Description
Description : The wonders and curiosities of the Islamic imagination await discovery by a new generation of readers in this superb and very enjoyable book by Travis Zadeh. Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe astonishing biography of one of the worlds most influential books.During the thirteenth century, the Persian naturalist and judge Zakariyy Qazwn authored what became one of the most influential works of natural history in the world: Wonders and Rarities. Exploring the dazzling movements of the stars above, the strange minutiae of the minerals beneath the earth, and everything in between, Qazwn offered a captivating account of the cosmos. With fine paintings and leading science, Wonders and Rarities inspired generations as it traveled through madrasas and courts, unveiling the magical powers of nature. Yet after circulating for centuries, first in Arabic and Persian, then in Turkish and Urdu, Qazwns compendium eventually came to stand as a strange, if beautiful, emblem of medieval ignorance.Restoring Qazwn to his place as a herald of the rare and astonishing, Travis Zadeh dramatically revises the place of wonder in the history of Islamic philosophy, science, and literature. From the Mongol conquests to the rise of European imperialism and Islamic reform, Zadeh shows, wonder provided an enduring way to conceive of the worldat once constituting an affective reaction, an aesthetic stance, a performance of piety, and a cognitive state. Yet through the course of colonial modernity, Qazwns universe of marvels helped advance the notion that Muslims lived in a timeless world of superstition and enchantment, unaware of the western hemisphere or the earths rotation around the sun.Recovering Qazwns ideas and his reception, Zadeh invites us into a forgotten world of thought, where wonder mastered the senses through the power of reason and the pleasure of contemplation.
Author: Travis Zadeh
Publisher: HARVARD
ISBN-13: 9780674293793
Language: ENGLISH
Binding: HARD BOUND
No. Of Pages: 445
Country of Origin: INDIA
International Shipping: Yes
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