Writings as a Form of Opposition: Mathālib Literature in the First Three Centuries AH / Bir Muhalefet Tarzı Olarak Telif: Hicrî İlk Üç Asırda Mesâlib Literatürü (original) (raw)
Related papers
Writings as a Form of Opposition: Mathālib Literature in the First Three Centuries AH
Ilahiyat Studies, 2017
The evolution of early Islamic literature cannot be explained merely by scientific reasons. Indeed, each work is a product of the social, political, scientific, and economic frame of its time. During the first century of the ʿAbbāsid rule, Muslim society experienced various social movements, such as Shuʿūbiyyah; meanwhile, Shīʿī communities began to develop their identity. Both movements opted to write relevant works in a similar manner to take aim at their opponents; accordingly, they compiled the points that condemned their opponents or their assumptions in separate works. The general name for this literature is mathālib (defect, fault, slandering). It developed into two subgenres, namely, mathālib al-ʿArab and mathālib al-ṣaḥābah. The objective of this paper is to present the existence of this genre, which has yet to be subject to a self-contained study, to identify the authors of these works in the first three centuries AH, and to interpret the available data about this genre with regard to ḥadīth history.
The Qur'an and Adab The Shaping of Literary Traditions in Classical Islam Edited by Nuha Alshaar
The Qur'an and Adab The Shaping of Literary Traditions in Classical Islam Edited by Nuha Alshaar, 2017
Though there have been many studies on the Qur’an’s import ance in tafsīr (Qur’anic comment ary), there are compar at ively few which look at the recep tion of the Qur’an in other forms of liter at ure. This volume seeks to rectify the gap in the schol ar ship by placing the Qur’an in its broader cultural and liter ary contexts. It explores the rela tion of Arabic (and Persian) clas sical liter ary tradi tions (adab) to the Qur’an from pre-Islamic times until the fifteenth century CE, focus ing on the various ways in which the clas sical liter ati (udabāʾ) engaged with the Qur’anic text, linguist ic ally, concep tu ally, struc-tur ally and aesthet ic ally, to create works that combined the sacred with the profane, thereby blur ring the bound ar ies between formal tafsīr and adab. Through a detailed intro duc tion and a series of case studies, the volume rethinks the concept of adab and the rela tion of scrip ture to human istic tradi tions in clas sical Islam and ques tions the general clas si fic a tion of adab as belles- lettres. It explores the reli gious aesthetic found in differ ent types of adab works – poetry, liter ary criti cism, epistles, oratory tradi tions, antho lo gies, ‘mirrors for princes’, folk lore and mystical/Sufi liter at ure. The key themes of the contri bu tions are the inter tex tu al ity between pre- lslamic poetry and the Qur’an, and the innu mer able approaches to the Qur’an by clas sical authors and poets. Discussed here are the various cita tion tech niques employed in the udabāʾ’s borrow ing of Qur’anic language, concepts and stories. The chapters explore how the use of these tech niques reflect a hermen eut ical involve ment with the Qur’an and how the choice of these tech niques was deter-m ined by the liter ary conven tions of the partic u lar genres and contexts within which the udabāʾ were working, as well as by their authorial inten tion, and theo lo gical and ideo lo gical outlooks. Also high lighted here is the link between the func tions ascribed to Qur’anic quota tions in a specific text and the need to convey a partic u lar message to specific audi ences. Collectively, these contri bu tions by leading schol ars offer a new, inter dis cip lin ary approach to under stand ing the inter ac tion of the liter ary tradi tions of clas sical Islam with the Qur’an. Conversely, the analysis of these liter ary works enhances the under stand ing of the Qur’an’s recep tion during the period studied. Students and special ists in the field of Qur’anic Studies, Literature and Religion will welcome this volume.
