Download or read book The Rise of the Arabic Book written by Beatrice Gruendler and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life written by Roger Owen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The monarchical presidential regimes that prevailed in the Arab world for so long looked as though they would last indefinitely, until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. This book exposes for the first time the origins and dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the 20th century.
Download or read book Imagining the Arabs written by Webb Peter Webb and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs' role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history by marshalling the widest array of Arabic sources employed hitherto, and by closely interpreting the evidence with theories of identity and ethnicity, Imagining the Arabs proposes new answers to the riddle of Arab origins and fundamental reinterpretations of early Islamic history. This book reveals that the time-honoured stereotypes which depict Arabs as ancient Arabian Bedouin are entirely misleading because the essence of Arab identity was in fact devised by Muslims during the first centuries of Islam. Arab identity emerged and evolved as groups imagined new notions of community to suit the radically changing circumstances of life in the early Caliphate. The idea of 'the Arab' was a device which Muslims utilised to articulate their communal identity, to negotiate post-Conquest power relations, and to explain the rise of Islam. Over Islam's first four centuries, political elites, genealogists, poetry collectors, historians and grammarians all participated in a vibrant process of imagining and re-imagining Arab identity and history, and the sum of their works established a powerful tradition that influences Middle Eastern communities to the present day.
Download or read book Arabic Islamic Views of the Latin West written by Daniel G. König and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-11-05 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West provides an insight into how the Arabic-Islamic world perceived medieval Western Europe in an age that is usually associated with the rise and expansion of Islam, the Spanish Reconquista, and the Crusades. Previous scholarship has maintained that the Arabic-Islamic world regarded Western Europe as a cultural backwater at the periphery of civilization that clung to a superseded religion. It holds mental barriers imposed by Islam responsible for the Muslim world's arrogant and ignorant attitude towards its northern neighbours. This study refutes this view by focussing on the mechanisms of transmission and reception that characterized the flow of information between both cultural spheres. By explaining how Arabic-Islamic scholars acquired and processed data on medieval Western Europe, it traces the two-fold 'emergence' of Latin-Christian Europe — a sphere that increasingly encroached upon the Mediterranean and therefore became more and more important in Arabic-Islamic scholarly literature. Chapter One questions previous interpretations of related Arabic-Islamic records that reduce a large and differentiated range of Arabic-Islamic perceptions to a single basic pattern subsumed under the keywords 'ignorance', 'indifference', and 'arrogance'. Chapter Two lists channels of transmission by means of which information on the Latin-Christian sphere reached the Arabic-Islamic sphere. Chapter Three deals with the general factors that influenced the reception and presentation of this data at the hands of Arabic-Islamic scholars. Chapters Four to Eight analyse how these scholars acquired and dealt with information on themes such as the western dimension of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths, the Franks, the papacy and, finally, Western Europe in the age of Latin-Christian expansionism. Against this background, Chapter Nine provides a concluding re-evaluation.
Download or read book Arab Nahdah written by Abdulrazzak Patel and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the influences that triggered the Arabic awakening, the 'nahdah', from the 1700s onwards. To understand today's Arab thinking, you need to go back to the beginnings of modernity: the nahdah or Arab renaissance of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Abdulrazzak Patel enhances our understanding of the nahdah and its intellectuals, taking into account important internal factors alongside external forces.Patel explores the key factors that contributed to the rise and development of the nahdah, he introduces the humanist movement of the period that was the driving force behind much of the linguistic, literary and educational activity. Drawing on intellectual history, literary history and postcolonial studies, he argues that the nahdah was the product of native development and foreign assistance and that nahdah reformist thought was hybrid in nature. Overall, this study highlights the complexity of the movement and offers a more pluralist history of the period.
