Wonders and Rarities

As Zadeh concludes, reformers and modernists have closed the rich and varied archive revealed in Wonders and Rarities…In this beautifully written and engaging text, Zadeh takes his readers back to the world of surprise and enchantment that preceded this closure. -- Malise Ruthven * Financial Times * The wonders and curiosities of the Islamic imagination await discovery by a new generation of readers in this superb and very enjoyable book by Travis Zadeh. -- Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Like al-Qazwīnī himself, Travis Zadeh has written a deliciously baggy tome, full of delights and diversions in its tour of the cosmic horizons. This is a book to get lost in, whether one wants to or not. Zadeh describes the ʿAjaʾib al-Makhlūqāt as containing a ‘world within a book.’ In his own Wonders and Rarities, he has managed something similar himself. -- Nile Green * Los Angeles Review of Books * This book about a book, like the book it describes, is a rare and marvelous thing…In his passionate and erudite mission to restore Qazwini to centre stage, [Zadeh] has given readers a book filled with its own wonder and marvels. Like his hero, he well understands the most important thing: ‘What matters is a good story.’ -- Justin Marozzi * The Spectator * Wonders and Rarities has been studied by art historians in particular, but Travis Zadeh sets it in the context of wider Islamic thought…Indeed, he faces the mammoth task of mastering the same range of disciplines as Qazwini himself, from alchemy to botany, philosophy, theology and zoology. These feats are themselves worthy of wonder. -- Helen Pfeifer * London Review of Books * A study of the wondrous, marvelous, and strange in the Islamicate context…This book contributes to our understanding of an intellectually vibrant world full of wondrous anecdotes, magic, science, and poetry. * Reading Religion * A remarkable account of how a single text captivated readers for centuries, across the boundaries of language, religion, culture, and politics. Travis Zadeh’s engrossing study uncovers, with great erudition, the genesis and many afterlives of an extraordinary book, illuminating its continued power to inspire and amaze readers in our present day. -- Richard Ovenden, author of <i>Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge</i> A wide-ranging and enchanting study…Zadeh has traced the history of al-Qazwini’s books in the centuries after their author’s death, their abbreviations, expansions, imitations and glorious illustrations. -- Robert Irwin * Literary Review * A magnificent and essential book. Zadeh deftly illuminates centuries of occult and natural history, restoring Qazwīnī's place in this vast world of thought. The result is an astonishing work of Islamic intellectual and cultural history, one that delves deeply into the intricacies and the pleasures of wonder without the prism of orientalism. -- Rana Safvi, author of <i>Shahjahanabad: The Living City of Old Delhi</i> Beautifully written and deeply researched, this book explores the religious and intellectual importance of wonder in Islamic civilization through the study of a classic text. A must-read! -- Jamal J. Elias, author of <i>Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam</i>