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This book approaches the Qur’an as a primary source for delineating the definition of ugliness, and by extension beauty, and in turn establishing meaningful tools and terms for literary criticism within the discipline of classical Arabic literature (adab). Focusing on the aesthetic dimension of the Qur’an, this methodology opens up new horizons for reading adab by reading the tradition from within the tradition and thereby examining issues of “decontextualisation” and the “untranslatable.” This approach, in turn, invites Comparatists, as well as Arabists, to consider other means and perspectives for approaching adab besides the Bakhtinian carnival. Applying this critical strategy to literary works as diverse as One Thousand and One Nights and The Epistle of Forgiveness, Sarah R. bin Tyeer aims to prove two major points: how Bakhtin’s aesthetics is anachronistic and therefore theoretically inappropriate when applied to certain literary works and how ultimately this literary methodology is sometimes used as a proxy for ungrounded and, sometimes, unfair arguments by other scholars. Foreword by Angelika Neuwirth, Professor of Quranic studies, Freie University, Berlin, Germany.
What makes language beautiful? Arabic Poetics offers an answer to what this pertinent question looked like at the height of the Islamic civilization. In this novel argument, Lara Harb suggests that literary quality depended on the ability of linguistic expression to produce an experience of discovery and wonder in the listener. Analysing theories of how rhetorical figures, simile, metaphor, and sentence construction are able to achieve this effect of wonder, Harb shows how this aesthetic theory, first articulated at the turn of the 11th century CE, represented a major paradigm shift from earlier Arabic criticism which based its judgement on criteria of truthfulness and naturalness. In doing so, this study poses a major challenge to the misconception in modern scholarship that Arabic criticism was "traditionalist" or "static," exposing an elegant widespread conceptual framework of literary beauty in the post-10th-century Islamicate world which is central to poetic criticism, the interpretation of Aristotle's Poetics in Arabic philosophy and the rationale underlying discussions about the inimitability of the Quran.
In the long literary history of the Middle East, the notion of 'the beloved' has been a central trope in both the poetry and prose of the region. This book explores the concept of the beloved in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary manner, revealing how shared ideas on the subject supersede geographical and temporal boundaries, and ideas of nationhood. The book considers the beloved in its classical, modern and postmodern manifestations, taking into account the different sexual orientations and forms of desire expressed. From the pre-Islamic 'Udhri (romantic unrequited love), to the erotic same-sex love in thirteenth century poetry and prose, the divine Sufi reflections on the topic, and post-revolutionary love encounters in Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, The Beloved in Middle Eastern Literatures connects the affective and cultural with the political and the obscene. In focusing on the diverse manifestations of love and tropes of the lover/beloved binary, this book is unique in foregrounding what is often regarded as a 'taboo subject' in the region. The multi-faceted outlook reveals the variety of philological, philosophical, poetic and literary forms that treat this significant motif.
The Qur’an: A Guidebook is an updated English version of the work appeared in Italian (Rome 2021) Leggere e studiare il Corano which deals with the contents of the Qur’an, the style and formal features of the text, the history and fixation of it and an poutline of the reception in Islamic literature. The aim of the work is to give a reader a description of what he/she can find in the Islamic holy text and the state of the critical debates on all the topics dealt with, focusing mainly on the growing scholarly literature which appeared in the last 30 years. As such, the work is unique in combining the aim to give comprehensive information on the topic and, at the same, time, reconstruct the critical debate in a balanced outline also emphasizing confessional approaches and the dynamics in the study of the Qur’an. There is nothing similar in contemporary scholarship and the book is a handbook for students and scholars of Islam but also for readers in religious studies who need to know how the main questions related to the Islamic text have been discussed in recent scholarship.
The Qur'an is the foundational sacred text of the Islamic faith. Traditionally revered as the literal word of God, its pronouncements and discussions form the bedrock of Islamic beliefs and teachings. Notwithstanding its religious pre-eminence and the fact that it is the sacred text for over one billion of the world's Muslims, the Qur'an is also considered to be the matchless masterpiece of the Arabic language. Its historical impact as a text can be discerned in all aspects of the heritage of the Arabic literary tradition. Over recent decades, academic engagement with the Qur'an has produced an impressive array of scholarship, ranging from detailed studies of the text's unique language, style and structure, to meticulous surveys of its contents, concepts and historical contexts. The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies is an essential reference and starting point for those with an academic interest in the Qur'an. It offers not only detailed reviews of influential subjects in the field, but also a critical overview of developments in the research discourse. It explores the tradition of Qur'anic exegesis and hermeneutics, making it a comprehensive academic resource for the study of the Qur'an. No single volume devoted to such a broad academic survey of the state of the field currently exists.
