Majāz ῾aqlī “intellectual trope” and the description of wine in a poem by abū dhu᾿ayb al-hudhalī

An important rhetorical figure has been called the majāz ῾aqlī (lit. “intellectual trope”) by some classical rhetoricians, mainly by ῾Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078). Despite its importance, which will be clarified below, the intellectual trope has been ignored in modern research in comparison to other rhetorical figures such as the metaphor and simile which are frequently in the spotlight. In this paper, I will analyse the notion of the majāz ῾aqlī as used by ῾Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī who was the first rhetorician to deal with this figure of speech in detail; then I will discuss its semantic aspects in classical Arabic poetry as manifested in an episode on wine composed by Abū Dhu᾿ayb al- Hudhalī (d. 28/649)

An Introduction to the Special Issue on Animals, Adab, and Fictivity

The Abbasid-era textual tradition is full of animals. The variety and range of narratives about animals are brought together here in this special issue. Although Kalīla wa-Dimna is certainly the most famous work to feature talking animals and fictive humans, it is by no means the only one. This special issue of the Journal of Abbasid Studies looks beyond Kalīla wa-Dimna by bringing together articles engaging with this broader tradition of putting animals to work in Arabic texts and, quite often, giving them the ability to talk. These papers are the first fruits of a 2019 workshop at the Freie Universität Berlin entitled Animals, Adab, and Fictivity, organized by Beatrice Gruendler and myself under the auspices of Beatrice Gruendler's ERC project entitled AnonymClassic

Gendered Subjects in Ottoman Constitutional Agreements, ca. 1740-1860

This article aims to historicize the notion of honor in the Ottoman legal discourse and practice from the early-modern period to the so-called “reform era”, the era most scholars maintain began with the Tanzimat Edict of 1839. Such a historical approach uses justice as a key to understand honor not as a value system, but as a rhetoric. Thus, it problematizes an a-historical conception of honor which assumes that honor codes in modern societies are largely the legacy of “traditional” norms of the pre-modern periods. This study argues that the persistent emphasis on honor in the correspondence especially between the central government and the Ottoman subjects in the eighteenth century reflects the development of new parameters between the state and its subjects in moral terms. On the one hand, the motto of “life, honor and property” of the Tanzimat Edict represents a continuation of such discourse of honor as a legitimizing mechanism. Yet, on the other hand, the legal codification of honor in the Criminal Codes of the nineteenth century reflects a novel constitutional construction of gendered citizenship around reproduction in the conjugal family through the partnership of the patriarchal state and the male subjects

Dilin kökeni üzerine klasik İslâmî söylem: Kültürel hafıza ve Sünnîliğin savunusu

