Ebook: The Colossal Elephant and His Spiritual Feats: Shaykh Ahmad-e Jām

"Shaykh Ahmad of Jam, nicknamed the Colossal Elephant," was a popular Muslim saint who lived from 1049 to 1141 in eastern Iran. His career as a religious figure and worker of miracles is here portrayed in delightful and often fantastic tales. The unique portrait that emerges of Shaykh Ahmad, while drawing on the hagiographic traditions of Persian and Arabic literature, depicts a Sufi saint unlike any other. Told in plain and folksy language, the anecdotes in The Colossal Elephant and His Spiritual Feats provide a close-up view of popular piety and the practice of Islam in the daily life of rural and provincial Persia in the medieval period." "This extensively annotated translation of four Persian texts demonstrates that the legendary vita that grew up around Shaykh Ahmad and his career as an object of popular devotion."