Bodies of knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia : the diviners of late Bronze Age Emar and their table collection /
:
In Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia Matthew Rutz explores the relationship between ancient collections of texts, commonly deemed libraries and archives, and the modern interpretation of titles like 'diviner'. By looking at cuneiform tablets as artifacts with archaeological contexts, this work probes the modern analytical categories used to study ancient diviners and investigates the transmission of Babylonian/Assyrian scholarship in Syria. During the Late Bronze Age diviners acted as high-ranking scribes and cultic functionaries in Emar, a town on the Syrian Euphrates (ca. 1375-1175 BCE). This book's centerpiece is an extensive analytical catalogue of the excavated tablet collection of one family of diviners. Over seventy-five fragments are identified for the first time, along with many proposed joins between fragments.
:
1 online resource (xxi, 682 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004245686 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Notes on the Sanctuary of St. Symeon Stylites at Qalʻat Simʻān
:
This book is the first full-length work concerning the restoration and excavations carried out at Qal'at Sem'an in Syria in the twentieth century. It was written by the notable architect and archaeologist Georges Tchalenko based on his notes, plans, photographs and sketches as he undertook the work in the years before and during the Second World War. Left unpublished at the time of his death during the Lebanese Civil War, it is published here for the first time in the original French with an English translation. The text is richly illustrated throughout and accompanied by a biographical essay by John Tchalenko and an introduction to the historiography of Qal'at Sem'an and Symeon Stylites by Emma Loosley Leeming.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004388451 :
2213-0039 ;
Isaak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika : die Pneumatologie und ihr Kontext /
:
Isaac of Nineveh (7th century AD), or Isaac the Syrian, was, among all the Syriac writers, the one to exert the greatest influence outside the Syriac-speaking world, becoming a highly venerated Father of Byzantine Orthodox spirituality and theology. In Isaak von Nineve und seine Kephalaia Gnostika , Nestor Kavvadas first draws out the frictions between East Syrian episcopacy and the anchorite mystical movement as represented by Isaac, in search of the historical context of Isaac's teaching on the working of the Holy Spirit on the monk. Then, he draws out of Isaac's writings, and especially the Kephalaia Gnostika , the underlying structure of Isaac's thought on the working of the Holy Spirit, with the tension here between the here and now and the 'New World' that can be momentarily anticipated in the present world. Isaak von Ninive (7. Jh. n.Chr.), oder Isaak der Syrer, war unter allen Syrischen Autoren derjenige, der den größten Einfluss außerhalb der syrischsprachigen Welt ausübte, indem er ein besonders verehrter Vater der byzantinischen orthodoxen Spiritualität und Theologie wurde. In Isaak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika zeichnet Nestor Kavvadas zuerst die Reibungen zwischen dem ostsyrischen Episkopat und der volumea. durch Isaak vertretenen, anachoretischen mystischen Strömung nach, auf der Suche nach dem historischen Kontext der Lehre Isaaks vom Wirken des Heiligen Geistes auf den Mönch. Dann rekonstruiert er aus den Schriften Isaaks, insbesondere aus den Kephalaia Gnostika , die Isaaks Denken vom Wirken des Heiligen Geistes zugrundeliegende Struktur; leitend ist hier die Spannung zwischen dem "hier und jetzt" und der "Neuen Welt", die in dieser Welt augenblicklich antizipiert werden kann.
:
1 online resource (xvi, 189 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004284838 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The architecture and liturgy of the bema in fourth- to-sixth-century Syrian churches /
:
First published in 2003 this is a new edition of a work that remains the only study of the nave platform known as the Syrian Bema to utilise an interdisciplinary approach. By combining archaeological and architectural research with a study of the Syriac Liturgy to explore how worship evolved on the Syrian Limestone Massif in Late Antiquity, this volume proposes a solution to the long debated question of why only approximately 50 of these bemata have been discovered amongst many thousands of late antique churches in Syria. It charts the evolution of the early liturgy in Syria and seeks to explain how the location of the Limestone Massif in the hinterland of Antioch may have affected the development of worship in the region.
:
Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 2001.
