A Handbook Of Early Middle Arabic

This book represents a major contribution to the field of Arabic linguistics. It gives in depth treatments of the current issues in Arabic linguistics and makes excellent readings for graduate courses and for linguists at large.

A comprehensive textbook of the early Arabic Kufic script, written as a complete reference book for calligraphers, designers, and students of art history and the history of Arabic language and scripts. This beautiful and powerful script was derived from the earlier Hijazi Mashq style of Mecca and Medina, which was invented by early Muslim scribes to record the Quran. Today, the many historical manuscripts displayed in numerous museums around the world can attest to development and evolution of this remarkable and versatile script. Authored by master calligrapher, Mousavi Jazayeri, this book is the only book written in English that is solely dedicated to the study, learning and revival of the fascinating script behind the first mature Arabic calligraphic style, which was the official script of the Islamic Near East for centuries, before being replaced by the modern Naskh style. In this handbook, Mousavi Jazayeri who had discovered the lost art of cutting the qalam (pen) for early Kufic more than twenty years ago, explains with detailed, clear illustrations how to write early Kufic using a calligraphic pen and even a regular pen. He guides students patiently through the process involved in creating amazing, modern monograms. With clear, ample examples taken from the old Quranic manuscripts, art history students, font designers, and scholars of the history of the Arabic language and scripts can use this reference book to learn the key aspects of the early Kufic script as a writing system. Mr. Mousavi Jazayeri is joined by two co-authors, Perette E. Michelli, a multi-disciplinary historian of medieval and later art, and Saad D. Abulhab, a known Arabic type designer and independent scholar of the history of Arabic language and scripts. The two co-authors are members of the first international group dedicated to the study and revival of the early Kufic script, Kuficpedia, which was formed a few years ago around the historical achievements of Mr. Mousavi.

Bi- and multilingualism are of great interest for contemporary linguists since this phenomenon deeply reflects on language acquisition, language use, and sociolinguistic conditions in many different circumstances all over the world. Multilingualism was, however, certainly rather common already, if not especially, in the premodern world. For some time now, research has started to explore this issue through a number of specialized studies. The present volume continues with the investigation of multilingualism through a collection of case studies focusing on important examples in medieval and early modern societies, that is, in linguistic and cultural contact zones, such as England, Spain, the Holy Land, but also the New World. As all contributors confirm, the numerous cases of multilingualism discussed here indicate strongly that the premodern period knew considerably less barriers between people of different social classes, cultural background, and religious orientation. But we also have to acknowledge that already then human communication could fail because of linguistic hurdles which prevented mutual understanding in religious and cultural terms.

This volume deals with three themes: medieval Judaism, Arabic and Hebrew sociolinguistics, and Arabic Bible translation. Within Medieval Judaism, the Karaite Jews became a prosperous community under the banners of Islam. One of the most salient signs of the Karaite community's strength and internal cohesion was the extensive scientific contribution that it made to the fields of Biblical studies, Hebrew philology and philosophy. This book presents for the first time a critical edition of one of the works of the leading Karaite scholars in biblical exegeses and translation, Japheth ben Ali's Judaeo-Arabic translation of the "Book of Jeremiah", drawing on five medieval manuscripts. As the majority of Karaite works, including Bible manuscripts, are in Judaeo-Arabic, relatively few of them have been published. A number of the Karaite Bible manuscripts were written in Arabic script, resulting in their being neglected by scholars, despite the significance of these manuscripts to the history of medieval Judaism and Bible textual Studies. The author of this volume focuses on some of the most important issues in the field of sociolinguistics, namely language-contact, diglossia and the status of both Arabic and Hebrew in the medieval Jewish literary system. Equally important is the issue of the script-in-use (Hebrew or Arabic), which was a major subject of debate among the Rabbinates and the Karaites. Indeed, the language and the script used in these manuscripts will help us re-evaluate the established theories about the language-situation and literary systems in medieval Islamic and Jewish societies. The value of translating the Hebrew Bible into Arabic was unparalleled in medieval inter-religious scholarship. For Muslim scholars it was their only access to the Jewish Bible. The contribution of the Karaites to this field is enormous, and this work offers us a unique window into the Karaite theory of Biblical hermeneutics.

Written forms of Arabic composed during the era of the Ottoman Empire present an immensely fruitful linguistic topic. Extant texts display a proximity to the vernacular that cannot be encountered in any other surviving historical Arabic material, and thus provide unprecedented access to Arabic language history. This rich material remains very little explored. Traditionally, scholarship on Arabic has focussed overwhelmingly on the literature of the various Golden Ages between the 8th and 13th centuries, whereas texts from the 15th century onwards have often been viewed as corrupted and not worthy of study. The lack of interest in Ottoman Arabic culture and literacy left these sources almost completely neglected in university courses. This volume is the first linguistic work to focus exclusively on varieties of Christian, Jewish and Muslim Arabic in the Ottoman Empire of the 15th to the 20th centuries, and present Ottoman Arabic material in a didactic and easily accessible way. Split into a Handbook and a Reader section, the book provides a historical introduction to Ottoman literacy, translation studies, vernacularisation processes, language policy and linguistic pluralism. The second part contains excerpts from more than forty sources, edited and translated by a diverse network of scholars. The material presented includes a large number of yet unedited texts, such as Christian Arabic letters from the Prize Paper collections, mercantile correspondence and notebooks found in the Library of Gotha, and Garshuni texts from archives of Syriac patriarchs.

In recent scholarship, the connection between Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic is studied in a more systematic way. The idea of studying these two varieties in one theoretical frame is quite new, and was initiated at the conferences of the International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic (AIMA). At these conferences, the members of AIMA discuss the latest insights into the definition, terminology, and research methods of Middle and Mixed Arabic. Results of various discussions in this field are to be found in the present book, which contains articles describing and analysing the linguistic features of Muslim, Jewish and Christian Arabic texts (folklore, religious and linguistic literature) as well as the matters of mixed language and diglossia. Contributors include: Berend Jan Dikken, Lutz Edzard, Jacques Grand’Henry, Bruno Halflants, Benjamin Hary, Rachel Hasson Kenat, Johannes den Heijer, Amr Helmy Ibrahim, Paolo La Spisa, Jérôme Lentin, Gunvor Mejdell, Arie Schippers, Yosef Tobi, Kees de Vreugd, Manfred Woidich, and Otto Zwartjes.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. A reader will discover, for instance, the most reliable introductions and overviews to the topic, and the most important publications on various areas of scholarly interest within this topic. In Islamic studies, as in other disciplines, researchers at all levels are drowning in potentially useful scholarly information, and this guide has been created as a tool for cutting through that material to find the exact source you need. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Islamic Studies, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of the Islamic religion and Muslim cultures. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.aboutobo.com.

Medieval Islamic Civilization examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the seventh and sixteenth century. This important two-volume work contains over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, contributed and signed by international scholars and experts in fields such as Arabic languages, Arabic literature, architecture, art history, history, history of science, Islamic arts, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Near Eastern studies, politics, religion, Semitic studies, theology, and more. This reference provides an exhaustive and vivid portrait of Islamic civilization including the many scientific, artistic, and religious developments as well as all aspects of daily life and culture. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit www.routledge-ny.com/middleages/Islamic.

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