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Papers by Isabel Toral-Niehoff

Faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen, 2015

This study undertakes a political reading of the ʿIqd al-farīd by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246/860-328/94... more This study undertakes a political reading of the ʿIqd al-farīd by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246/860-328/940). It proposes to identify this adab encyclopaedia, composed in Cordova as a "caliphal" composition, by interpreting its conceptual agenda and compositional structure against the background of (neo-) Umayyad caliphal ideology as reconstructed by Janina Safran and Gabriel Martinez-Gros. It reads the text as "imperialistic" in its claim to represent Umayyad leadership, as unique and universal, against that of its contemporary rivals, the Abbasids and Fatimids. The Umayyads in al-Andalus suffered from a peculiarly precarious legitimacy, since, in contrast to the Abbasids and Fatimids, they could not refer to a kinship link to the Prophet. Their territory was also situated far outside the central lands of Islam and did not dominate the Holy Sites in the Ḥijāz (required for a caliph), which was a source of embarrassment. Therefore, there was a particularly strong need for...

Narrative Factuality, 2019

Geschichte der Fiktionalität, 2018

Approaches to the Study of Pre-Modern Arabic Anthologies, 2021

The Good Christian Ruler in the First Millennium

Medieval Worlds

In this collective article, members of the AnonymClassic project discuss various aspects of their... more In this collective article, members of the AnonymClassic project discuss various aspects of their work on the textual tradition Kalīla and Dimna.

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2015

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2013

Journal of Persianate Studies 6 (2013) 115-126

This article reevaluates our evidence for the interaction of Arab and Iranian elements in the Ara... more This article reevaluates our evidence for the interaction of Arab and Iranian elements in the Arab frontier-state of al-Hira, a state in late antiquity, which can be seen as a paradigmatic “third space” of special cultural dynamics. First, it sums up our evidence about the political and commercial ties connecting the Lakhmid principality and the Sasanian Empire; next, it focuses on the possible agents of cultural exchange between the two; finally, we direct our attention to the cultural spheres themselves and the issue of where and how Iranian-Arab transculturation as a process can be detected in the Hiran context. The article argues for a cautious reassessment of the material in light of current research in cultural studies. This is significant in its wider historical perspective, as such a process might have prepared the path for later developments in Islamic times, when the apogee of Arab-Iranian interaction is supposed to have taken place, i.e., in Abbasid Iraq.

Journal of Abbasid Studies

This study discusses the form and function of the chapter list that we find in the preface of the... more This study discusses the form and function of the chapter list that we find in the preface of the adab compilation al-ʿIqd al-farīd by Ibn ʿAbdrabbih (246-328/860-940), and that sometimes appears in manuscripts with the layout of a table of contents. It suggests that this evidence shows that the list represents a transitional stage in the history of the table of contents in the Arabic book — the transition being that from a tool for exposition of the content towards a tool for navigation of that content — and that it reflects a change in reading practices.

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2016

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2015

Arabs and Empires before Islam, 2015

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2014

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2014

Faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen, 2015

This study undertakes a political reading of the ʿIqd al-farīd by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246/860-328/94... more This study undertakes a political reading of the ʿIqd al-farīd by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246/860-328/940). It proposes to identify this adab encyclopaedia, composed in Cordova as a "caliphal" composition, by interpreting its conceptual agenda and compositional structure against the background of (neo-) Umayyad caliphal ideology as reconstructed by Janina Safran and Gabriel Martinez-Gros. It reads the text as "imperialistic" in its claim to represent Umayyad leadership, as unique and universal, against that of its contemporary rivals, the Abbasids and Fatimids. The Umayyads in al-Andalus suffered from a peculiarly precarious legitimacy, since, in contrast to the Abbasids and Fatimids, they could not refer to a kinship link to the Prophet. Their territory was also situated far outside the central lands of Islam and did not dominate the Holy Sites in the Ḥijāz (required for a caliph), which was a source of embarrassment. Therefore, there was a particularly strong need for...

