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Metaphor and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Thought
This book reveals how Moses ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, and Shem Tov ibn Falaquera understood metaphor and imagination, and their role in the way human beings describe God. It demonstrates how these medieval Jewish thinkers engaged with Arabic-Aristotelian psychology, specifically with regard to imagination and its role in cognition. Dianna Lynn Roberts-Zauderer reconstructs the process by which metaphoric language is taken up by the imagination and the role of imagination in rational thought. If imagination is a necessary component of thinking, how is Maimonides’ idea of pure intellectual thought possible? An examination of select passages in the Guide, in both Judeo-Arabic and translation, shows how Maimonides’ attitude towards imagination develops, and how translations contribute to a bifurcation of reason and imagination that does not acknowledge the nuances of the original text. Finally, the author shows how Falaquera’s poetics forges a new direction for thinking about imagination.
The Good Christian Ruler in the First Millennium
The late antique and early medieval Mediterranean was characterized by wide-ranging cultural and linguistic diversity. Yet, under the influence of Christianity, communities in the Mediterranean world were bound together by common concepts of good rulership, which were also shaped by Greco-Roman, Persian, Caucasian, and other traditions. This collection of essays examines ideas of good Christian rulership and the debates surrounding them in diverse cultures and linguistic communities. It grants special attention to communities on the periphery, such as the Caucasus and Nubia, and some essays examine non-Christian concepts of good rulership to offer a comparative perspective. As a whole, the studies in this volume reveal not only the entanglement and affinity of communities around the Mediterranean but also areas of conflict among Christians and between Christians and other cultural traditions. By gathering various specialized studies on the overarching question of good rulership, this volume highlights the possibilities of placing research on classical antiquity and early medieval Europe into conversation with the study of eastern Christianity.
In the Presence of Power
Insights into power, spectacle, and performance in the courts of Middle Eastern rulers In recent decades, scholars have produced much new research on courtly life in medieval Europe, but studies on imperial and royal courts across the Middle East have received much less attention, particularly for courts before 1500AD. In the Presence of Power, however, sheds new light on courtly life across the region. This insightful, exploratory collection of essays uncovers surprising commonalities across a broad swath of cultures. The pre-modern period in this volume includes roughly seven centuries, opening with the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyads, whose reign marked an important watershed for Lat...
Muḥammad ʿAbduh and His Interlocutors: Conceptualizing Religion in a Globalizing World
In Muḥammad ʿAbduh and his Interlocutors: Conceptualizing Religion in a Globalizing World, Ammeke Kateman offers an account of Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s Islamic Reformism in a context in which ideas increasingly crossed familiar geographical, religious and cultural frontiers. Presenting an alternative to the inadequate perspective of “Westernization”, Kateman situates the ideas of Muḥammad ʿAbduh (Egypt, 1849-1905) on Islam and religion amongst those of his interlocutors within a global intellectual field. Ammeke Kateman’s approach documents the surprising pluralism of ʿAbduh’s interlocutors, the diversity in their shared conceptualizations of religion and the creativity of ʿAbduh’s own interpretation. In this way, the conceptualizations of ʿAbduh and his contemporaries also shed light on the diversified global genealogy of the modern concept of religion.
Akhbār Abī Tammām
A robust defense of a poetic genius Abū Tammām (d. 231 or 232/845 or 846) is one of the most celebrated poets in the Arabic language. Born in Syria to Greek Christian parents, he converted to Islam and quickly made his name as one of the premier Arabic poets in the caliphal court of Baghdad, promoting a new style of poetry that merged abstract and complex imagery with archaic Bedouin language. Both highly controversial and extremely popular, this sophisticated verse influenced all subsequent poetry in Arabic and epitomized the “modern style” (badīʿ), an avant-garde aesthetic that was very much in step with the intellectual, artistic, and cultural vibrancy of the Abbasid dynasty. In T...
Le Cycle de ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib
This book aims to demonstrate that the accounts that feature Muḥammad’s grandfather in Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra are the product of narrative engineering. Through a narrative sequence in which ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib is the hero, several intriguing episodes follow one another in a causal manner and lead to the birth of a future prophet. Articulated with a historical anthropology, the narrative analysis reveals that the Sīra is the heir to the royal literature of the ancient Near East. Using motifs and themes from the culture of the Fertile Crescent, the Sīra makes ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib a royal figure in the service of legitimising the Abbasid dynasty, heir par excellence to Ishmael and rest...
Rulers as Authors in the Islamic World
How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed in this book, from the early centuries in the central lands of Islam to 19th century Sudan. The composition of poetry appears as the most fertile area for authorship among rulers. Prose writings show a wide variety, from astrology to bookmaking, from autobiography to creeds. Some of the rulers made claims to special knowledge, but in all cases authorship played a special role in the construction of the rulers' authority and legitimacy. Contributors: Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk, Sean W. Anthony, María Luisa Ávila†, Teresa Bernheimer, Philip Bockholt, Sonja Brentjes, Christiane Czygan, David Durand-Guédy, Anne-Marie Eddé, Sinem Eryılmaz, Maribel Fierro, Adam Gaiser, Angelika Hartmann†, Livnat Holtzman, Maher Jarrar, Robert S. Kramer, Christian Mauder, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Letizia Osti, Jürgen Paul, Petra Schmidl, Tilman Seidensticker.
Muḥammad and His Followers in Context
This title is published in Open Access with the support of the University of Helsinki Library. The book surveys and analyzes changes in religious groups and identities in late antique Arabia, ca. 300-700 CE. It engages with contemporary and material evidence: for example, inscriptions, archaeological remains, Arabic poetry, the Qurʾān, and the so-called Constitution of Medina. Also, it suggests ways to deal with the later Arabic historiographical and other literary texts. The issue of social identities and their processes are central to the study. For instance, how did Arabian ethnic and religious identities intersect on the eve of Islam? The book suggests that the changes in social groups were more piecemeal than previously thought.
The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters
In The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Muhsin J. al-Musawi offers a groundbreaking study of literary heritage in the medieval and premodern Islamic period. Al-Musawi challenges the paradigm that considers the period from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 as an "Age of Decay" followed by an "Awakening" (al-nahdah). His sweeping synthesis debunks this view by carefully documenting a "republic of letters" in the Islamic Near East and South Asia that was vibrant and dynamic, one varying considerably from the generally accepted image of a centuries-long period of intellectual and literary stagnation. Al-Musawi argues tha...
Islam at 250
Islam at 250: Studies in Memory of G.H.A. Juynboll is a collection of original articles on the state of Islamic sciences and Arabic culture in the early phases of their crystallization. It covers a wide range of intellectual activity in the first three centuries of Islam, such as the study of ḥadīth, the Qurʾān, Arabic language and literature, and history. Individually and taken together, the articles provide important new insights and make an important contribution to scholarship on early Islam. The authors, whose work reflects an affinity with Juynboll's research interests, are all experts in their fields. Pointing to the importance of interdisciplinary approaches and signalling lacunae, their contributions show how scholarship has advanced since Juynboll's days. Contributors: Camilla Adang, Monique Bernards, Léon Buskens, Ahmed El Shamsy, Maribel Fierro, Aisha Geissinger, Geert Jan van Gelder, Claude Gilliot, Robert Gleave, Asma Hilali, Michael Lecker, Scott Lucas, Christopher Melchert, Pavel Pavlovitch, Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Roberto Tottoli, and Peter Webb.
