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The book presents a first attempt to investigate the criticism of the Gospels, hardly considered within the previous research work of the Islamic scholar Ibn ḥazm (d. 1064) referring to its methodological and socio-cultural background.After analysing the hardly accounted, however for the understanding of Ibn ḥazm's thought essential commentary about Aristoteles'logic, the raised reproaches by Ibn ḥazm against the Christians are discussed. The topics include falsification of the Gospels, the irrationality of their contents and of the whole Christian religion.In conclusion the question of the main purpose of its anti-Christian polemic arises in the light of the background of the special socio-political situation in Arabic Andalusia.It's a book written in a general way of understanding offering an interesting and new insight into the history of Islamic/Christian polemics.

The end of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad during the Mongol wars of the 13th century was one of the decisive events of Islamic history. Das Aleppiner Kalifat (A.D. 1261) deals with the fate of the institution from the Mongol sack of Baghdad through the short-lived Aleppine caliphate to its restoration, in Mamluk Cairo.The often parallel developments and motivations of the historical figures are analyzed step-by-step. The author explores the relations between the events, revealing the contingent character of the restoration. The key for the new interpretation is the Aleppine caliphate. Emphasis is given to the changing patterns of legitimization and of representation of political power.An extensive political chronography and a detailed numismatic corpus for all major towns in the regions (Egypt, Syria, Northern Mesopotamia, Iraq) and period concerned (1257-1262) serve as reference.

Dealing with dervish headcoverings (tac) in the Ottoman Empire and interpreting them in a broad sense this book is based on a late 18th century treatise of the Naqshbandi scholar Müstaqim-zade Süleyman Sadeddin (d. 1788) from Istanbul.The introduction interprets the meaning of headcoverings in both the Ottoman society as well as in a dervish's private world and it discusses the terminology used in the dervish literature.The second chapter is the critical transliteration of Müstaqim-zade's treatise. Müstaqim-zade does not only tell the history and meaning of headcoverings in Islam but also examines precisely the differences of the headcoverings in different tariqats.Nine different indices conclude the book. Some of these are commented. The index on dressing terminology is especially important and serves as a reference. The book is illustrated with partly non-published hand drawings from Ottoman manuscripts as well as prints and photographs

Verbranntes Ufer zeichnet erstmals das Bild der Entwicklung der syro-palästinensischen Hafenstädte nach der Vertreibung der letzten Kreuzfahrer mit Hilfe lokaler Chroniken wie den Werken von Sāliḥ Ibn Yaḥyā und Ibn Sibāṭ. Die Mamluken zerstörten die Küstenstädte, um den Kreuzfahrern keinen potentiellen Brückenkopf für eine erneute Landung zu geben. Auf die Politik des verbrannten Ufers griffen die Mamluken zurück, weil sie keine planvolle Seepolitik betrieben. Daher besaßen sie keine Flotte, mit der sie die Küste schon auf dem Meer hätten verteidigen können. Nach einer einführenden Diskussion der Gründe, warum die Mamluken keine Flotte aufbauten, folgt im Haupteil die Beschreibung der Geschichte der syro-palästinensischen Küste. Abgeschlossen wird das Werk durch eine analytische Darstellung der Sozialgeschichte der Küste, dem administrativen Aufbau der lokalen Verwaltung und dem Handel zwischen Europa und der Levante, wozu auch Dokumente aus dem Archivio di Stato von Venedig herangezogen wurden.Verbranntes Ufer is the first complete presentation of the history of the Syro-Palestinian coast after the expulsion of the last crusaders as it appears in the local chronicles of Sāliḥ Ibn Yaḥyā und Ibn Sibāṭ. The Mamluks destroyed the coastal towns in order to leave no bridge head for a potential return of the crusaders. They maintained a policy of burned shore because they had no systematic sea policy. Therefore they did not develop a fleet to defend the coast. After discussing the reasons, why the Mamluks never constructed a fleet the main part of the work deals with the political history of the Syro-Palestinian coast. The work ends with an analytic description of the social history of the coast, the structure of the local administration and the trade between Europe and the Mamluk Empire, which is based on documents of the Archivio di Stato in Venice.

