San'â': An Arabian Islamic City.

London: The World of Islam Festival Trust,, 1983. First edition, number 1,218 of 2,000 copies only. This book is a case study of major scholastic importance in which the society - along with the complex religious, legal, and mercantile setting - long history, crafts, arts, and religious and vernacular architecture of this traditional Islamic city of north Yemen are exhaustively described and analyzed. The text and images are "of great interest to scholars in many branches of oriental research and it is one of the most important books on Arabia ever to have been published... Exemplary care has been taken to cite the words in local use for plants, concoctions, dishes, processes, crafts, implements, items of furniture, etc., and anyone trying to understand or translate a Yemeni text will be wise to consult the glossary, which has some 4500 entries. The book has benefited throughout, perhaps more than any previous book about Arabia, from the collaboration of learned Arabs, notably Q dò Ism l al-Akwa' and Husayn b. 'Abdull h al-'Amr " (Beckingham, p. 215). This is a model work, both in the breadth and depth of its approach and in terms of production. Quarto. With 42 colour plates, one double-page, double-page coloured plan, profusely illustrated in black and white. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With glossy dust jacket and matching green slipcase, gilt. Text block square, a very good copy in bright jacket, short tear at the bottom edge repaired on verso with archival tape, a very good example. C. F. Beckingham, "San' ', an Arabian Islamic City", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2, 1983.