Esad Duraković - The Poetics of Ancient and Classical Arabic Literature: Orientology

The Poetics of Ancient and Classical Arabic Literature

Through analysing ancient and classical Arabic literature, including the Quran, from within the Arabic literary tradition, this book provides an original interpretation of poetics, and of other important aspects of Arab culture.

Arabic literature is a realm of poetry; prose literary forms emerged rather late, and even then remained in the shadow of poetic creative efforts. Traditionally, this literature has been viewed through a philologists lens and has often been represented as materialistic in the sense that its poetry lacked imagination. As a result, Arabic poetry was often evaluated negatively in relation to other poetic traditions. The Poetics of Ancient and Classical Arabic Literature argues that old Arabic literature is remarkably coherent in poetical terms and has its own individuality, and that claims of its materialism arise from a failure to grasp the poetic principles of the Arabic tradition. Analysing the Quran, which is known for confronting the poetry of the time, this book reveals that post Quranic literature came to be defined against it. Thus, the constitution and interpretation of Arabic literature imposed itself as a particular exegesis of the sacred Text.

Disputing traditional interpretations by arguing that Arabic literature can only be assessed from within, and not through comparison with other literary traditions, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Islamic Studies, Arabic Studies and Literary Studies.

Esad Durakovi holds a PhD in the field of Arabic literature from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade and is Professor of Arabic Languages and Arabic Literature at the University of Sarajevo. His research interests focus on literary interpretation from Arabic.

Culture and Civilization in the Middle East

General Editor: Ian Richard Netton

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

This series studies the Middle East through the twin foci of its diverse cultures and civilisations. Comprising original monographs as well as scholarly surveys, it covers topics in the fields of Middle Eastern literature, archaeology, law, history, philosophy, science, folklore, art, architecture and language. While there is a plurality of views, the series presents serious scholarship in a lucid and stimulating fashion.

Previously published by Curzon

The Origins of Islamic Law

The Quran, the Muwatta and Madinan Amal

Yasin Dutton

A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo

The History of Cambridge Universitys Genizah Collection

Stefan Reif

The Formative Period of Twelver Shiism

Hadith as Discourse Between Qum and Baghdad

Andrew J. Newman

Quran Translation

Discourse, Texture and Exegesis

Hussein Abdul-Raof

Christians in Al-Andalus 7111000

Ann Rosemary Christys

Folklore and Folklife in the United Arab Emirates

Sayyid Hamid Hurriez

The Formation of Hanbalism

Piety into Power

Nimrod Hurvitz

Arabic Literature

An Overview

Pierre Cachia

Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Lyric Poetry

Orient Pearls

Julie Scott Meisami

Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily

Arabic-Speakers and the End of Islam

Alexander Metcalfe

Modern Arab Historiography

Historical Discourse and the Nation-State

Youssef Choueiri

The Philosophical Poetics of Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes

The Aristotelian Reception

Salim Kemal

Published by Routledge

1 The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun

Zaid Ahmad

2 The Hanbali School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah

Conflict or concilation

Abdul Hakim I Al-Matroudi

3 Arabic Rhetoric

A pragmatic analysis

Hussein Abdul-Raof

4 Arab Representations of the Occident

East-west encounters in Arabic fiction

Rasheed El-Enany

5 God and Humans in Islamic Thought

Abd al-Jabbr, Ibn Sn and al-Ghazl

Maha Elkaisy-Friemuth

6 Original Islam

Malik and the madhhab of Madina

Yasin Dutton

7 Al-Ghazali and the Quran

One book, many meanings

Martin Whittingham

8 Birth of The Prophet Muhammad

Devotional piety in Sunni Islam

Marion Holmes Katz

9 Space and Muslim Urban Life

At the limits of the labyrinth of Fez

Simon OMeara

10 Islam and Science

The intellectual career of Nizam al-Din al-Nizaburi

Robert G. Morrison

11 Ibn Arab Time and Cosmology

Mohamed Haj Yousef

12 The Status of Women in Islamic Law and Society

Annotated translation of al-Thir al-Haddds Imratuna fi l-sharca wa l-mujtamac, with an introduction

Ronak Husni and Daniel L. Newman

13 Islam and the Bahai Faith

A comparative study of Muhammad Abduh and Abdul-Baha Abbas

Oliver Scharbrodt

14 Comte de Gobineau and Orientalism

Selected Eastern writings

Translated by Daniel ODonoghue

Edited by Geoffrey Nas

15 Early Islamic Spain

The history of Ibn al-Q.tya

David James

16 German Orientalism

The study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945

Ursula Wokoeck

17 Mull Sadr and Metaphysics

Modulation of being

Sajjad H. Rizvi

18 Schools of Quranic Exegesis

Genesis and development

Hussein Abdul-Raof

19 Al-Ghazali, Averroes and the Interpretation of the Quran

Common sense and philosophy in Islam

Avital Wohlman, translated by

David Burrell

20 Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East

Edited by Anthony OMahony and Emma Loosley

21 Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism

Expanding the crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (1880s1930s)

Amal N. Ghazal

22 Islamic Ethics

Divine command theory in Arabo-Islamic thought

Mariam al-Attar

23 Muslim Fortresses in the Levant

Between crusaders and Mongols

Kate Raphael

24 Being Human in Islam

The impact of the evolutionary worldview

Damian Howard

25 The UAE and Foreign Policy

Foreign aid, identities and interests

Khalid S. Almezaini

26 A History of Early al-Andalus

The Akhbar Majmua

David James

27 Inspired Knowledge in Islamic Thought

Al-Ghazalis theory of mystical cognition and its Avicennian foundation

Alexander Treiger

28 Shii Theology in Iran

The challenge of religious experience

Ori Goldberg

29 Founding Figures and Commentators in Arabic Mathematics

A History of Arabic sciences and mathematics, volume 1

Roshdi Rashed, edited by Nader El-Bizri, translated by Roger Wareham, with Chris Allen and Michael Barany

30 The Muslim Conquest of Iberia

Medieval Arabic narratives

Nicola Clarke

31 Angels in Islam

Jalal al-Din al-Suyutis

al-Habaik fi akhbar al-malaik Stephen Burge

32 Theological Approaches to Quranic Exegesis

A practical comparative-contrastive analysis