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Historic Cities of the Islamic World, ed. by Edmund Bosworth. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2007. 583 pages. 83 figures. 189 euros. $280.
Reviewed by Mohammad Gharipour
Illustrating the living organism of the Islamic cities, Historic Cities of the Islamic World explores the mechanisms and motivations of the Islamic city. This work is based on entries already published in the Encyclopedia of Islam (EI). The reason behind the creation of this book, according to Bosworth, is the fact that some EI entries, especially the ones on the cities near the beginning of the alphabet, are outdated. These encyclopedia entries, some of which were originally published decades earlier, did not include the results of immense studies during the second half of the 20th century or many recent historical developments of cities. Furthermore, the limited space for encyclopedia entries led to the elimination of some important details. All these problems are resolved in this volume, in which pictures are also added to complement discussions within papers. The inclusion of papers is based on their role in Islamic history as well as their geographical spread.
Bosworth classifies the Islamic city as one...