History of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (eBook)

Peri Bearman, who retired as associate director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, is widely known as an editor of major works of scholarship on the Islamic Near East. She was senior acquisitions editor for Islamic Studies at Brill Academic Publishers from 1990 to 1997; an editor of the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam from 1999 to its completion in 2006; and is currently associate editor for the Islamic Near East for both the journal (JAOS) and the monograph series of the American Oriental Society. She is co-editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law (Ashgate, 2014), of The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shari'a (Tauris, 2008), and of The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress (Harvard Law School, 2005).

"Few projects in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies deserve the adjective 'monumental' more than the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Currently in its third edition, the Encyclopaedia has become one of the core reference works for generations of scholars. . . . Bearman's book fills in a major gap in the history of the discipline of Islamic Studies in general and the history of the reference works and scholarly practices that contributed to its emergence as an increasingly coherent discipline. While it is quite obvious that reference works, like any other text, have their own agendas and blind spots, Bearman's detailed study demonstrate how these agendas have been at play over a century in the production of the Encyclopaedia. Finally, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam is an ongoing project (currently in its third edition), Bearman's History will be of interest to new and seasoned editors, contributors, and readers of the Encyclopaedia. Moreover, since the Encyclopaedia is a multigenerational project and a product of multiple editorial boards, Bearman's insightful study can inform a better, more careful use of the Encyclopaedia. --Guy Burak, (New York University), MELA Notes "The author had access to archives of personal papers and letters, and to documentation in the publisher's records. This has enabled the writing of a work that brings a unique perspective to the history of an invaluable resource, and shines a fascinating light on its creation and backstory, a story that should be of interest to all who use the Encyclopaedia of Islam, for reference, research, or teaching." Roberta Dougherty, Librarian for the Middle East, Yale University Library