Wonder, Image, and Cosmos in Medieval Islam
Persis Berlekamp
Yale University Press
<span>This original book 
untangles fundamental confusions about historical relationships among 
Islam, representational images, and philosophy. Closely examining some 
of the most meaningful and best preserved premodern illustrated 
manuscripts of Islamic cosmographies, Persis Berlekamp refutes the 
assertion often made by other historians of medieval Islamic art that, 
while representational images did exist, they did not serve religious 
purposes. The author focuses on widely disseminated Islamic images of 
the wonders of creation, ranging from angels to human-snatching birds, 
and argues that these illustrated manuscripts aimed to induce wonder at 
God's creation, as was their stated purpose. She tracks the various ways
 that images advanced that purpose in the genre's formative milieu - the
 century and a half following the Mongol conquest of the Islamic East in
 1258. Delving into social history and into philosophical ideas relevant
 to manuscript and image production, Berlekamp shows that philosophy 
occupied an established, if controversial, position within Islam. She 
thereby radically reframes representational images within the history of
 Islam.</span>