First publication ever of this treasured manuscript from Windsor Castle. The Padshahnama ("King of the World") has long been recognized as one of the greatest works made for the Mughal Emperor, Shah-Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal. The volume, which is now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, documents the first ten years of the Emperor's rule and contains works by some of the finest imperial artists of the time. Among the events recorded in the paintings are court ceremonies, hunting scenes, fortresses under siege, and the attack on the Portuguese near Calcutta in 1631. During the eighteenth century the manuscript entered the collection of the nawabs of Oudh. The Padshahnama was eventually given by a reigning nawab to the King of England, and it remains today one of the most treasured items in the collections of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Padshahnama has seldom been exhibited, and even then only a single opening could be seen at any one time. A recent conservation project, however, means that the manuscript is now unbound, and the Royal Library has made all the pages available for an exhibition that coincides with the celebration in 1997 of the fiftieth anniversary of the Independence of India. This book accompanies the exhibition and illustrates all the paintings and illuminations in full color. The events, personalities, and settings depicted are identified and discussed with the help of enlarged details, comparative photographs, and drawings. Milo Beach, Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, provides a history of the volume and its context in Mughal painting. Ebba Koch, a leading authority on Mughal architecture from the University of Vienna, comments on the subject matter and analyzes the different modes of Mughal painting. Wheeler Thackston of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University has translated the original text and other documents.

The King of the World: The Padshahnama : An Imperial Mughal Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle

Arts & Photography

Wheeler M. Thackston

Milo Cleveland Beach

Ebba Koch

History & Criticism

Thames&Hudson

The History Of Akbar, Volume 8

Abu'l-Fazl

Harvard University Press

Two early Sufi classics are contained here in one volume. They embody the essence of spiritual life in the Islamic tradition. Ibn 'Ata' Illah (c. 1250-1309) was a Sufi saint and sage who lived in Egypt. Kwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006-1089) was one of major early writers of Persian mystical literature.

Ibn ‘Ata’ Illah/Kwaja Abdullah Ansari: The Book of Wisdom and Kwaja Abdullah Ansari, Intimate Conversations (Classics of Western Spirituality (Paperback))

Religion & Spirituality

Victor Danner

Annemarie Schimmel

Islam

Paulist Press

For a thousand years the classical Persian poetic tradition flourished, continuous and uninterrupted. It began in the great urban centers of Central Asia, Bukhara and Samarkand; and for centuries it dominated the high culture of Central Asia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Anatolia, and the whole of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent under the Mughal Empire. It has been composed by saints and roués, kings and beggars. It has been written in gold, poets have had their mouths stuffed with precious gems for an apt line of poetry, and the uncivilized have measured their progress into civilization by their ability to quote Persian poetry. A Millennium Of Classical Persian Poetry is designed to introduce students of Persian to the richness of the classical poetic legacy. The Persian metrical system and poetic forms are explained, and selections are given from the works of all major poets, from Rudaki in the tenth century to Bahar in the twentieth, with annotations of difficult grammatical constructions and unfamiliar allusions. Highlights include poetry by Firdawsi, Farrukhi, Anvari, Khaqani, Nizami, Attar, Rumi, Sa‘di, Hafiz, Jami, Sa’ib, and a host of lesser-known poets. A full Persian-English vocabulary is included.

A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry: A Guide to the Reading and Understanding of Persian Poetry from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Ibex Publishers, Incorporated

This translation of Rumi's Fihi ma Fihi should easily become the standard English edition of this important collection of his discourses, conversations, and commentaries on various and sundry topics. In many cases the discussions preserved in this book provide the most sustained exposition available of Rumi's thought on a given topic.

Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi (Threshold Sufi Classics)

Jalāl Al-dīn Rūmī

Jalaluddin Rumi

Threshold Books

One of the best-loved versions of the prophetic tales is this Qisas al-anbiya composed by al-Kisai around 1200 AD. A master storyteller, the author's sense of dramatic value in ending a narrative section at precisely the right moment to heighten an important point in the mind of the listener is exhibited throughout. In the preface, the author describes the formation of a human fetus in the womb and its entry as a newborn baby into the external world. This is contrasted with the descriptions, typical of the genre, of the birth of the world ex nihilo by God's Word of command, Be! Angelology and cosmology follow with descriptions of the world and natural phenomena, all of which set the stage for the climax of God's creativity, the shaping of Adam, His most perfect creature. Unlike the rest of creation, all of which was brought into existence by divine fiat, Adam was fashioned by God's own hands and was bestowed with God's own breath of spirit. Following the stories! of Prophet Adam and his immediate family come the stories of Prophets Idris, Noah, Shem, Hud, Salih, Abraham, Ishmael and his mother Hagar, Lot, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph, Shuayb, Moses, Aaron, Khidr, Joshua, Josephus, Eleazar, Elijah, Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon, Jonah and Jesus son of Mary.

Tales of the Prophets (Qisas Al-Anbiya) (Great Books of the Islamic World)

Biographies & Memoirs

Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah Kisai

Al-Kisai

Leaders & Notable People

Kazi Publications, Inc.

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Books by Wheeler M. Thackston