Arabic Studies Commons^™

Compilation As Narrative Art In Medieval Islam: The Redemption Of Kuthayyir In The Book Of Songs, Kirsten Beck

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article examines the narrative art of Abū ‘l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī’s Kitāb al-Aghānī through a close reading of the chapter on the poet Kuthayyir ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 723). Though Kuthayyir is mocked throughout for his short stature, unorthodox beliefs, and supposed insincerity, the chapter ends with a surprising scene: his death is mourned by the people of Medina in a large public funeral, suggesting a reevaluation of his character. I argue that this tonal shift is not incidental but the result of Iṣbahānī’s deliberate narrative arrangement. By analyzing the structure of the chapter—including the juxtaposition of genealogical accounts, the gradual …

Picturing Consumer Culture, Cultural Hybridity, And Womanhood: Farah Al Qasimi’S Photographs From 2012 To 2020, Minji Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Farah Al Qasimi’s 2012-2020 color photographs, arguing that this work presents a distinctive and salient critique of domesticity, material culture, and womanhood in the UAE. Through her lens as a woman and a culturally hybrid subject, Al Qasimi explores the tensions of modernization, globalization, consumerism, and gender.

Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Description of game series for use in the classroom with best practices.

Studying Hadith Commentaries In The Digital Age, Aslisho Qurboniev, Gowaart Van Den Bossche, Maroussia Bednarkiewicz

Faculty & Staff Publications

In this essay we reflect on the challenges involved in corpus building for hadith studies as well as the advances already made. We specifically focus on the Open Islamicate texts Initiative (OpenItI), a large, academically curated corpus of arabic texts sourced from various online libraries. this corpus is continuously vetted and expanded by scholarly contributions. We discuss its advantages for computational macro-analysis and for more traditional close reading, and survey recent research in digital hadith studies as an example of the possibilities of computational macro-analysis, we focus on assessing the output of the software ‘passim’, which has identified millions of …

Cultivation, Conflict, And Consumption: Food Systems In Syria, 1920–1946, Sara Pekow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines Syria during the French Mandate using food as a primary unit of analysis. The exploration of food pushes this project beyond the boundaries of political and diplomatic histories of Syria during the French Mandate, bringing forward the hidden voices of the nonelite. Nonelites are often not visible in archives, but their absence in most written sources permits us to ascertain their experiences in studying the materials that comprised their everyday lives. The sources consulted for this work include memoirs, print media, and state archives, to name a few.

Each chapter of this dissertation follows a different link …

Aftermaths Of Opposition: Effectiveness Of Repression Against Reformist Islamists In Saudi Arabia, Londyn Lorenz

Honors Theses

Saudi Arabia has long been considered a religious, political, and economic hub of the Middle East and North Africa as the home of the two holiest cities in Islam: Mecca and Medina. The kingdom’s leaders, the Al Saud family, have relied on their Islamic clout to remain in power since the 1700s, but their Islamic credentials were called into question following their allowance of American troops on Saudi soil and alliance with Western ideals during and following the Gulf War of the 1990s. Islamist outrage against the throne poured out across the nation, bringing demands for political change and increased …

The Bedouin In Arabia: A Nomadic Success, Cole D. Quinn

Student Publications

This paper analyzes the lifestyle of Bedouin tribes in Arabia prior to the rise of Islam. It looks closely at how Bedouin tribes were able to coexist alongside pre-Islamic settlements and secure a dominant position in Arabia. Specifically, this paper covers the Bedouin's practice of pastoralism, tribalism, and militarism, and explains how Bedouin tribes were able to secure and maintain a dominant position in Arabia despite the pressure of neighboring settlements.

Printing Devotion: Sufi Books And Their Transregional Networks In An Age Of Print, Mariam Elashmawy

Theses and Dissertations

The production of printed books in the Muslim world is a story that encompasses an array of actors, spanning centuries, and taking place in remote, yet connected locales. This thesis provides an intellectual history of Ṣūfī print production of Islamicate mystical works in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries by examining three overlapping genres: poetry, Ṣūfī histories (hagiography), and litanies (aḥzāb). Texts such as the Dīwān of devotional poetry by Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1234), the litany of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656/1258), Ḥizb al-baḥr, and Rashaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt, a history of the Naqshbandiyya order by Fakhr …

Mes 160: Classical Islamic Literature & Civilization, Kirsten Beck

Open Educational Resources

This open resource includes a syllabus, class schedule, grading rubrics, and guidelines/examples for digital poetry annotation.

