Customer Reviews

Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry

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This book is an essential reference for anyone with interest in doing any type of study in the history of Islam from 600-1500. Humphreys hasn't written yet another drab, stale survey book; rather, he compiled something immensely more useful. He has created a veritable inventory of scholarship, not coarsely comprehensive but pleasantly judicious, and accompanied it with a running commentary that places each work on the larger grid of modern scholarship on the subject as well and extrapolation of the various challenges realting thereto. In this way, it facilitates a critical yet broad engagement with the important scholarship hitherto written in the field helping us to refine, reconsider, and reshape the direction of future scholarship. Also, this work serves as an accessible point of entry for historians who specialize in areas other than Islamic history whom I trust will also find in plenty helpful.

If you ever wish to kick start your understanding of the vast corpus which is called Islamic history, this is the book to do it. Written by a preeminent scholar of Islamic studies this book is a gem. It's basic premise is to weed out the useless from useful texts; it informs you about the relevant texts for the fields within Islamic history which you will need to build up your results (for instance, this book tells you if you want to understand Muslims and Islam you need to study major Hadith books - and among them Bukhari should be the first place to start with). Such specific references alongwith publisher name and publishing year are really helpful. A scholar of the class of Bernard Lewis often cites this work as the first place to start with.

I personally found the text very readable and not cumbersome at all, which is generally the case with reference books on historical studies.

This book is a poor choice for people who know little about islamic history. It is hard to follow and does not adequately explain central figures included in it's text. It's chronology and definitions are very poorly written.