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Book Cover
E-book
Author McGregor, Richard J. A., author

Title Islam and the devotional object : seeing religion in Egypt and Syria / Richard J. A. McGregor
Published Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020
©2020

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Introduction -- 1. Objects over Distance -- 2. An Exuberant and Elusive Palanquin -- 3. Processions, Banners, and the Religious Spectacle -- 4. The Relic and its Witness -- 5. Religious Topography and the Relic -- 6. Defacing and Displacing -- Epilogue -- Bibliography
Summary "In this book, Richard J. A. McGregor offers a history of Islamic practice through the aesthetic reception of medieval religious objects. Elaborate parades in Cairo and Damascus included decorated objects of great value, destined for Mecca and Medina. Among these were the precious dress sewn yearly for the Ka'ba, and large colorful sedans mounted on camels, which mysteriously completed the Hajj without carrying a single passenger. Along with the brisk trade in Islamic relics, these objects and the variety of contested meanings attached to them, constituted material practices of religion that persisted into the colonial era, but were suppressed in the twentieth century. McGregor here recovers the biographies of religious objects, including relics, banners, public texts, and coverings for the Ka'ba. Reconstructing the premodern visual culture of Islamic Egypt and Syria, he follows the shifting meanings attached to objects of devotion, as well as the contingent nature of religious practice and experience"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on June 24, 2020)
Subject Islam -- Liturgical objects.
Islam -- Liturgical objects -- Egypt
Islam -- Liturgical objects -- Syria
Islam -- Liturgical objects
Egypt
Syria
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019051260
ISBN 9781108594233
1108594239