Islam and the medieval world
The Quran is the central religious text of the Islam. The Quran shaped the language, law, morality, and identity of the early Muslim community, lying groundwork for the Islamic Golden Age (8th century CE to 14th century). The Muqaddimah explains the rise of Islamic empires. Written by the famous Muslim scholar and historian Ibn Khaldun, this book is the “introduction” to his monumental universal history. It is widely considered a foundational text of sociology, historiography, and economics. In the Divine Comedy, Dante utilized Aristotelian philosophy as preserved and commented upon by Islamic scholars, a legacy of intellectual transmission that the Muqaddimah later contextualized as a natural cycle of civilization growth and exchange. While The Divine Comedy shows the literal, creative result of Islamic concepts filtering into Western Europe, The Muqaddimah provides the objective academic framework explaining how such cross-cultural movements happen.
You could start here:
The Quran, 7th century
The Muqaddimah, 1377 CE, Ibn Khaldun
The Divine Comedy, 1321 CE, Dante Alighieri
… more books:
The Book of Love (Libro de buen amor)
by Juan Ruíz, c. 1330 to 1343, Spain
Summary: Regarded as one of the ultimate masterpieces of medical Spanish poetry, this mock-biography combines ribald comedy, religious devotion, and moral parables.
Themes: Love, Morality, Religion, Satire
by Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1387, Begun/England
Summary: A foundation milestone of English literature featuring a diverse group of pilgrims exchanging stories on their journey to Canterbury Cathedral. Chaucer infused the work with sharp social satire and humor.
Themes: Satire, Romance, Love, Deception
by Giovanni Boccaccio, c. 1353, Italy
Summary: A framing narrative featuring 100 stories told by a group of young men and women sheltering in a villa outside Florence to escape the horrors of the Black Death. Its witty, humanist, often bawdy prose laid the foundation for the European short story.
Themes: Fortune, Love, Desire, Corruption
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
by Luo Guanzhong, c. 1360 to 1390, China
Summary: One of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. This massive historical epic dramatizes the feudal lords, battles, and political intrigues during the turbulent end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.
Themes: Loyalty, Righteousness, Legitimacy, Strategy, Government
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