If you are
a bookish-minded person with an interest in Middle Eastern history and culture,
you might likely find The World in a
Book: al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition (Princeton, 2018),
to be a good introduction to the medieval concept of adab (i.e., wide ranging literary works reflective of the
author/compiler’s cultural cred). We are
fortunate that the Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri the enormous work that is the subject of
this study, compiled in thirty-one volumes in the early 14th century, survived
intact so that a modern edition, published over many years (alas, seemingly
only in Arabic), could be prepared in the twentieth century. Al-Nuwayri, an official of the Mamluk court,
whose duties largely had to do with financial and real estate management for
the sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, decided at the end
of his career to embark on an enterprise not uncommon to cultured members of
high Islamic society, the preparation of a vast compendium of universal
knowledge encompassing natural history (zoology, astronomy and the like),
history (secular and religious, although the distinction was not likely made),
instructions for court officials (particularly scribes) and whatever else
piqued his interest.
In
addition to preparing this study, Elias Muhanna is also the translator of the
only English edition of the original text, translated as The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition, a volume in the
Penguin Classics series published in 2016.
I won’t go into that edition too much except to say that, for most, the
introduction to that work is quite adequate in introducing al-Nuwayri’s work,
without the scholarly apparatus. I’m
delighted that this translation has been made, and the selection is interesting
enough (the other night I read several selections relating to the Islamic
version of the story of Adam and Eve), but when you consider that this is the
winnowing down of a thirty-one volume work, it seems quite inadequate, and I
believe that it would have benefitted from an enlargement with a taste of some
of the more esoteric selections. But
then, this is my issue with other works of this sort, such as the Pliny’s Natural History, also published by
Penguin (among other editions). I have a
personal animus towards abridgements (although there’s no way in hell I would
have ever gotten through al-Nuwayri’s work anyway, it would be comforting to
know that it’s there).
For The World in a Book, Muhanna has
prepared a study that seems to be aimed more towards the scholar than the
general reader, and he seems
more often than not inclined to pass off to future scholars questions that
require a bit deeper consideration.
Still, for a committed biblio-enthusiast, this is an absorbing study
that digs into the origins and context of a fascinating and forgotten work. If you share my interest in Middle
Eastern/Islamic history and thought, I’d say this is well worth reading.
