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In Making Sense of History: Narrativity and Literariness in the Ottoman Chronicle of Naʿīmā, Gül Şen offers the first comprehensive analysis of narrativity in the most prominent official Ottoman court chronicle. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines methods from history and literary studies, Şen focuses on the purpose and function of the chronicle—not just what the text says but why Naʿīmā wrote it and how he shaped the narrated reality on the textual level. As a case study on the literalization of historical material, Making Sense of History provides insights into the historiographical and literary conventions underpinning Naʿīmā’s chronicle and contributes to our understanding of elite mentalities in the early modern Ottoman world by highlighting the author’s use of key concepts such as history and time.
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From the ninth to the nineteenth centuries, Persian was the pre-eminent language of learning far beyond Iran, stretching from the Balkans to China. In this book, Alexander Jabbari explores what became of this vast Persian literary heritage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Iran and South Asia, as nationalism took hold and the Persianate world fractured into nation-states. He shows how Iranians and South Asians drew from their shared past to produce a 'Persianate modernity', and create a modern genre, literary history. Drawing from both Persian and Urdu sources, Jabbari reveals the important role that South Asian Muslims played in developing Iranian intellectual and literary trends. Highlighting cultural exchange in the region, and the agency of Asian modernizers, Jabbari charts a new way forward for area studies and opens exciting possibilities for thinking about language and literature.
Living Waters - Scandinavian Oriental Studies. In Honour of Frede Løkkegaard
The Prince and the Sufi is the literary composition of the seventeenth-century Judeo-Persian poet Elisha ben Shmūel. In The Prince and the Sufi: The Judeo-Persian Rendition of the Buddha Biographies, Dalia Yasharpour provides a thorough analysis of this popular work to show how the Buddha's life story has undergone substantial transformation with the use of Jewish, Judeo-Persian and Persian-Islamic sources. The annotated edition of the text and the corresponding English translation are meticulous and insightful. This scholarly study makes available to readers an important branch in the genealogical tree of the Buddha Biographies.
Ten experts in premodern literature and history examine the style, genre, and performance of sixteenth century Ottoman poetry. A large number of poems, including a newly discovered imperial poem collection and the work of a poet fallen into oblivion, are discussed with regard to their multifarious functions and their contemporary lyrical appeal. Though most of these poets worked in conventional settings many of the articles in this volume point out how they broke taboos, glossed over violence, and promoted or questioned political rule, even as they appealed to their listeners on an emotional level. The authors provide ample evidence for the importance attributed to certain cities and places, as well as local affiliations and networks. These analyses show how premodern poetry operated as a tool of communication and formed an integral part of premodern social and political life.
Written in various languages, on multiple continents, and over many centuries, Islamic literature encompasses a rich and varied body of texts. While mention is made of key historical and religious works, this volume focuses on poetry and literary prose, whether popular or courtly in inspiration. Topics covered include dominant genres, recurring patterns in imagery, the influence of pre-Islamic Arabian literature, and the periods of development that Islamic literature passed through from the seventh century CE to the present day. This insightful and wide-ranging overview introduces readers to authors such as Yunus Emre, Rumi, ?afez, and Fuzuli of Baghdad. An invaluable resource!
In Memories of an Impossible Future: Mehdi Akhavān Sāles and the Poetics of Time Marie Huber traces the quest for a modern language of poetry through different figurations of temporality in the works of one of Iran’s foremost poets. Akhavān is placed in dialogue with European thinkers and emerges as an original voice in world literature. Chapters examine aspects of rhythm and metaphor, messianism and historicity, and functions of time in Akhavān’s lyric and epic poems. Through a range of close readings Huber seeks to understand Akhavān’s texts as crystallisations of a historical moment, both rooted in the Persian tradition and pointing beyond it. Her analyses combine attention to philological detail with meditations on the philosophical significance of Akhavān’s poetics.
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-73), founder of the Mevlevi Sufi order of “Whirling Dervishes,” is the best-selling poet in America today. The wide-ranging appeal of his work is such that UNESCO declared 2007 to be “International Rumi Year.” However, his writings represent much more than love poetry. Rumi was one of the preeminent thinkers of Sufism, the esoteric form of Islam. In this groundbreaking collection of 13 essays on Rumi, many of the world’s leading authorities in the field of Islamic Studies and Persian Literature discuss the major religious themes in his poetry and teachings. In addition to discussing the ideas of love, ecstasy, and music in Rumi’s Sufi poetry, the essays offer new historical and theological perspectives on his work. The immortality of the soul, freewill, the nature of punishment and reward, and the relationship of Islam to Christianity are all covered, in order to bring Rumi’s poetry properly into the context of the Sufi tradition to which he belonged.
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