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Who's Who in the Arab World 2007-2008 compiles information on the most notable individuals in the Arab world. Additionally, the title provides insight into the historical background and the present of this influential and often volatile region. Part I sets out precise biographical details on some 6,000 eminent individuals who influence every sphere of public life in politics, culture and society. Part II surveys the 19 Arab Countries, providing detailed information on the geography, history, constitution, economy and culture of the individual countries. Part III provides information on the historical background of the Arab world. Indexes by country and profession supplement the biographical section. A select bibliography of secondary literature on the Middle East is also included.
Doing Justice to a Wronged Literature is a Festschrift for the Arabist and Islamicist Thomas Bauer. It includes 17 essays by established academics on various themes and aspects of Arabic literature and rhetoric of the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods (12th-18th centuries). Notoriously neglected and maligned by earlier scholarship, Arabic literature and rhetoric of the 12th-18th centuries is an understudied area of Arabic studies that Thomas Bauer has over the last two decades succeeded in developing and promoting. A tribute to his pioneering work on this field, the contributions highlight the wealth, complexity and importance of Arabic literature and rhetoric of the said period by offering close readings of paradigmatic texts or examining specific topics and trends in larger corpora.
First published in 1978 Nasser and His Generation is one of the most important books on modern Egyptian history. It goes much further than a simple history of the Nasser regime or a psychobiography of the Egyptian ruler. It examines his personality, attitudes and beliefs and how these were informed or acquired and seeks to explain what and who he was. But it also considers Nasser to be a representative of a generation of Egyptians, many of whom rode on his bandwagon to power, serve him, and then more or less promptly forgot him. The first two parts set the scene for the emergence of the military regime, highlighting the disintegration of the old political order which the Free Officers overth...
Throwing Down the Verbal Gauntlet showcases Arab “rapper” poets Jarīr and al-Farazdaq. This eighth-century duo is best known for a series of verbal battles (flytings) they carried out over several decades. Verbal Gauntlet argues that these poets performed in order to elevate their own prestige, just as rappers do in modern-day “Dozens” battles. These were performances for performance’s sake, a first for a genre traditionally associated with settling tribal disputes. The book provides a new interpretation of this poetry and changes the way we see the intertwining roles of poet, opponent, and audience.
In Old Arabic poetry from the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods to the end of the orthodox Caliphate, one theme is the lightning-scene. In this the protagonist asserts that he could not sleep because he saw lightning flashing far away in the sky. The book explores the various functions of this scene, and its relationship with other parts of the poem. This study achieves two main goals. The first sheds light on two important terms connected with Old Arabic poetry: the function and the narration. We see how a certain element can function differently from text to text, and how these different functions influence the narration of a poem and consequently make it - to some degree - idiosyncrat...
For a very long time, I have been preoccupied with the exploration of the academic blind spots that have cropped up in the organic combination of poetic studies and narrative studies that is inclined to give a lot of perceptive and cognitive inspiration to the systematic and strategic con-struction of the theoretical frameworks and theoretical systems of poetic narratology to provide more perceptive and cognitive convenience for the vast majority of readers and scholars to give a much more profound and perspicacious interpretation and illustration of the ideological and epistemological values implied in the diverse and distinctive narration of most poetic narrative texts in an unnoticeable fashion and in an untraceable fashion.
The Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film is a unique, one volume work which illuminates a fascinating variety of cinema which is little known outside its own area. The Encyclopedia is divided into nine chapters, each written by a leading scholar in the field. Each chapter covers the history and major issues of film within that area, as well as providing bibliographies of the leading films, directors and actors. The areas covered are: Central Asia, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, The Magreb, Palestine, Turkey. This Encyclopedia will be an invaluable reference tool for students and scholars of Film and Media Studies. It contains more than 60 black and white photographs of featured films, includes references and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, and the volume concludes with comprehensive name, film and general indexes.
The Hand of Fatima traces the development and symbolism ascribed to the hand motif in the Arab and Islamic world, and beyond. Richly illustrated, it details the many types of khamsas produced historically and today – such as khamsas with swords, and khamsas with eagles – and the many objects on which khamsas appear, such as on amulets and flags. It traces the journey of the khamsa into the contemporary world of social and fine art, including museum highlights. Special sections are dedicated to the khamsa in Algeria; cultural crossover in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil; and the symbol of the hand in Shiʿism.
This book offers a comprehensive survey of the agreement phenomena found in written and spoken Arabic. It focuses on both the synchronic description of these agreement systems, and the diachronic question of how they evolved. To answer these questions, large amounts of data have been collected and analysed, ranging from 6th century poetry and Quranic Arabic to the contemporary dialects. The results presented by the authors of this research greatly improve our understanding of Arabic syntax, and challenge some well-established views. Can Arabic be envisioned as possessing more than only two genders? Are some contemporary dialects more similar to the pre-Classical version of the language than MSA is? And is the Standard rule prescribing feminine singular agreement with nonhuman plurals a more recent development than previously thought?