Here’s our monthly line-up of fascinating new and forthcoming books which relate to the wider research interests of our team here at MEMOs. If they’re interesting to you too, you can click on the link in the titles to learn more or purchase the books. This week’s recommendations are by MEMOs winter intern Alya!

Sex and Desire in Muslim Cultures: Beyond Norms and Transgression from the Abbasids to the Present Day edited by Aymon Kreil, Lucia Sorbera and Serena Tolino

What have different ideas about sex and gender meant for people throughout the history of the Middle East and North Africa? This book traces sex and desire in Muslim cultures through a collection of chapters that span the 9th to 21st centuries. Looking at spaces and periods where sexual norms and the categories underpinning them emerge out of multiple subjectivities, the book shows how people constantly negotiate the formulation of norms, their boundaries and their subversion. It demonstrates that the cultural and political meanings of sexualities in Muslim cultures - as elsewhere – emerge from very specific social and historical contexts. In identifying the plurality of discourses on desires, the book goes beyond the dichotomy of norm and transgression to glimpse what different sexual norms have meant at different times across the Middle East.

A Handbook of Persian Calligraphy and Related Arts by Hamid Reza Ghelichkhani

Persian Calligraphy and related traditional arts of books make up the most important forms of Iranian-Islamic art, which are still living practiced traditions up to today. This volume puts together a first-of-a-kind handbook and contains the most important termini technici as well as expressions and techniques connected to the traditional art of Persian calligraphy. The content is based on thirty prominent classical Persian treatises, composed between twelfth and twentieth centuries. All terms and expressions are followed by an English description and often accompanied by an illustration. These expressions, which are key to understanding old calligraphic treatises and many relevant sources on Islamic art, are meant to familiarise the reader with both common and forgotten techniques and terminology of calligraphic traditions.

Byzantium and Islam: Collected Studies on Byzantine-Muslim Encounters by Daniel J. Sahas

Arabs and the Middle East were among the first to embrace Christianity, leaving their print on its culture. Thus Byzantium, by geography and culture, encountered Islam at its birth. No wonder that many saw and treated Islam as a contemporary Christian “heresy” – whatever the word may connote. Radical events fill the history of Byzantium (330-1453) encountering the world of Islam: conquests, wars, cultural and diplomatic relations, manifestations of mutual admiration – and exclusion!

Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib: A Cookbook by Thirteenth-Century Andalusi Scholar Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī (1227–1293) by Nawal Nasrallah

The thirteenth-century cookbook Fiḍālat al-khiwān fī ṭayyibāt al-ṭaʿām wa-l-alwān by the Andalusi scholar Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī showcases the sophisticated cuisine that developed in the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule through its 475 exquisite recipes. Now available for the first time in English, this edition contains al-Tujībī’s complete text, based on a newly discovered manuscript now available for the first time in any language. To introduce readers to the wonders of cooking and foodways in al-Andalus and the Maghreb, the translated text is supplemented with an extensive introduction and glossary, illustrated throughout with 218 colour miniatures and artefacts, with 24 modernised recipes to give readers a taste of the cuisine.

Female Sexuality in the Early Medieval Islamic World: Gender and Sex in Arabic Literature by Pernilla Myrne

In the early Islamic world, Arabic erotic compendia and sex manuals were a popular literary genre. Although primarily written by male authors, the erotic publications from this era often emphasised the sexual needs of women and the importance of female romantic fulfilment.

Pernilla Myrne explores this phenomenon, examining a range of Arabic literature to shed fresh light onto the complexities of female sexuality under the Abbasids and the Buyids. Based on an impressive array of neglected medical, religious-legal, literary and entertainment sources, Myrne elucidates the tension between depictions of women's strong sexual agency and their subordinated social role in various contexts. In the process she uncovers a great diversity of approaches from the 9th to the 11th century, including the sexual handbook the Encyclopedia of Pleasure (Jawami' al-ladhdha), which portrayed the diversity of female desires, asserting the importance of mutual satisfaction through lively poems and stories. This is the first in-depth, comprehensive analysis of female sexuality in the early Islamic world and is essential reading for all scholars of Middle Eastern history and Arabic literature.

Gender and Succession in Medieval and Early Modern Islam: Bilateral Descent and the Legacy of Fatima by Alyssa Gabbay

Alyssa Gabbay examines episodes in pre-modern Islamic history in which individuals or societies recognised descent from both men and women. Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, features prominently in this study, for her example constituted a striking precedent for acknowledging bilateral descent in both Sunni and Shi'i societies, with all of its ramifications for female inheritance, succession and identity.

Covering a broad geographical and chronological swath, Gender and Succession in Medieval and Early Modern Islam presents alternative perspectives to patriarchal narratives, and breaks new ground in its focus upon how people conceived of family structures and bloodlines. In so doing, it builds upon a tradition of studies seeking to dispel monolithic understandings of Islam and Gender.

Music and Musicians in the Medieval Islamicate World: A Social History by Lisa Nielson

During the early medieval Islamicate period (800–1400 CE), discourses concerned with music and musicians were wide-ranging and contentious, and expressed in works on music theory and philosophy as well as literature and poetry. But in spite of attempts by influential scholars and political leaders to limit or control musical expression, music and sound permeated all layers of the social structure. In the process of examining a wide variety of textual sources written for and about musicians and their professional/private environments, the book sheds light onto the dynamics of medieval Islamicate courts, as well as how slavery, gender, status and religion intersected with music in courtly life.

Articulating the Ḥijāba: Cultural Patronage and Political Legitimacy in al-Andalus by Mariam Rosser-Owen

In Articulating the Ḥijāba, Mariam Rosser-Owen analyses for the first time the artistic and cultural patronage of the Amirid regents of the last Cordoban Umayyad caliph, Hisham II, a period rarely covered in the historiography of al-Andalus. Al-Mansur, the founder of this dynasty, is usually considered a usurper of caliphal authority, who pursued military victory at the expense of the transcendental achievements of the first two caliphs. But he also commissioned a vast extension to the Great Mosque of Cordoba, founded a palatine city, conducted skilled diplomatic relations, patronised a circle of court poets, and owned some of the most spectacular objects to survive from al-Andalus, in ivory and marble. This study presents the evidence for a reconsideration of this period.

Egypt and Syria under Mamluk Rule: Political, Social and Cultural Aspects by Amalia Levanoni

The studies in this volume explore central topics characterizing the political, social and economic systems of Egypt and Syria under Mamluk rule (1250-1517). Drawing on Arabic sources including archival material, poetry and chronicles as well as modern research literature, twelve leading scholars in the field analyze a vast range of issues in Mamluk history and provide new perspectives on pivotal features such as European-Mamluk diplomacy, social relationships and identity in Mamluk society, rural and urban economy and water management in late medieval Egypt and Syria, reflecting major research trends in Mamluk history over the last four decades.