Winner of the 2021 Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (category: translation from Arabic into English) This is an unabridged, annotated, translation of the great Damascene savant and saint Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's (d. 751/1350) Madarij al-Salikin. Conceived as a critical commentary on an earlier Sufi classic by the great Hanbalite scholar Abu Isma'il of Herat, Madarij aims to rejuvenate Sufism's Qur'anic foundations. The original work was a key text for the Sufi initiates, composed in terse, rhyming prose as a master's instruction to the aspiring seeker on the path to God, in a journey of a hundred stations whose ultimate purpose was to be lost to one's self (fana') and subsist (baqa') in God. The translator, Ovamir ('Uwaymir) Anjum, provides an extensive introduction and annotation to this English-Arabic face-to-face presentation of this masterpiece of Islamic psychology.

A gorgeously illustrated introduction to Chinese New Year, written by Eva Wong Nava and illustrated by Li Xin. 'Twelve animals, one for each year, each one with their own special powers. It all started with a race to cross the most heavenly of rivers.' Chinese New Year is right around the corner and Mai-Anne is so excited! As her family start decorating the house, there's a knock on the door... her grandmother, Nai Nai, has arrived! They start their celebrations with a traditional meal filled with fish for good luck, noodles for long life, dumplings for blessings and a WHOLE chicken. Then after dinner Nai Nai tells the story of how Chinese New year began, with the Great Race! Join Mai-Anne as she learns about twelve animals and their special powers in the story of how Chinese New Year began! A beautifully illustrated introduction to the true meaning of Chinese New Year and family traditions for little ones A love letter to all the grandparents in the world Features some non-fiction facts on the last pages for especially curious minds about Chinese New Year, including different countries' traditions Illustrations of China Towns around the world on the first and last pages Written and illustrated by two brilliantly talented Asian women

This book is an annotated collection of English-language documents by foreigners writing about Japan's kabuki theatre in the half-century after the country was opened to the West in 1853. Using memoirs, travelogues, diaries, letters, and reference books, it contains all significant writing about kabuki by foreigners-resident or transient-during the Meiji period (1868-1912), well before the first substantial non-Japanese book on the subject was published. Its chronologically organized chapters contain detailed introductions. Twenty-seven authors, represented by edited versions of their essays, are supplemented by detailed summaries of thirty-five others. The author provides insights into how Western visitors-missionaries, scholars, diplomats, military officers, adventurers, globetrotters, and even a precocious teenage girl-responded to a world-class theatre that, apart from a tiny number of pre-Meiji encounters, had been hidden from the world at large for over two centuries. It reveals prejudices and misunderstandings, but also demonstrates the power of great theatre to bring together people of differing cultural backgrounds despite the barriers of language, artistic convention, and the very practice of theatergoing. And, in Ichikawa Danjuro IX, it presents an actor knowledgeable foreigners considered one of the finest in the world.

Johann Michael Wansleben’s Travels in Turkey, 1673–1676 is a hitherto unpublished version of a remarkable description of Istanbul, Izmir, and Bursa by the German scholar traveller Wansleben. Wansleben was in the Ottoman Empire to buy manuscripts, statuary, and curios for the French king, but it is his off-hand observations about Ottoman society that often make Wansleben’s account such a valuable historical source. His experiences add to our knowledge of such diverse topics as prostitution in the Ottoman Empire, taxation, and the French consular system. His visit to Bursa is also noteworthy because few Western travellers included the first Ottoman capital in their tours of the East or described it at such length.

In Supplier Dieu dans l'Egypte toulounide, Mathieu Tillier and Naim Vanthieghem provide the edition, translation and study of a booklet preserved on papyrus and dated 267/880-881. It offers a selection of some forty hadiths heard by Khalid ibn Yazid, a minor local scholar, concerning the invocations that every pious Muslim has to use when addressing God. Composed during the reign of the famous governor Ahmad ibn Tulun, the first autonomous ruler of Islamic Egypt, this manuscript bears exceptional testimony to the way traditional sciences were taught at the time. Not only does it open an unprecedented window on the milieu of ordinary transmitters, whose names soon fell into oblivion, but it also sheds new light on the Tulunids' religious policy and on the islamisation of Egypt. Dans la seconde moitie du IIIe/IXe siecle, un savant repondant au nom de Halid b. Yazid enseigna une quarantaine de hadiths sur le theme des invocations que tout pieux musulman se devait d'adresser a Dieu. Un opuscule issu de son enseignement, portant la date de 267/880-881, a survecu sur papyrus. Mathieu Tillier et Naim Vanthieghem en proposent ici l'edition, la traduction et l'etude. Compose sous le regne du fameux gouverneur Ahmad b. Tulun, premier souverain autonome de l'Egypte islamique, ce manuscrit offre un temoignage exceptionnel sur la maniere dont les sciences traditionnelles etaient alors enseignees. Il ouvre non seulement une fenetre inedite sur le milieu des transmetteurs ordinaires, dont les noms tomberent rapidement dans l'oubli, mais vient aussi eclairer d'un nouveau jour la politique religieuse des Toulounides et la dynamique d'islamisation de l'Egypte.