Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan
Revisiting the Faḍā"il-i Balkh
Arezou Azad
Reviews and Awards
"Arezou Azad has produced a splendid, focused, and well-written monograph on a text that has attracted little attention beyond a small coterie of Iranologists ... Though a number of scholars have made use of Faḍā?il-i Balkh for the history of Sufism, Islamic law, and religious history, Azad's book is by far the most substantial treatment of the text ... This book should be read widely by students and scholars of pre-modern Islam." - Ahmad Khan, DER ISLAM
"a thoroughly well-researched study that will bring significant new light to an area of Central Asia, which has been neglected in modern scholarship and will provide further impetus to the study of medieval Perso-Islamic historical writing." - Alex Mallett, American Historical Review
"This is a work of major importance for scholars ... The achievement of the author is in her meticulous analysis." - R. D. McChesney, Speculum
"a richly documented, penetrating study of aspects of religious and cultural life in one of the great cities of the Islamic East." - C Edmund Bosworth, British Institute of Persian Studies
"Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan integrates an erudite textual analysis with a multilayered history of urban space and the people who endowed it with meaning. In Azad's hands, the city of Balkh comes alive, as do the concerns of its medieval inhabitants ... One finishes [the book] with an appreciation for Balkh as place, a site endowed with layers of meaning that have inspired pride and pilgrimage for centuries." - Zayde Antrim, International Journal of Middle East Studies
"an important contribution to our understanding of the history of medieval Balkh." - Robert J. Haug, Journal of Near Eastern Studies