Erken dönem İslâm düşünce geleneğinde, dilin kökeni (aslu’l-luga) konusunda iki temel görüş geliştirildi. Genelde tevkîf olarak bahsedilen, ilahi failin dilin vaz‘ edilmesinde üstün rol oynadığını vurgulayan ve bu açıdan ispat gerektirmeyen (axiomatic) birinci görüş şudur: lafızların manaları başlangıçta Tanrı tarafından belirlenmiştir. Bu tutuma karşı tez olarak sunulan ve ıstılâh olarak adlandırılan ikinci doktrin ise dilin –sonradan- kurulduğunu, genel uylaşım ve anlaşma süreciyle evrildiğini esas alır: Kelimeler anlamlarıyla birlikte insanlar tarafından tayin edilmiştir. Ancak hem tevkîf hem de ıstılâh doktrinleri, kelimelerin muayyen manaları ile olan gerçek ilişkilerinin doğal olduğunu reddederek tamamen nedensiz (arbitrary) olduğunu ileri sürmüştür. Her ne kadar müteahhir İslam düşünce geleneği, her ikisinin de mantıklı olduğunu kabul etse de, dokuz ve onuncu yüzyıllarda konu hakkındaki görüşler dikkate değer biçimde, sünnî (orthodox) 1 ve archrasyonalist2 şeklinde fırkalara ayrılmıştır ki bunlardan ilki tevkîfi ikincisi de ıstılâhı onaylamıştır. Geleneksel tevkîf argümanlarının kavramsal bir savunusunu sağlamada Sünnî kelâmcılar, birleştirici bir yapı oluşturmak zorundaydı. Bu yapının hatırlama (remembrance), sürdürme (continuation) ve özdeşlik (identitiy) üzerinden ifade edilmesi kelamcılara, tevkîfin kurgusunu, selefle ilişkilendirilmiş metin yorumu ve sünnî simgeler üzerine formel bir biçimde dayandırma olanağı sağladı. Geçmişe yapılan referanslarla sağlanan bu yapı, sünnî inanç olarak kabul edileni savunmada, kültürel hafızanın rolünü onaylamış gibi görünebilir.Classical Islamic scholarship developed two principal theses on the subject of the origin of language (aṣl al-lugha). The first of these theses, commonly referred to as tawqīf, accentuated the pre-eminent role that divine agency played in the imposition of language; axiomatic within this perspective is the view that words (lafẓ pl. alfāẓ) have been assigned their meanings (maʿnā pl. maʿānī) primordially by God. Presented as something of an antithesis to this position, the second doctrine, labeled iṣṭilāḥ, predicates that language was established and evolved via a process of common convention and agreement: words together with their meanings were assigned by human beings, although both the doctrines of tawqīf and iṣṭilāḥ posit that the actual relationship between words and their assigned meanings remains entirely arbitrary, rejecting any sort of natural link between the two. Although later Islamic scholarship accepted that both theses were plausible, within the course of the 9th/10th centuries opinions on the subject were ostensibly polarized between orthodox and arch-rationalist camps with the former endorsing tawqīf and the latter iṣṭilāḥ. In the quest to achieve a conceptual defense of traditional arguments for tawqīf it was necessary for orthodox theologians to create a connective structure, as articulated through reference to remembrance, continuation, and identity, which enabled them to anchor the construct of tawqīf in a formalized way to the scriptural exegesis and emblems of orthodoxy associated with the pious ancestors. That this was successfully accomplished through references to the past would seem to confirm the role which cultural memory played in the defense of what was deemed an orthodox belief

Three Arabic Dialogues on Alchemy

Arabo-Islamic alchemy enjoyed considerable popularity until well into the 19th and 20th centuries. It can be considered both as a predecessor of modern chemistry and as a natural philosophy whose purpose is to explain the world. Yet one of the unresolved questions concerning alchemy is how one was supposed to learn it, since it was an art that was meant to be kept secret and only revealed to a few select individuals. While the practicalities of the learning experience remain obscure, it is noteworthy that Arabic alchemical literature often makes use of the literary form of the dialogue, a genre strongly associated with teaching and learning. This paper focuses on three Arabic dialogues on alchemy; namely, Masāʼil Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib (“Khālid’s questions to the monk Maryānus”), Kitāb Mihrārīs al-ḥakīm (“The book of the wise Mihrārīs”) and Risālat al-ḥakīm Qaydarūs (“The epistle of the wise Qaydarūs”), and discusses how the transfer of secret knowledge is represented. I will focus on the literary frames of these texts, their mise-enscéne, the master-disciple relation as represented within them, and the question of interaction between unequal partners

«Les branques entrellaçades»: un motiu del folklore verbal i els gèneres mixtos

L’article aborda comparativament un motiu de l’art verbal i alhora la seva interacció amb un problema general de l’estudi del folklore: el dels gèneres mixtos i llur significació. El motiu en qüestió és designat «Twining branches» (E631.0.1) en l’índex de Thompson. S’assenyala l’eventual precedent clàssic ovidià i se’n considera la presència en romanços de la tradició romànica peninsular i en balades angloamericanes, gèneres versificats. Si comparteixen el motiu de les branques entrellaçades, difereixen en aspectes funcionals i argumentals. S’aporta una narració oral beduïna del desert Líbic que conté l’argument i el motiu. Aquest text oral és un gènere mixt: hi coexisteixen prosa i vers (prosimetrum). S’analitzen diferències funcionals respecte als textos anteriors i se’n vincula l’especificitat a la naturalesa de l’ordre social en la societat beduïna, a la ideologia que hi és hegemònica, a la identitat ètnica i a la cultura verbal beduïna arabitzada. S’interpreta el gènere mixt en funció de conceptes desenvolupats a partir de la poètica jakobsoniana i, sobretot, en funció del context en què es produeix, això és, de l’especificitat històrica i d’una interpretació èmica, la qual ens permet accedir a la significació que vehicula la juxtaposició de prosa i vers en un context d’actuació específic

