Overview

For the first time in English, a catalog of the world through 14th-century Arab eyes--A Short History of Nearly Everything from the Islamic Golden Age A Penguin Classic For the first time in English, a catalog of the world through fourteenth-century Arab eyes-a kind of Schott's Miscellany for the Islamic Golden Age An astonishing record of the knowledge of a civilization, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition catalogs everything known to exist from the perspective of a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar and litterateur. More than 9,000 pages and thirty volumes-here abridged to one volume, and translated into English for the first time-it contains entries on everything from medieval moon-worshipping cults, sexual aphrodisiacs, and the substance of clouds, to how to get the smell of alcohol off one's breath, the deliciousness of cheese made from buffalo milk, and the nesting habits of flamingos. Similar works by Western authors, including Pliny's Natural History and Diderot'sEncyclopedie,have been available in English for centuries. This groundbreaking translation of a remarkable Arabic text-expertly abridged and annotated-offers a look at the world through the highly literary and impressively knowledgeable societies of the classical Islamic world. Meticulously arranged and delightfully eclectic, it is a compendium to be treasured-a true monument of erudition. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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9780143107484

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Reviews

A fascinating peek at the minds of our ancestors. You can see how man s understanding of the world has changed drastically in some ways and remained startlingly constant in others. Plus the book is just plain fun to read. A. J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically A smart, exhilarating selection from a vast work. The scholarship is solid but unobtrusive, and the style, clear andflavorful, draws the reader in. Al-Nuwayri s encyclopedia, somewhat like Vincent of Beauvais sa hundred years before him, delights as it moves between learned tradition, jaw-droppinganecdote, and elegant (and elegantly translated) poetry. Dip in, and a distant world, endlessly colorful, comes to sparkling life. Andras P. Hamori, Princeton University From the structure of the heavens to the curious anatomy of the hippopotamus, with stops to view everything from book-keeping to aphrodisiacs, this charming fourteenth-century encyclopedia gives a glimpse of the entire world as seen by a very learned Egyptian summing up the powerful tradition of medieval Islamic scholarship known in his time. Elias Muhanna s very readable translation allows the reader to gain a rounded experience of a deeply interesting bygone world. Roy P. Mottahedeh, Harvard University Finally, thanks to Elias Muhanna s expert translation, editing, and explanatory notes, we have access to a real encyclopedia to place alongside Borges s mythical Chinese text. An extraordinary work, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition strives for nothing less than an orderly, total account of the world, and Al-Nuwayri s unique accomplishment in the encyclopedic tradition is not to suggest that wonder is to be found in the many oddities, rarities, and exceptions of the given world, but to show how, beneath these features, there is a deeper and more marvelous order. Elliott Colla, Georgetown University This engaging volume lets you dip into the world of a fourteenth-century Egyptian encyclopedist who knew about the endless rain in England, the skillfulness of artists in China, how a woman can get away with claiming to be a prophetess, why a bureaucrat should never commit the size of the army to writing, and anything else worth knowing. Michael Cook, Princeton University This delightful volume offers readers of English the first opportunity to sample the vast and varied literature of Arabic encyclopedism. Under Elias Muhanna s expert guidance you will encounter advice and information strangely foreign and occasionally familiar, drawn from al-Nuwayri s 14th-century perspective on history and politics, medicine and the natural world. Ann Blair, Harvard University

From the structure of the heavens to the curious anatomy of the hippopotamus, with stops to view everything from book-keeping to aphrodisiacs, this charming fourteenth-century encyclopedia gives a glimpse of the entire world as seen by a very learned Egyptian summing up the powerful tradition of medieval Islamic scholarship known in his time. Elias Muhanna s very readable translation allows the reader to gain a rounded experience of a deeply interesting bygone world. Roy P. Mottahedeh, Harvard University

Author Information

Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri(1279-1333) was an Egyptian scholar and civil servant in the Mamluk Empire. His nine-thousand-page, thirty-three-volume encyclopedia, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition, is one of the most important medieval collections of Arabic literature and Islamic thought. Elias Muhanna(editor/translator) is the Manning Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University and the author of The World in a Book- Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition. A scholar of classical Arabic literature and Islamic intellectual history, he has written for TheNew York Times, TheNew Yorker, The Nation, andForeign Policy, and he runs the blogQifa Nabki, about the contemporary Middle East. Born in Lebanon, he now lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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