E.J. van Donzel – författare

The growing demand for concise and factual information about the history and culture of Islam has now been met with the Islamic Desk Reference. This handy one-volume work contains a condensation of the subject-matter of The Encyclopaedia of Islam, the most prestigious and valuable reference work for Islamic studies published this century. In a brief, orderly and intelligible form the Islamic Desk Reference provides thus a unique and valuable quick reference tool for those interested in the religion, the believers and the countries of the Islamic world. All entries in the Islamic Desk Reference are given in English. Thus, names of Arabic origin which in the West were corrupted to another spelling, e.g. Ibn Sina to Avicenna, al-Kuhl to alcohol, are found under the latter term. The Islamic Desk Reference contains maps, diagrams and genealogical tables for easy reference, and illustrations.

Alexander's alleged Wall against Gog and Magog, often connected with the enclosure of the apocalyptic people, was a widespread theme among Syriac Christians in Mesopotamia. In the ninth century Sallam the Interpreter dictated an account of his search for the barrier to the Arab geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih. The reliability of Sallam's journey from Samarra to Western China and back (842-45), however, has always been a highly contested issue. Van Donzel and Schmidt consider the travel account as historical. This volume presents a translation of the source while at the same time it carefully looks into other Eastern Christian and Muslim traditions of the famous lore. A comprehensive survey reconstructs the political and topographical data. As so many other examples, also this story pays witness to the influence of the Syriac Christian tradition on Koran and Muslim Traditions.

The growing demand for concise and factual information about the history and culture of Islam has now been met with the Islamic Desk Reference. This handy one-volume work contains a condensation of the subject-matter of The Encyclopaedia of Islam, the most prestigious and valuable reference work for Islamic studies published this century. In a brief, orderly and intelligible form the Islamic Desk Reference provides thus a unique and valuable quick reference tool for those interested in the religion, the believers and the countries of the Islamic world. All entries in the Islamic Desk Reference are given in English. Thus, names of Arabic origin which in the West were corrupted to another spelling, e.g. Ibn Sina to Avicenna, al-Kuhl to alcohol, are found under the latter term. The Islamic Desk Reference contains maps, diagrams and genealogical tables for easy reference, and illustrations.

Princess Salme, daughter of Sa'id ibn Sultan, ruler of Oman and Zanzibar, was born in Zanzibar on August 30, 1844. In 1866 she fled to Aden where she was baptized with the Christian name Emily and where she married the German merchant Rudolph Heinrich Ruete. In Hamburg three children were born. Her husband died in 1870, and after that she lived in several cities in Germany. In 1885 and again in 1888 she went to Zanzibar. Between 1889 and 1914 she lived in Jaffa and Beirut, and afterwards again in Germany. She died in Jena in 1924.The present work contains a short biography of Princess Salme/Emily Ruete and of her son Rudolph Said-Ruete, a new English translation of her Memoirs, and an English version of her other writings, unpublished so far: Letters Home, Sequels to the Memoirs and Syrian Customs and Usages.