LAUSR

transmission. Overall, this book is an important step in presenting Ibn ʿAsakir and Damascus at the time of the Crusaders to a wider audience. The author effectively presents the political and religious role Ibn ʿAsakir played in a 12th-century Syrian Sunni renaissance. Now, one awaits a study that contextualizes the scholar and his sprawling oeuvre within the broader world of post-canonical hadith culture and examines his magnum opus, the Tarikh, and his choices therein.