The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs


Book Description

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.




Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period


Book Description

A survey of an entire tradition of historical thought and writing across a span of eight hundred years.




Medieval Arabic Historiography


Book Description

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION -- chapter 2 HISTORICAL AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND -- chapter 3 SOCIAL CONTEXTS -- chapter 4 INTELLECTUAL CONTEXTS -- chapter 5 TEXTUAL AGENCY I: Titles, final sections and historicization -- chapter 6 TEXTUAL AGENCY II: Micro-arrangement, motifs and political thought -- chapter 7 RECEPTION AFTER THE SEVENTH/THIRTEENTH CENTURY -- chapter 8 CONCLUSION.




The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs


Book Description

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 paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback 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.




A Handbook of Modern Arabic Historical Scholarship on the Ancient and Medieval Periods


Book Description

A Handbook of Modern Arabic Historical Scholarship on the Ancient and Medieval Periods presents 16 studies about modern Arab academic scholarship on the Ancient and Medieval Worlds covering disciplines as diverse as Assyriology and Mamluk studies as well as historiographical schools in the Arab World. This unique work is the first of its kind in any language. It is an important resource for scholars and students of the Ancient Near East and North Africa, Classical and Byzantine studies, and medieval Islamic history who would like to learn more about the work done by their colleagues in the Arab World in these fields over the last 7 decades and to benefit from Arabic secondary sources in their research. دليل الدراسات العربية الحديثة حول العصور القديمة والوسيطة يحتوي هذا الكتاب على 61 بحثا حول الدراسات الأكاديمية المتعلّقة بتاريخ العصور القديمة والوسيطة في العالم العربي، وتغطي هذه الأبحاث تخصصات علمية متنوعة منها الدراسات المسمارية والدراسات المملوكية، إضافةً إلى بعض المدارس التاريخية العربية المعاصرة. الكتاب فريد من نوعه والأول في كافة اللغات، ويُشكّل مصدرا هاما للباحثين والطلبة في دراسات الشرق الأدنى القديم وشمال إفريقيا في العصور القديمة والدراسات الكلاسيكية والبيزنطية والتاريخ الإسلامي الوسيط، وكذلك للمهتمين بعلمي التاريخ والآثار في الدول العربية. Contributors Emad Abou-Ghazi, Al-Amin Abouseada, Youcef Aibeche, Sidi Mohammed Alaioud, Abdulhadi Alajmi, Allaoua Amara, Lotfi Ben Miled, Brahim El Kadiri Boutchich, Usama Gad, Azeddine Guessous, Fayza Haikal, Hani Hamza, Laith Hussein, Nasir al-Kaabi, Khaled Kchir, Mohammed Maraqten, Amr Omar, Abdelaziz Ramadan.




Arabs


Book Description

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.




The First Arabic Annals


Book Description

The earliest development of Arabic historical writing remains shrouded in uncertainty until the 9th century CE, when our first extant texts were composed. This book demonstrates a new method, termed riwāya-cum-matn, which allows us to identify citation-markers that securely indicate the quotation of earlier Arabic historical works, proto-books first circulated in the eighth century. As a case study it reconstructs, with an edition and translation, around half of an annalistic history written by al-Layth b. Saʿd in the 740s. In doing so it shows that annalistic history-writing, comparable to contemporary Syriac or Greek models, was a part of the first development of Arabic historiography in the Marwanid period, providing a chronological framework for more ambitious later Abbasid history-writing. Reconstructing the original production-contexts and larger narrative frames of now-atomised quotations not only lets us judge their likely accuracy, but to consider the political and social relations underpinning the first production of authoritative historical knowledge in Islam. It also enables us to assess how Abbasid compilers combined and augmented the base texts from which they constructed their histories.










The Rise of the Arabic Book


Book Description

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.