Contents: Preface; Islamic biography; Controversy and its effects in the biographical tradition of al-Khatîb al-Baghd'dî; The interrelationship of onomastic elements: isms, dîn-names, and kunyas in the 9th-century A.H.; Pour une rhétorique onomastique: les noms des aveugles chez as-Safadî; Dreams, the blind, and the semiotics of the biographical notice; Mentalités and marginality: blindness and Mamlûk civilization; The classical Arabic detective; Texts and tortures: the reign of al-Mu'tadid and the construction of historical meaning; Classical Arabic crime narratives: thieves and thievery in Adab literature; Yûsuf ibn 'Abd al-H'dî and his autograph of the Wuqû' al-Bal'' bil-Bukhl wal-Bukhal'; Structure and organization in a monographic Adab work: al-Tatfîl of al-Khatîb al-Baghd'dî; Maq'm't and Adab: al-Maq'ma al-Madîriyya of al-Hamadh'nî; Playing with the sacred: religious intertext in Adab discourse; Index.
Power Marginality and the Body in Medieval Islam