Ibn Qutaybah (Author)
Ibn Qutaybah (d. 276/889) was a renowned judge and writer
known for many influential works on a wide range of subjects,
including Qur'anic exegesis, poetry and poetics, and
statecraft.
James E. Montgomery (Editor)
James E. Montgomery is Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of
Arabic at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall.
His latest publications are In Deadly Embrace: Arabic Hunting
Poems, Fate the Hunter: Early Arabic Hunting Poems, and Kalīlah and
Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice, with Michael Fishbein. In 2024
he was elected Fellow of the British Academy.
Peter Webb (Editor, Translator)
Peter Webb is a University Lecturer in Arabic Literature and
Culture at Leiden University. He is the author of Imagining the
Arabs: Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam as well as editor and
translator of The Excellence of the Arabs (with James Montgomery
and Sarah Savant) for the Library of Arabic Literature.
Sarah Bowen Savant (Translator)
Sarah Bowen Savant is Professor at The Aga Khan University,
London, and the author of The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran.
Ibn Qutayba’s extraordinary erudition and literary skill are now on
view in the LAL Arabic edition and translation at hand, The
Excellence of the Arabs . . . The English translation is a
page-turner. The Arabic is difficult, but the translators’ command
is apparent in how they avoid the complex syntax, verbosity, and
numerous repetitions that are characteristic of Classical Arabic.
The judiciousness of the series’ decision to opt for English
felicity over a more literal English rendering of the Arabic
provides the reader with a genuine grasp of what Ibn Qutayba is
really saying. All involved are to be congratulated!
*Journal of the American Oriental Society*
Enriches the Library of Arabic Literature and the growing corpus of
translations of books from Arabic into English . . . A true delight
to read.
*Reading Religion*
[A] clear and lively translation.
*Al-Ahram Weekly*
An excellent example of the narrative sources available to
historians of West Asian late antiquity and early Islam.
*Speculum*
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