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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.
List of contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Roma, Banu Sasan, and the Ghuraba’
2. Sin: The Language of the Banu Sasan and Ghuraba’
3. Gharib Literary Cultures in Mamluk Cairo
4. Housing, Neighborhoods, and Cemeteries of Urban Ghuraba’
5. Illustrated Astrological Books (Bulhans)
6. A New Narrative of Premodern Afro-Eurasian Printing
7. Ghuraba’ Astrologers and Print in 15th-Century Central Europe
Appendix 1:
Appendix 2: Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Kristina Richardson is Associate Professor of History at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA. She is the author of Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World (2012) and co-editor of a 16th-century Syrian weaver’s notebook (forthcoming). She also serves as an editor for the journal Der Islam.
Summary
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.
Foreword
An eye-opening history of the medieval Middle East and Europe told through its most forgotten people.
Additional text
"In this brilliant work, Dr. Kristina Richardson illustrates the fundamental importance of studying peoples that transcend geographical and cultural boundaries. Attention to the 'marginal' Ghuraba' across time and space shows them to be anything one of the major groups responsible for facilitating Afro-Eurasian cultural exchange. Of the many notable contributions of this work, her intervention in the history of the printed book is a stunning contribution to the field. Through meticulous linguistic and material analysis, she shows that the Ghuraba' are the most likely candidates for the transmission of 'print culture' from East Asia to the West. Her findings are sure to win many converts and provide a new methodological approach for exploring the vital importance of minority groups to the emergence of Afro-Eurasian material cultures."
