The development of the historical profession in the Arab World since 1945 has received scant attention from Western scholars of the region. This is particularly the case regarding modern Arabic studies on Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Even in the field of medieval Islamic history, there is generally little awareness on the part of scholars based in the West, about the research and publications of their colleagues in the Arabic-speaking countries. As a consequence, Arabic secondary sources are rarely utilized and reviewed by Western historians of the medieval Islamic period.
Our conference aims to address this serious bibliographical gap. We will bring together an international group of specialists in a variety of pre-modern historical disciplines ranging from Assyriology to Mamluk Studies who will discuss contemporary Arabic-language scholarship in their respective fields. Some presentations will give an overview of a particular discipline across the entire Arabic-speaking World while others will focus on an historiographical “school” or a single major scholar as a case study. The conference will be a stepping-stone in the production of a multi-author handbook which will consist of studies and bibliographies of Arabic scholarship on Ancient and Medieval history.
