Philip F. Kennedy is Professor of Arabic Literature at New York University. He is author of The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the literary tradition (1997) and General Editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, a joint project of the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute and NYU Press.

• Foreword (Princess Basma of Jordan). Of models and amanuenses: the remarks on the Qasida in Ibn Qutayba's Kitab al-shi'r wa-l-shu'ara' (James E Montgomery); Playing for time: maysir-gambling in early Arabic poetry (Nadia Jamil); The metonymy of recognition in early Isma'ili memoir: the case of Ibn Hawshab 'Mansur al-Yaman' (Philip F Kennedy); The Mu'allaqat in the West: a brief bibliographical survey (Heather Bleaney); Theomnestus of Nicopolis, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and the beginnings of Islamic veterinary science (Robert G Hoyland); Verbs and voices (Julia Bray); Historians and the Arabic biographical dictionary: some new approaches (Paul Auchterlonie); The Qur'an as a source of law: the case of zakat (alms-tax) (Yasin Dutton); Ghirbib ibn 'Abd Allah al-Thaqafi the beginnings of linguistic and ethnic accommodation to Arab Islam in al-Andalus (David Wasserstein); On the difficulty of knowing mediaeval Arab authors: the case of Abu l-Faraj and pseudo-Isfahani (Hilary Kilpatrick); The boys from Mezzoiuso: Muslim jizya-payers in Christian Sicily (Jeremy Johns); Mahfuz's urban battlegrounds (Robin Ostle); An overview of Ibadi tafsir (Kahlan al-Kharusi); Some reflections on the use of the Qur'an in monumental inscriptions in Syria and Palestine in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Carole Hillenbrand); Inscriptions of Companions of the Prophet in the Merv oasis (Venetia Porter).