New Publication–The Quran: Keyword Collocations (Gorgias Press, 2021)

New Publication–The Quran: Keyword Collocations (Gorgias Press, 2021)

Gorgias Press recently published The Quran: Keyword Collocations by Elie Wardini. IQSA readers can find more information and purchase the book here.

collocationsPublisher’s Description: This bundle brings together the 16 volumes of Elie Wardini’s The Quran: Key Word Collocations. The aim of these volumes is to present the Quran as raw data with as little interpretation as possible. The digital text used for this purpose is the Uthmani text of the Tanzil Quran Text. In the present series, Collocation is defined as a Key Word, here adjectives, nouns, proper nouns and verbs, forming the center of a cluster with four co-occurring Key Words (1° and 2° of proximity), the first two to the left and to the right, where available. Every Collocation of each Key Word in the Quran is presented in context, as a rule with six words to the right and six to the left of it, where available or where the formatting permits. The central Key Words have been grouped by root > lemma. Classical dictionaries and Quran commentaries, as well as modern Quran dictionaries have been consulted.

Elie Wardini is professor of Arabic at Stockholm University, Sweden. His research has focused on Semitic languages, especially Aramaic-Arabic contact from a diachronic and sociolinguistic perspective.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2021. All rights reserved.

New Publication from Gorgias Press: ASH’ARISM ENCOUNTERS AVICENNISM: Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī on Creation

IIQSA is delighted to announce a new publication from its institutional partner, Gorgias Press titled Ash‘arism Encounters Avicennism: Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī on Creation by Laura Hassan. Readers can find details on the publication below and purchase a copy at this link!

GorgiasSeries: Islamic History and Thought 19
Publication Date: Jul 28,2020
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 329
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1-4632-0719-9

Summary: This study of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) teachings on creation offers close analysis of all of his extant works of falsafa and kalām. Some of these were not known to previous scholars, yet they bear witness to key facets of the interaction between the historically inimical traditions of Hellenic philosophy and rational theology at this important intellectual moment. Al-Āmidī is seen to grapple with the encounter of two paradigms for the discussion of creation. On the one hand, Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysical concept of necessity of existence is the basis of his doctrine of the world’s pre-eternal emanation. On the other, for the mutakallimūn, the physical theory of atomism bolsters the view that God created the world from nothing.

Though he begins with a posture of acceptance towards both the doctrines and methods of Ibn Sīnā, al-Āmidī gradually evolves to a position of hostility towards the entire philosophical tradition. Nevertheless, deep tensions are present in his thought; on the one hand, Ibn Sīnā’s notion of the sheer necessity of God’s existence is so compelling theologically that it becomes the mainstay of al-Āmidī’s understanding of the God-world relationship. Yet some of its more problematic implications are targets for al-Āmidī’s fierce opposition by the time of his mature works of kalām. Underlying all this is the often unstated, but all pervasive, influence of al-Āmidī’s highly successful peer, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210).

This study is of interest to scholars of Ibn Sīnā and Ash‘arism alike, as it advances our understanding of the ongoing tradition of rational theology in the Islamic world, long past Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) famous attack on the philosophers.

Praise for this Book:

“In a superb work of intellectual biography, Laura Hassan takes us on a fascinating journey through al-Āmidī’s unique and ever evolving appropriation of Avicennan ideas into an Ash‘ari theology of creation. This is an immensely important contribution to our understanding of how Ash‘ari theology in the 12th and 13th centuries navigated the treacherous path from its classical expression through the challenges posed by the philosophy of Ibn Sīnā.”
– Jon Hoover, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Nottingham

”Laura Hassan’s Ashʿarism Encounters Avicenna: Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī on Creation is the first extended study of the post-Avicennan philosopher and theologian Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī. The work truly fills a lacuna in the literature, and does so in a clear and philosophically engaging way. The issue of the world’s age, which is at the core of Hassan’s work, was unquestionably one of the most hotly debated topic in the medieval Islamic intellectual world. Hassan not only contextualizes that debate in order to explain al-Āmidī’s own evolving position and then complete turn-around, but also integrates discussions of possibility, necessity, atomism and even the nature of post-Avicennan physics into her narrative. This is a wonderful book, which I strongly recommend for anyone interested in Islamic philosophy and theology at the end of the classical period.”
– Jon McGinnis, Professor of Classical and Medieval Philosophy, University of Missouri, St Louis

laura_hassanAbout the Author: Laura Hassan is Faculty Associate of the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, where she teaches Islamic philosophy and theology. Her research to date has focused on post-classical developments in Ash’arī kalām in the aftermath of Ibn Sīnā’s groundbreaking philosophy. More broadly, she is interested in theological issues that arise where competing world-views meet, whether at the intersection of theology and philosophy, at the boundaries of religions, or where the supposedly distinct realms of science and religion come face-to-face, both in our times and historically. She has studied Arabic in Oxford, Fes and Alexandria, and received her PhD from SOAS, University of London.

[Content courtesy of Gorgias Press]

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2020. All rights reserved.

