Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia

Pickett, James

ISBN 10: 1501750240 / ISBN 13: 9781501750243

Published by Cornell University Press, 2020

About this Item

HARDCOVER Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD Standard-sized.

Seller Inventory # M1501750240Z3

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501750240
• ISBN 13: 9781501750243
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Polymaths of Islam analyzes the social and intellectual power of religious leaders who created a shared culture that integrated Central Asia, Iran, and India from the mid-eighteenth century through the early twentieth.

James Pickett demonstrates that Islamic scholars were simultaneously mystics and administrators, judges and occultists, physicians and poets. This integrated understanding of the world of Islamic scholarship unlocks a different way of thinking about transregional exchange networks. Pickett reveals a Persian-language cultural sphere that transcended state boundaries and integrated a spectacularly vibrant Eurasia that is invisible from published sources alone.

Through a high cultural complex that he terms the "Persian cosmopolis" or "Persianate sphere," Pickett argues that an intersection of diverse disciplines shaped geographical trajectories across and between political states. In Polymaths of Islam he paints a comprehensive, colorful, and often contradictory portrait of mosque and state in the age of empire.

About the Author

James Pickett is Assistant Professor of Eurasian History at the University of Pittsburgh.