The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition Dar al Taqwa Publications Distracted and polluted by worldliness

Distracted and polluted by worldliness

Ḥabīb Muḥammad ibn Abdillāh al-Haddār (1340-1418ah / 1920-1997ce)

Excerpted from Hamza Yusuf’s Introduction —

The Salaf with the Family of the House

Awhad al-din Balyani (died 1287)

The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition Dar al Taqwa Publications Distracted and polluted by worldlinessShihab al Din al Nuwayri was a fourteenth century Egyptian polymath and the author of one of the greatest encyclopedias of the medieval Islamic world a thirty one volume work entitled The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition. A storehouse of knowledge, this enormous book brought together materials on nearly every conceivable subject, from cosmology, zoology, and botany to philosophy, poetry, ethics, statecraft, and history. Composed in Cairo