Download or read book The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism written by Michael Provence and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2009-09-17 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical study of the 1925 revolt against French rule in Syria, and how it established a new popular nationalism that helped shape the Middle East. The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 was the first mass movement against colonial rule in the Middle East. Mobilizing peasants, workers, and army veterans, it was also the region’s largest and longest-lasting anti-colonial insurgency during the inter-war period. Though the revolt failed to liberate Syria from French occupation, it provided a model of popular nationalism and resistance that remains potent in the Middle East today. Each subsequent Arab uprising against foreign rule has repeated the language and tactics of the Great Syrian Revolt. In this work, Michael Provence uses newly released secret colonial intelligence sources, neglected memoirs, and popular memory to tell the story of the revolt from the perspective of its participants. He shows how Ottoman-subsidized military education created a generation of leaders who rebelled against both the French Mandate rulers of Syria and the Syrian elite who helped the colonial regime. This new popular nationalism was unprecedented in the Arab world. Provence shows compellingly that the Great Syrian Revolt was a formative event in shaping the modern Middle East.
Download or read book The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs written by Abd Al-Aziz Duri and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first translation of a classic work (Bahth fi nnsh' at 'ilm al ta' rikh 'inda l-'Arab) by the eminent Arab historian A. A. Duri. Published in Beirut in 1960, Duri's book was the first comprehensive effort to trace the origins and early development of Arab historical writing, and to resolve some extremely complex and still debated questions about the reliability of the Arabic historical sources. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book The Role of the Arab Islamic World in the Rise of the West written by Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a fascinating look at the role of the Arab-Islamic world in the rise of the West. It examines the cultural transmission of ideas and institutions in a number of key areas, including science, philosophy, humanism, law, finance, commerce, as well as the Arab-Islamic world's overall impact on the Reformation and the Renaissance.
Download or read book The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy written by Alain George and published by Saqi Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautifully illustrated, this is an essential reference work for students and connoisseurs of calligraphy alike.
Download or read book A History of Arabic Astronomy written by George Saliba and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1995-07-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of Arabic Astronomy is a comprehensive survey of Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth century based on recent manuscript discoveries. George Saliba argues that the medieval period, often called a period of decline in Islamic intellectual history, was scientifically speaking, a very productive period in which astronomical theories of the highest order were produced. Based on the most recent manuscript discoveries, this book broadly surveys developments in Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth. Taken together, the primary texts and essays assembled in this book reverse traditional beliefs about the rise and fall of Arabic science, demonstrating how the traditional “age of decline” in Arabic science was indeed a “Golden Age” as far as astronomy was concerned. Some of the techniques and mathematical theorems developed during this period were identical to those which were employed by Copernicus in developing his own non-Ptolemaic astronomy. Significantly, this volume will shed much-needed light on the conditions under which such theories were developed in medieval Islam. It clearly demonstrates the distinction that was drawn between astronomical activities and astrological ones, and reveals, contrary to common perceptions about medieval Islam, the accommodation that was obviously reached between religion and astronomy, and the degree to which astronomical planetary theories were supported, and at times even financed, by the religious community itself. This in stark contrast to the systematic attacks leveled by the same religious community against astrology. To students of European intellectual history, the book reveals the technical relationship between the astronomy of the Arabs and that of Copernicus. Saliba’s definitive work will be of particular interest to historians of Arabic science as well as to historians of medieval and Renaissance European science.
Download or read book The Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction written by Matti Moosa and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 1997 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moosa's exhaustive discussion, demonstrating the influence of both Western and Islamic ideology and culture, presents many works of fiction for the first time to Western students of Arabic literature.
Download or read book Arabs written by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia. Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments--from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad's use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic--have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today's politically fractured post-Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity.