This insightful volume treats the world of the learned classes in the region of Awadh, in Muslim North India, with its famous capital Lucknow, from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. It focusses on those circles which carried, promoted, and reflected acculturation and interference in traditional as well as colonial settings. Part I examines the qasbahs where the seeds are laid for the efflorescence of scholarship, connecting South Asia with the Middle East and Europe. Part II deals with the accommodation of Islamic religious culture in the newly-established territorial states in the 18th century. The last section studies the Learned Council of Islamic Scholars (Nadwat al-‘Ulamā') in Lucknow, its historical growth and internal set-up as well as its interaction with colonialists and traditionalists. The study is based on rich biographical and chronological accounts, narrative material, archival data, curricula and European reports.

The Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte / Word Atlas of Arabic Dialects (WAD) intends to provide an unprecedented survey of the lexical richness and diversity of the Arabic dialects as spoken from Uzbekistan to Mauretania and Nigeria, from Malta to Sudan, and including the Ki-Nubi Creole as spoken in Uganda and Kenya. The multilingual word atlas consists of four volumes in total with some 500 onomasiological maps in full colour. Each map presents a topic or notion and its equivalents in Arabic as collected from the dialectological literature (dictionaries, grammars, text collections, ethnographic reports, etc.), from the editors'own field work, from questionnaires filled out by native speakers or by experts for a certain dialect region, and also from the internet. Polyglot legends in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian accompany the maps to facilitate further access. Each map is followed by a commentary in German, providing more details about the sources and the individual forms, and discussing semantic and etymological issues. All quotations are in their original language. The maps mainly show lexical types, detailed and concrete forms are given in the commentaries. An introduction is provided in Volume 1 in both German and English. Indices of all lexemes in the atlas will be available for each volume. The first volume Band I: Mensch, Natur, Fauna und Flora / Volume 1: Mankind, Nature, Fauna and Flora contains subjects such as ‘family members', ‘professions', ‘human qualities'. The second volume, Band II: Materielle Kultur, deals with material culture (‘house', ‘utensils', ‘food', ‘clothing', ‘vehicles', etc.). The third volume Band III: Verben, Adjektive, Zeit und Zahlen focuses on verbs, and adjectives. The forth volume Band IV: Funktionswörter und Phraseologisches contains functionwords and some phraseological items. The atlas is indispensable for everyone interested in the modern spoken Arabic language, as well as for dialectologists and for semanticists.

The Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte / Word Atlas of Arabic Dialects (WAD) intends to provide an unprecedented survey of the lexical richness and diversity of the Arabic dialects as spoken from Uzbekistan to Mauretania and Nigeria, from Malta to Sudan, and including the Ki-Nubi Creole as spoken in Uganda and Kenya. The multilingual word atlas consists of four volumes in total with some 500 onomasiological maps in full colour. Each map presents a topic or notion and its equivalents in Arabic as collected from the dialectological literature (dictionaries, grammars, text collections, ethnographic reports, etc.), from the editors'own field work, from questionnaires filled out by native speakers or by experts for a certain dialect region, and also from the internet. Polyglot legends in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian accompany the maps to facilitate further access. Each map is followed by a commentary in German, providing more details about the sources and the individual forms, and discussing semantic and etymological issues. All quotations are in their original language. The maps mainly show lexical types, detailed and concrete forms are given in the commentaries. An introduction is provided in Volume 1 in both German and English. Indices of all lexemes in the atlas will be available for each volume. The first volume Band I: Mensch, Natur, Fauna und Flora / Volume 1: Mankind, Nature, Fauna and Flora contains subjects such as ‘family members', ‘professions', ‘human qualities'. The second volume, Band II: Materielle Kultur, deals with material culture (‘house', ‘utensils', ‘food', ‘clothing', ‘vehicles', etc.). The third volume Band III: Verben, Adjektive, Zeit und Zahlen focuses on verbs, and adjectives. The forth volume Band IV: Funktionswörter und Phraseologisches contains functionwords and some phraseological items. The atlas is indispensable for everyone interested in the modern spoken Arabic language, as well as for dialectologists and for semanticists.

