Biblical Elements in Koran 89, 6-8 and Its Exegeses: A New Interpretation of “Iram of the Pillars”

Arabica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 651-700
Author(s):  
Paul Neuenkirchen
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Critical Overview

Abstract The meaning of the expression “Iram of the pillars” which is found in Kor 89, 7 has been the subject of many debates among ancient Muslim exegetes. The ambiguous signification of this passage has led to a large number of different interpretations and has (seemingly) led to many myths, whether in classical Arabic literature (religious and profane alike) or in modern Western writings. The aim of this paper is to give a critical overview and analysis of the various exegeses for this Koranic verse, to study the developments and history of the ‘Iram myth’ and finally, in light of these elements as well as through a Biblical/Midrashic comparative approach, to suggest our own theory of what was certainly the primitive and forgotten meaning of “Iram of the pillars”.

The Left and the Revolutions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Priestland
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Impact

This article provides a new interpretation of Europe’s revolutionary era between 1917 and 1923, exploring the origins of the revolutionary wave and its diverse impact across Europe, focusing on the role of the Left. It seeks to revive the insights of social history and historical sociology, which have been neglected by a recent historiography, that stress the role of contingency, the impact of war, and the influence of militaristic cultures. Yet unlike older social history approaches which emphasised domestic social conflict at the expense of ethnic politics and empire, it argues that the revolutions were the result of a crisis of old geopolitical and ethnic hierarchies, as well as social ones. It develops a comparative approach, presenting a new way of incorporating the experience of eastern Europe and the Caucasus into the history of Europe’s revolutions, and a new analysis of why Russia provided such fertile ground for revolutionary politics.

scholarly journals Literature and Revolution

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samah Selim
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tidal Wave ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
Dead Weight ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Arabic

The three-week uprising in Egypt that ended with the removal of Husni Mubarak on February 11 happened to coincide with the section of my spring course syllabus on the Egyptian novel from Najib Mahfuz to Ahmed Alaidy. As was the case for many of my colleagues and their students, the rapid and awe-inspiring events unfolding daily before us pushed purely academic concerns to the margins of class discussion. This tidal wave of revolutionary politics erupting into the classroom forced me to the realization that my larger syllabus was not simply some neutral or systematic survey of half a century's worth of Arabic literature. I began to think about the largely invisible dystopic intellectual and historical paradigms through which modern Arabic literature is often framed, at least in the United States. The nahḍa/naksa narrative, which compelled many of us to read Arab cultural history of the 20th century as a story of brief “awakening” followed by irredeemable decline and corruption, is clearly no longer tenable in the wake of February 11. This same narrative underpinned the highly self-conscious postmodernism that began to emerge in Egypt in the 1990s and that reached its apogee a couple of decades later at the end of the 2000s, a postmodernism that was celebrated (though by no means universally) as the true beginning of literary modernity and the emancipation of the subject from the dead weight of a past ideological age.

Collaborative Composition of Classical Arabic Poetry

Arabica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 163-206
Author(s):  
Erez Naaman
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Arabic Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Composition Process ◽  
Classical Arabic

Abstract Evidence of collaborative composition of poetry goes back to the earliest documented phases in the history of Arabic literature. Already during pre-Islamic times, poets like Imruʾ al-Qays used to challenge others to complete their impromptu verse and create poetry collaboratively with them. This practice—commonly called iǧāza or tamlīṭ and essentially different from the better known poetic dueling of the naqāʾiḍ (flytings)—has shown remarkable stability and adherence to its form and dynamics in the pre-modern Arabophone world. In this article, I will discuss evidence of collaborative poetry from pre-Islamic times to the early seventh/thirteenth century, in order to present a picture of the typical situations in which it was practiced, its functions, its composition process, and formal aspects. Although usually not producing poetic masterpieces, this practice has the merit of revealing much about the processes of composing classical Arabic poetry in general. In this respect, its study and critical assessment are highly important, given the fact that medieval Arabic literary criticism does not always reflect praxis or focus on the actual practicalities of composing poetry. This practice and the contextualized way in which it was preserved allow us to see vividly the inextricable link between poetic form and the conditions in which poetry was created. It likewise sheds light on the intricate ways in which poets resisted, influenced, and manipulated others by poetic means. Based on the obvious fact that collaborative composition is imbued with the spirit of play, I offer at the end of the article criticism of Johan Huizinga’s famous play concept and his (much less famous) views of early Arabic culture and poetry in light of the evidence I studied.

Noi credevamo (We Believed): Story and history of emotions

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Patat
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Historical Film ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One

In the last ten years, Noi credevamo (We Believed) (Martone 2010) has been the subject of a very careful criticism interested not only in its historical-ideological implications but also in its semiotic specificities. The purpose of this article is to summarize the cardinal points of these two positions and to add to them some critical observations that have not been noted so far. On the one hand, it is a matter of highlighting how, as a historical film, the work is connected with the history of emotions, a recent historiographical trend that aims to detect the narrative devices of ideological propaganda and the diffusion of feelings since the late eighteenth century. On the other hand, the article proposes a new interpretation of Mario Martone’s film, starting with the analysis of phenomena that are not only historical but also technical and structural.

