Related Papers
The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow: Late ʿAbbāsid Poetics in Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s Saqṭ al-Zand and Luzūm Mā Lā Yalzam
S Stetkevych The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow
2022 •
Suzanne Stetkevych
In The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow, Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych offers original translations, close readings, and new interpretations of selected poems from the two contrasting diwans of the blind Late ʿAbbāsid master-poet, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (d. 449 H./1057 C.E.). The first is Saqṭ al-Zand (Sparks of the Flint), the highly esteemed collection of qaṣīdah poetry of his youth, which he later disavowed. The second is Luzūm Mā Lā Yalzam (Requiring What Is Not Required), the programmatic double-rhymed collection from his later period of withdrawal and seclusion. She argues that the contrasting ‘poetics of engagement’ and ‘poetics of disengagement’ of the two diwans reflect the transition from High Classical to Post Classical aesthetics.See Less E-Book (PDF): OPEN ACCESS Brill Publishers Hardback: USD $143.00
Building Bridges: Ignaz Goldziher and His Correspondents, Edited by Hans-Jürgen Becker, Kinga Dévényi, Sebastian Günther, and Sabine Schmidtke (Leiden-Boston: Brill)
IGNAZ GOLDZIHER: THE FOUNDING FATHER OF GESTURE STUDIES IN ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES
2024 •
Livnat Holtzman, Miriam Ovadia
Ignaz Goldziher: The Founding Father of Gesture Studies in Arabic and Islamic Studies" delves into Goldziher's pioneering work, focusing on two key publications: "Ueber Geberden und Zeichensprache bei den Arabern" (1886) and "Zauberelemente im islamischen Gebet" (1906). Goldziher was the first to recognize the significance of physical gestures in Islamic prophetic traditions, evident in the rich information found in ḥadīth literature. His interdisciplinary approach allowed him to extract meaning from gestures, even in unexpected places like his 1920 masterpiece "Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslesung." Despite his groundbreaking insights, subsequent generations of scholars in Islamic and Arabic studies did not continue his research. However, Goldziher's contributions laid the foundation for gesture studies in various disciplines. While his work was recognized across disciplines, gesture studies have not flourished in Arabic and Islamic studies as they have in other fields. Goldziher's pioneering efforts make him the forefather of gesture studies in this context, with ample room for further exploration and recognition within the academic community.
Brill: Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science Series 123
The Book of the Crown (Kitāb al-Iklīl) of Pseudo-Rhazes: Excerpt
2023 •
Henrietta Sharp co*ckrell, Oliver Kahl
Oliver Kahl and Henrietta Sharp co*ckrell present a newly discovered medieval medical text attributed to Rhazes. A work in the health regimen genre copied in 1220 CE, this unique Arabic manuscript is written parallel, rather than perpendicular, to the bound edge (flip-bound). The edition comprises a detailed introduction, followed by a facsimile translation and indices.
Der Islam
A Glimpse into Egyptian/Syrian Elite Book Culture During the Seventh/Thirteenth Century: Booklist T-S Misc. 24.28 from the Cairo Geniza Corpus
2023 •
Konrad Hirschler, Said Aljoumani
This article discusses the fragment of an Arabic-script book list with a Cairo Geniza provenance that includes 33 identifiable titles. On the basis of the list's provenance, its organization, and its content, we argue that it was part of a larger Cairene library catalogue dating to the seventh/thirteenth century. All titles in this catalogue refer to Arabic poetry ranging from pre-Islamic jāhilīʾ poets to poets living in the first half of the seventh/thirteenth century. A comparison with the poetry section of the Damascene Ashrafīya Library from the same period shows a distinct overlap in terms of titles and textual format. We thus suggest that this Cairene catalogue should not primarily be seen as witness of a "Jewish" library but rather as part of Egyptian/Syrian Arabic elite book culture that cut across religious communities. While it is likely that this shared book culture went beyond Egypt and Syria and encompassed wider regions in North Africa and West Asia, further comparative material is needed to substantiate this assumption.
