Grasp Daily Life In The Medieval Islamic World Authored By James E. Lindsay Categorized In Pamphlet

relatively short but comprehensive overview of life in the Medieval Islamic World, I learned a lot, including many fascinating bits on naming conventions, food and the role of women, A little too focussed on the differences between modern day American life and this historical era, which might be interesting for an American reader but lacked relevance to me.
This book was an interesting read but I hadn't learned much, Everything written I already had some idea and I was hoping I would learn something entirely different, But if you are completely ignorant of this time period and of Arab culture, I strongly recommend you read, I couldn't help but notice a slightly bias tone in the author's writing, disliked that greatly but it can be easily ignored.
يصلح للقارئ الغربي بالنسبة لنا كعرب الكتاب عبارة عن معلومات بديهية. Reread the title, because the next time you'll see anything resembling it is on page: Lindsay gives precious few details on actual daytoday activities.
. . and he hadyears spanningcontinents to do it,

Factoids sparsed out :


"Yemen the Arabia Felix or 'Happy Arabia' of classical geographers was exceptional in just about everything.
Unlike the Bedouin who lived in tents or the residents of the oasis settlements of Hadiz, . . Yemen built dams in the valleys in order to catch annual monsoon rains, . . produced an agricultural bounty simply impossible elsewhere in the peninsula, "

"Paper production exploded, . . the first paper mill in the Islamic world was established in Baghdad in, . . its many uses spread from Baghdad throughout the region and ultimately via Muslim Spain to Europe, "

"Medieval Islamic rulers minted three types of coins, . . a gold coin was called a dinar, a silver coin was called a dirham and a base metal coin usually copper was generally called a fals.
"

"Since at any given time one could find merchants from, . . a host of AfroEurasian cities in the markets of the medieval Islamic world, one of the most important men in any market was the sayrafi, usually translated as moneychanger.
"

"Because weighing individual coins was a rather tedious and timeconsuming affair, it was standard practice for coins to be bought and sold in purses that were sealed by the government assaying office.
. . with the exact weight indicated on the outside, "

"Like the sayrafi, the muhtasib or market inspector was essential to the smooth functioning of markets, . . that public morality in the very public space of the market was upheld, "

"The diet of even the lowliest peasant in the medieval Islamic world was generally varied and quite healthy, certainly far healthier than what most classes had access to in Europe.
"

"In the countryside women generally ground the flour, In the cities there were mills that ground flour for sale, Some urban marriage contracts have survived that specify that the bride usually from a wealthy family was to be exempt from grinding flour.
Since only the wealthiest individuals could afford to have an oven built into their residences, foods prepared at home had to be taken to a local bakehouse.
"

" There were shops that sold breads, pastries, and sweetmeats, as well as restaurants where one could purchase all sorts of prepared dishes.
"

"Ancient Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit works on philosophy, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, geography, and other sciences were translated into Arabic between theth andth centuries.
. . "

"Theth century mathematician alKhwarazmi played a major role in the introduction of 'Hindu numerals' into the Islamic world, This numbering system was later adopted and modified in the west in what are now known as 'Arabic numerals', "

" Cheetahs were often used when hunting larger game such as gazelles, antelopes, deer, wild donkeys, and wild boar, "

"As sharia developed, the Quranic punishment of lashing was changed to death by stoning, a punishment that parallels the Biblical practice.
. . "


. ربما على الجميع اعادة النظر في تراثهم القديم
I read it critically as a Muslim myself, seeing how this Islamic period is portrayed in Western literature,

The book puts forward a secular investigation on a society underpinned by a common faith, This secular view will never provide the full and accurate picture

Within this context, the author made very good observations and avoided making unsupported assumption.

The author also quoted translated Quranic verses where appropriate, "Daily Life" is a little more scholarly than I was hoping for, but that comes out sounding like a bad thing, Since my ulterior motive was research for my novel, I'd hoped for "daily living" gems that couldn't be found in other scholarly works.
There are a few of those in this book no tea! no coffee! but I think I would've been better off reading this book earlier in my research rather than later.
Denny writes a very thorough summary of Islam, Although often criticized as a nonMuslim writing on Islam, there can be little doubt about his comprehensive and refreshingly objective knowledge of the subject.
It is probably one of the best resources for reaching western academics and students whose focus is on the Middle East, My only critique is the cost of the book, its a decent read. I wouldn't recommend it as your first entry to Islamic history,
I've read multiple books from the "Daily Life in History" series, this one is a bit different, huge parts of the book are not about daily life, they are just about Islam politics or beliefs,

you will find many interesting info here, there are some mistakes but the Arabic version is better I think, the translator did a really great job pointing out mistakes,

there are some unnecessary in my opinion parts where the writer would compare the Islamic culture in the middle ages, to the current American culture.
and it would have been more interesting to compare it to other cultures at the time,

all in all, if you want 'extra' history, this is a good book, يقدم

أستاذ التاريخ ليندزي صورة عن الحياة اليومية في العالم الإسلامي خلال القرون الوسطى ويقارن بين المجتمع الإسلامي وقتها والمجتمع الأمريكي الحديث وهي مقارنة لم استسغها وهناك تلك النظرة الإستعلائية من المؤلف كقوله عن كتاب السيرة أنهم: ”ظلوا مدة طويلة بحثون عن نسبه أي الرسول وسلالته التي تعود لإبراهيم عن طريق إسماعيل لكي يظهروا أن محمدا لا يتحدر من عائلة شريفة فحسب بل إنه يتحدر من سلالة نبوية كغيره من الأنبياء. “ وغيرها كثير.
يعيب على الكاتب تقديمه معلومات مغلوطة ومشوهة في بعض الأحيان لا تصدر عن خبير بالتاريخ الإسلامي ولا سيما كشخص مسؤول عن تقديم صورة هذه المجتمعات للشعوب الغربية والمتحدثة بالإنكليزية فائدة الكتاب للقارئ العربي بالخصوص هي وفرة المصادر التي يوفرها المؤلف سواء كانت إسلامية وهي قليلة أو غربية. .