This review essay examines current trends in the field of Quranic studies, as expressed in recent introductory works on the Quran, which in turn reflect developments in more specialized publications. A prominent characteristic in this body of scholarship is an increased emphasis on approaching the Quran as a literary text, as conceived within the structures of textual criticism. Much of this work strives to bypass the autochthonous exegetical corpus developed by Muslim authorities and read the Quran on its own terms, as a text best situated within a sectarian milieu of late antiquity. Particular attention is given here to the configuration of literature as a secular category of analysis and the implications it bears for this growing field.
Islamic Literature: An Attempt at A Historical Overview
Korkut Ata Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 2023
This study aims to provide an overview of the development of Islamic literature, particularly in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages, from the birth of Islam to the 20th century. It will encompass four main historical periods: The early Islamic period (7th-10th centuries), the middle Islamic period (11th-15th centuries), the 16th-18th century dynasties, and the modern period. The study describes the main literary genres, themes, trends, figures, and works that emerged in Islamic communities, explores the motives and outcomes of interactions with various Eastern and Western traditions in different periods, and draws attention to the significant shifts in Islamic literature during the modern era. Available compact studies in Islamic literature predominantly deal with a specific language area or undertake thematic research. The present study, which demonstrates the historical course of the literature of Islamic communities in three widespread languages, helps to pinpoint the general trends of continuity, transformation, and interaction among these traditions. For instance, it brings out the key role Arabic literature played in defining the main poetic forms of Islamic literature, such as ghazal, qasida, mathnawi, and promoting the literary prose, adab, which were subsequently elaborated and transformed within other linguistic traditions. Again, it shows how the dissolution of the Abbasid political power impacted the revival of Persian literature, which later took the lead in establishing mystic philosophy as a major vein in general Islamic literature. Another common experience of Islamic literatures that stands out in this survey is the transformation of formal and thematic features due to the expanding Western influence and stimulus of modernization in the 19th century.
Texts Language and History in the Madhab-Law Tradition: A Study of the Shāfiʿī School
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 to present a coherent theory of texts that can serve our understanding in two main ways. First, it will help situate these texts within overarching discursive developments in the Shāfiʿī legal tradition. Second, it will contribute to a coherent understanding of how discursive arguments emerged, interacted, and transpired across time and space. More specifically, it will help us understand how and why these works emerged at the time, what social and scholarly functions they served, what role language and nomenclature played in serving these functions, how they acquired their authoritative status, and what overarching conversations they engaged with. The Shāfiʿī madhhab is a discursive tradition that can be understood from multiple perspectives. I analyze the particularities of its intellectual history through a historiographical lens to trace how agreements and disagreements, both internal and external, were managed by jurists and through texts. Starting with the eponymous founder, Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (150-204/767-820), I present a coherent narrative of the interpretive developments of the Shāfiʿī literary tradition as a ‘story of books.’ This narrative will elucidate how and why literary genres, juristic operations, and particular texts emerged, with a special focus on how to situate Minhāj and Tuḥfa in Shāfiʿī literary history. Both al-Nawawī’s digest Minhāj and Ibn Ḥajar’s commentary on it, Tuḥfa, will be analyzed textually. I will analyze each text, its genealogy, the reasons it was authored, its particular linguistic and terminological makeup, juristic objectives and achievements, and examples from its juristic trajectory that demonstrate its different functions. A central interest of this thesis is how each of the texts represent and contribute to the development of the genres of digests (mukhtaṣarāt) and expansums (muṭawwalāt). The authors’ innovations in the realm of juristic terms (al-muṣṭalaḥāt al-fiqhiyya) will be investigated to prove the centrality of these terms to their juristic projects.
The Good, the Bad, and the Heretic in Early Islamic History
Deconstructing Islamic Studies (ILEX and Harvard University Press), 2020
My critical exploration of the uncritical use of historiographic tropes in the study of early Islamic sectarianism. In the last section I also tackle the issue of how a careful use of theory can enrich our understanding of the documents of the past. In general, I argue that the opposition "theory vs. philology" is wrong, and that we don't have to choose between the two. Theory means nothing without careful philology. At the same time, the idea that philology alone can help us understand the past is also incorrect.