Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources

This book is a godsend. Islam in Central Asia is a woefully understudied and neglected field of study so books on it are scarce. Even within scholarly circles, the myth is that when Islam entered the Silk Road, it marked the end of a cross-cultural and tolerant hegemony. This false notion has led students and scholars of Central Asian and Silk Road studies to ignore the impact and rich heritage that Islam has had and still has in Central Asia. But Luckily, this antholology of a book has collected the most important historical works on Islamic Central Asia and finally gives attention to a obscure and ignored center of the Eastern Islamic world .The book is organized from a chronological perspective. So it starts from the Arabs and their arrival in Central Asia and ends with entries from locals in the 19th century. Each document or source is supplemented with a introduction by one of the many scholars who contributed to this work. Other features include a map, a bibliograpgy of given documents in the book, and a more than useful index. What makes this book unique and invaluable is that the history of Islamic Central Asia is outlined by direct sources and historical authors themselves. That is a perspective that is utterly unheard of in these times in regards to history books. This book is indispensible for students, scholars, or learned lay readers and is a breakthrough for the study of Islam in Central Asia.

I bought this for my History of Central Asia class, but if you enjoy primary sources, you may enjoy this book! :P

Outstanding! Primary sources on a area surrounded by imperialist writing and scholarship. Excellent place to separate the truth from misinformation.

Ce livre s'adresse à des personnes ayant une première connaissance de l'histoire de l'Asie Centrale islamique (Turkestan, Transoxiane, ...).55 extraits de textes historiques, chacun traduit en anglais dans un chapitre de 3/5 pages, font l'objet de cette anthologie concernant l'histoire de l'Asie Centrale islamique du 8e au 19e siècles; 34 textes couvrent le moyen-âge, 21 les XVIe-XIXe siècles.Pour le moyen-âge, le lecteur averti pourra retrouver, après quelque efforts, nombre de ces extraits dans leur intégralité sur Internet, dans diverses langues (français, anglais, allemand, russe, ...). Certains livres existent aussi actuellement (mai 2010) en français, comme par ex. les Voyages d'Ibn Battouta ou les œuvres d'Ibn Khaldun pour ne citer que ces deux auteurs-là.Seuls reproches: aucune bibliographie en fin d'ouvrage, ce qui aurait donné des idées aux lecteurs pour le suivi ou le développement du sujet et peu de notes (mais sur ce point les auteurs s'expliquent au début du livre).