Muhsin al-Musawi’s “The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters”

Join Book Culture for a discussion with Muhsin al-Musawi on his book, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction. Professor Roger Allen and Professor Everett Rowson will join as discussants. Professor Mamadou Diouf will moderate the event.

Synopsis: In The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Muhsin J. al-Musawi offers a groundbreaking study of literary heritage in the medieval and premodern Islamic period. al-Musawi challenges the paradigm that considers the period from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 as an “Age of Decay” followed by an “Awakening” (“al-nahdah”). His sweeping synthesis debunks this view by carefully documenting a “republic of letters” in the Islamic Near East and South Asia that was vibrant and dynamic, one varying considerably from the generally accepted image of a centuries-long period of intellectual and literary stagnation.

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