Download or read book The Excellence of the Arabs written by Ibn Qutaybah and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spirited defense of Arab identity from a time of political unrest In ninth-century Abbasid Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of Arab identity had begun to decline. In The Excellence of the Arabs, the celebrated litterateur Ibn Qutaybah locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabs and their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of an extended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-Islamic Arabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horse husbandry, and poetry. By incorporating extensive excerpts from the poetic heritage—“the archive of the Arabs”—Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate that poetry is itself sufficient evidence of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux, at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: What does it mean to be Arab? An English-only edition.
Download or read book The Excellence of the Arabs written by ʻAbd Allāh ibn Muslim Ibn Qutaybah and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity--its merits, values, and origins--at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era. In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of being Arab had begun to decline. Although his own family originally hailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah (213-76 H/828-89 AD) locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabs and their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of an extended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-Islamic Arabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horse husbandry, and poetry. And by incorporating extensive excerpts from the poetic heritage--"the archive of the Arabs"--Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate that poetry is itself sufficient corroboration of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean to be Arab?
Download or read book The Excellence of the Arabs written by Ibn Qutaybah and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spirited defense of Arab identity from a time of political unrest In ninth-century Abbasid Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of Arab identity had begun to decline. In The Excellence of the Arabs, the celebrated litterateur Ibn Qutaybah locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabs and their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of an extended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-Islamic Arabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horse husbandry, and poetry. By incorporating extensive excerpts from the poetic heritage—“the archive of the Arabs”—Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate that poetry is itself sufficient evidence of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux, at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: What does it mean to be Arab? An English-only edition.
Download or read book A Literary History of the Arabs written by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Dream Palace of the Arabs written by Fouad Ajami and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-09-23 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arab politics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords. For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.
Download or read book Arabs in the Shadow of Israel written by Tony Maalouf and published by Kregel Academic. This book was released on with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Foreword by Eugene H. Merrill) A compelling call for Christians to rethink the role of Arabs—also descendents of Abraham and recipients of his blessing.
Download or read book Hearings written by United States. Congress Senate and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 3624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Tree Stump written by Samiha Khrais and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most prominent Arabic novels to document the intricate details of the revolt of the Arabs against the Turks and their collaboration with the English, The Tree Stump brings to life a critical period of history that includes key players such as King Faisal, Odeh Abu Tayeh , and T. E. Lawrence. It places the reader in the heart of that remarkable era with accuracy, authenticity, and an added human dimension that introduces the Arabian Desert people, traditions, and way of life. Author Samiha Khrais weaves tribal customs, religion, politics, and love into a history with characters that actually walked the land, lived on the land, and fought the land’s war of independence with originality, pride, and wisdom. The novel stands witness to the lived experience of many Arabs in the region—experience that can still be seen today. The novel’s style, content, and strong human dimension makes it an exception literary work with regional flavor and global appeal.
Download or read book Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure written by Robert Graves and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book recounts T. E. Lawrence life with special emphasis on his involvement in the Royal Air Force both during and after World War I.
Download or read book Night Horses The Desert written by Robert Irwin and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
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 336 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 Virtues of Greatness in the Arabic Tradition written by Sophia Vasalou and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are few ideals of character as distinctive and divisive as the ancient virtue of 'greatness of soul'. A larger-than-life virtue embodying nothing less than a vision of human greatness, it has often been seen as a relic of the Homeric world and its honour-loving heroes. In philosophy, it found its most celebrated expression in Aristotle's ethics, and it has lived on in the minds of philosophers and theologians in different forms ever since. Yet among the many lives this virtue has led in intellectual history, one remains conspicuously unwritten. This is the life it led in the Arabic tradition. A virtue of Greek warriors and their democratic epigones — what happened when this splendid virtue made landfall in the Islamic world? This world, too, had its native heroes, who bequeathed their conception of extraordinary virtue to posterity. Heroic virtue is above all expressed in a boundless aspiration to what is greatest. Could we admire such virtue enough to want it as our own? What can we learn from the Arabic tradition of the virtues? In answering these questions, Sophia Vasalou elucidates a larger family of virtues that are united by their preoccupation with all things great: the 'virtues of greatness'. An important constituent of the character ideals expounded within the Islamic world, this type of virtue tells us as much about the content of these ideals as about their kaleidoscopic genealogies.
Download or read book A History of the Muslim World written by Michael A. Cook and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Michael Cook's words, this book is "about a substantial slice of human history delimited by a particular cultural characteristic: adherance to Islam in some form or other. [...] A commitment to Islam makes a difference. Wherever a society and its rulers have come to be Muslim, this has meant a major discontinuity with its pre-Islamic past and a significant expansion of its relations with the wider Muslim world." Starting in the pre-Islamic Middle East, Cook returns a sense of wonder to how Muhammad could not only become a prophet of a new monotheistic religion but also unite the Arab tribes behind it and create a state that would conquer much of the territory that belonged to the Byzantines and the Sasanians, the two empires that had balanced power in the region for hundreds of years. Exploring the high culture of the Abbasids, Cook then charts the disintegration of the Caliphate and the brief rise of the Fatimids and the Mongols of the Steppe. He covers the Ottomans (Turkish), Safavids (Iranian), Mughals (India), and ventures to East Africa, Madagascar, Somalia, Southeast Asia, and many places between. An epilogue gestures to major themes in the post-1800 world"--
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 L adab toujours recommenc written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-21 with total page 890 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of adab is at the very heart of the Islamicate cultures. Born in the crucible of the Arabic and Persian civilisations of the Late Antiquity period, nourished by Greek, Syriac and Indian influences, this polysemic notion could cover a variegated range of meanings, ranging from good behaviour, good manners, etiquette, proper knowledge of the rules, to belles-lettres, and finally, literature. This volume addresses the notion of adab through four perspectives, which correspond to the four parts into which it is divided: “Origins”; “Transmissions”; “Metamorphosis” of the “Origins” and finally “Origins” through the lens of modernity.
Download or read book Sufism and Surrealism written by Adonis and published by Saqi. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At first glance Sufism and Surrealism appear to be as far removed from one another as is possible. Adonis, however, draws convincing parallels between the two, contesting that God, in the traditional sense does not exist in Surrealism or in Sufism, and that both are engaged in parallel quests for the nature of the Absolute, through 'holy madness' and the deregulation of the senses. This is a remarkable investigation into the common threads of thought that run through seemingly polarised philosophies from East and West, written by a man Edward Said referred to as 'the most eloquent spokesman and explorer of Arab modernity'.
Download or read book Disputation Literature in the Near East and Beyond written by Enrique Jiménez and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-08-10 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disputation literature is a type of text in which usually two non-human entities (such as trees, animals, drinks, or seasons) try to establish their superiority over each other by means of a series of speeches written in an elaborate, flowery register. As opposed to other dialogue literature, in disputation texts there is no serious matter at stake only the preeminence of one of the litigants over its rival. These light-hearted texts are known in virtually every culture that flourished in the Middle East from Antiquity to the present day, and they constitute one of the most enduring genres in world literature. The present volume collects over twenty contributions on disputation literature by a diverse group of world-renowned scholars. From ancient Sumer to modern-day Bahrain, from Egyptian to Neo-Aramaic, including Latin, French, Middle English, Armenian, Chinese and Japanese, the chapters of this book study the multiple avatars of this venerable text type.