Narrative Factuality, 2019

Geschichte der Fiktionalität, 2018

Approaches to the Study of Pre-Modern Arabic Anthologies, 2021

The Good Christian Ruler in the First Millennium

Medieval Worlds

In this collective article, members of the AnonymClassic project discuss various aspects of their... more In this collective article, members of the AnonymClassic project discuss various aspects of their work on the textual tradition Kalīla and Dimna.

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2015

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2013

Journal of Persianate Studies 6 (2013) 115-126

This article reevaluates our evidence for the interaction of Arab and Iranian elements in the Ara... more This article reevaluates our evidence for the interaction of Arab and Iranian elements in the Arab frontier-state of al-Hira, a state in late antiquity, which can be seen as a paradigmatic “third space” of special cultural dynamics. First, it sums up our evidence about the political and commercial ties connecting the Lakhmid principality and the Sasanian Empire; next, it focuses on the possible agents of cultural exchange between the two; finally, we direct our attention to the cultural spheres themselves and the issue of where and how Iranian-Arab transculturation as a process can be detected in the Hiran context. The article argues for a cautious reassessment of the material in light of current research in cultural studies. This is significant in its wider historical perspective, as such a process might have prepared the path for later developments in Islamic times, when the apogee of Arab-Iranian interaction is supposed to have taken place, i.e., in Abbasid Iraq.

Journal of Abbasid Studies

This study discusses the form and function of the chapter list that we find in the preface of the... more This study discusses the form and function of the chapter list that we find in the preface of the adab compilation al-ʿIqd al-farīd by Ibn ʿAbdrabbih (246-328/860-940), and that sometimes appears in manuscripts with the layout of a table of contents. It suggests that this evidence shows that the list represents a transitional stage in the history of the table of contents in the Arabic book — the transition being that from a tool for exposition of the content towards a tool for navigation of that content — and that it reflects a change in reading practices.

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2016

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2015

Arabs and Empires before Islam, 2015

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2014

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2014

Religious Culture in Late Antique Arabia Selected Studies on the Late Antique Religious Mind Kiri... more Religious Culture in Late Antique Arabia
Selected Studies on the Late Antique Religious Mind
Kirill Dmitriev & Isabel Toral-Niehoff (Editors)

The term ‘religious culture’ has often been used in relation to specific theological systems and ritual practices, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Manichaeism. In this edited volume, a group of internationally renowned scholars have addressed this concept in a more comprehensive sense, focusing on what one might call the Late Antique religious mind. The present volume sets out to emphasise the common religious attitudes and world- views rooted in late antiquity, including various monotheistic and other, pagan attitudes that existed within the orbit of the emerging Islam. The contributors to the volume are: Konstantin Klein, Martin Tamcke, Kirill Dmitriev, Cornelia Horn, Bruno Paoli, Greg Fisher, Mattia Guidetti, Christian Robin, and Francis Breyer.
978-1-4632-0630-7 | July 2017 |

In al-Ḥīra: Eine arabische Kulturmetropole im spätantiken Kontext, Isabel Toral-Niehoff draws a v... more In al-Ḥīra: Eine arabische Kulturmetropole im spätantiken Kontext, Isabel Toral-Niehoff draws a vivid portrait of this Late Antique Arab metropolis, located on the frontier between Byzantium and Sasanian Iran. Based on new archaeological and textual evidence, this study documents al-Ḥīra’s historical impact far beyond its well-known role in literary history and describes its creation of a distinctly Arabic urban cultural symbiosis that drew on neighboring civilizations. Al-Ḥīra’s multicultural synthesis is shown to be a direct precursor to the emerging city of Kufa, its Islamic successor, and Islamic city culture at large

Die Welt des Orients, Jan 1, 2006

Journal of the American Oriental Society 134.1 (2014), 176-177.

