Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books

Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books PDF Author: James E. Montgomery
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074868333X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 593

Get Book Here

Book Description
Edinburgh University Press will publish two self-contained guides to reading al-Jahiz that also shed light on his society and its writings. This first volume, 'In Praise of Books', is devoted to bibliomania and al-Jahiz's bibliophilia. Volume 2, In Censure of Books, explores Al-Jahiz's bibliophobia. Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. He advised, argued and rubbed shoulders with the major power brokers and leading religious and intellectual figures of his day, and crossed swords in debate and argument with the architects of the Islamic religious, theological, philosophical and cultural canon. His many, tumultuous writings engage with these figures, their ideas, theories and policies. They give us an invaluable but much-neglected window onto the values and beliefs of this cosmopolitan elite.

Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books

Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books PDF Author: James E. Montgomery
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074868333X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 593

Get Book Here

Book Description
Edinburgh University Press will publish two self-contained guides to reading al-Jahiz that also shed light on his society and its writings. This first volume, 'In Praise of Books', is devoted to bibliomania and al-Jahiz's bibliophilia. Volume 2, In Censure of Books, explores Al-Jahiz's bibliophobia. Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. He advised, argued and rubbed shoulders with the major power brokers and leading religious and intellectual figures of his day, and crossed swords in debate and argument with the architects of the Islamic religious, theological, philosophical and cultural canon. His many, tumultuous writings engage with these figures, their ideas, theories and policies. They give us an invaluable but much-neglected window onto the values and beliefs of this cosmopolitan elite.

Al-Jāḥiẓ

Al-Jāḥiẓ PDF Author: James Edward Montgomery
Publisher: Edinburgh Studies in Classical
ISBN: 9780748683321
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. 'In Praise of Books' explores the centrality of books to Al-Jahiz's work and to the society he lived in.

Night & Horses & The Desert

Night & Horses & The Desert PDF Author: Robert Irwin
Publisher: ABRAMS
ISBN: 1590209141
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of Arabic literature is “a joy to read. . . . a journey through eleven centuries of a lost world, with a surprise on almost every page” (Financial Times). Spanning the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, from Afghanistan to Spain, Night & Horses & The Desert includes translated extracts from all the major classics in an invaluable introduction to the subject of classical Arabic literature. Robert Irwin has selected a wide range of poetry and prose in translation, from the most important and typical texts to the very obscure. Alongside the extracts, Irwin’s copious commentary and notes provide an explanatory history of the subject. What were the various genres and to what extent were they constrained by rules? What were the canons of traditional Arabic literary criticism? How were Arabic prose and poetry recited and written down? Irwin explores the literary environments of the desert, salon, mosque, and bookshop and provides brief biographies of the caliphs, princesses, warriors, scribes, dandies, and mystics who created such a rich and diverse literary culture. Night & Horses & The Desert gives western readers a unique taste of the sheer vitality and depth of the medieval Arab past. “Superb . . . . a revelation.” —The Washington Post “[A] treasure-house of a book. . . . Unequaled for scholarship and entertainment.” —The Independent

Sobriety & Mirth

Sobriety & Mirth PDF Author: Jim Colville
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136887105
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
First Published in 2001. These extremely entertaining shorter pieces by the leader of Islamic literary culture aim to instruct us on matters of moral and social concern. They cover such uses as Chanteuses, The Pleasure of Girls and Boys, This Life and the Life to come, Drink and Drinkers, Envy, and the Superiority of the Front to the Back. Always taking a moral tone, Jahiz seldom fails to lighten with humour and wit.

Al-Jahiz: in Censure of Books

Al-Jahiz: in Censure of Books PDF Author: James Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780748683284
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description


Al-Jāḥiẓ: in Praise of Books

Al-Jāḥiẓ: in Praise of Books PDF Author: James E. Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780748683352
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages : 586

Get Book Here

Book Description
Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. 'In Praise of Books' explores the centrality of books to Al-Jahiz's work and to the society he lived in.

Opposing the Imam

Opposing the Imam PDF Author: Nebil Husayn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108967108
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book Here

Book Description
Islam's fourth caliph, Ali, can be considered one of the most revered figures in Islamic history. His nearly universal portrayal in Muslim literature as a pious authority obscures centuries of contestation and the eventual rehabilitation of his character. In this book, Nebil Husayn examines the enduring legacy of the nawasib, early Muslims who disliked Ali and his descendants. The nawasib participated in politics and scholarly discussions on religion at least until the ninth century. However, their virtual disappearance in Muslim societies has led many to ignore their existence and the subtle ways in which their views subsequently affected Islamic historiography and theology. By surveying medieval Muslim literature across multiple genres and traditions including the Sunni, Mu'tazili, and Ibadi, Husayn reconstructs the claims and arguments of the nawasib and illuminates the methods that Sunni scholars employed to gradually rehabilitate the image of Ali from a villainous character to a righteous one.

Loss Sings

Loss Sings PDF Author: James Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781909631274
Category : Arabic language
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
"In this deeply personal cahier James E. Montgomery contemplates memory, loss and the consolatory power of words through the prism of his personal circumstances. His thoughts are refracted by his own translations of the dirges of the 6th-century poetess al-Khansa', lamenting the battlefield death of her two brothers. Each section of Montgomery's text is dated and spans over a period of two weeks with the final entry strangely ending on 11 September 2017, exactly 16 years after he himself witnessed, from his Greenwich Village window, the haunting and 'strange beauty' of the day's portentous spectacle. Still, throughout the text Montgomery never loses touch with his vocation as a literary translator. He considers the practice more akin to trauma than it is to memory: 'Translation is also mourning for what we want to retain, what we value and cherish; it is, equally, mourning for what we know we must lose', all of which is relayed by Alison Watt's wondrous images that accompany the cahier."--Back cover

Routledge Revivals: Medieval Islamic Civilization (2006)

Routledge Revivals: Medieval Islamic Civilization (2006) PDF Author: Josef Meri
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351668226
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1790

Get Book Here

Book Description
Islamic civilization flourished in the Middle Ages across a vast geographical area that spans today's Middle and Near East. First published in 2006, Medieval Islamic Civilization examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the 7th and 16th centuries. This important two-volume work contains over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, contributed and signed by international scholars and experts in fields such as Arabic languages, Arabic literature, architecture, history of science, Islamic arts, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Near Eastern studies, politics, religion, Semitic studies, theology, and more. Entries also explore the importance of interfaith relations and the permeation of persons, ideas, and objects across geographical and intellectual boundaries between Europe and the Islamic world. This reference work provides an exhaustive and vivid portrait of Islamic civilization and brings together in one authoritative text all aspects of Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages. Accessible to scholars, students and non-specialists, this resource will be of great use in research and understanding of the roots of today's Islamic society as well as the rich and vivid culture of medieval Islamic civilization.

Reader in al-Jahiz

Reader in al-Jahiz PDF Author: Thomas Hefter
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748692754
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores the intricately crafted rhetorical strategies used by al-Jahiz in his letters The 9th-century essayist, theologian and encyclopedist 'Amr b. Bahr al-Jahiz has long been acknowledged as a master of early Arabic prose writing. Many of his most engaging writings were clearly intended for a broad readership but were presented as letters to individuals. Despite the importance and quantity of these letters, surprisingly little academic notice has been paid to them. Now, Thomas Hefter takes a new approach in interpreting some of al-Jahiz's 'epistolary monographs'. By focusing on the varying ways in which he wrote to the addressee, Hefter shows how al-Jahiz shaped his conversations on the page in order to guide (or manipulate) his actual readers and encourage them to engage with his complex materials.