The aim of this volume is to raise and discuss questions about the different approaches to the study of pre-modern Arabic anthologies from the perspectives of philology, religion, history, geography, and literature.
The melodious recitation of the Quran is a fundamental aesthetic experience for Muslims, and the start of a compelling journey of ideas. In this important new book, the prominent German writer and Islamic scholar Navid Kermani considers the manner in which the Quran has been perceived, apprehended and experienced by its recipients from the time of the Prophet to the present day. Drawing on a wide range of Muslim sources, from historians, theologians and philosophers to mystics and literary scholars, Kermani provides a close reading of the nature of this powerful text. He proceeds to analyze ancient and modern testimonies about the impact of Quranic language from a variety of angles. Although people have always reflected on the reception of texts, images and sounds that they find beautiful or moving, Kermani explains that Islam provides a particularly striking example of the close correlation, grounded in a common origin, between art and religion, revelation and poetry, and religious and aesthetic experience. This major new book will enhance the dialogue between Islam and the West and will appeal to students and scholars of Islam and comparative religion, as well as to a wider readership interested in Islam and the Quran.
This study illustrates why the language of the Qur'an is miraculous, unique, and evidence of divine authority. The author compares the language of the Qur'an with the language of pre-Islamic poetry, the Prophet's words (hadith), and the language of the Arabs both past and present, to demonstrate that although the Qur'an was revealed in Arabic it was at the same time an Arabic which was entirely new. Original and early Muslim audiences viewed this as miraculous and responded to the Qur'an's words, sounds, rhythms, etc. in a manner consistent with a deeper appreciation of its beauty and majesty which modern ears, trained by familiarity, and despite being surrounded by all manner of dictionaries and studies, are at a loss to capture. The author attempts to remove this veil and present the Qur'an to readers as if hearing it for the first time, to bring to life some of this wonder. In doing so he guides readers to appreciate the beauty of the Qur'an, to become more immersed in it, and to have a clearer understanding of its structure and flow. Devoting special attention to Surah Al Muddaththir, to underpin his analysis, Saeh thus brings the Revelation to life, to demonstrate that each surah has distinct features and characteristics that make it stand out uniquely within the design and sweep of the whole.
Stories about gendered social relations permeate the Qur'an, and nearly three hundred verses involve specific women or girls. The Qur'an features these figures in accounts of human origins, in stories of the founding and destruction of nations, in narratives of conquest, in episodes of romantic attraction, and in incidents of family devotion and strife. Overall, stories involving women and girls weave together theology and ethics to reinforce central Qur'anic ideas regarding submission to God and moral accountability. Celene Ibrahim explores the complex cast of female figures in the Qur'an, probing themes related to biological sex, female sexuality, female speech, and women in sacred history. Ibrahim considers major and minor figures referenced in the Qur'an, including those who appear in narratives of sacred history, in parables, in descriptions of the eternal abode, and in verses that allude to events contemporaneous with the advent of the Qur'an in Arabia. Ibrahim finds that the Qur'an regularly celebrates the aptitudes of women in the realms of spirituality and piety, in political maneuvering, and in safeguarding their own wellbeing; yet, women figures also occasionally falter and use their agency toward nefarious ends. Women and Gender in the Qur'an outlines how women and girls - old, young, barren, fertile, chaste, profligate, reproachable, and saintly -enter Qur'anic sacred history and advance the Qur'an's overarching didactic aims.
A unique investigation into the aesthetics of colour in Islamic art revealing its deeper symbolic and mystical meanings. The experience of colour in Islamic visual culture has historically been overlooked. In this new approach, Idries Trevathan examines the language of colour in Islamic art and architecture in dialogue with its aesthetic contexts, offering insights into the pre-modern Muslim experience of interpreting colour. The seventeenth-century Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, represents one of the finest examples of colour-use on a grand scale. Here, Trevathan examines the philosophical and mystical traditions that formed the mosque's backdrop. He shows how careful combinations of colour and design proportions in Islamic patterns expresses knowledge beyond that experienced in the corporeal world, offering another language with which to know and experience God. Colour thus becomes a spiritual language, calling for a re-consideration of how we read Islamic aesthetics.