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 107, 2012

by Adam Walker آدم وا(ل)كر, Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Ahmad Khan, Beatrice Gruendler, Massimo Campanini, Abdulhadi Alajmi, Godefroid de Callatay, Konrad Hirschler, Gabriel Said Reynolds, Marcus Milwright, Delfina Serrano, and Manolis Ulbricht

Gorgias Press is delighted to announce the launch of its new inter-disciplinary book series Islam... more Gorgias Press is delighted to announce the launch of its new inter-disciplinary book series Islamic History and Thought. The series will provide a platform for scholarly research on any geographic area within the expansive Islamic world, stretching from the Mediterranean to China, and dated to any period from the eve of Islam until the early modern era.

by Gorgias Press, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Joas Wagemakers, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, David Hernández de la Fuente, Anna Rogozhina, Elena Narinskaya, Johanne Louise Christiansen, Amina Inloes, Marcus Milwright, Najib George Awad (Dr. Phil; Dr. Theol. Habil.), Ryan Schaffner, Laura Hassan, Vladimir Bošković, Mark D Calder, Pietro Longo, Paolo Maggiolini, Keenan Baca-Winters, Saer El-Jaichi, Avraham Elmakias, Orhan Elmaz, Luca Patrizi, Rana Issa, Adam Sabra, Clinton Bennett, Adrian C . Pirtea, Michael R J Bonner, and Paul C. Dilley

Gorgias Press' 2018 Islamic Studies' catalogue sets out a selection of Gorgias' published and for... more Gorgias Press' 2018 Islamic Studies' catalogue sets out a selection of Gorgias' published and forthcoming publications that are related to Islamic and Near Eastern studies, as well as studies carried out for other fields of research that intersect with Islamic studies.

Narrative Factuality. A Handbook, 2020

Approaches to the Study of Pre-Modern Anthologies. Ed. Bilal Orfali and Nadia El-Cheikh, 2021

The Power of Cities. The Iberian Peninsula between Late Antiquity and Early Modern History. The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World (BRILL) ed. Sabine Panzram, 2019

The city of Córdoba looks back to a long-lasting history rooted in Antiquity, but it undoubtedly ... more The city of Córdoba looks back to a long-lasting history rooted in Antiquity, but it
undoubtedly reached its heyday in the Umayyad period, when it became the thriving,
splendorous capital of the Emirate and later Caliphate (756–1031). This article draws an outline
of the profound changes that converted the Late Antique city into a densely populated Medieval
Islamic conurbation.

1. Warum geheimes Wissen n In: Performanz von Wissen, hg. Therese Fuhrer und Almut-Barbara Renger (Reihe „Bibliothek der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaften“ hrsg. von Jürgen Paul Schwindt, Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg), 2012

In: Regula Forster, Romy Günthart (eds.): Didaktisches Erzählen. Spielarten literarischer Belehrung in Orient und Okzident, Berlin 2010. 255-275.

The Qur’an in Context – entangled histories and textual palimpsests, eds. Angelika Neuwirth, Michael Marx, Nicolai Sinai, Berlin 2010, 323-347.

In: Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie der syrischen Kirchen. Göttinger Orientforschungen: Syriaca. Hg. v. Dorothea Weltecke, Wiesbaden 2012

‘Convivencia’ in Byzantium? Cultural Exchanges in a Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Lingual Society, ed. Barbara Crostini et alii

In: D. Hartwig, W. Homolka, M J. Marx, A. Neuwirth (eds.) : “Im Vollen Licht der Geschichte“ - Die Wissenschaft des Judentums und der Beginn einer historisch-kritischen Koranforschung, Würzburg 2008, 235-256.

In Genealogie und Migrationsmythen in Religionen und Kulturen des Altertums (eds. Barbara Renger – Isabel Toral-Niehoff), Berlin 2013 (pp. 233—251)

ens Scheiner, Damien Janos (eds.) Contexts of Learning in Baghdad from the 8th to the 10th centuries. Proceedings of the International Conference in Göttingen 12.-14. September 2011

New Approaches to the History of Political Thought: Mirrors of Princes Reconsidered. eds. Neguin Yavari / Regula Forster

Faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen. Differenzen, Interferenzen und Kongruenzen in narratologischer Perspektive. Ed. Nicole Falkenhayner, Monika Fludernik, Julia Steiner

The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam. Ed. Armando Salvatore , 2018

The Occult Sciences in Pre-Modern Arabic Literature. Ed. Eva Orthmann and Nader el-Bizri, 2018