New Publication: “An Early Christian Reaction to Islam: Išū‘yahb III and the Muslim Arabs” (Gorgias Press, 2019)

Gorgias Press has recently published a new book, An Early Christian Reaction to Islam: Išū‘yahb III and the Muslim Arabs, by Iskandar Bcheiry.

GOrgiasOVERVIEW
 The year 652 marked a fundamental political change in the Middle East and the surrounding region. On this date the Sasanid Empire collapsed and the major part of the Byzantine dominion in the East was lost to the hands of Muslim Arabs. The conquests of the Arabs were followed by deep cultural, social and religious changes that affected the life of the populations in the seized territories. An important and contemporary source of the state of the Christian Church at this time is to be found in the correspondence of the patriarch of the Church of the East, Išū‘yahb III (649–659), which he wrote between 628 and 658. This books discusses Išū‘yahb’s view of and attitudes toward the Muslim Arabs. Although his view of the Muslim Arabs has been a subject of discussion by many scholars, there are still questions to be clarified about his attitudes towards the Muslim Arabs, especially with regard to the chronological development of his views, the issue of the dating of his letters and their chronological arrangement, as well as the identification of literary sources that he relied upon in portraying the Muslim Arabs.

Want to read more? Purchase the book at the Gorgias Press, or find it at a library near you!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2020. All rights reserved.

New Publication: The Making of the Mosque by Essam S. Ayyad (Gorgias Press, 2019)

Gorgias Press has recently published a new book, The Making of the Mosque: A Survey of Religious Imperative, by Essam Ayyad. The Making of the Mosque is available to IQSA blog readers at the special price of $87.50 (30% off, RRP $125) until September 30th with the coupon code MM30%. Please note, this discount  is only valid for orders placed through the Gorgias Press website and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers. If you have any queries, please email gemma@gorgiaspress.com.

About the book: In the absence of reliable archaeological evidence, the question of how the mosque was made represents a real challenge. Its origin remains moot despite many attempts to settle the question. While the structure built by the Prophet Muḥammad at Madina soon after the Hijra in 622 AD is believed by many to have later provided the prototype of the mosque, the dominant theory that it was only a private residence casts doubt on that belief. The current study provides fresh evidence based on the Qurʾān, ḥadīth and early poetry that this structure was indeed built to be a mosque.

ayadFor example, a key rationale for those who doubt the existence of a mosque in the Prophet’s time is the so-called “Qurʾān’s non-specific use of the term masjid.” The study presents a close survey of the usage of masjid (mosque) in the Qurʾān and concludes that the Qurʾānic use of the term to denote earlier God-worship sanctuaries does not mean that it, namely the term, had not been Islamized by early Islam; rather, it is the case that such sanctuaries were deemed Islamic. As such, the general use of ‘masjid’ to denote a variety of types of structure, or even specific devotional acts, does not necessarily exclude its denoting also an Islamic place of worship. ‘Masjid’ is used in the Qurʾān to mean place of worship generally and sometimes explicitly as an Islamic place of worship.

The study further investigates what conceiving the Prophet’s structure as a “private residence” or a “mosque” may have to say apropos a number of undecided issues such as the immediate origins of the mosque type and the kind of impulses and modalities that determined its design and character. In a broader sense, this study seeks to explore whether early Islam, within the framework of the Prophet’s teachings and practices, as well as the Qurʾān, might have provided the necessary prompts for the making of the mosque and the shaping of its essential functional and architectural features. It also investigates how such religious imperatives may have interacted with the political, cultural and socio-economic contexts in which the mosque type materialized.

In so doing, this book scrutinizes two dominant tendencies regarding the mosque type: the modern Western views on its non-Islamic origins and the Islamic legalistic views on what it should look like. This survey is positioned at the intersection between art, historiography, religious sciences and politics; it is not a typical monograph on architecture. As readers will see, it cuts across topics such as early Islam’s outlook on visual arts and aesthetics in general.

 

Dr Essam Ayyad received his PhD in the history of Islamic civilization from the University of Leeds, UK, in 2011. He is currently working as an assistant professor of Islamic history at Qatar University. Before joining Qatar, he was elected to Imam Tirmizi Visiting Research Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, a recognized independent centre of the University of Oxford. He joined Oxford as a visiting research fellow during Trinity Term 2016. Earlier in 2015, Dr Ayyad joined the Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge as a visiting scholar. His main interest is to explore the array of prompts and modalities that shaped the various aspects of Islamic civilization, with most of his studies centring on the early period.

 

Content reproduced with the kind permission of the Essam Ayyad and Gorgias Press

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 5 no. 6 (2019)

pageHeaderLogoImage_en_US

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 5, no.6), Stephen R. Burge (Institute of Ismaili Studies) reviews Harald Motzki’s Reconstruction of a Source of Ibn Isḥāq’s Life of the Prophet and Early Qurʾān Exegesis: A Study of Early Ibn ʿAbbās Traditions (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2017).

