The Arab Thieves examines the development of Arabic outlaw literature via a critical edition and comparative study of ten outlaw biographies compiled by the ninth/fifteenth-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrīzī.

Peter Webb, Ph.D. SOAS, University of London, is University Lecturer in Arabic Literature and Culture at Leiden University. A specialist on Arabic literature about the Arabs and pre-Islamic Arabia, his publications include Imagining the Arabs: Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam (Edinburgh, 2016).