Previously published: Kaslik, Liban : Parole de l'Orient, 2003. :
1 online resource (xviii, 287 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-281) and index. :
9789004231849 :
2213-0039 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamic piety in medieval Syria : mosques, cemeteries and sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146-1260) /
:
A study of religious thought and practice across a broad social spectrum, but within a well-defined historical context, this book is an interdisciplinary endeavor that incorporates the tools of philology, social-history and historical-anthropology. Focusing on the mosques, public assemblies, cemeteries and shrines of Syrian Muslims in the period of the crusades and the anti-Frankish jihad, the book describes and deciphers religious rites and experiences, liturgical calendars, spiritual leadership, and perceptions of impiety and dissent. Working from a perspective that breaks down the dichotomization of religion into 'official' and 'popular,' it exposes the negotiation, construction and dissemination of hybrid forms of religious life. The result is an intimate and complex presentation of the texture of medieval Islamic piety.
:
Extensively revised and expanded edition of the author's Hebrew Ph. D. thesis entitled: Dat ṿe-ḥevrah be-Suryah mi-Nur Aldin ṿe-ʻad la-kibush ha-Mongoli (1154-1260). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-286) and index. :
9789047422846 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Ugaritic Baal cycle.
:
The Ugaritic Baal Cycle offers a translation and the first commentary on the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. The longest and most important religious text from ancient Ugarit, the Baal Cycle witnesses to both the religious worldview of Ugarit and the larger background to many of the formative religious concepts and images in the Bible. The volume treats introductory matters such as date, order and continuity of the tablets, the history of interpretation, and finally a new proposal for the interpretation of text drawing on the insights of previous views as well as newer evidence. The commentary proper provides bibliography, text, textual notes, literary structure and detailed commentary for each column in the first two tablets.
:
1 online resource : illustrations. :
9789004275799 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Heralds of That Good Realm : Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions /
:
This volume examines the transmission of biblical pseudepigraphic literature and motifs from their largely Jewish cultural contexts in Palestine to developing gnostic milieux of Syria and Mesopotamia, particularly that one lying behind the birth and growth of Manichaeism. It surveys biblical pseudepigraphic literary activity in the late antique Near East, devoting special attention to revelatory works attributed to the five biblical forefathers who are cited in the Cologne Mani Codex : Adam, Seth, Enosh, Shem, and Enoch. The author provides a philological, literary, and religio-historical analysis of each of the five pseudepigraphic citations contained in the Codex , and offers hypotheses regarding the original provenance of each citation and the means by which these traditions have been adapted to their present context. This study is an important contribution to the scholarly reassessment of the roles played by Second Temple Judaism, Jewish Christian sectarianism, and classical gnosis in the formulation and development of Syro-Mesopotamian religious currents.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004439702
9789004104594
The Amorite dynasty of Ugarit : historical implications of linguistic and archaeological parallels /
:
"In The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit Mary Buck takes a new approach to the field of Amorite studies by considering whether the site of Ugarit shares close parallels with other sites and cultures known from the Bronze Age Levant. When viewed in conjunction, the archaeological and linguistic material uncovered in this study serves to enhance our understanding of the historical complexity and diversity of the Middle Bronze Age period of international relations at the site of Ugarit. With a deft hand, Dr. Buck pursues a nuanced view of populations in the Bronze Age Levant, with the objective of understanding the ancient polity of Ugarit as a kin-based culture that shares close ties with the Amorite populations of the Levant. .
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004415119
The third millennium : studies in early Mesopotamia and Syria in honor of Walter Sommerfeld and Manfred Krebernik /
:
"The Festschrift containing 36 contributions celebrates the scholarly achievements of the two outstanding Assyriologists, Walter Sommerfeld (University of Marburg) and Manfred Krebernik (University of Jena). The primary focus of the volume corresponds to the main topics of interests of Professors Sommerfeld and Krebernik - Pre-Sargonic and Sargonic Mesopotamia and third millennium Syria. The volume also features a few contributions dealing with Sumerian language, Mesopotamian literature and the early history of Akkadian and its Semitic background".