The importance of Zaydī sources for historical research on Muʿtazilī theology is generally acknowledged since the spectacular discoveries of unique manuscripts in Yemen in the 1950s. Yet the knowledge transfer and adoption of Muʿtazilī thought by the Yemeni Zaydiyya still remain an understudied field. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188) was one of the main promoters of Muʿtazilism in 6th/12th century Yemen. His works mainly focus on natural philosophy and include a systematic treatise on causality which is comprehensively examined and critically edited in this volume. The present study gives insight into a fascinating chapter of Islamic intellectual history and offers the first analysis of a Muʿtazilī theory of causality.Die Bedeutung zayditischer Quellen für die Erforschung muʿtazilitischer Theologie ist spätestens seit der spektakulären Wiederentdeckung einzigartiger Handschriften im Jemen der 1950er Jahre allgemein anerkannt. Dennoch sind der Wissenstransfer und die Adaption muʿtazilitischen Denkens durch die jemenitische Zaydiyya bislang kaum erforscht. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (st. 1188) war einer der wichtigsten Protagonisten dieses Prozesses im Jemen des 6./12. Jahrhunderts. Unter seinen zahlreichen Schriften zu naturphilosophischen Fragen findet sich auch ein systematisches Traktat zur Kausalität, welches im vorliegenden Buch umfassend untersucht und kritisch ediert wird. Die Studie gewährt Einblick in ein faszinierendes Kapitel islamischer Geistesgeschichte und analysiert erstmals eine muʿtazilitische Systematik zur Kausalität.

The Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte / Word Atlas of Arabic Dialects (WAD) intends to provide an unprecedented survey of the lexical richness and diversity of the Arabic dialects as spoken from Uzbekistan to Mauretania and Nigeria, from Malta to Sudan, and including the Ki-Nubi Creole as spoken in Uganda and Kenya. The multilingual word atlas consists of four volumes in total with some 500 onomasiological maps in full colour. Each map presents a topic or notion and its equivalents in Arabic as collected from the dialectological literature (dictionaries, grammars, text collections, ethnographic reports, etc.), from the editors'own field work, from questionnaires filled out by native speakers or by experts for a certain dialect region, and also from the internet. Polyglot legends in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian accompany the maps to facilitate further access. Each map is followed by a commentary in German, providing more details about the sources and the individual forms, and discussing semantic and etymological issues. All quotations are in their original language. The maps mainly show lexical types, detailed and concrete forms are given in the commentaries. An introduction is provided in Volume 1 in both German and English. Indices of all lexemes in the atlas will be available for each volume. The first volume Band I: Mensch, Natur, Fauna und Flora / Volume 1: Mankind, Nature, Fauna and Flora contains subjects such as ‘family members', ‘professions', ‘human qualities'. The second volume, Band II: Materielle Kultur, deals with material culture (‘house', ‘utensils', ‘food', ‘clothing', ‘vehicles', etc.). The third volume Band III: Verben, Adjektive, Zeit und Zahlen focuses on verbs, and adjectives. The forth volume Band IV: Funktionswörter und Phraseologisches contains functionwords and some phraseological items. The atlas is indispensable for everyone interested in the modern spoken Arabic language, as well as for dialectologists and for semanticists.

The conquest of Damascus is one of the main events of the Islamic conquests in bilād al-Shām. Consequently, it appears with approximately 1000 narratives in the Islamic literature. This book shows the dependencies of these narratives. It therefore exemplifies the historiography from 700-1300 CE using one single event. Using the method of isnād-cum-matn-analysis the oldest forms of Islamic historiography are reconstructed. Among them are not only the version by Ibn Ishāq, but also the narratives in the futūh-work ascribed to al-Waqidī and in al-Azdī's Futūh al-Sham. Finally, the course of the events is described on the basis of the oldest reconstructed versions. Die Eroberung von Damaskus gehört zu den bedeutendsten Ereignissen der futūh im historischen Syrien. Folglich ist sie mit circa 1000 Einzelüberlieferungen ein häufig vorkommendes Element in der islamischen Literatur. Die Zusammenhänge und Abhängigkeiten der Überlieferungen zu analysieren, ist das Hauptanliegen dieser Studie. So können Aussagen über die Historiography von 700-1300 n. Chr. an Hand eines historischen Beispiels getroffen werden. Mit Hilfe der isnād-cum-matn-Analyse gelingt es zudem die frühesten Formen muslimischer Geschichtsschreibung zu rekonstruieren. Zu diesen gehören neben der Version Ibn Ishāqs auch die Erzählungen, die sich in dem Futūḥ-Werk, das al-Waqidī zugeschrieben wird, und dem Futūḥ al-Šhām al-Azdīs finden. Auf Grundlage dieser ältesten rekonstruierten Fassungen zeichnet diese Untersuchung abschließend die Eroberung von Damaskus nach.

