Social Life under the Abbasids

By (author) Muhammad Manazir Ahsan Edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa Contributions by Julia Bray

Book cover: Social Life under the Abbasids

Extent: 300 pages

Publisher: Lockwood Press

Subjects: Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Medieval Studies

Series: Resources in Arabic and Islamic Studies

Series volume number: 6

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(October 2025)

ISBN: 9781937040680

6.97 x 10 inches

Price: $49.95

Out of stock

PDF (Forthcoming)

(November 2026)

ISBN: 9781937040697

Price: $49.95

Some thirty years have passed since the original publication of M. M. Ahsan’s Social Life Under the Abbasids, but it remains an invaluable resource for the study of the material culture of Abbasid life in the ninth and tenth centuries. Ahsan arranges his material thematically-costume, food, housing, hunting, indoor and outdoor games, and festivities and festivals. Moreover, that arrangement together with the eclectic mix of citations, also give readers a taste of what it is like to browse through the many kinds of adab works that are Ahsan’s main sources, including, among numerous others, anecdotal, biographical, culinary, geographical, and literary texts.

  • By (author) Muhammad Manazir Ahsan
  • Edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa
  • Contributions by Julia Bray