In her first book, Sumaiya Hamdani, director of Islamic Studies and associate professor of history, analyzes the writings of the revolutionary 10th-century Muslim theologian and jurist Qadi al-Nu’man. The book is called Between Revolution and State: The Path to Fatimid Statehood: Qadi al-Nu’man and the Construction of Fatimid Legitimacy and is published by the Institute for Isma’ili Studies and I.B. Tauris. Hamdani examines the role of al-Nu’man in founding a new legal school, which presented Muslims in the medieval period with an Isma’ili Shi’ite alternative to the Sunni ’Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.
September 10, 2006