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Concepts such as influence, imitation, emulation, transmission or plagiarism are transcendental to cultural history and the subject of universal debate. They are not mere labels imposed by modern historiography on ancient texts, nor are they the result of a later interpretation of ways of transmitting and teaching, but are concepts defined and discussed internally, within all cultures, since time immemorial, which have yielded very diverse results. In the case of culture, or better Arab-Islamic cultures, we could analyze and discuss endlessly numerous terms that refer to concepts related to the multiple ways of perceiving the Other, receiving his knowledge and producing new knowledge. The purpose of this book evolves around these concepts, and it aims to become part of a very long tradition of studies on this subject that is essential to the understanding of the processes of reception and creation. The authors analyze them in depth through the use of examples that are based on the well-known idea that societies in different regions did not remain isolated and indifferent to the literary, religious or scientific creations that were developed in other territories and moreover that the flow of ideas did not always occur in only one direction. Contacts, both voluntary and involuntary, are never incidental or marginal, but are rather the true engine of the evolution of knowledge and creation. It can also be stated that it has been the awareness of the existence of multidimensional cultural relations which has allowed modern historiography on Arab cultures to evolve and be enriched in recent decades.

The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Abu l-¿Ala al-Mäarri (d.1057) and one of his best known works - Luzum ma la yalzam (The Self-Imposed Unnecessity), a collection of poems, which, although widely studied, needs a thorough re-evaluation regarding matters of (un)belief. Given the contradictory nature of al-Mäarri's oeuvre and Luzum in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Mäarri's religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented al-Mäarri as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taqiya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented al-Mäarri as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luzum, specifically in matters of belief. This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Mäarri lived in and he intentionally left it unsolved and intense as a robust stance against claims of certainty. Going beyond reductive interpretations, the notion of ambivalence allows for an integrative paradigm in dealing with contradictions and dissonance.

Dieses Buch belegt anhand neuer Forschungen die praktische Bedeutung islamischen Rechtsdenkens in der Geschichte. Es behandelt unterschiedliche Rechtsordnungen, juristische Strömungen und Urkunden sowie Rechtsfelder in ihrer gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung. Dabei widerlegt es das Bild der unwandelbaren Scharia. Als Referenzwerk legt es die Grundlage für ein neuartiges Verständnis von Recht in islamischer Geschichte und zeitgenössischer Rezeption.

Die Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients erscheinen als Supplement der Zeitschrift Der Islam, gegrundet 1910 von Carl Heinrich Becker, einem der Vater der modernen Islamwissenschaft. Ganz im Sinne Beckers ist das Ziel der Studien die Erforschung der vergangenen Gesellschaften des Vorderen Orients, ihrer Glaubenssysteme und der zugrundeliegenden sozialen und okonomischen Verhaltnisse, von der Iberischen Halbinsel bis nach Zentralasien, von den ukrainischen Steppen zum Hochland des Jemen. Uber die grundlegende philologische Arbeit an der literarischen Uberlieferung hinaus nutzen die Studien die archivalischen, sowie materiellen und archaologischen Uberlieferungen als Quelle fur die gesamte Bandbreite der historisch arbeitenden Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften.

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (University ofHamburg, Germany, Editor-in-Chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan, USA), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware, USA).

The earliest development of Arabic historical writing remains shrouded in uncertainty until the 9th century CE, when our first extant texts were composed. This book demonstrates a new method, termed riwaya-cum-matn, which allows us to identify citation-markers that securely indicate the quotation of earlier Arabic historical works, proto-books first circulated in the eighth century. As a case study it reconstructs, with an edition and translation, around half of an annalistic history written by al-Layth b. SaE d in the 740s. In doing so it shows that annalistic history-writing, comparable to contemporary Syriac or Greek models, was a part of the first development of Arabic historiography in the Marwanid period, providing a chronological framework for more ambitious later Abbasid history-writing. Reconstructing the original production-contexts and larger narrative frames of now-atomised quotations not only lets us judge their likely accuracy, but to consider the political and social relations underpinning the first production of authoritative historical knowledge in Islam. It also enables us to assess how Abbasid compilers combined and augmented the base texts from which they constructed their histories.

In the Islamic period, the term "Khorasan" came to be used for a much larger area, reaching into Central Asia well beyond the Oxus river, encompassing large parts of northern Afghanistan, and even extending to southeastern Iran. This volume brings together research on the history, geography, archaeology, and the material culture of this region.

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (University of Hamburg, Germany, Editor-in-Chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan, USA), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware, USA), Kristina L. Richardson (Queens College New York, USA).

This work treats in one volume the most important fields in Islamic studies: Persian literature and philology; Islamic history and historiography; The essays are representative of the fields in which one of the most illustrious Arabists and Persianists in the world, Ahmad Mahdavi Damgani, has been an indispensible contributor for close to 65 years.

The corpus coranicum eludes familiar categories and resists strict labels. No doubt the threads woven into the fabric are exceptionally textured, varied, and complex. Accordingly, the introductory chapter of this book demonstrates the application of form criticism to the text. Chapter two then presents a form-critical study of the prayer genre. It identifies three productive formulae and addresses distinct social settings and forms associated with them. The third chapter begins by defining the liturgy genre vis-a-vis prayer in the QurE an. Drawing a line between the hymn and litany forms, this chapter treats each in turn. Chapter four considers the genre classified as wisdom literature. It identifies sapiential formulae and sheds light on wisdom contexts. The fifth chapter examines the narrative genre writ large. It also surveys narrative blocks of the long saga. The subsequent chapter on the proclamation genre inspects a set of vocative formulae, which occurs in the messenger situation. The concluding chapter looks at the corpus through synchronic and diachronic lenses. In the end, QurE anic genres encapsulate the form-critical elements of formulae, forms, and settings, as well as an historical dimension.

This book deals with a prominent literary element of the Koran, the "counter-discourse", the citations of opposing voices. This feature of the Koranic text has been neglected in earlier scholarship although it is connected to the larger question of the religious milieu in which the Koran emerged. Accordingly, the topic is of considerable importance to our understanding of Islamic origins.