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This book exposes the mimetic assumption involved in early Islamic historiography, its literary practice and whatever subverts it as reflected in ?abar?'s "History," Four major events in the history of early Islam are then subject to analysis based on literary criticism and are shown to produce a new meaning.
Selected contents of this volume (1999), collected in memory of Naphtali Kinberg: Rachel Milstein, "The Evolution of a Visual Motif: The Temple and the Ka'ba"; Gabriel M. Rosenbaum, "A Certain Laugh: Serious Humor and Creativity in the Adab of Ibn al-Gawzi"; Aryeh Levin, "Sibawayhi's Attitude to the Language of the Quran"; Kees Versteegh, "Loanwords from Arabic and the Merger of d/d"; Toufic Fahd, "Adab: Poesie, Prose, Proverbes"; Richard C. Steiner, "Philology as the Handmaiden of Philosophy in R. Saadia Gaon's Interpretation of Genesis 1:1"; Dominique et Marie-Therese Urvoy, "Un aspect particulier de relation entre adab et falsafa"; Joseph Sadan, "Arabic Tom 'n Jerry Compositions: A Popular Composition on a War between Cats and Mice and a Maqama on Negotiations and Concluding Peace between a Cat and a Mouse"; Ulrich Marzolph, "Adab in Transition: Creative Compilation in Nineteenth-Century Print Tradition"; David Wasserstein, "A West-East Puzzle: On the History of the Proverb 'Speech in Silver, Silence in Golden." Israel Oriental Studies has ceased publication with volume 20.
Between Memory and Power intends to demonstrate that a robust culture of historical writing existed in 2nd/8th century Syria, and to offer new methodological approaches to access this now lost history, torn between memory and oblivion. By studying the making of Umayyad heroes or Abbasid origins-myths, this book aims to reveal the successive meanings granted to Syrian history, and to identify the various layers of historical writing and rewriting during the first centuries of Islam. Taken together, these elements make possible a history of meanings of the very space of Syria, articulated around power and its expression, which grants a clear coherence to the period, extending well beyond the dynastic caesura of 132/750.
Islamic myths and collective memory are very much alive in today’s localized struggles for identity, and are deployed in the ongoing construction of worldwide cultural networks. This book brings the theoretical perspectives of myth-making and collective memory to the study of Islam and globalization and to the study of the place of the mass media in the contemporary Islamic resurgence. It explores the annulment of spatial and temporal distance by globalization and by the communications revolution underlying it, and how this has affected the cherished myths and memories of the Muslim community. It shows how contemporary Islamic thinkers and movements respond to the challenges of globalization by preserving, reviving, reshaping, or transforming myths and memories.
Only little is known about the book culture of Tunis, although the city had been a centre for teaching and learning throughout Ḥafṣid rule in Ifrīqiya (c. 1230 to 1574). The libraries of Tunis are considered lost since the sack of the city by the armies of the emperor Charles V in the summer of 1535. This study reconstructs for the first time the original holdings of Tunis' medieval libraries and shows what can still be learned from these recovered fragments. An in-depth analysis of a wide range of texts and artefacts shows that the Ḥafṣid libraries were looted and their collections redistributed, mostly among European collectors. The Lost Libraries of Tunis brings Early Modern scho...
This is the first systematic literary study of one of the masterpieces of classical Arabic literature, the fourth/tenth century Kitâb al-aghânî (The Book of Songs) by Abû I-Faraj al-Isbahânî. Until now the twenty-four volume Book of Songs has been regarded as a rather chaotic but priceless mine of information about classical Arabic music, literature and culture. This book approaches it as a work of literature in its own right, with its own internal logic and coherence. The study also consistently integrates the musical component into the analysis and proposes a reading of the work in which individual anecdotes and poems are related to the wider context, enhancing their meaning.
Sivan Nir meticulously examines the reimaginings of the biblical figures Balaam, Jeremiah, and Esther in a wide range of Jewish texts from second-century rabbinic sources to medieval Jewish biblical commentaries. Nir’s unique approach analyzes the continuity, or lack thereof, that emerges when characterization is viewed in relation to and in contrast with its cross cultural context, including the contemporary conventions found in Hellenistic rhetoric and novels, Byzantine Christian literature, Islamic adab and Mu‘tazila literature, and more. Such an approach reveals a transition from typological depictions to richer, more lifelike portrayals—a transformation shaped by rival notions of literature and history. Nir translates the sources into accessible English for students and scholars of not only Jewish exegesis but also those in Christian theology, Islamic studies, and world literature.
In early 20th-century Yemen, a sizable Jewish population was subject to sumptuary laws and social restrictions. Jews regularly came into contact with Islamic courts and Muslim jurists, by choice and by necessity, became embroiled in the most intimate details of their Jewish neighbors’ lives. Mark S. Wagner draws on autobiographical writings to study the careers of three Jewish intermediaries who used their knowledge of Islamic law to manipulate the shari‘a for their own benefit and for the good of their community. The result is a fresh perspective on the place of religious minorities in Muslim societies.
Arabic literary salons emerged in ninth-century Iraq and, by the tenth, were flourishing in Baghdad and other urban centers. In an age before broadcast media and classroom education, salons were the primary source of entertainment and escape for middle- and upper-rank members of society, serving also as a space and means for educating the young. Although salons relied on a culture of oral performance from memory, scholars of Arabic literature have focused almost exclusively on the written dimensions of the tradition. That emphasis, argues Samer Ali, has neglected the interplay of oral and written, as well as of religious and secular knowledge in salon society, and the surprising ways in whic...
Drawing on case studies from Islamic history, Haider challenges assumptions about the nature of the sources shaping understandings of the early Muslim world.