The performing arts in medieval Islam : shadow play and popular poetry in Ibn Daniyal's Mamluk Cairo /
:
This is a study of the life and work of Ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310), a Cairo-based eye doctor, poet, playwright, court jester, and arguably one of the most controversial cultural figures of his time. Drawing on medieval Arabic sources, many still in manuscript and some used for the first time, the author further contextualizes Ibn Dāniyāl's work with respect to poetry production and popular culture in the Islamic Near East in the post-Mongol period. The book also presents the first full English translation of "The Phantom," one of Ibn Dāniyāl's three shadow plays, the only surviving pre-Ottoman Arabic theatrical texts.
:
1 online resource (xiii, 240 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-233) and index. :
9789004218802 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Secular and Islamic feminist critiques in the work of Fatima Mernissi /
:
This book presents a detailed critical analysis of the work of Fatima Mernissi. Mernissi is considered to be one of the major figures in Feminist thought for both Morocco and Muslim society in general. This work discusses Mernissi's intellectual trajectory from 'secular' to 'Islamic' feminism in order to trace the evolution of so-called Islamic feminist theory. The book also engages critically with the work of other Muslim feminists, using frameworks and approaches developed in the works of Muslim reformist thinkers, namely Mohammad Arkoun and Nasr Abu Zaid, with the aim of engaging the theorization of this emerging feminism.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-285) and index. :
9789047429609 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sharḥ dīwān Imriʼ al-Qays ; wa-maʻahu, Akhbār al-Marāqisah wa-ashʻāruhum fī al-Jāhilīyah wa-ṣadr al-Islām /
:
Akhbār al-Marāqisah ... : al-Ṭabʻah 2, with date of publication given as 1954.
With : Akhbār al-Nawābigh wa-āthārihim [sic] fī al-Jāhilīyah wa-ṣadr al-Islām : wa-huwa mulḥaq bi-kitāb Akhbār al-Marāqisah wa-ashʻāruhum fī al-Jāhilīyah wa-ṣadr al-Islām / kilāhumā taʼlīf Ḥasan al-Sandūbī. :
431 pages ; 25 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references.
Jāmī in regional contexts : the reception of ʻAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī's works in the Islamicate world, circa 9th/15th-14th/20th century /
:
Jāmī in Regional Contexts: The Reception of ʿAbd Al-Raḥmān Jāmī's Works in the Islamicate World is the first attempt to present in a comprehensive manner how ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), a most influential figure in the Persian-speaking world, reshaped the canons of Islamic mysticism, literature and poetry and how, in turn, this new canon prompted the formation of regional traditions. As a result, a renewed geography of intellectual practices emerges as well as questions surrounding authorship and authority in the making of vernacular cultures. Specialists of Persian, Arabic, Chinese, Georgian, Malay, Pashto, Sanskrit, Urdu, Turkish, and Bengali thus provide a unique connected account of the conception and reception of Jāmī's works throughout the Eurasian continent and maritime Southeast Asia.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004386600
Die Eroberung von Damaskus : Quellenkritische Untersuchung zur Historiographie in klassisch-islamischer Zeit /
:
The conquest of Damascus is one of the main events of the Islamic conquests in bilād al-Shām. Consequently, it appears with approximately 1000 narratives in the Islamic literature. This book shows the dependencies of these narratives. It therefore exemplifies the historiography from 700-1300 CE using one single event. Using the method of isnād-cum-matn-analysis the oldest forms of Islamic historiography are reconstructed. Among them are not only the version by Ibn Ishāq, but also the narratives in the futūh-work ascribed to al-Waqidī and in al-Azdī's Futūh al-Sham. Finally, the course of the events is described on the basis of the oldest reconstructed versions. Die Eroberung von Damaskus gehört zu den bedeutendsten Ereignissen der futūh im historischen Syrien. Folglich ist sie mit circa 1000 Einzelüberlieferungen ein häufig vorkommendes Element in der islamischen Literatur. Die Zusammenhänge und Abhängigkeiten der Überlieferungen zu analysieren, ist das Hauptanliegen dieser Studie. So können Aussagen über die Historiography von 700-1300 n. Chr. an Hand eines historischen Beispiels getroffen werden. Mit Hilfe der isnād-cum-matn-Analyse gelingt es zudem die frühesten Formen muslimischer Geschichtsschreibung zu rekonstruieren. Zu diesen gehören neben der Version Ibn Ishāqs auch die Erzählungen, die sich in dem Futūḥ-Werk, das al-Waqidī zugeschrieben wird, und dem Futūḥ al-Šhām al-Azdīs finden. Auf Grundlage dieser ältesten rekonstruierten Fassungen zeichnet diese Untersuchung abschließend die Eroberung von Damaskus nach.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047430285 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
'Ala' al-Dawla al-Simnani between spiritual authority and political power : a Persian lord and intellectual, in the heart of the Ilkhanate, With a critical edition and translation...