Following al-Fārābī's approach, Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) undertakes a new foundation of the First Philosophy based on his own critical systematisation of the Aristotelian theory of science, yielding the result that metaphysics is only possible as a transcendental science, i.e. that not only the subject-matter of metaphysics and its properties but also the arguments by which the first principles of knowledge are defended must be transcendental. This book provides the first systematic reconstruction of Ibn Sīnā's concept of metaphysics, and, given the considerable influence his achievement had on the Islamic tradition as well as on scholastic philosophers, it is relevant to the study of the history of metaphysics, Islamic theology (kalām), and Arabic philosophy.

This volume deals with the determination of the times of Muslim prayer and the direction towards the Kaaba in Mecca (Arabic qibla) in a little known astronomical tradition of the Islamic Middle Ages. It presents an edition, translation, and explanation of selected chapters from three of the most important folk astronomical treatises, written by al-Aṣbaḥī (Yemen, 13th c.), Ibn Raḥīq (Hejaz, 11th c.), and al-Fārisī (Yemen, 13th c.).The first part introduces the authors and their works and describes the relevant religious and astronomical background. The second part comprises the edition of the selected – and now for the first time published – chapters of the three works and a German translation. The third part contains a lexicographical survey with basic astronomical, religious, and related information, and a commentary on each chapter. The fourth part gives an overview of the topics dicussed.

This book examines the modern Arab rediscovery of the Muʿtazila through a critical assessment of the concept of'Neo-Muʿtazilism'and by concentrating on the various intentions and contexts of the use of Muʿtazilite ideas.The main part of the book analyzes five ways of understanding Mu'tazilite ideas — liberal, historic-materialist, political-Islamic, literary-exegetical and through comparison with the philosophie des valeurs — as well as one way of dealing with the school historically: the treatment of the miḥna.The book discusses a wide range of authors of whom many, such as Aḥmad Amīn, Ḥusain Murūwa, Ḥasan Ḥanafī, Muḥammad ʿAmāra, Naṣr Abū Zaid und Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Ğābirī, have had an important impact on modern Arab-Islamic thought. By also presenting authors such as Zuhdī Ğārallāh, Chikh Bouamrane, Rašīd al-Ḫayyūn, Amīn Nāyif Ḏiyāb, Samīḥ Duġaim, ʿĀdil al-ʿAwwā und Fahmī Ğadʿān, additional light is shed on a number of lesser known figures.

This volume deals with the philosopher Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʽĀmirī (died 992) and his reception of Neoplatonism, focusing on his Kitāb al-Fuṣūl fī l-maʽālim al-ilāhīya, the Chapters on Metaphysical Topics (Arabic text with German translation).The Chapters on Metaphysical Topics paraphrase sections of the Elements of Theology by the Neoplatonist Proclus (died 485) and are therefore part of the Arabic Procliana.The commentary analyses al-ʽĀmirī's combination of Greek philosophy with Islamic theology, especially the harmonization of philosophical and Qur'anic terminology (universal Intellect is the Pen, universal Soul the Tablet) and man's position between the two worlds. On the basis of a textual comparison between al-ʽĀmirī's work, the Greek text of Proclus and the Arabic writings of the Liber de Causis-tradition, the book argues for the existence of a “Ur-Liber de causis”.

The book studies late 18th to mid-19th century Iranian architecture in mosques and madrasas, entering a widely unknown architectural period.The introduction places the buildings as religious and political architecture in the context of the early Qājār monarchy and the rising urban elites. The main part analyses architectural development within a formal typology. Stylistic characteristics are defined, and formal groups are interpreted with regard to patron circles. The remarkable combination of tradition and innovation is discussed as a phenomenon of 18th/19th-century Iran and with a view to general trends of the period. The thorough catalogue including buildings visited by the author and supplementary material, provides the reader with descriptions, inscription readings, historical data and textual sources, and is illustrated with photographs and plans on 200 plates (16 in colour).

From its beginning in the 8th century Islamic dialectical theology (kalām) was increasingly influenced by Peripatetical Logic. The ‘orthodox'solutions of the main problems of Muslim theology are the result of centuries of dispute between scholars arguing on the basis of grammatical and logical arguments. This volume offers a new approach in the problems of Islamic hermeneutics and the understanding of Quraʾnic exegesis, Muslim theology and the appropriation of Peripatetical logic in the Arabic world.Subjects included are the problems of name (ism) and qualification (waṣf), condition (šarṭ) and consequence (ğazāʾ), the whole (kull) and the part (baʿḍ), the general (ʿāmm) and the special (ḫāṣṣ), expression (lafẓ) and matter (mādda), signification by expression (dalīl al-lafẓ) and signification by inference (dalīl al-ʿaql).

