A Window to the Past?

Download or read book A Window to the Past? written by Anna Kollatz and published by V&R Unipress. This book was released on 2022-07-11 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only Arabic voice to have witnessed the Ottoman conquest of Cairo, Ibn Iyās, is an eminent historical source for the late Mamluk period. This book is the first to take stock of the author's complete works, approaching him through an examination of his narrative voice and writing strategies. Tracing Ibn Iyās's working process by compilation analysis, it shows how the author adapted his representations of Egyptian history to his writing projects and audience. Ibn Iyās's ways of worldmaking are shaped deeply by beliefs, biases and intellectual trends as well as the impact of the social and historical context the author wrote in. Knowing these conditioning factors allows to understand his presentation of history as an individual voice of his time.