Philologists, ‘Bedouinisation’ and the ‘Archetypal Arab’ after the Mid-Third/Ninth Century

Author(s):  
Peter Webb

How was Arab identity imagined in a world where most Middle Eastern populations stopped calling themselves Arabs? After the mid-ninth century AD, descriptions of Arabs proliferated in Arabic literature, whilst Arab identity as a social/political asset was in decline. In this period, the key spokesmen for the idea of Arabness were philologists who fundamentally reworked impressions of Arab identity as part of new theories about the Arabic language. Diachronic survey of the development of Arabic philology from the late eighth to eleventh centuries reveals shifting intentions and values which standardised the Arabic language via a unique process that focused on the idealisation of Bedouin as paragons of the ‘original Arabs’. Studying Arabic philology within its socio-historical contexts reveals how the grammarians transcended language study and forged paradigmatic changes to the ways Arab history and culture are interpreted. The novel association of Arab with Bedouin became a popular theme in Arabic literature from the early tenth century, and the weight of the resultant writings comprehensively transformed Arabness from the former expression of urban/Muslim elite identity in early Islam to a desert/Bedouin pre-Islamic identity which has cast a long shadow on the notion of Arab identity to the present.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 990-1003
Author(s):  
Erlina Zulkifli Mahmud ◽  
Bima Bayusena ◽  
Ratna Erika Mawarrani

Purpose: To study the existence of the Arabic language in the Indonesian language mostly limited to terms used in Islam religion. Methodology: This article discusses the existence of Arabic literature in the Indonesian source text, a novel with the life in a pesantren as the setting, where the author of the source text needs to translate the Arabic expressions used in the story into Indonesian. Then from the Indonesian source text, the novel is translated into English. The method used in this research is the descriptive comparative method. The leading theory used for this research is the strategies of Translation by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995), what Arabic linguistic units involved in the Indonesian source text, and what strategy of conversion used by the author and the translator become the objectives of this research. Principal Findings: The results show that the Arabic linguistic units found are ranging from a word into a clause or sentence, and the strategies of Translation used in the target text do not always deal with one single procedure; sometimes, it involves a combination of some procedures. Applications of this study: The translation work may lead to similar as well as a contrastive linguistic phenomenon. People can learn more about languages involving in a translation, particularly when the structures of the source and target language are compared linguistically. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study covers the gap left in the previous research carried out by the same team entitled “Translation Equivalences of Islamic Terms in the Novel (The Land of Five Towers ‘Negeri Lima Menara’). This previous research used the same data source, Arabic expressions, in the novel. It focused more on the Arabic feelings relating to Islamic terms, such as names of five obligational prayers, names of optional prayers, activities in shalat, or praying. The rest of the Arabic phrases which are not used in this previous research are left unstudied.


2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-279
Author(s):  
Jamsheed K. Choksy

The earliest period of Islamic thought has emerged as a major focus of contemporary scholarship during the past few decades, with a variety of techniques—ranging from historical documentation and historiographical analysis to narrative reconstruction and source criticism—being applied to comprehend more accurately the ideas and events that fueled the rise of Muslim societies in the Middle East. Suliman Bashear has made a fascinating addition to the writing that has emerged from this scholarly quest to configure the Middle Eastern Muslim past. The book under review probes available early Arabic literature, largely on its own terms and occasionally in relation to later Arabic writings, to determine the great complexity of Arab, Muslim, and Arab–Muslim views about themselves and about members of other communities during and shortly after the 7th century. Bashear's work also endeavors to trace how such views changed over the next few centuries. At the same time, however, the book is difficult to appreciate fully. Each chapter involves mainly the analysis of a series of hadith (and, to a lesser extent, tafsir and akhbar) linked together by general themes, with little contextual framework or broader discussion of the issues' significance. As a result, the considerable erudition and informative detail that permeates this book provide disparate nuggets of knowledge that, when taken together, fall short of providing the reader with a clear overall notion of how and why the earliest Muslims perceived themselves and others in particular ways.