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004418080
The city gate in ancient Israel and her neighbors : the form, function, and symbolism of the civic forum in the southern Levant /
:
"In The City Gate in Ancient Israel and Her Neighbors, Daniel A. Frese provides a wide-ranging portrayal of one of the most prominent social institutions in the kingdoms of the southern Levant during the Iron II period: the use of the city gate as a hub for numerous and diverse civic functions. The book provides an up-to-date description of the architecture of gate complexes based on archaeological evidence, and a systematic description of the many functions of the gate seen in hundreds of texts from the Hebrew Bible and the broader ancient Near East. The final chapters of the book discuss the conceptual significance of gates in Israelite culture, based on idiomatic and symbolic gate terminology in the Hebrew Bible".
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004416673
Le pouvoir impérial dans les provinces syrienne s représentations et célébrations d'Auguste à Constantin (31 av. J.-C.-337 ap. J.-C.) /
:
This book focuses on the role of the emperor and the image of the Roman Empire as a whole during the time period from Augustus to Constantine. It analyses this image by taking into account the epigraphic, literary, numismatic and archaeological sources from Phoenicia to Osrhoene and from Commagene to Arabia. While discussing Graeco-Roman cities and rural settlements among desert areas, it addresses celebrations as well as the organization and promotion of the imperial cult in the Near East. This includes the imperial cult's forms of expression of symbolic, political, and various other social or religious functions. This approach, therefore, explores the real and imaginary relationships that existed between the Roman Empire and the populations of the Syrian provinces.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-250) and indexes. :
9789004203624 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Letters of a Sufi scholar : the correspondence of ʻAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1641-1731) /
:
As a leading Muslim thinker, 'Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī of Damascus creatively engaged with the social, religious, and intellectual challenges that emerged during the early modern period in which he lived. Yet, at a time of high anti-mystical fervour, his Sufi-inspired views faced strong local antipathy. Through extensive correspondence, presented here for the first time, 'Abd al-Ghanī projected his ideas and teachings beyond the parochial boundaries of Damascus, and was thus able to assert his authority at a wider regional level. The letters he himself selected, compiled, and titled shed fresh lights on the religious and intellectual exchanges among scholars in the eastern Ottoman provinces, revealing a dynamic and rigorous image of Islam, one that is profoundly inspired by humility, tolerance, and love. http://tntypography.com/brill.html
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047424338 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamic law on peasant usufruct in Ottoman Syria : 17th to early 19th century /
:
Drawing on Hanafi fatawa and legal commentaries from Ottoman Syria between the 17th and early 19th centuries, this book examines the legal status of tenants and sharecroppers on arable lands, most of which were state or waqf properties. Challenging existing scholarship which argues that the status of cultivators gradually eroded after the 16th century, this study explores how jurists balanced the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords, thereby ensuring the adaptability of the Ottoman land system. The work addresses the differences between sharecropping and tenancy arrangements, the limitations that governed state and waqf officials, and the interplay between shariʿa and qanun in shaping land laws. The book also illustrates the doctrinal development of the law and sheds light on notions of 'ownership', ideas of private vs. public good, and prevailing conceptions of social and economic justice.
:
1 online resource (210 pages) :
9789004228672 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Great Mosque of Damascus : Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture /
:
The celebrated Great Mosque of Damascus was built in the early eighth century by the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd b. 'Abd al-Malik. This book provides a detailed study of this Mosque. Using textual, visual, and archaeological evidence, the author attempts to reconstruct some of the basic formal and decorative features of the Umayyad mosque, to locate it within its broader urban context, and to consider its role within al-Walīd's unprecedented programme of architectural patronage. The work explores the intracultural and intercultural functions of religious architecture within an official visual discourse intended to project a distinctive Muslim identity in a manner determined by Umayyad political aspirations. It will be of particular interest to those concerned with the relationship between the Umayyad caliphate and Byzantium.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491618
9789004116382
Border Lives: An Ethnography of a Lebanese Town in Changing Times /
:
Border Lives offers an in-depth account of how people in Arsal, a northeastern town on the border of Lebanon with Syria, experienced postwar sociality, and how they grappled with living in the margins of the Lebanese state in the period following the 1975-1990 war. In a rich ethnography of 'changing times,' Michelle Obeid shows how restrictions in cross-border mobility, transformations in physical and social spaces, burgeoning new industries and shifting political alliances produced divergent ideologies about domesticity and the family, morality and personhood. Attending to metaphors of modernity in a rural border context, Border Lives broadens the sites in which modernity and social change can be investigated.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004394346
