Medieval Arabic Historiography

'Konrad Hirschler studied History and Islamic Studies in Hamburg, Bir-Zeit (Palestinian Territories) and London where he also completed his PhD. He is Senior Lecturer in the History Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies. His research focuses on the Middle East in the medieval period with a special interest in social history, intellectual history and the Crusades.

• 1. Introduction 2. Historical and Historiographical Background 3. Social Contexts 4. Intellectual Contexts 5. Textual Agency I: Titles, Final Sections and Historicisation 6. Textual Agency II: Micro-Arrangement, Motifs and Political Thought

'Hirschler provides an in-depth study of Ayyubid historiography, concentrating on two historians, Abu Shama and Ibn Wasil, who for several decades observed and participated in the history described in their chronicles.]...[a most welcome contribution to the fields of history and historiography of Syria and Egypt in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.' - Yehoshua Frenkel, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 72/2-2009'This is a first-rate study, lucidly written and argued and refreshingly free of jargon, that should not be missed by anyone who deals with Islamic, or more generally medieval, historiography.' - Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 82/3 (2007), Fred M. Donner'This is a book which encourages scholars in both historical and literary studies to further develop interdisciplinary approaches to such fields as historiography.' - Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 20/2 (2008), Amira K. Bennison'.. an original and enriching book that will be used widely and is an important contribution to medieval Arabic historiography.' - Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 160/1 (2010), Albrecht Fuess