This study of the Sicilian Questions of the philosopher and mystic Ibn Sabٴ īn of Murcia (ca. 1217-1270) reads the text, allegedly composed as an answer to questions sent by Frederick II as a reflection of intellectual life in the late Almohad Arab West.The first part of the book is dedicated to the author, his political and intellectual context and his impact. The second part analyses the structure and method of the text and relates it to Islamic and Jewish philosophical and mystical traditions in the Arab West. Furthermore, its literary category, context of composition and readership are discussed. The third part deals with the sources of the Sicilian Questions and their position in the Arab West.The appendix consists of a German translation of the Sicilian Questions including detailed philological and philosophical notes as well as a revised edition of the Arabic text.

This volume is the first comprehensive and systematic description of the dialect geography of the Arabic language which investigates the methods and insights developed in the European context and how these can be applied to the domain of Arabic. It also deals briefly with the problems of the historical development of the modern Arabic dialects. With the help of 112 maps it examines topics such as types of maps, interpretation of maps, areal norms and their significance for Arabic and defining dialect borders. For the first time dialectometrical procedures are applied to Arabic dialects. It can be used as a practical introduction into Arabic dialect geography because in addition it discusses extensively methods of designing dialect geography maps a investigational techniques in the field.

This book is an introduction to the literature and thought of the founders of the Shaykhiyya and the Bābiyyah, two important religious movements in nineteenth-century Iran. The first part is an overview of the thought of Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī and Kāẓim ar-Rashtī, the progenitors of the Shaykhiyya, with a focus on their religious and philosophical teachings. The second part is an analysis of the early writings of ʿAlī-Muḥammad Shīrāzī (the Bāb), the initiator of the Bābiyyah. It contains a survey of major concepts found in his works and addresses issues that have generated debate in the past, particularly the exact nature of his religious claim and its reception by his contemporaries. Finally, the book contains an edition of the Bāb's Treatise on Specific Prophethood. This is the first scholarly edition of a work by the Bāb to be published in the original language.

The Romance of Mahsatī and Amīr Aḥmad - written in a mixture of prose and quatrains - deals with the adventures of the legendary Persian poetess and her lover, the son of the ḫatīb of Ganğa. The present volume completes Fritz Meier's former study on the Diwan of Mahsatī. An appendix contains the quatrains of the oldest dated manuscript of the romance, which at the time was not available to Meier. This contribution to Persian literary history includes valuable folklore material allowing new insight into medieval Iranian material culture and evaluates a first-rate source of Iranian social history. This publication renders accessible a further study by Fritz Meier, outstanding specialist in Persian Literature. Benedikt Reinert's additional contribution offers his latest research on the genesis of the Persian quatrain.

This book fills the gap in the research of Leo Strauss (1899 - 1973) showing the influence of Alfarabi (870 - 950), Avicenna (980 - 1037) and Averroes (1126 - 1198) on his thought. The first part is historically-philologically oriented and contains neglected material where it presents a new approach to Leo Strauss's work. The second part discusses Strauss's reaction towards the crisis of modernity, stimulated by Islamic philosophy, as well as his nomic understanding of religion as the essential features of his political philosophy. Since Alfarabi is the Muslim Philosopher who had the greatest influence on Strauss's thought, his philosophy will also be analysed. This book offers the opportunity to discover an interesting aspect of the encounter of cultures, and contribute to a modern reception of Islamic philosophy.

The judgement of apostasy on the last page of al-Ghazālī's Incoherence of the philosophers has long been considered as one of the key reasons for the decline of peripatetic philosophy in Islam. This study is an inquiry into the different elements of Islamic thought which led to al-Ghazālī's conviction that three important conclusions of peripatetic philosophy must be considered as heresy.In its four parts, the volume describes the early usage of the judgement on apostates in Islam and the legal and theological developments, which led to its application against the secret apostates. It examines, how during the last decade of the 5th/11th century, the judgement could be turned against the philosophers. Finally the study determines the early effects of al-Ghazālī's judgement on the peripatetic philosophy both in the Mashriq and in al-Andalus.