Author(s):  
Peter Webb

Chapter 4 investigates the changing faces of Arabness in early Islam. As an identity, Arabness was a fluid intellectual construct, and because Arab communal consciousness developed unevenly in early Islam, Muslims faced manifold challenges when they tried to define the word ‘Arab’ and delineate the boundaries of Arab community. The uneven parameters of Arabness and the debates over the identity’s meaning manifest in this chapter’s findings from the evolving dictionary definitions of ʿarabī, the disputes over membership to the Arab community, and the protracted process by which Muslims constructed Arab genealogy by fusing disparate pre-Islamic groups into one consolidated Arab family tree. By the early tenth century AD, Arabic literature articulates a largely cohesive sense of Arab identity and genealogy traced through a succession of ancient prophets, Judaic and Arabian: this chapter questions how that archetype of Arabness emerged by undertaking comprehensive analysis of the earlier disagreements which accompanied the processes of imagining Arabness in Islam’s first centuries.


Author(s):  
Rosny Ben Sama - Badr Al-Munir Bin Mohammed Nour - Wan Azora

This study aimed to reveal the influences of Arabic and Islamic in the personality of Malaysian writers and their literary creations influenced by Arabic literature. The study was based on the comparative approach of the French school in comparative literature on the existence of the conditions of influence and influence among the studied literature. The study deals with the Arab and Islamic influences in the personality of Sheikh Mohamed Zine El Abidine Al Aiderous, who performed the poetry of the Prophetic Poetry, and Sheikh El Sayed Al-Hadi, who created the novel from the impact of Zeinab's novel and Alawi Al-Hadi. Arabic is a channel of communication between Arab and Malaysian writers. Through this language influenced Malaysian literature with some Arab and Islamic influences, where the Malaysian writers learned the Arabic language and read the art of Arabic literature, and then created in a new dress. One of the most prominent findings was that these three writers were influenced by Arabic literature. And the impact of the impact of the emergence of the poetry of the Malaysian prophetic influences of the impact of cold and Mahazip, and the emergence of the first Malaysian novel of the impact of the impact of the novel Zaynab, and the birth of the play Tariq ibn Ziad impact of the impact of the story of Fatah al-Andalus. Perhaps the study opens the comparative areas between the literature to readers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-188
Author(s):  
Brandon Katzir

This article explores the rhetoric of medieval rabbi and philosopher Saadya Gaon, arguing that Saadya typifies what LuMing Mao calls the “interconnectivity” of rhetorical cultures (Mao 46). Suggesting that Saadya makes use of argumentative techniques from Greek-inspired, rationalist Islamic theologians, I show how his rhetoric challenges dominant works of rhetorical historiography by participating in three interconnected cultures: Greek, Jewish, and Islamic. Taking into account recent scholarship on Jewish rhetoric, I argue that Saadya's amalgamation of Jewish rhetorical genres alongside Greco-Islamic genres demonstrates how Jewish and Islamic rhetoric were closely connected in the Middle Ages. Specifically, the article analyzes the rhetorical significance of Saadya's most famous treatise on Jewish philosophy, The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, which I argue utilizes Greco-Islamic rhetorical strategies in a polemical defense of rabbinical authority. As a tenth-century writer who worked across multiple rhetorical traditions and genres, Saadya challenges the monocultural, Latin-language histories of medieval rhetoric, demonstrating the importance of investigating Arabic-language and Jewish rhetorics of the Middle Ages.


Author(s):  
علاء حسنى المزين (Alaa Hosni)

