Editors

Matthew S. Gordon, Ph.D. (1993), Columbia University, is Professor of Middle East & Islamic History at Miami University. He has published monographs, textbooks, and numerous articles on medieval Islamic social and political history, including The Breaking of a Thousand Swords (SUNY Press, 2001).

Chase F. Robinson, Ph.D. (1992), Harvard University, is Distinguished Professor and President of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has written or edited some 8 books and 40 articles on Islamic history. His most recent book is Islamic Civilization in 30 Lives (Thames & Hudson, 2016).

Everett K. Rowson, Ph.D. (1982), Yale University, is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at New York University. He has published widely in Islamic philosophy, history, and gender and sexuality studies, as well as classical Arabic literature.

Michael Fishbein, Ph.D. (1988), University of California at Los Angeles, is a retired Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at that university, where he taught Arabic language and literature for many years. He is the translator of Volumes VIII, XXI, and XXXI of the SUNY History of al-Ṭabarī.

Presentation

The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī contains a fully annotated translation of the extant writings of Abū al-Abbās al-Yaqūbī, a Muslim imperial official and polymath of the third/ninth century, along with an introduction to these works and a biographical sketch of their author. The most important of the works are the History (Ta’rikh) and his Geography (Kitab al-buldan). The works also contains a new translation of al-Yaqubī’s political essay (Mushakalat al-nas) and a set of fragmentary texts drawn from other Arabic medieval works. Al-Yaqūbī’s writings are among the earliest surviving Arabic-language works of the Islamic period, and thus offer an invaluable body of evidence on patterns of early Islamic history, social and economic organization, and cultural production.

Contributors: Laila Asser, Paul Cobb, Lawrence I. Conrad, Elton Daniel, Fred Donner, Michael Fishbein, Matthew S. Gordon, Sidney H. Griffith, Wadad Kadi (al-Qāḍī), Lutz Richter-Bernberg, Chase F. Robinson, Everett K. Rowson.

Abu l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaʿqūb ibn Jaʿfar ibn Wahb ibn Wāḍiḥ, al-Yaʿqūbī Date of Birth: Unknown; early or mid-9th century Place of Birth: Baghdad Date of Death: Egypt Place of Death: 905 or later Biography Born in Baghdad, al-Yaʿqūbī worked for most of his life in Khurāsān and then Egypt, though, according to details he gives in his own works, he travelled widely throughout the Islamic world and maybe beyond... (Thomas, David, Christian-Muslim Relations 600 - 1500, 2010)