Details

Subject(s)

• Romanies—Middle East—History [Browse]
• Romanies—Middle East—Social conditions [Browse]
• Romanies—Middle East—Social life and customs [Browse]
• Romanies—Migrations [Browse]
• Romanies in literature [Browse]
• Romanies in art [Browse]
• Beggars—Islamic Empire [Browse]
• Rogues and vagabonds—Islamic Empire [Browse]
• Swindlers and swindling—Islamic Empire [Browse]
• Middle Ages [Browse]

Related name

• EBSCOhost [Browse]

Series

• Early and medieval Islamic world [More in this series]
• Early and Medieval Islamic World

Summary note

"The recorded history of gypsy communities in Europe begins with the arrival of the Roma in the fourteenth century, although genetic and linguistic evidence demonstrates that this group left northwest India sometime before the seventh. Remarkably, this leaves a 700-year unexplored void as the communities migrated across the Middle East. The main problem facing historians studying so-called gypsies and gypsy-like communities is a linguistic one - namely not knowing how to identify or recognise them in the medieval Arabic and Persian sources. Drawing on ground-breaking linguistic research, Kristina Richardson here demonstrates that the Banu Sasan - literally 'from the tribe of Sasan' and commonly identified in scholarship as a fringe criminal gang or underworld brotherhood - should be less creatively imagined and viewed as an ordinary tribal confederation: the 'missing' gypsy community. Having established this, Richardson fleshes out the existence of these communities across the medieval Middle East, touching on topics as diverse as their professions, their migration patterns, the art they left behind, the urban spaces they lived in and influenced, their daily life and their literature. Richardson's ground-breaking book will provide the foundation for future studies of the Romani in the period, in addition to revealing a great deal about the cities, communities, religions and cultures that they lived within as they moved and settled across the medieval Islamic world."-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Reproduction note

Electronic reproduction. Ipswich, MA Available via World Wide Web.

Source of description

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN

• 9780755635801 ((online))
• 0755635809 ((online))
• 0755635787 ((electronic bk.))
• 9780755635788

OCLC

1247655521

Doi

• 10.5040/9780755635801

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