The Nuṣayrī-ʻAlawīs : an introduction to the religion, history, and identity of the leading minority in Syria /
:
Friedman offers new and updated research on the Nusayrī-'Alawī sect, today a leading group in Syria, covering a variety of aspects and focusing on the Middle Ages. A century after Dussaud's Histoire et religion des Nosairîs (1900), he reviews the history and religion of the sect in the light of old documents used by orientalists in the nineteenth century, documents that became available in the twentieth century, and later sources of the Nuṣayrī-'Alawī sect published most recently in Lebanon. Also studied in depth for the first time is the question of the identity of the sect through the 'Alawī-Sunnī-Shī'ī triangle.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-315) and index. :
9789047441274 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Migration and Islamic ethics : issues of residence, naturalization and citizenship /
:
Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship addresses how Islamic ethical and legal traditions can contribute to current global debates on migration and displacement; how Islamic ethics of muʾakha, ḍiyāfa, ijāra, amān, jiwār, sutra, kafāla, among others, may provide common ethical grounds for a new paradigm of social and political virtues applicable to all humanity, not only Muslims. The present volume more broadly defines the Islamic tradition to cover not only theology but also to encompass ethics, customs and social norms, as well as modern political, humanitarian and rights discourses. The first section addresses theorizations and conceptualizations using contemporary Islamic examples, mainly in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees; the second, contains empirical analyses of contemporary case studies; the third provides historical accounts of Muslim migratory experiences. Contributors are: Abbas Barzegar, Abdul Jaleel, Dina Taha, Khalid Abou El Fadl, Mettursun Beydulla, Radhika Kanchana, Ray Jureidini, Rebecca Gould, Said Fares Hassan, Sari Hanafi, Tahir Zaman.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographic references and index. :
9789004417342
The Image of an Ottoman City : Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries /
:
This urban and architectural study of Aleppo, a center of early modern global trade, draws upon archival and narrative texts, architectural evidence, and contemporary theoretical discussions of the relation between imperial ideology, urban patterns and rituals, and architectural form. The first two centuries of Ottoman rule fostered tremendous urban development and reorientation through judiciously sited acts of patronage. Monumental structures endowed by Ottoman officials both introduced a new imperial architecture from Istanbul and incorporated formal elements from the local urban visual language. By viewing the urban and social contexts of these acts, tracing their evolution over two centuries, and examining their discussion in Ottoman and Arabic sources, this book proposes a new model for understanding the local reception and adaptation of imperial forms, institutions and norms.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047404224
9789004124547
Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae addendum : squeezes in the Max van Berchem collection (Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Northern Syria) : squeezes 1-84 /
:
During his research of the Arabic inscriptions in the Middle East at the end of the 19th century, Max van Berchem collected many squeezes of inscriptions. These squeezes are stored in the archives of the Fondation Max van Berchem in Geneva. The present publication wishes to present a scholarly record of these squeezes, many of which represent inscriptions that do no longer exist. This publication is the first of, hopefully, two addenda which will constitute a full record of one of the few treasures left by the great epigrapher in his archives. For many students of Arabic epigraphy these squeezes afford the only opportunity to have a close glimpse of the originals as possible, and learn about their contents with the aid of the photographs and studies which accompany them in this volume.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [179]-181) and indexes. :
9789047420736 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Forging urban solidarities : Ottoman Aleppo 1640-1700 /
:
As with most empires of the Early Modern period (1500-1800), the Ottomans mobilized human and material resources for warmaking on a scale that was vast and unprecedented. The present volume examines the direct and indirect effects of warmaking on Aleppo, an important Ottoman administrative center and Levantine trading city, as the empire engaged in multiple conflicts, including wars with Venice (1644-69), Poland (1672-76) and the Hapsburg Empire (1663-64, 1683-99). Focusing on urban institutions such as residential quarters, military garrisons, and guilds, and using intensively the records of local law courts, the study explores how the routinization of direct imperial taxes and the assimilation of soldiers to civilian life challenged - and reshaped - the city's social and political order.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004193307 :
1380-6076 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.