The course website can be found here: http://mes160.social.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/

In this course, we will take a journey through history, literature, and ideas, traveling through Islamic civilization from 600-1250 CE. We will learn about and contemplate the major events and concerns of Islamic civilization, from the dawn of Islam through the expansions, transformations, and fragmentations of Islamic empires, up until the end of the 13th century. Works of Islamic literature from a variety of genres will fuel our journey. Along the way, we will learn how …

'Here We Start And In Jerusalem We Meet:' The Motivational And Organizational Influences Of Israel's Statehood Ontransnational Salafi Jihad, Charlotte Armistead

Honors Theses

The Israeli occupation of Palestine and its impact on the proliferation and longevity of transnational Salafi jihad is largely underestimated in current literature. In this thesis, I argue that Palestine, defined as both the nation and physical borders before the Balfour Declaration, largely contributed to the twentieth century revival of transnational Salafi jihad and is used by both Al Qaeda and ISIS as liberation and annihilation movements, respectively. In order to assess the motivational and organizational influences of the Israeli occupation of Palestine on transnational Salafi jihad, I examine the works of Abdullah Azzam, a selection of Osama Bin Laden’s …

Is The Academic Freedom Of Foreign-Born Professors In U.S. Universities Under Attack?, Khulod S. Wahboubadr

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In this study, academic freedom was defined by 17 foreign-born professors:12 Arab-born and five non-Arab professors from nine different higher education institutions, as the ability to express different ideas, research any topic, and publish the results without fear of intimidation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine how foreign-born professors experienced academic freedom when teaching and writing about Middle East issues and how their views about the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East influenced their experiences on the grounds of their foreignness (place of origin, race/ethnicity, and religion). Overall, participants reported positive experiences with academic freedom when teaching and writing …

Workings Of Theocracy: The Historical Function And Modern Applicability Of Charitable Endowments, Nuh Elalaoui

Honors Program Theses

Historically, various systems and institutions across diverse civilizations have been established to meet the many needs that interweave the fabric of society. One, and perhaps the most significant of these institutions is the waqf/hubus system. Characterized by the designation of a property or revenue stream as mortmain and the investment of the usufruct for the benefit of (often predetermined) beneficiaries, this form of charitable endowment is hailed as a cornerstone of Islamic civilization. The objectives of this paper are threefold. Primarily, it examines the historical role of awqāf, with focus on their social and economic significance in two distinct Islamic …

Warfare And Welcome: Practicality And Qur’Ānic Hierarchy In Ibāḍī Muslims’ Jurisprudential Rulings On Music, Bradford J. Garvey

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

While much ink has been spilled by musicologists on the legal standing of music in Islamic jurisprudential scholarship, few scholars have offered as comprehensive a view as Lois Ibsen Al-Faruqi. Thirty-five years after her major works on this issue, this article seeks to reassess her model of musical legitimacy within Muslim scholarship. Al-Faruqi places Qur’ānic recitation at the apex of a unidirectional continuum of sound art, with genres less similar to the recitation of the Qur’ān located progressively further away from it. Based on fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman in 2015-17 and engaging with recent reinvigorations on the anthropological …

Islamic And Middle East Area Studies Librarianship, Walid Ghali, Waseem Farooq, Paul Auchterlonie, Arnoud Vrolijk

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

The three papers collected here are based on a seminar on Islamic Studies Librarianship held on 31 January 2019 at the Aga Khan Library (AKL), in conjunction with the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC). Curators, area studies directors, and collection librarians, who are currently involved in this field, gathered to discuss common challenges and to identify strategic areas for collaboration.

Texts, Language, And History In The Madhab-Law Tradition: A Study Of The ShāfiʿĪ School, Tarek Ghanem

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis advances the study of the legal literature from the madhhab-law tradition by way of studying the Shāfiʿī literary tradition and its two most authoritative classics. These two works are al-Nawawī’s (d. 676/1278) digest Minhāj al-ṭālibīn and Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī’s (d. 974/1567) commentary on it, Tuḥfat al-minhāj. This study will provide a typology of the development of the Shāfiʿī juristic texts. The typology is based on an indigenous and coherent periodization centered around an analysis of the intellectual and social developments within the Shāfiʿī legal tradition, not the classical Eurocentric periodization scheme. The main objective of this typology is …

Secularism In The Arab World: Contexts, Ideas And Consequences, Aziz Al-Azmeh, David Bond

In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers

Explores secularism and secularisation in Arab societies since the mid-19th century.

