Humor in early Islam
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Humor in Early Islam , first published in 1956, is a pioneering study by the versatile and prolific scholar Franz Rosenthal (1914-2003), who (having published an article on mediaeval Arabic blurbs), should have written this text himself. It contains an annotated translation of an Arabic text on a figure who became the subject of many jokes and anecdotes, the greedy and obtuse Ashʿab, a singer who lived in the eighth century but whose literary and fictional life long survived him. The translation is preceded by chapters on the textual sources and on the historical and legendary personalities of Ashʿab; the book ends with a short essay on laughter. Whether or not the jokes will make a modern reader laugh, the book is a valuable source for those seriously interested in a religion or a culture that all too often but unjustly is associated, by outsiders, with an aversion to laughter.
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"Translation of texts":p. [36]-131. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004215733 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Persian wisdom in Arabic garb : ʻAlī born ʻUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834) and his Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farāʼid al-ḥikam /
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This volume introduces ʿAlī born ʿUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834), one of the central figures in the transmission of classical Greek and Persian wisdom into Arabic. It offers an edition, translation, and evaluation of his book Jawāhir al-kilam , one of the oldest collections of proverbial wisdom and moralia in Arabic, as well as other remaining pieces of his works. The first part of the book surveys the content of his more than sixty books and suggests that among his translations from Middle Persian into Arabic were the Sindbād-nāma and Bilawhar wa-Budhāsf . Moreover, he emerges as the author of the famous al-Adab al-ṣaghīr heretofore wrongly attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa'. The second part contains the Arabic texts and translations as well as a rich documentation of their sources and their further transmission.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, pages [339]-360) and index. :
9789047418757 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.