Arabic Belles Lettres

Arabic Belles Lettres brings together ten studies that shed light on important questions in the study of Arabic language, literature, literary history, and writerly culture. The volume is divided into three sections. Early Narratives comprises: Joseph Lowry on the Qurʾan's allusive legal language; Abed el-Rahman Tayyara on matrilineal lineages in the context of Badr and Uhụd; Ruqayya Khan on the ramifications of public courtship in ʾUdhrī romances; and Philip Kennedy on firāsah (reading for signs and traces) in medieval narrative. Medieval Authors comprises: Shawkat Toorawa on ʿUbaydallāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Ṭāhir's History of Baghdād; Maurice Pomerantz and Bilal Orfali on Ibn Fāris and the origins of the maqāmah genre; Everett Rowson on al-Tawḥīdī and his predecessors (a reprint of his 1996 ZDMG article); and Ghayde Ghraowi on al-Khafājī and his Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ. Modern Egypt comprises: Roger Allen on a cultural controversy in the Cairo newspapers of 1902; and Devin Stewart on preposterous boasting and ingenuity in on modern Egyptian Arabic.

This volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature covers artistic prose and poetry produced in the heartland and provinces of the 'Abbasid empire during the second great period of Arabic literature, from the mid-eighth to the thirteenth centuries AD.

'Abbasid literature was characterized by the emergence of many new genres and of a scholarly and sophisticated critical consciousness. This volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature covers the prose and poetry produced in the heartland and provinces of the 'Abbasid Empire from the mid-eighth to the thirteenth centuries A.D. Chronologically organized, the book explores the main genres and provides extended studies of major poets, prose writers and literary theorists. To make the material accessible to nonspecialist readers, 'Abbasid authors are quoted in English translation wherever possible, and clear explanations of their literary techniques and conventions are provided. The volume concludes with the first comprehensive survey of the relatively unknown literature of the Yemen to appear in a European language since the manuscript discoveries of recent years.

Attitudes toward homosexuality in the pre-modern Arab-Islamic world are commonly depicted as schizophrenic—visible and tolerated on one hand, prohibited by Islam on the other. Khaled El-Rouayheb argues that this apparent paradox is based on the anachronistic assumption that homosexuality is a timeless, self-evident fact to which a particular culture reacts with some degree of tolerance or intolerance. Drawing on poetry, biographical literature, medicine, dream interpretation, and Islamic texts, he shows that the culture of the period lacked the concept of homosexuality.

The little-known story of the sophisticated and vibrant Arabic book culture that flourished during the Middle Ages. During the thirteenth century, Europe’s largest library owned fewer than 2,000 volumes. Libraries in the Arab world at the time had exponentially larger collections. Five libraries in Baghdad alone held between 200,000 and 1,000,000 books each, including multiple copies of standard works so that their many patrons could enjoy simultaneous access. How did the Arabic codex become so popular during the Middle Ages, even as the well-established form languished in Europe? Beatrice Gruendler’s The Rise of the Arabic Book answers this question through in-depth stories of bookmakers and book collectors, stationers and librarians, scholars and poets of the ninth century. The history of the book has been written with an outsize focus on Europe. The role books played in shaping the great literary cultures of the world beyond the West has been less known—until now. An internationally renowned expert in classical Arabic literature, Gruendler corrects this oversight and takes us into the rich literary milieu of early Arabic letters.

This book explores the unique relationship between two different approaches to understand the nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. It collects essays that examine the distinctive historical relationship between mathematics and philosophy. Readers learn what key philosophers throughout the ages thought about mathematics. This includes both thinkers who recognized the relevance of mathematics to their own work as well as those who chose to completely ignore its many achievements. The essays offer insight into the role that mathematics played in the formation of each included philosopher’s doctrine as well as the impact its remarkable expansion had on the philosophical systems each erected. Conversely, the authors also highlight the ways that philosophy contributed to the growth and transformation of mathematics. Throughout, significant historical examples help to illustrate these points in a vivid way. Mathematics has often been a favored interlocutor of philosophers and a major source of inspiration. This book is the outcome of an international conference held in honor of Roshdi Rashed, a renowned historian of mathematics. It provides researchers, students, and interested readers with remarkable insights into the history of an important relationship throughout the ages.

The volume provides a comprehensive record of the formative centuries of Islam in Iran.