The Shapers of Memory: The Theatrics of Islamic Historiography (original) (raw)
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Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Multidisciplinary Studies: Mathal, 2018
This paper employs and describes an experimental methodology of viewing medieval Arabic authors through the lens of stage actor performance theory. In particular, it argues that semi-canonical writings, such as al-Ṭabarī's History of the Prophets and Kings, become the "script" that later authors, such as Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Kathīr "perform" as actors. This methodology is novel, and argues that by examining the changes authors made to narratives presented in earlier Arabic texts, we can draw important conclusions about the authors' opinions of the relative importance of narrative elements, the authors' literary-narrative strategies for endowing memories with meaning, and establish each author's "super-objective" (his primary thematic or narrative concerns).
Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors
Medieval Arabic Historiography is concerned with social contexts and narrative structures of pre-modern Islamic historiography written in Arabic in seventh and thirteenth-century Syria and Eygpt. Taking up recent theoretical reflections on historical writing in the European Middle Ages, this extraordinary study combines approaches drawn from social sciences and literary studies, with a particular focus on two well-known texts: Abu Shama’s The Book of the Two Gardens, and Ibn Wasil’s The Dissipater of Anxieties. These texts describe events during the life of the sultans Nur-al-Din and Salah al-Din, who are primarily known in modern times as the champions of the anti-Crusade movement. Hirschler shows that these two authors were active interpreters of their society and has considerable room for manoeuvre in both their social environment and the shaping of their texts. Through the use of a fresh and original theoretical approach to pre-modern Arabic historiography, Hirschler presents a new understanding of these texts which have before been relatively neglected, thus providing a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of historiographical studies. Reviews: (11) Journal of the American Oriental Society 130/4 (2010), Reuven Amitai; (10) MESA Review of Middle East Studies 44/1 (2010), Eric Hanne; (9) British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 37/2 (2010), Bruno De Nicola; (8) Orientalische Literaturzeitung 105/1 (2010), Axel Havemann; (7) Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 160/1 (2010), Albrecht Fuess; (6) The American Historical Review 114/3 (2009), Tarif Khalidi; (5) Bulletin of SOAS 72/2 (2009), Yehoshua Frenkel; (4) Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 20/2 (2008), Amira K. Bennison; (3) Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 82/3 (2007), Fred M. Donner; (2) The Muslim World Book Review 28/1 (2007), Fozia Bora; (1) Sehepunkte 7 (2007), Kurt Franz.
This chapter proceeds further from the main results that were presented in the first, analytical part of 'Caliphate and Kingship in a fifteenth century literary history of Muslim leadership and pilgrimage. A critical edition, annotated translation, and study of al-Maqrīzī's al-Ḏahab al-Masbūk fī Ḏikr man Ḥağğa min al-Ḫulafāʾ wa-l-Mulūk' (Bibliotheca Maqriziana Series — Opera Minor, vol. 4) (Leiden: Brill, 2016). It explores what insights may be gained from the addition of another level of macro-structural analysis. This level of analysis is captured under the notion of Khaldūnian narrative construction. Before pursuing such an analysis in the third and final part of the chapter, first the text itself and the main insights from Caliphate and Kingship are briefly presented, followed by a more detailed explanation of the relevance and definition of that Khaldūnian analytical perspective. This chapter argues that Khaldūnian narrative construction actually enabled al-Dhahab al-Masbūk to underscore the idea of the legitimate tenure of the sultanate by al-Muʾayyad Shaykh (r. 1412-1421) and even to suggest a bright future at the start of a new political era for this sultan and his entourage, if only they would draw lessons from the past, as reproduced in al-Dhahab al- Masbūk by its author Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī.
This paper attempts to cast light on a leading poet-playwright who signifies several Arabic cultures, proficiencies, and skills. The study aims at revealing to what extent the play Omar is a modern Arabic poetic play. Omar is a historical drama that deals with social problems. Omar presents a vision of Arabic drama in the modern age, but it is also a poetic play. For that, it is the task of the researcher to try to prove that Omar bears several grounds, such as poetic devices and connotative symbols, to be called a poetic drama. The investigator adopts the critical-descriptive method in analyzing the first scene of the introduction of the play, Omar. The paper is planned with an introductory overview dealing with a brief view of poetic drama and blank verse. The second part deals with Ali Ahmad Ba-Kathir as a pioneer poet-dramatist. The main part of the study deals with the epic play Omar with reference to the first scene of the introduction, shedding light on the skillfulness of the writer in manipulating poetic and musical devices. The task finishes with recommendations and a brief conclusion.
Annales Islamologiques, 2024
Introduction to the special journal issue 'Arabic Historiography in Late Medieval Egypt: Constructing Contexts, Texts and Meanings', eds. J. Van Steenbergen, M. Termonia. This journal issue brings together a selection of papers presented at this conference. They all question in different ways the complex contextual, textual, and semiotic layers which connect texts of history from late medieval Egypt to the social, cultural and above all political environments of their production, reception, and circulation. This relates to the central research question that MMS-II pursued: how were political order and historical truth jointly constructed in the late medieval Middle East, especially by 15th-century scholars historians and their Arabic texts of history? The history of 15th-century Egypt, at the time of the "Mamluk" Sultanate of Cairo, is traditionally considered a period of socioeconomic and political decline following 13th-and 14th-century successes. In recent research, however, this 15th-century history has been revalued as a highly creative era of cosmopolitan transformation, of local and regional empowerment, and of renewed state formation. In the MMS-II project "The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate-II: Historiography, Political Order and State Formation in Fifteenth-Century Egypt and Syria" this revaluation has been captured in the notion of "Mamlukisation". This neologism refers to MMS-II's central hypothesis that newly framed social memories of a glorious past of Muslim championship and mamlūk leadership were part and parcel of these processes of transformation, empowerment, and state formation, as were contemporary laments that things no longer are what they used to be. Studying the production