Nasser Rabbat talks about his work at the Award Ceremony

This monograph offers the most complete, probing and layered biography of al-Maqrizi, analysing his approach and methodologies in light of his beliefs, ethics, feelings, education, social standing, world views, politics and personal circumstances.

‘Nasser Rabbat has published a study of the 9th/15th century historian Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi, and his writings, that is unique in the development of pre-modern Egyptian Historiography, and in the wider field of Islamic Historiography more generally.’
‘Much of the monograph that follows traces the tangled evolution of this huge work, which Maqrizi continuously revised and expanded over several decades. Rabbat’s depiction of this process forms the monograph’s core, and is marked by incisive deductions about chronological sequences of topics - and the choices that lay behind them. While this accomplishment is impressive, it does not constitute the essence of Rabbat’s objective. Rabbat has also produced a compelling critique of the contemporary methodological approach (largely western empiricism) applied to assessing historiographical writing during the medieval period in Egypt and Syria. Rabbat challenges the assumed view that the indigenous tradition was sophisticated with regard to assemblage of data on multifarious subjects, but devoid of an ideological rationale underlying the process.’
‘This monograph represents an unprecedented landmark in the field of Arabic Islamic Historiography.’
Anonymous reviewer

Nasser Rabbat is the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT.

RUNNER UP TITLE

Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew

Avi Shlaim

(Oneworld)

Avi Shlaim talks about his book at the Award Ceremony and congratulates the winning author

This book is at once a personal story and an extremely important contribution to the understanding of an often ignored community of Arab Jews. Its tale of a time of religious diversity and co-existence is all the more important today.

‘From the very first page, this memoir pulled me into Avi Shlaim’s world, or rather, three worlds. Shlaim captures the vibrant splendour and the tragedy, the cultural treasures and then the humiliations, the incredible attainments and the sudden stark losses of being an Iraqi Jew at a particular juncture in history, when geographies shifted and lives fell apart.’

‘Shlaim’s gift is to narrate this personal memoir in a way that has wider political resonance and captures the painful dispossession of the time. This is especially evident in his recollections of the personal distress and psychological dislocation experienced by his family upon trying to carve a new life in Israel.’

‘The incredible achievement of this book is to bring to life a forgotten history and heritage and to evoke the cultural wonders and wealth of a time when Jews and Arabs thrived in easy coexistence.’

Anonymous reviewer

Avi Shlaim is a Fellow of St Antonys College and a Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford.

WINNING TITLE 2024

Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project

Nasser Rabbat

(Edinburgh University Press)

Nasser Rabbat talks about his work at the Award Ceremony

RUNNER UP TITLE

Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew

Avi Shlaim

(Oneworld)

Avi Shlaim talks about his book at the Award Ceremony and congratulates the winning author

Shortlisted Titles

Heresy and the Formation of Medieval Islamic Orthodoxy: The Making of Sunnism, from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century

Persian and Arabic Literary Communities in the Seventeenth Century: Migrant Poets between Arabia, Iran and India

Syrian GulaG: Inside Assad’s Prison System

Key Terms of the Qur'an: A Critical Dictionary