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"Roberts provides the first comprehensive account of the intellectual and social milieu in Antioch during the Byzantine reconquest of the city, focusing on the outstanding theologian and translator Abdallah ibn al-Fadl. Much of Roberts's analysis is completely fresh, often based on manuscripts that he has edited and translated for the first time. This book is a veritable tour de force."--Alexander Treiger, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Dalhousie University. "A fascinating book revealing the importance of intellectual exchanges between Byzantium and the Islamic Empire. Ibn al-Fadl translated Greek religious and theological texts, but his notations highlight the impact of the Arabic Aristotelian philosophical tradition and its vocabulary. Roberts shows the unique role Antioch played in these exchanges, making a welcome contribution to an emerging area of research."--Thérèse-Anne Druart, Professor of Medieval Philosophy in Islamic Lands, The Catholic University of America

This book contains an editionwith an extensive introduction, translation and commentaryof The Light of the World, a text on theoretical astronomy by Joseph Ibn Nahmias, composed in Judeo-Arabic around 1400 C.E. in the Iberian Peninsula. As the only text on theoretical astronomy written by a Jew in any variety of Arabic, this work is evidence for a continuing relationship between Jewish and Islamic thought in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The text's most lasting effect may have been exerted via its passage to Renaissance Italy, where it influenced scholars at the University of Padua in the early sixteenth century. With its crucial role in the development of European astronomy, as well as the physical sciences under Islam and in Jewish culture, The Light of the World is an important episode in Islamic intellectual history, Jewish civilization, and the history of astronomy.

"Palimpsests of Themselves is a transformative work of historical scholarship. With empathy and rigor, Asad Q. Ahmed succeeds brilliantly in recreating the intricate logical theories and exegetical practices of South-Asian Muslim logicians and commentators, who up to now have been entirely neglected in Islamic Studies and in the history of philosophy."--Robert Wisnovsky, James McGill Professor of Islamic Philosophy, McGill University "This is a fascinating text of early modern logic, beautifully presented. Perhaps more importantly, Asad Q. Ahmed has set the Sullam against the commentary tradition it engendered. His intricate analysis, working from a number of perspectives, brings to life the scholarly world for which the evolving reception of Bihārī's masterpiece was a crucial incitement to sustained philosophical creativity."--Tony Street, University of Cambridge "Both the amount of hitherto unstudied material excavated by Ahmed and the care and sophistication with which he handles this material are remarkable and put scholarship on Indo-Muslim philosophy and logic on an entirely new footing. Particularly impressive are his identification of distinct scholarly lineages in various regional centers and his reflections on the cultural and pedagogical context of the widespread practice of writing commentaries, glosses, and super-commentaries."--Khaled El-Rouayheb, James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and of Islamic Intellectual History, Harvard University "A stunning piece of work. The historical detective work on the commentaries and their interconnections is truly extraordinary, as is the marriage of philological and philosophical skills that went into the translation, edition, and commentary."--Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich "Asad Q. Ahmed provides not just an invaluable translation and study of a major text in the logical tradition but also puts forward a significant theory for reading texts and understanding commentary traditions in the post-classical period."--Sajjad H. Rizvi, Director, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter