Reports on publications
This book offers a new interpretation of early Abbasid palaces as “impermanent monuments.” Synthesizing an array of sources, ranging from archaeological finds and classical Arabic literature to modern studies on the social and intellectual history of Islamic civilization, it reveals ways in which the Abbasid court designed, decorated, presented, and [...]
Joining an emergent literature of “local art histories,” Fantasmic Objects offers the first English-language study of modern art in Lebanon. It is, moreover, the first study of Lebanon through art. An historical ethnography of “art acts” which played a significant role in co-founding the nation during French occupation (1920-1950), [...]
This catalogue, Power and Protection: Islamic Art and the Supernatural deals with the entirety of the Muslim world with a total emphasis on pre-Modern Islamic cultures through the lens of visual and material culture. It contextualises the art work in three essays reflecting the thematic divisions adopted in the exhibition. [...]
The Nasrid builders of the Alhambra - the best-preserved medieval Muslim palatial city - were so exacting that some of their work could not be fully explained until the invention of fractal geometry. Their design principles have been obscured, however, by the loss of all archival material. This book resolves [...]
This book offers an integrated study of the texts and images of illustrated Malay manuscripts on magic and divination from private and public collections in Malaysia, the UK and Indonesia. Containing some of the rare examples of Malay painting, these manuscripts provide direct evidence for the intercultural connections between the [...]
Lawrence Nees is the current H.Fletcher Brown Chair of Humanities holder at the University of Delaware. He received a grant from the Trust to help publish his book Perspectives on Early Islamic Art in Jerusalem which was released in 2016. His book is a very detailed yet also user friendly [...]
Fatma Dahmani is a Barakat Trust postdoctoral fellow. Her original project was focused solely on the Abbasid painting of the Caliphal Palace of Samarra and the extent to which it is an original piece. After having conducted further research into the broader city more things caught her eye. This included [...]
Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant is a collection of scholarly essays addressing a number of aspects of the archaeology and history of settlement in the crusader states established in the Middle East during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, collectively known as the Latin East, and on their influence on the [...]
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire remained the grandest and most powerful of Middle Eastern empires. One hitherto overlooked aspect of the Empire's remarkable cultural legacy was the role of powerful women - often the head of the harem, or wives or mothers of sultans. These [...]
This book examines non-Muslim religious sites, structures and spaces in the Islamic world. It reveals a vibrant portrait of life in the religious sites by illustrating how architecture responds to contextual issues and traditions. Sacred Precinctsexplores urban context; issues of identity; design; construction; transformation and the history of sacred sites and [...]
