For anyone who works on Arabic manuscripts or would like to know how that is done, this new website at Leiden University is a welcome introduction. Check it out here: https://mouse.digitalscholarship.nl.
Of mice and manuscripts
Category Archives: Islamic Texts
David King on Islamic Astronomy
The historian of Islamic astronomy and mathematics, Dr. David King, recently gave a fascinating lecture at the Furqan Foundation in London.
Here is the Youtube video of the talk.
For details on King’s work, there is an informative website.
al-Juwayni on Islamic Law
David R. Vishanoff has recently published online A Critical Edition, English Translation, and New Commentary on ImÄm al‑Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī’s Leaflet on the Sources of Law
(KitÄb al‑WaraqÄt fÄ« uṣūl al‑fiqh).
“For an English-speaking student who wishes to understand the theory behind Islamic law, the first step is to read an introductory legal theory text such as Muslim students traditionally read and memorize in the Arab world. The KitÄb al-WaraqÄt fÄ« uṣūl al-fiqh, or Leaflet on the Sources of Law, attributed to the KhurÄsÄnÄ« ShÄfiÊ¿Ä« AshÊ¿arÄ« scholar ImÄm al-Ḥaramayn AbÅ« al-MaÊ¿ÄlÄ« Ê¿Abd al-Malik ibn AbÄ« Muḥammad al-JuwaynÄ« (d. 1085), is a good choice, for two reasons.
First, it is brief, yet covers all the main concepts, terms, and principles of the classical Islamic discipline of legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), which explains the scriptural “roots†or “sources†(uṣūl) from which the detailed rules of Islamic law (fiqh) derive their authority, and the interpretive process that connects each rule to its sources. It defines what law and legal theory are, then explains how to analyze the language of Muslim scriptures (how to translate commands into laws, and various ways to resolve contradictions between texts), and then goes on to describe several other tools that one can use when scripture does not provide a clear rule (e.g. textual criticism and reasoning by analogy). It concludes with a description of who is qualified to use legal theory, and how certain they can be about the conclusions they reach.
Second, it is representative of mainstream SunnÄ« views that dominated legal thought in al-Juwaynī’s day and that are still widely accepted today…”
click here to go to the website.
Al-Nuwayri on the Pleasures of Life
A post about the famous 14th century Mamluk text of al-Nuwayri, with a new English translation of excerpts from this classic compendium now available.
Arabic Writing before Islam
In most world history survey courses, Arabia is introduced for the first time only as backstory to the rise of Islam. We’re told that there was a tradition of oral poetry in Arabic, a language native to central Arabia, and that the Qur’an was the zenith of this oral tradition. New evidence, however, suggests that Arabia was linguistically diverse, that the language we’ve come to know as Arabic originated in modern day Jordan, and that the looping cursive writing system that’s become the language’s hallmark wasn’t the original system used to write it. What to make of all this?
Guest Ahmad al-Jallad co-directs archaeological/epigraphic projects in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, uncovering new inscriptions thousands of years old, and shares his research that’s shedding new light on the writings of a complex civilization that lived in the Arabian peninsula for centuries before Islam arose.
Click here to hear the broadcast.
Advanced Course in Arabic Manuscript Studies
The Islamic Manuscript Association, in cooperation with Cambridge University Library and the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation, is pleased to announce an advanced short course in manuscript studies, entitled Scholars, Scribes, and Readers: An Advanced Course in Arabic Manuscript Studies, which will be held at Cambridge University Library from 6 to 10 June 2016.
This intensive five-day course is intended for researchers, librarians, curators, and anyone else working with Islamic manuscripts. As an advanced course, it is particularly aimed at those who already have some experience in Islamic codicology and palaeography and all participants must have a good reading knowledge of Arabic. The course will focus on Arabic-language manuscripts from various regions, including historical Turkey, Iran, and India. It is hoped that this advanced course will allow participants to gain greater exposure to and familiarity with the vast array of practices encountered in Arabic manuscripts.
The workshop will consist of three days of illustrated, interactive lectures on selected manuscripts and two days of hands-on sessions focusing on a selection of manuscripts from the Cambridge University Library collection. The manuscripts selected for presentation by the instructor cover the whole range of scribal practices encountered in a variety of subjects/genres, geographical regions, and historical periods (see the programme for details).
Continue reading Advanced Course in Arabic Manuscript Studies
Arabic Papyrology Database
Andreas Kaplony, H-Mideast-Medieval, Saturday, January 2, 2016
The Arabic Papyrology Database (APD) team wishes you a happy New Year. Our present: new, handy features implemented in the APD and many, many more documents . Please, check www.naher-osten.lmu.de/apd under
(a) “Documents”. For 2,571 published documents, we provide the full text of the document and information on the document, while for another 6,281 published and unpublished documents, we give information on the document only. We are proud to offer not only records from Egypt and the Middle East, but also a quite comprehensive list of Arabic documents from Sicily and Spain: click on “Origin” and choose Sicily or Spain. Weekly updates! – For full bibliographical details, check at www.naher-osten.uni-muenchen.de/apb.
(b) “Text”: This is our full text search tool. Many features, including search restricted by time, provenance, document type, etc.
(c) “Lexicon”: This site is completely new and allows you to access the lexicon of all implemented texts in several ways: Looking for a lemma, you will have an overview on all actual realizations, with hyperlinks giving you direct access. You might look for a root, a verbal stem, or a shape/morpheme type (e.g. fÄÊ¿il or faÊ¿Ê¿Äl). Or try Word categories (functional categories) and Domains (semantic categories), independently or in combined searches.
We would be happy to have your feedback on the new features.
Best regards, Eva Youssef-Grob (evamira.youssef@uzh.ch), for the Arabic Papyrology Database team
Rules of Engagement
8 Rules of Engagement Taught by the Prophet Muhammad
Extremism ‘experts’ are everywhere these days. Assertions thrive about what Shariah law allows, especially when it comes to warfare and ‘Jihad’. Two very unlikely bedfellows, Islamophobes and extremists, have taken up one allegation, that Islam is violent, and run with it. They both misquote Islamic sources to prove their shared fantasies, and to good effect, with media outlets falling over themselves to give them a platform. This convenient lie has become the Blood Libel of the Muslims, which is spread by various groups to achieve their own agendas.
So here is a list of actual rules of engagement taken from Islamic law, together with their original sources. This is what forms the basis of what Muslims believe and follow. These 8 laws expose the ‘Islam is violent’ line as lazy and shamefully dishonest.
N.B. War is unfortunately an inevitable part of civilization and at times countries need to respond to aggression. Islam allows the use of force to stop evil and bring security to a country’s citizens therefore a set of laws pertaining to war has been laid out by the Prophet Muhammad himself.
What follows are mainstream laws of Islam as taught by the orthodoxy of the religion. This is what the vast majority of Muslims around the world observe as their religion. It does not mean however, that all those who claim to be Muslim actually follow orthodox Shariah laws. Such groups and individuals would rightly be labelled as heretics for inventing new beliefs that run counter to explicit statements found in original sources of Islamic law. Continue reading Rules of Engagement