This book is a translation of Aziz al-Azmeh’s seminal work Al-'Ilmaniya min mandhur mukhtalif that was first published in Beirut in 1992. Both celebrated and criticised for its reflections on Arab secularisation and secularism in the modern history of the Arab World, it is the only study to date to approach its subject as a set of historical changes which affected the regulation of the social, political and cultural order, and which permeated the concrete workings of society, rather than as an ideological discussion framed from the outset by …

Empire And Ruins In Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Adin Becker

Pomona Senior Theses

Modern Egypt began as a site for academic exploration and exploitation. Its tremendous archeological riches, indisputable centrality within the world of Islam, and complex multifaceted cultural makeup have piqued the interests of academics worldwide. For centuries, scholars have fantasized about “what lay beyond the water,” a land where they knew “colossal relics of the oldest-known human civilization were concentrated along the Nile in crumbling piles between two vast, usurping deserts, amidst a modern population that professed faith in Islam.”1 Absent material motives, however, Egypt long remained a land of mystery for the West, ripe for discovery and exploration. Egypt’s obscurity …

Haa 372 World Cities: Cairo, Mother Of The World, Mark Delancey

Course Website Archive

This course will examine the urban development and architectural heritage of Greater Cairo, Egypt since the reconstruction of the fortress of Babylon in the Roman period, through the establishment of Cairo itself in 969, and until the present. Cairo has always been a crossroads of cultures, set between Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. It has been home to significant Jewish, Christian and Muslim populations who have been impacted by the various ruling dynasties who have held sway there, including the Byzantines, early Islamic rulers, Tulunids, Shi'i Fatimids, and later Sunni Ayyubids, Mamluks, and Ottomans. In the 20th century, rapid …

Tall Hisban 2016 Expedition Season: Household Archaeology In The Medieval Village, Bethany Walker, Tarina Greer, Reem Al-Shqour, Aren Labianca, Robert D. Bates, Jeffrey P. Hudon, Warren Schultz, Julian Henderson, Chiara Corbino, Sofia Laparidou, Annette Hansen, Oystein Labianca

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction: A Legacy Of Raised Expectations, Leif Stenberg, Christa Salamandra

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Dialectic Of Past And Present In Eco's The Name Of The Rose And Al-Ghitani's Zayni Barakat, Martino Lovato

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This thesis compares an Italian and an Egyptian novel, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Gamal al-Ghitani's Zayni Barakat, paying particular attention to the way European and Arabic historiographies influence their composition. Both set at the end of the Middle Ages, the two novels are taken as representatives of the way contemporary European and Arabic literature portray the past in relation to their present. Starting with a reconstruction of the two historiographic patterns based on Salvation and Progress, and their influencing the notion of literary Medievalism, the two novels are treated separately in order to contextualize them in …

Narrative, Authority And The Voices Of Morality And Reason: An Intertextual Exploration Of Select Texts Of Mirror For Princes Literature & The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night With Select Sufi Literature, Sharon Allen

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Medical Healers In Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798, Sherry Sayed Gad Elrab

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Stylistic Analysis Of The Use Of Simile In Kalila Wa Dimna By Ibn Al-Muqaffa', Cynthia Brandenburg Harlow

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Code Mixing In 'Ammiyat Al-Muthaqqafin: A Case Study On The Use Of The B-Prefix As A Tense Marker, Hanady Tawakol

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This study aims at investigating possible rules that govern code mixing between the two basic varieties (H and L; Ferguson, 1959) at the verbal phrase level (combining linguistic features of Fusha and ‘ammiya in spoken verbal sentences used in ‘ammiyat Al-Muthaqqafin). In this study, the feature of choice is the use of the b-prefix (an aspectual marker used as a prefix with present tense ‘ammiya verbs). In particular, this study aims at analyzing the possible rules that govern the use of the b-prefix from a linguistic perspective. Furthermore, this study attempts to determine whether morphological or syntactic factors affect its …

Ibn 'Arabi's Primacy Of Consciousness: Finding In Being Found By The Real, Reham Elnory

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Continuity Within Islamic Art And Architecture: Hassan Fathy As A Modern Catalyst, Ahmad Hamid

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.