The Royal Asiatic Society, founded in 1823, was the main centre in Britain for scholarly work on Asia in the nineteenth century, and has been a publisher since 1829. "The Muslim World 1100-1700: Early Sources on Middle East History, Geography and Travel" is the second collection of RAS Classics reissued by Routledge in association with the Society.
The works in this collection were written in Arabic, Persian and Turkish between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, and provide rare insights into the political systems, culture and societies of the Muslim world from the Crusades and the Mamluks through the seljuqs and the Mongol period to the Ottoman empire.
The editions presented here were all translated by leading scholars of their day, ranging from Joseph Ritter van Hommer to Vladimir Minorsky, thus spanning more than a hundred years of Oriental scholarship in Europe.