Modern Egyptian renaissance man

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Ostle
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Classical Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Renaissance Man ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic

The rise of political consciousness in the Arab Provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century has long been referred to as an era of rebirth or resurrection (nahḍa), and from its earliest stages this period saw a dual process of aspirations to political emancipation and creative waves of cultural regeneration. Thus George Antonius was moved to attribute the beginnings of the Arab national movement to the foundation of a modest literary society in Beirut in 1847; the two figures who dominated the intellectual life of Syria in the mid nineteenth century—Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī and Buṭrus al-Bustānī—were ded icated to the resurrection of the lost world of classical Arabic literature, to the virtual re-creation of Arabic as one of the languages of the modern world, and to preaching the virtues of education based on inter-confessional tolerance and patriotic ideals. The most distinguished area of the early history of modern Arabic literature is neo-classical poetry, whose revival of the achievements of the golden age of the ‘Abbāsids provided the foundation on which the first tentative steps towards the renewal of the great tradition were to be based. Indeed the technical excellence of the neo-classical mode was such that it dominated poetry in Egypt at least until the late 1920s, and for even longer in Iraq and the rest of the Levant.

scholarly journals A New Interpretation of the History of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 or a Subjective Assessment of the Researcher?

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuriy Kuzmin
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Subjective Assessment ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Military

The author of the book, O.S. Smyslov, interprets the military events in the area of the Khalkhin Gol river in 1939, defines the causes of the war, the role of commanders, military casualties and participants of military actions. The battle of Khalkhin Gol becomes the subject of much attention and study of Russian and Mongolian historians, especially the most complex and controversial issues of military and diplomatic history. Most of the research is original and contributes significantly to the interpretation of the military conflict, its geopolitical nature and its role in the world history of the 20th century. A new interpretation of the role of Georgy Zhukov in the crushing defeat of the Japanese troops at Khalkhin Gol is proposed in the monograph of the military historian O.S. Smyslov. The author of the book made an attempt to downplay and misrepresent the participation of Zhukov in the historical events. The author’s approach to the cause of the military conflict is critically examined as well as the methodology of historical research. The author of the review believes that the attempt of a new interpretation of the war in the Khalkhin Gol area is controversial and historically unconvincing. The matter merits professional discussion. There is a need to make a special encyclopedia, “The Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939”, which will enable to avoid misrepresentation of the tragic and heroic military events of history of the USSR and Russia of the 20th century.

scholarly journals THE VERBAL SIGNIFIERS IN ARABIC LANGUAGE-A STUDY IN THE IDEATIONAL COMPONENT AND THE INTERPERSONAL COMPONENT-

2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (07) ◽  
pp. 17-34
Author(s):  
Khadidja SAFI
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Language ◽  
The State ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
French And English ◽  
Current Context ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Classical Arabic

Our familiarity with our teaching of Arabic grammar detect the state of phobia that infect the majority of students when they are studied the Arabic grammar (El-nahoo), but, when I analyzed this phenomenon as a teacher and - before - studying this science, I noticed that the beginner Arabic language learner may focus on the grammatical or morphological base independently of its linguistic and current context; as if His classical Arabic is other than the language used with its many names. From a dialect, to a daily language, etc, and it is in fact only one aspect of its development, and the strange thing is that the name of the language (Arabic) indicates "' Clarity' that may not be achieved with the same accuracy in other languages, and it is a miracle of rhetoric. The expression of the souls and their phenomena in this language may be in words with real connotations, and it is predominant in the language to achieve communication, and the meanings may arrive in a metaphorical form; some words deviate from the origin of their connotations using the linguistic and current contexts, and therefore it is clear that our understanding of language is not based on single words. Rather, by referring to the sentence or text in many times to determine the grammatical function of these words, and that is what has been suggested in this research to trace the actual functions based on the intellectual and reciprocal components, which are among the foundations of linguistic communication in all languages, including the Arabic language that is the subject of study. On the descriptive comparative approach in defining these functions, in order to be able to compare them with their interviews in French and English; To set the term and its origins first, and secondly to facilitate the translation of these verbs between the three languages.

