Background
Matthew S. Gordon was born on July 31, 1957, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. He is the son of David Crockett, a professor, and Ann, a lecturer, Gordon.
36 Madison Ave, Madison, NJ 07940, United States
Matthew graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1979.
New York, NY 10027, United States
Matthew also received a Master of Arts (1984), a Master of Philosophy (1988), a Doctor of Philosophy (1993) from Columbia University.
(A portrait of the Samarran Turk community while in the em...)
A portrait of the Samarran Turk community while in the employ of the 'Abbasid caliphate during the ninth century.
https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Thousand-Swords-Military-H/dp/0791447960/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1597754006&sr=8-1
2001
(Concubines and Courtesans contains sixteen essays that co...)
Concubines and Courtesans contains sixteen essays that consider, from a variety of viewpoints, enslaved and freed women across medieval and pre-modern Islamic social history. The essays bring together arguments regarding slavery, gender, social networking, cultural production (songs, poetry and instrumental music), sexuality, Islamic family law, and religion in the shaping of Near Eastern and Islamic society over time. They range over nearly 1000 years of Islamic history - from the early, formative period (seventh to tenth century C.E.) to the late Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal eras (sixteenth to eighteenth-century C.E.) - and regions from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) to Central Asia (Timurid Iran). The close, common thread joining the essays is an effort to account for the lives, careers, and representations of female slaves and freedwomen participating in and contributing to, elite urban society of the Islamic realm. Interest in a gendered approach to Islamic history, society, and religion has by now deep roots in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. The shared aim of the essays collected here is to get at the wealth of these topics and to underscore their centrality to a firm grasp on Islamic and Middle Eastern history.
https://www.amazon.com/Concubines-Courtesans-Slavery-Islamic-History/dp/0190622180/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Matthew+S.+Gordon&qid=1597753871&sr=8-4
2017
Matthew S. Gordon was born on July 31, 1957, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. He is the son of David Crockett, a professor, and Ann, a lecturer, Gordon.
Matthew graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1979. He also received a Master of Arts (1984), a Master of Philosophy (1988), a Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic studies (1993) from Columbia University.
Matthew S. Gordon holds the Philip R. Shriver Chair in the Department of History at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), where he has taught for twenty-five years.
Among his books are several written for younger readers, including "Ayatollah Khomeini" (1988), which studies the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the rise of that country's controversial leader. In the first half of the book, Gordon provides a history of Islam that is useful in helping readers understand current events and also includes and explains a number of Islamic terms. In the second half, he provides a thorough study of the Iranian Revolution, including the rule of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Khomeini's opposition, and the resulting struggle for power, Khomeini’s reforms, and Iran’s war with Iraq.
"The Gemayels" was published in 1988. It presents a study of the leading political family in Lebanon since the 1960s. Gordon identifies the country's major religions and sects provides a history of the events that led to war in Lebanon and offers a study of the lives and careers of Lebanese leaders Pierre Gemayel and his sons, Ashir and Amin.
Two more books for younger readers include Gordon's "Hafez al-Assad," a chronological history of the man who ruled Syria beginning in 1970, and Islam, a history of the religion and a study of how it is practiced around the world.
Gordon is an editor with L. Carl Brown of "Franco-Arab Encounters: Studies in Memory of David C. Gordon," a collection of essays written primarily by American, Arabic, and French historians, as well as a selection from other disciplines, that focus on North African and other Arab areas and countries.
His first monograph was "The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: a History of the Turkish Military of Samarra" (2001). It is Gordon's study of the Turkish military of Samarra, the capital of the 'Abbasid empire in both the third and ninth centuries. The emphasis is on the Samarran guard's social and political history, rather than its military history.
Gordon's "Islam: Origins, Practices, Holy Texts, Sacred Persons, Sacred Places" (2002) includes short chapters that cover the rise of Islam, its sacred text, the Qur'an, the prophet Muhammad, Sunni and Shi'i Islam and the sects within both, the Five Pillars of Islam, Mecca and other sacred sites, the Islamic lunar calendar, the mosque, and Islamic beliefs about death and what lies thereafter. Each of the chapters ends with a quote and a commentary by Gordon.
In addition to authoring several textbooks, he has co-edited "Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History" (2017) and is the co-editor/translator of "The Works of Ibn Wadih al-Ya`qubi, An English Translation" (2018).
He has recently completed a biography of the ninth century Egyptian governor, Ahmad ibn Tulun.
(Concubines and Courtesans contains sixteen essays that co...)
2017(A portrait of the Samarran Turk community while in the em...)
2001Matthew is a member of the Green Party.
Gordon married Susan Wawrose, a law professor, on September 17, 1989. Their children are Jeremiah, Katharine.