Description

Ṣubḥ al-aʻshá (Dawn for the blind), as this encyclopedic masterpiece is commonly known, was compiled by medieval Egyptian scholar Ahmad al-Qalqashandi (1355 or 1356−1418) for the secretaries in the chancery of the sultans of Egypt. Scholars have long mined the work for the information it contains on a wide variety of cultural and literary topics, for example the histories of Egypt and Syria, non-Muslim populations in the Muslim world, state formation and administration, calligraphy, libraries, and even codes and cyphers. Scholars have also produced many critical analyses of the ...