlaid with gold and silver were made for its Timurid rulers. The substantial numbers of Iranian copper-alloy astronomical instruments of this period were made by different craftsmen, for a different public, and deserve separate treatment, though not magic bowls, used in folk-medicine and divination, which are noticed in this volume.In his Introduction, Anatolii Ivanov gives a valuable directoryof museums and other institutions of the former Soviet Union with significant collections, which complement the holdings of the Hermitage and together amount to a truly substantial corpus. The latter were acquired from private collections, but the core of the collection, from the museum attached to the school of industrial drawing founded by Baron Stieglitz, came to the Hermitage in the 1920s, when this was broken up. As well as minutely detailed descriptions of each piece and analyses of their decoration, Ivanov presents a detailed critical survey of the limited documentary evidence afforded by the inscriptions many pieces bear, which is of permanent value as a basis for further scholars working on later Islamic metalwork in general.

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