كان من أهم الآثار الإيجابية للصحوة الإسلامية التى عمت العالم الإسلامى بشكل ملحوظ منذ أوائل السبعينيات فى القرن العشرين زيادة إقبال الشعوب الإسلامية على تعلم اللغة العربية، وبدأ الاهتمام الحقيقى لجامعات العالم الإسلامى بتوفير مساقات متخصصة لهذا الغرض منذ أوائل الثمانينات، وكانت الجامعة الإسلامية العالمية بماليزيا التى أسست سنة 1983 من أنشط الجامعات فى هذا الصدد، وهو نشاط استلفت نظر الباحث إذ وجده يستحق الرصد والتوثيق العلمى، والمراجعة إذا اقتضت الضرورة لا بهدف الإشادة بالتجربة بل رغبة فى الإفادة والاستفادة من قبل المختصين من المهتمين بهذا الميدان الحيوى من ميادين خدمة اللغة العربية بل خدمة الإسلام، وحضارته نظرا للارتباط الوثيق بين اللغة العربية وهذا الدين الحنيف باعتبارها لغة كتابه الخالد، والمعلم الرئيس من معالم الهوية الإسلامية المميزة والصمود الحضارى.*****************************************************One of the most positive effects of the Islamic awakening since the early seventies, in the twentieth century, which spread across the Islamic world in a significant manner, has been the increased Muslims’ interest in learning the Arabic language all over the world. There began a real interest in the universities of the Muslim world for the Arabic language by providing specialized courses for this purpose since the early eighties and  the International Islamic University Malaysia established in 1983 has been the most active university in this regard. And this activity of the university drew the interest of the researcher who found it worthy of investigation and scientific documentation as well as of revision, if necessary, not in order to pay tribute to the experience, but for taking advantage and learning from specialists interested in this vital field of the fields of Arabic language service which is actually service of Islam and its civilization considering the strong connection between Islam and the Arabic language, the language of the Qur’Én , the most distinctive feature of Islamic identity and resilience of Islamic civilization.


2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Colla

In this essay, Arabic literature specialist and Arabic-English translator Elliott Colla explores the relationship between the novel and the nation, and reviews Bashir Abu-Manneh's ambitious and original contribution to the study of Palestinian literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 003685042110131
Author(s):  
João Gaspar-Marques ◽  
Teresa Palmeiro ◽  
Iolanda Caires ◽  
Paula Leiria Pinto ◽  
Nuno Neuparth ◽  
...  

Though the approach used to classify chronic respiratory diseases is changing to a treatable-traits (TT) approach, data regarding very elderly patients is lacking. The objectives of this study were to assess TT frequency in very elderly patients and to study the link between extrapulmonary TT and ventilatory defects. Individuals (≥75 years) residing in elderly care centres answered a standardised questionnaire, underwent spirometry, atopy and fractional exhaled nitric oxide assessments and had their blood pressure and peripheral pulse oximetry measured. Pulmonary, extrapulmonary and behavioural TT were evaluated. Outcome variables were an airflow limitation (post-bronchodilator z-score FEV1/FVC<−1.64) and a restrictive spirometry pattern (z-score FEV1/FVC ≥ +1.64 and z-score FVC<−1.64). Seventy-two percent of the individuals who took part in the study ( n = 234) were women, and the median age of participants was 86 (IQR: 7.4). At least one pulmonary TT was identified in 105 (44.9%) individuals. The most frequent extrapulmonary TTs were: persistent systemic inflammation (47.0%), anaemia (34.4%), depression (32.5%) and obesity (27.4). Airflow limitation was exclusively associated with smoking (OR 5.03; 95% CI 1.56–16.22). A restrictive spirometry pattern was associated with cognitive impairment (OR: 3.89; 95% CI: 1.55–9.79). A high frequency of various TTs was found. The novel association between a restrictive spirometry pattern and cognitive impairment highlights the urgency of clinical research on this vulnerable age group.


2003 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 231-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Semple

‘Many tribulations and hardships shall arise in this world before its end, and they are heralds of the eternal perdition to evil men, who shall afterwards suffer eternally in the black hell for their sins.’ These words, composed by Ælfric in the last decade of the tenth century, reflect a preoccupation in the late Anglo-Saxon Church with perdition and the infernal punishments that awaited sinners and heathens. Perhaps stimulated in part by anxiety at the approach of the millennium, both Ælfric and Wulfstan (archbishop of York, 1002–23) show an overt concern with the continuation of paganism and the evil deeds of mankind in their sermons and homilies. Their works stress the terrible judgement that awaited sinners and heathens and the infernal torment to follow. The Viking raids and incursions, during the late eighth to ninth and late tenth centuries, partially inspired the great anxiety apparent in the late Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical leadership. Not only were these events perceived as divine punishment for a lack of religious devotion and fervour in the English people, but the arrival of Scandinavian settlers in the late ninth century may have reintroduced pagan practice and belief into England.


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