The Sasanian Tradition in ʽAbbāsid Art : squinch fragmentation as The structural origin of the muqarnas

Islamic architecture presents a three-dimensional decoration system known as muqarnas. An original system created in the Near East between the second/eighth and the fourth/tenth centuries due to the fragmentation of the squinche, but it was in the fourth/eleventh century when it turned into a basic element, not only all along the Islamic territory but also in the Islamic vocabulary. However, the origin and shape of muqarnas has not been thoroughly considered by Historiography. This research tries to prove the importance of Sasanian Art in the aesthetics creation of muqarnas.La arquitectura islámica presenta un mecanismo de decoración tridimensional conocido como decoración de muqarnas. Un sistema novedoso creado en el Próximo Oriente entre los siglos II/VIII y IV/X a partir de la fragmentación de la trompa de esquina, y que en el siglo XI se extendió por toda la geografía del Islam para formar parte del vocabulario del arte islámico. A pesar de su importancia y amplio desarrollo, la historiografía no se ha detenido especialmente en el origen formal de la decoración de muqarnas y por ello, este estudio pone de manifiesto la influencia del arte sasánida en su concepción estética durante el Califato ʿabbāssí

Jahiliyyah Arabic Verse: The Dichotomy in Its Poetry

This study is actuated with three notions of vital importance to the understanding of Jahiliyyah verse; firstly, that the concept of the ritualistic function of the sha‘ir is in danger of causing the personal and inward aspects of pre-Islamic poetry to be neglected, by providing a convenient explanation of the apparently stereotypical conventionality of Jahiliyyah poetry; secondly, that the poetic force and importance of the dhikr al-atlal and nasib movements,[1] had not been properly understood, the translation of the term nasib as “amatory prelude” being representative of this deficiency in understanding; thirdly, that, although I considered that scholars who discerned  a connection between Jahiliyyah poetry and the concept of muruwwah were on the right path, nevertheless, I did not think that they had fully realized the extent of that connection. The purpose of this study, then, is to rectify what I consider to be serious shortcomings in our knowledge and understanding of the poetry of this period. Keywords: Jahiliyyah; Versification; Poetry; Dichotomy. [1] Movement: the analogy with the musical terminology is intentional, because it captures the essence of the qasidah and how it was composed in a way in which the words ‘section’ or passage’ do not. This will become evidence if the following explanation of the term ‘movement’ is used as a working base: a movement can be a self-contained section, or part, of a larger composition, such as a concerto or symphony in orchestral music, or a sonata, or string-quartet, solo or chamber music. Its self- containment and potential independence capture the peculiar nature of any movement of a pre-Islamic qasidah, which is both integral to, and independence of the qasidah when considered as a holistic phenomenon. The term is applied to such ‘building blocks’ of the qasidah as the nasib and the rihlah

Le savant et son époque à travers sa correspondance Seeger A. Bonebakker (1923-2005) et quelques notes sur Ḫalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī (696-764/1297-1363)

This article proposes a survey of two great scholars’ in Arabic literature correspondences: a European of the 20th century, Seeger Adrianus Bonebakker, who is of special interest for us because he bequeathed all of his great library, personal notes and correspondence to Università Ca’ Foscari, and a subject of study of the former, Ḫalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī, great littérateur and scholar of the first century of the Mamluk period. Letters sent and received are preserved in both cases and are primary sources on their network, but also on their personal life, personality and methodology