:
In ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī between Spiritual Authority and Political Power: A Persian Lord and Intellectual in the Heart of the Ilkhanate , Giovanni Maria Martini investigates the personality of a major figure in the socio-political and cultural landscape of Mongol Iran. In pursuing this objective, the author follows parallel paths: Chapter 1 provides the most updated reconstruction of Simnānī's (d. 736/1336) biography, which, thanks to its unique features, emerges as a cross-section of Iranian society and as a microhistory of the complex relationships between a Sufi master, Persian elites and Mongol rulers during the Ilkhanid period; Chapter 2 contains a study on the phenomenon of Arabic-Persian diglossia in Simnānī's written work, arguing for its socio-religious function; in Chapters 3 to 6 the critical editions of two important, interrelated treatises by Simnānī are presented; finally, Chapter 7 offers the first full-length annotated translation of a long work by Simnānī ever to appear in a Western language.
:
1 online resource (525 pages) :
9789004356740 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba : selected poems /
:
While in exile in Gabon (1895-1902), Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba marked a historic moment with his poetry of resilience, pivotal to the cultural and religious transformation of the Murīds of Senegal. The qaṣāʾid (poems) included in this annotated edition, most of them hymns of praise to the qualities of Allāh and the Prophet Muḥammad, and professions of faith that demonstrate how to realize the precepts found in the Qur'ān, display the underlying elements of Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba's imaginative energy and poetic vision. They reveal a unifying poetic purpose and exemplify Ṣūfī literary traditions in subject matter, form, and versification and aim to explore the deepest regions of mysticism in search of the divine truth.
:
Translated from the Arabic. :
1 online resource (xxi, 205 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004339194 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rūmī and the hermeneutics of eroticism /
:
This is the first systematic examination of the esoteric significance of the bawdy tales and explicit sexual passages present in Rūmī's (d. 1273) Mathnawī , a masterpiece of medieval Perso-Islamic mystical literature and theosophic teachings. Using the relevant features of postmodern theories as strategic conceptual tools, and drawing on the recent interpretations of medieval kabbalistic texts, it is a fascinating examination of the link between the dynamics of eroticism and esotericism operative in Rūmī's Mathnawī . In some of these bawdy tales, the phallus is used as an esoteric symbol. The book concludes that these tales are used primarily to communicate esoteric secrets, particularly when this communication is contemplated along gender lines, mediated through erotic imagery, or expressed in sexual terms.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [227]-242) and index. :
9789047422730 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Another place : identity, space, and transcultural signification in Goli Taraqqi's fiction /
:
In Another Place: Identity, Space, and Transcultural Signification in Goli Taraqqi's Fiction , Goulia Ghardashkhani examines the narrative process of the struggle for identification in the short stories of one of the well-established figures of Iranian contemporary prose literature. Goli Taraqqi's narratives of displacement and emigration are approached through a theoretical lens that foregrounds the significance of space and the role of retrospective self-narration in acts of cultural representation. Ghardashkhani studies Taraqqi's autobiographical narratives with an emphasis on the unstable meanings of homeland and Farang (a culturally constructed term signifying the West) and, thereby, accounts for Taraqqi's ironical style of narration in her memories of homeland recollected in exile.
:
1 online resource (vii, 246 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004356948 :
1569-7401 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Memories of an impossible future : Mehdi Akhavan Sales and the poetics of time /
:
In Memories of an Impossible Future: Mehdi Akhavān Sāles and the Poetics of Time Marie Huber traces the quest for a modern language of poetry through different figurations of temporality in the works of one of Iran's foremost poets. Akhavān is placed in dialogue with European thinkers and emerges as an original voice in world literature. Chapters examine aspects of rhythm and metaphor, messianism and historicity, and functions of time in Akhavān's lyric and epic poems. Through a range of close readings Huber seeks to understand Akhavān's texts as crystallisations of a historical moment, both rooted in the Persian tradition and pointing beyond it. Her analyses combine attention to philological detail with meditations on the philosophical significance of Akhavān's poetics.
:
1 online resource (185 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004323797 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The letter before the spirit : the importance of text editions for the study of the reception of Aristotle /
:
The Letter before the Spirit contains original articles based on the papers given at the Huygens ING (The Hague, 2009) on the importance of text editions for the study of the transmission of Aristotle's works in the Semitico-Latin translations and their commentary tradition in the medieval world. Authors underline this importance in general overviews and theoretical outlines and present their own work on various text editions, ranging from Syriac and Arabic to Hebrew and (Graeco) Latin, and from Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes to Plotinus, Michael Scot, William of Moerbeke, Judah ha-Kohen, Barhebraeus and Albertus Magnus. Editors are further encouraged to cross boundaries between disciplines and study the translation tradition of Aristotle's works in its entirety.
:
1 online resource (xxi, 516 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004235083 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The medieval reception of the Shahnama as a mirror for princes /
:
Nasrin Askari explores the medieval reception of Firdausī's Shāhnāma , or Book of Kings (completed in 1010 CE) as a mirror for princes. Through her examination of a wide range of medieval sources, Askari demonstrates that Firdausī's oeuvre was primarily understood as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly elites. In order to illustrate the ways in which the Shāhnāma functions as a mirror for princes, Askari analyses the account about Ardashīr, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, as an ideal king in the Shāhnāma . Within this context, she explains why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr.
:
1 online resource (398 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004307919 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.