A01=David Cook
Abbasid
Arabic historiography
Author_David Cook
Category=NHAH
Category=NHG
Crusades
Damascus
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fatimid
forthcoming
Ibn 'Asakir
Jerusalem
Manuscript studies
Medieval Middle East
Medieval Syria
Syria
Syrian history
Product details
- ISBN 9781399561266
- Dimensions: 170 x 244mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jun 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Syria down to Saladin is the first comprehensive historical study of post-Umayyad Syria based on Ibn ꜤAsākir’s Tā’rīkh madīnat Dimashq (History of the City of Damascus). As the largest work that has ever appeared documenting pre-modern Syria, Ibn ꜤAsākir’s History is a major source for the study of the region. It has, however, been underutilised for the simple reason that it is vast. This book makes this unique local history newly accessible to a broader scholarly audience.
Basing his analysis on 6,066 biographical entries from Ibn ꜤAsākir’s text, David Cook reconstructs the history of Syria between the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of the Seljuqs. He provides vital context for pre-Crusader Syria, as well as offering new perspectives on Damascus during the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. He considers topics such as the emergence of new elites, changes in religious and economic bases, and the narration of prophetic tradition, placing these events within a broader pan-Islamic context. Containing over 150 original genealogical tables, 40 maps and 7 appendices, this book stands as a monument to the intellectual and religious breadth of Ibn ꜤAsākir, highlighting how his text can shed light on a diversity of topics and inviting historians to use it systematically when discussing post-Umayyad Syria.
David Cook is professor of religion at Rice University specializing in Islam. He did his undergraduate degrees at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2001. His areas of specialization include early Islamic history and development, as well as Muslim apocalyptic literature and movements (classical and contemporary). His first book, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, was published by Darwin Press in the series Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Two further books, Understanding Jihad (University of California Press) and Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature (Syracuse University Press) were published during 2005, and Martyrdom in Islam (Cambridge University Press 2007) as well as The Syrian Muslim Apocalyptic Heritage: An Annotated Translation of NuꜤaym b. Ḥammād al-Marwazī’s Kitāb al-fitan (The Book of Tribulations) (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