Islamic Law and Society
The Status of Music in Islamic Law: Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī's (d. 974/1567) Treatise Against Recreation in its Polemical Context
2024 •
Fitzroy Morrissey
Kaff al-raʿāʿ ʿan muḥarramāt al-lahw wa-l-samāʿ is an influential treatise on the legal status of music and other recreational activities written by the Shāfiʿī Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 974/1567) in 958/1551. This article offers the first analysis of this “treatise against recreation”. Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī argues for the impermissibility of most musical activities on the basis of the Qurʾan and Hadith, the consensus of the ʿulamāʾ (particularly from his Shāfiʿī school), and the incompatibility of recreation (lahw) and piety. These arguments are forged in response to claims found in more permissive texts by the Ẓāhirīs Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) and Ibn al-Qaysarānī (d. 507/1113) and the Mālikī Muḥammad al-Shādhilī al-Tūnisī (d. 882/1477). I suggest that it is Ibn Ḥajar’s negative attitude to lahw that underlies his restrictive views on music, highlight the gendered element in this attitude, and observe that attitudes to recreation are not interchangeable with affiliation to Sufism.
Al-Abhath: Journal of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, American University of Beirut
As Barren as Mother Eve: Why Some Poems End Badly, According to Premodern Arabic Critics | Al-Abhath
2023 •
Kevin Blankinship
Premodern Arabic literary critics often discuss why poems are good, or at least, why some poems are better than others. This article discusses why critics think poems are bad, or at least, why some poems are worse than others. Specifically, why some poems are bad in terms of how they end. Examples of allegedly poor poetic closure, al-intihāʾ or al-khitām, appear in works of “practical criticism” like anthologies, rhetorical manuals, books on writing craft, and evaluations of specific poets. Such works avoid theorizing, thus demanding a bit of educated guesswork. Given this, premodern Arabic critics disdain poems without a “punchline,” which keeps poetry from being like prose, going on and on. They think poems should end with rhetorical force, couched in a witty saying or image, while avoiding farfetched metaphors that distort the message. That message should not be ill-suited to the occasion, and it should be integral to the poem, which signals a tacit sense of poetic unity beyond the line.
The Books Sānk and Pātanğal. A Socio-cultural History of al-Bīrūnī’s Interpretations of Sāṅkhya and Yoga
2024 •
Noémie Verdon
Al-Bīrūnī (ca. 973-1050) was an innovative encyclopaedist thinker. He is particularly known to have investigated into India of his time. Yet, his life and the circ*mstances of his encounter with Indian languages, culture and sciences are still shrouded in mystery and legends. This research brings to light elements of his intellectual journey based on well-grounded analysis so as to contextualise al-Bīrūnī’s work of transmission of Indian philosophies into Arabic. Thanks to a theoretical framework rooted in a multidisciplinary approach, including Translation Studies, it enables to comprehend the full scope of his work and to analyse deeply his motives and choices of interpretation.
Boston/Leiden: Brill
The Tale of a Feud: Domination, Resistance, and Agency in Highland Yemen (OPEN ACCESS)
2023 •
Marieke Brandt
Muqarnas
The Arts of the Book in the Aydınid Realm: Exploring a Neglected Medical Manuscript from Late Fourteenth-Century Western Rum
2022 •
Cailah Jackson
It is now well established in scholarship that the Turkmen principalities (beyliks) of late medieval Rum possessed lively, dynamic court cultures and that several of their members were enthusiastic supporters of art and architecture. Recent publications have shown that, like their more famous Ilkhanid and Mamluk contemporaries, several Turkmen princes were avid patrons of the Islamic arts of the book. For the most part, however, scholars have not examined the contributions of the Aydınid principality (1308–1425) to this art form. Before the emergence of Ottoman domination, the Aydınids were one of the most powerful and prosperous local polities, based on the western coast of present-day Turkey in and around Birgi, Ayasuluk (Selçuk), Tire, and İzmir. In an effort to contribute to ongoing discussions concerning the production and patronage of the late medieval arts of the book from Rum, this article analyzes and contextualizes an illuminated manuscript that was produced for Fakhr al-Din ʿIsa ibn Muhammad ibn Aydın (r. ca. 1360–90). This manuscript appears not to have been studied in any depth before. Given the small number of securely identified manuscripts from late fourteenth-century Rum, this material marks an exciting and welcome addition to the corpus.
Martina Rugiadi
This short essay investigates the parallel and distinct development of stonepaste (fritware) in Syria and Iran on the basis of archaeological evidences and historical sources.
