History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate: Writing the Past in Medieval Arabic Literature

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Abu Bakr al-Suli was an Abbasid polymath and table companion, as well as a legendary chess player. He was perhaps best known for his work on poetry and chancery, which would have a long-lasting influence on Arabic literature. His decades of service at the court of at least three caliphs give him a unique perspective as an historian of his own time, although he is often valued as an observer rather than an interpreter of events for posterity. Letizia Osti here provides the first full-length English-language study devoted to al-Suli, illustrating how investigating the life, times and works of such a complex individual can serve as a fil rouge for tackling broader, contested concepts, such as biography, autobiography, court culture, and written culture. The result is an exploration of the ways in which the Abbasid court made sense of the past and, in general, of what historiography means in a medieval Arabic context.

Reviews

"History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate is an innovative contribution compelling the field to think differently about our historical sources. In rehabilitating al-Suli, Osti provides an important guide for how to approach other texts, presenting a rich and rewarding model for interpretation to which readers will want to return again and again." * John P. Turner, Colby College, USA *
"Do the formats of early Arabic prose allow us to identify a writers viewpoint What is the role of poetry in Arabic historiography In this detailed but succinct and accessible discussion of how we categorise and evaluate Arabic sources, Letizia Osti makes convincing use of concepts of autobiography and emplotment to explore al-Sulis textual strategies, and reappraises him radically as a historian of his own times." * Julia Bray, The Abdulaziz Saud AlBabtain Laudian Professor of Arabic, University of Oxford, UK *

Author Bio

Letizia Osti is Associate Professor of Arabic Literature and Language at the University of Milan, Italy. She has been published in journals such as the Journal of Abbasid Studies, the Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Literatures is the co-author of Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court (2013).