The School of 'Abbasid Studies, originally founded as a co-operative venture by scholars at the Universities of St. Andrews and Glasgow in Scotland during the 1980s, is a joint enterprise involving the Universities of St. Andrews, Cambridge and Leuven. It aims to promote, foster and cultivate the academic study of the 'Abbasid dynasty. This book is a volume of sixteen papers delivered by a distinguished array of leading scholars at a meeting of the School of 'Abbasid Studies at the University of Cambridge in July 2002. It provides a fully contemporary insight into the cutting edge of 'Abbasid Studies, and includes works ranging from Arabic philosophy and jurisprudence to religious, intellectual and institutional history, literature and grammar. The contents of the volume are divided into three principal foci of interest (Institutions and Concepts, Figures, and Archaeology of a Discipline), and the work is accompanied by a substantial introduction by the Editor.