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This book explores the relationship between custom and Islamic law and seeks to uncover the role of custom in the construction of legal rulings. On a deeper level, however, it deals with the perennial problem of change and continuity in the Islamic legal tradition (or any tradition for that matter).
This new view on aspects of the Ghaznavid and Seljuk dynasties concentrates on the relationship of the panegyric poets Farrukhi Sistani (c.995-1032) and Mu'izzi (c.1045-1127) to the Ghaznavid and Seljuk rulers and dignitaries for whom they wrote. Dr Tetley investigates the reliability of the historical information which may be gathered from the poems, and draws comparisons with other historical sources. A solid and impressive work of learning, of interest to scholars in Oriental Studies, Medieval Literature, and History, The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History, is the first extended English study of Mu'izzi it presents much new material concerning both this little-studied poet and also the better-known Farrukhi. Additionally, there is a valuable exploration of the relationship between Persians and Turks, a highly significant factor during the rule of the two dynasties.
Research into Islamic science and technology is still in is early stages, but there is now sufficient material available for a preliminary study. Volume IV is intended to fill a gap which deserves a major multi-volume work. Part I is a review of the history of science in Islam. It deals with the contribution of Islamic civilization to mathematics, astronomy, and physics, which have long been acknowledged, but also advances made by Muslim scientitsts in the fields of cosmology, geology and mineralogy, zoology, veterinary science and botany.
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This study illustrates why the language of the Qur'an is miraculous, unique, and evidence of divine authority. The author compares the language of the Qur'an with the language of pre-Islamic poetry, the Prophet's words (hadith), and the language of the Arabs both past and present, to demonstrate that although the Qur'an was revealed in Arabic it was at the same time an Arabic which was entirely new. Original and early Muslim audiences viewed this as miraculous and responded to the Qur'an's words, sounds, rhythms, etc. in a manner consistent with a deeper appreciation of its beauty and majesty which modern ears, trained by familiarity, and despite being surrounded by all manner of dictionarie...
Alexander's alleged Wall against Gog and Magog, often connected with the enclosure of the apocalyptic people, was a widespread theme among Syriac Christians in Mesopotamia. In the ninth century Sallam the Interpreter dictated an account of his search for the barrier to the Arab geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih. The reliability of Sallam's journey from Samarra to Western China and back (842-45), however, has always been a highly contested issue. Van Donzel and Schmidt consider the travel account as historical. This volume presents a translation of the source while at the same time it carefully looks into other Eastern Christian and Muslim traditions of the famous lore. A comprehensive survey reconstructs the political and topographical data. As so many other examples, also this story pays witness to the influence of the Syriac Christian tradition on Koran and Muslim Traditions.
Using the most extensive collection hitherto of his published and unpublished writings, this volume provides a comprehensive, in-depth and interdisciplinary study of the ethical philosophy of al-Rāzī (1149–1210), a most outstanding and influential medieval philosopher-theologian. A complex picture emerges, across his philosophical, theological, ethical and juristic works, of a consistent and multi-layered ethical theory. Al-Rāzī departs from classical Ash‘arī divine command ethics to develop both a consequentialist ethics of action, which seriously rivals Mu‘tazili deontological ethics, and a perfectionist ethics of character. Within the latter framework, he sets out his later, teleological theory of prophecy. The volume includes the text, published for the first time, of one of al-Rāzī's latest and most fascinating works, Censure of the Pleasures of This World, which expresses pronounced moral and epistemological pessimism.
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