Motzaki

In his review, Burge writes “Harald Motzki, famous for his isnād-cum-matn method of analysing ḥadīth, provides a thorough examination of the way in which Ibn Isḥāq, the author of one of the more famous of the sīrahs (biographies) of Muḥammad, gathered his sources, particularly his use of one source named Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad, about whom little is known. In so doing, Motzki’s Reconstruction of a Source of Ibn Isḥāq’s Life of the Prophet and Early Qurʾān Exegesis takes the reader on a journey through a number of sources, along which the reader can learn much about how Ibn Isḥāq used his sources, about the final product subsequently produced by his student Ibn Hishām, and about this little-known transmitter Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad…”

Want to read more? For full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR), members can log in HERE. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

New Book Project from Gorgias Press: Library of Arabic and Islamic Heritage

LIAIH

Classical Islamic Texts Series

Call For Book Submissions

Gorgias Press and The King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) are delighted to announce the launch of an important new academic book project: the Library of Arabic and Islamic Heritage مكتبة التراث العربي والاسلامي. The project will make available to academics, independent scholars and research institutes a diverse range of classical Arabic texts that continue to play a central role in the rich and vast development of Islamic thought and culture.

The first series of publications to emerge from the Library of Arabic and Islamic Heritage will be ten Arabic-English translations housed in the new Classical Islamic Texts Series (CITS). The series will make available the single-volume translations of renowned classical Arabic works, showcasing texts that are of central importance to the fields of Qurʾānic studies, Islamic law, Ḥadīth, Theology, History, and Philosophy. Proposed texts can be important short treatises, a compilation of several thematically-related treatises or a key section from a larger compendium. Each proposal should be for a text that is or will be used as an important reference work.

Series Editorial Board

  • Michael Cook, Princeton University
  • Alba Fedeli, Universität Hamburg
  • Robert Gleave. University of Exeter
  • Linda Jones, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
  • Marcus Milwright, University of Victoria
  • Christian Robin, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
  • Saud al-Sarhan, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
  • Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Freie Universität Berlin  

Submit a Proposal

Interested specialists are invited to send their submissions via email to the series manager, Adam Walker (adam@gorgiaspress.com). The following information should be included:

  • Description of the book, including: (1) title and author, (2) broad description of the text, (3) the manuscript(s)/edition(s) that will form the basis of the translation, (4) why the book is important, and (5) a timetable for the translation’s completion
  • Updated CV
  • Sample of previous translation work

The series is interested in important single-volume classical works that would serve as essential reading and reference texts for specialists in the field. The Arabic text will sit side-by-side with the English translation and be typeset in the Amīrī Font, a classical Arabic typeface in the Naskh style. The English text will be typeset in Gorgias Press’ bespoke font, Gorgias Garamond.

Project Support

  • Substantial grant for each translator
  • Subvention grant to reduce retail price of books
  • Free professional copyediting

Statements from Gorgias Press & KFCRIS

Dr Saud al-Sarhan, Secretary General of KFCRIS, said:

“We are very proud to be able to launch the Library of Islamic and Arabic Heritage in partnership with Gorgias Press. I see a great deal of potential in this project, which I hope can further help us in serving our role of providing a platform for researchers and academics to gain valuable insight on Islamic thought and culture.”

“Our partnership with Gorgias Press will help us grant access to a wide range of classical Arabic texts to academics and researchers across the world, further enriching scholarly discussions on the role of the classical Islamic world.”

Dr George Kiraz, Editor-in-Chief of Gorgias Press, said:

‘‘It gives us great pleasure to launch the Library of Islamic and Arabic Heritage in partnership with the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. This is an exciting project and will help us to further our commitment to the field of Islamic studies and realise our core motto of ‘Publishing for the Sake of Knowledge’.

‘‘With the expertise and support of KFCRIS, these books will not only showcase a phenomenal range of texts, but also make them easily accessible to students and lecturers alike. I am certain that these books, once published, will enrich the field of Islamic studies. Now the hard work begins!’’

Text and image accessed and reproduced with kind permission of Gorgias Press: https://www.gorgiaspress.com/library-of-arabic-and-islamic-heritage

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

Reconstruction of a Source of Ibn Isḥāq’s Life of the Prophet and Early Qur’ān Exegesis: A Study of Early Ibn ‘Abbās Traditions

This important work is a source-critical study of a group of traditions (aḥādīth) found in Ibn Isḥāq’s Biography (Sīra) of the prophet Muḥammad, widely considered one of the most important early historical texts on the Prophet’s life. Through a meticulous isnād-cum-matn analysis, the author reveals that Ibn Isḥāq relied on Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad, a hitherto undocumented source of his. Important new light is also shed on problems with Ibn Hishām’s recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra.*

recon

Author: Harold Motzki (retired), is one of the world’s foremost specialists in the field of early and medieval Islamic history and law, on which he has authored multiple groundbreaking books and articles. Together with Professor Gregor Schoeler, Motzki is credited with establishing the isnād-cum-matn methodology, which seeks to reconstruct and date historical texts from the early Islamic period.

Series: Islamic History and Thought 3
ISBN: 978-1-4632-0659-8
Publication Date: May, 2017

*Content courtesy of Gorgias Press

 

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2018. All rights reserved.