Ḥadīṯ Scholar and Historiography: Some Reflections on the Sīra Corpora of Ibn Ḥibbān al-Bustī’s (d. 354/965) Kitāb al-Ṯiqāt

Arabica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 485-505
Author(s):  
Muhammad Fawwaz Bin Muhammad Yusoff
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract In a recent volume of the Encyclopaedia of Arabic Literature, Ibn Ḥibbān is credited as the author of the Kitāb al-Ṯiqāt, and is described as “a widely travelled traditionist and prolific writer.” The Kitāb al-Ṯiqāt is one of the most valuable sources for the study of the biographies of the transmitters of the ḥadīṯs over the first three centuries and is a record of medieval Islamicate history, even including non-ḥadīṯ transmission. The subject of the Kitāb al-Ṯiqāt is the Prophet’s sīra, the history of caliphs and kings, biographies of Companions, ḥadīṯ transmitters, legal theorists, theologians, and many others. In this brief article, an attempt is made to describe Ibn Ḥibbān’s approach to the sīra of the Prophet, in order to arrive at some general considerations on the relationship between ḥadīṯ studies and historiography. The tarāǧim (chapter titles) and narrative arrangement of the Kitāb al-Ṯiqāt give insight into Ibn Ḥibbān’s expositions, and demonstrate that his interest goes beyond the science of ḥadīṯ transmission.

Bernays' Lucian and the Cynics

1880 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 301-304
Author(s):  
I. Bywater
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
General Reader ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Greek World

Professor Bernays is among the few who possess the art of writing what can be read by men of culture as well as by professional scholars and historians; a monograph from his pen is sure to be at once a real contribution to knowledge, full of striking and original suggestions, and a work of literature, written with the attention to form and finish which we admire in some of the classic productions of a former age. The present work on Lucian and the Cynics is in every respect a worthy companion to the Theophrastus on Piety published in 1866. Though it is shorter and less elaborate in details than its predecessor, the subject is one which allows of a more consecutive mode of statement, and has perhaps in itself a more immediate interest for the general reader. Prof. Bernays now deals with an aspect of the civilization of the Roman empire, in which he demonstrates—what to many of us, I suppose, will be a sort of revelation—the existence of a popular religious movement, distinct from the established Paganism and from the philosophies of the schools. This new interpretation of Cynicism enables us to realize the fact that the Cynic of the first and second centuries was not a philosophical oddity, to be relegated to a chapter of a history of ancient philosophy, but a religious reformer at a moment when the Greek world seemed to have lost the power of religious initiative, and the spokesman of a kind of popular opposition when opposition to the existing political order of things was least to be expected.

scholarly journals Uwagi o początkach „literatury górskiej”

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 11-48
Author(s):  
Jacek Kolbuszewski
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Mountain Climbing ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Mountain Ranges ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Scholarly Discourse

One of characteristic phenomena in contemporary Polish literary culture is the emergence of a niche phenomenon of mountain literature. The term “mountain literature” has become part of colloquial discourse, also aspiring to be present in the language of literature studies (including literary criticism), which previously featured terms like “Alpine literature”, “mountaineering literature”, “Tatra literature”, “Tatra prose”. Other commonly used terms were “mountain climbing literature” and “exploration literature”. The term “Alpine literature” was introduced into scholarly discourse by Claire-Éliane Engel (1903–1976). The author of the present study points to links between the history of mountain literature, and the history of mountain exploration as well as history of tourism and mountaineering, referring to the literary traditions of various mountain ranges: the Alps, the Tatras, Karkonosze (Giant Mountains), Bieszczady, Gorce, Beskids, Góry Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross Mountains). In addition, there are strands of research dealing with a typological analysis of mountain motifs and their function. The significance of such studies lies in the fact that they demonstrate in a clear manner the introduction of mountain motifs into literature and the evolution of the artistic forms of their expression. However, transformations in the literary approach to the mountains cannot be documented only by means of a territorial selection of specific motifs, and the whole question of depicting mountains and responding to them cannot be locked within the limited framework of the various national literatures. What is useful in this respect is a comprehensive comparative approach to the subject matter, interpreted both in the synchronic (formation of attitudes) and diachronic perspective (so-called influences, impact of models, borrowing of poetics also in connection with changes in tourist or mountaineering styles). What becomes of crucial significance here is the use of more general categories and comprehensive collective terms — mountain literature, mountaineering literature, mountain climbing literature. These categories encompass works dealing primarily with the mountains and human interactions with them. They bring in a supranational and supraterritorial understanding of the subject of mountains, without limiting the role of territorial detail in the construction of literary motifs and images. In defining mountain literature the author uses the classification of the function of nature motifs in literary works presented by Tadeusz Makowiecki in Sprawozdania Towarzystwa Naukowego w Toruniu in 1951, in his article “Funkcja motywu przyrody w dziele literackim” (Function of a nature motif in a literary work).1 On the other hand, when it comes to the phenomena discussed in the study, what is representative of fiction is a type of narrative genre known as mountain novel (roman de montagne, Bergroman). Referring to archetypic formulas of mountain literature (Dante, Petrarch, Salomon Gessner, Jean A. Deluc, H.B. de Saussure), the author points to their formal aspects: thematic-substantive, linguistic and genological. In addition, he discusses the emergence of mountaineering literature (Edward Whymper, Leslie Stephen, Polish mountaineers’ prose).

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