Download or read book The Republic of Arabic Letters written by Alexander Bevilacqua and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize A Longman–History Today Book Prize Finalist A Sheik Zayed Book Award Finalist Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year “Deeply thoughtful...A delight.”—The Economist “[A] tour de force...Bevilacqua’s extraordinary book provides the first true glimpse into this story...He, like the tradition he describes, is a rarity.” —New Republic In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a pioneering community of Western scholars laid the groundwork for the modern understanding of Islamic civilization. They produced the first accurate translation of the Qur’an, mapped Islamic arts and sciences, and wrote Muslim history using Arabic sources. The Republic of Arabic Letters is the first account of this riveting lost period of cultural exchange, revealing the profound influence of Catholic and Protestant intellectuals on the Enlightenment understanding of Islam. “A closely researched and engrossing study of...those scholars who, having learned Arabic, used their mastery of that difficult language to interpret the Quran, study the career of Muhammad...and introduce Europeans to the masterpieces of Arabic literature.” —Robert Irwin, Wall Street Journal “Fascinating, eloquent, and learned, The Republic of Arabic Letters reveals a world later lost, in which European scholars studied Islam with a sense of affinity and respect...A powerful reminder of the ability of scholarship to transcend cultural divides, and the capacity of human minds to accept differences without denouncing them.” —Maya Jasanoff “What makes his study so groundbreaking, and such a joy to read, is the connection he makes between intellectual history and the material history of books.” —Financial Times
Download or read book Pathfinders written by Jim Al-Khalili and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. In Pathfinders, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world. All scientists have stood on the shoulders of giants. But most historical accounts today suggest that the achievements of the ancient Greeks were not matched until the European Renaissance in the 16th century, a 1,000-year period dismissed as the Dark Ages. In the ninth-century, however, the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Abu Ja'far Abdullah al-Ma'mun, created the greatest centre of learning the world had ever seen, known as Bayt al-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. The scientists and philosophers he brought together sparked a period of extraordinary discovery, in every field imaginable, launching a golden age of Arabic science. Few of these scientists, however, are now known in the western world. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a polymath who outshines everyone in history except Leonardo da Vinci? The Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, whose manuscripts would inspire Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar system? Or the 13th-century Andalucian physician Ibn al-Nafees, who correctly described blood circulation 400 years before William Harvey? Iraqi Ibn al-Haytham who practised the modern scientific method 700 years before Bacon and Descartes, and founded the field of modern optics before Newton? Or even ninth-century zoologist al-Jahith, who developed a theory of natural selection a thousand years before Darwin? The West needs to see the Islamic world through new eyes and the Islamic world, in turn, to take pride in its extraordinarily rich heritage. Anyone who reads this book will understand why.
Download or read book The Arab Uprisings written by James L. Gelvin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know(R) answers readers' questions about the history and current state of the Arab world and addresses all aspects of the uprisings since late 2010, including their causes, the role of social media, the diverse paths they have taken, the role of the United States and the uprisings' impact on the United States, and possible outcomes.
Download or read book Stranger Fictions written by Rebecca C. Johnson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zaynab, first published in 1913, is widely cited as the first Arabic novel, yet the previous eight decades saw hundreds of novels translated into Arabic from English and French. This vast literary corpus influenced generations of Arab writers but has, until now, been considered a curious footnote in the genre's history. Incorporating these works into the history of the Arabic novel, Stranger Fictions offers a transformative new account of modern Arabic literature, world literature, and the novel. Rebecca C. Johnson rewrites the history of the global circulation of the novel by moving Arabic literature from the margins of comparative literature to its center. Considering the wide range of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century translation practices—including "bad" translation, mistranslation, and pseudotranslation—Johnson argues that Arabic translators did far more than copy European works; they authored new versions of them, producing sophisticated theorizations of the genre. These translations and the reading practices they precipitated form the conceptual and practical foundations of Arab literary modernity, necessitating an overhaul of our notions of translation, cultural exchange, and the global. Examining nearly a century of translations published in Beirut, Cairo, Malta, Paris, London, and New York, from Qiat Rūbinun Kurūzī (The story of Robinson Crusoe) in 1835 to pastiched crime stories in early twentieth-century Egyptian magazines, Johnson shows how translators theorized the Arab world not as Europe's periphery but as an alternative center in a globalized network. Stranger Fictions affirms the central place of (mis)translation in both the history of the novel in Arabic and the novel as a transnational form itself.
Download or read book A History of the Arab Peoples written by Albert Habib Hourani and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the history of Arab civilization, looking at the beauty of the great mosques, the importance attached to education, the achievements of Arab science, the role of women, internal conflicts, and the Palestinian question.
