The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters

Muhsin J. Al-Musawi

Description

In The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Muhsin J. al-Musawi offers a groundbreaking study of literary heritage in the medieval and premodern Islamic period. Al-Musawi challenges the paradigm that considers the period from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 as an "Age of Decay" followed by an "Awakening" (al-nahdah). His sweeping synthesis debunks this view by carefully documenting a "republic of letters" in the Islamic Near East and South Asia that was vibrant and dynamic, one varying considerably from the generally accepted image of a centuries-long period of intellectual and literary stagnation.

Al-Musawi argues that the massive cultural production of the period was not a random enterprise: instead, it arose due to an emerging and growing body of readers across Islamic lands who needed compendiums, lexicons, and commentaries to engage with scholars and writers. Scholars, too, developed their own networks to respond to each other and to their readers. Rather than addressing only the elite, this culture industry supported a common readership that enlarged the creative space and audience for prose and poetry in standard and colloquial Arabic. Works by craftsmen, artisans, and women appeared side by side with those by distinguished scholars and poets.

Through careful exploration of these networks, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters makes use of relevant theoretical frameworks to situate this culture in the ongoing discussion of non-Islamic and European efforts. Thorough, theoretically rigorous, and nuanced, al-Musawi's book is an original contribution to a range of fields in Arabic and Islamic cultural history of the twelfth to eighteenth centuries.

Sujets

• Islamic Studies
• Medieval
• HISTORY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Musulmán
• Edad Media
• Ottoman Empire
• Muslim
• Middle Ages
• Religion
• Muslim ben al-Hajjaj
• Islam
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268158019
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters
the
MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
of
LETTERS
Arabic Knowledge
Construction

MUHSIN J. AL-MUSAWI
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2015 by the University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Musawi, Muhsin Jasim, author.
The medieval Islamic republic of letters : Arabic knowledge construction / Muhsin J. al-Musawi.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-268-02044-6 (paperback)-
ISBN 0-268-02044-2 (paper)
1. Arabic literature-1258-1800-History and criticism. 2. Islamic literature-History and criticism. I. Title.
PJ7535.M87 2015
892.7 09004-dc23
2014047954
ISBN 9780268158019
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Preliminary Discourse: Khu bat al-kit b
chapter one Seismic Islamica : Politics and Scope of a Medieval Republic of Letters
Knowledge under Duress
Transmitters of Knowledge
The Mongol Court as Site for Debate: Al-Taftaz n and al-Jurj n
Dynamic Production and Producers
The Travelling Qa dah in a World-System
Ghazal Conversations
A Mantle for Islamic Nationhood: Genealogy of a Subgenre
The Ode as Medium of Sociability
A Language for a Republic?
Mobilizing Mourning Rituals
Reinvented Lexical Communities
Vagrant Intellectuals
A Dialogic Space for the Republic
chapter two A Massive Conversation Site: The Word Empire
A Prototype for a Republic of Letters
Structural Components of a Republic of Letters
The Rattle of Languages
The Rise of Polyglotism
The Human Agent as Structural Component
Lexical Authentication for Imperial Rule
Cairo beyond T m r
Cultural Production as a Structural Component
Authors and Preachers in Conversation
Archaeological Inventories
The Battle for Lexical Hegemony
chapter three The Lexicographic Turn in Cultural Capital
Models for Nah ah
The Fight for Culture: Compendiums and Commentaries
Markers of a Complex Phenomenon
Private Libraries and Scholarly Networks
chapter four The Context of an Islamic Literate Society: Epistemological Shifts
Terms of Exchange: Problems of Authorized Transmission
Writing a Contemporary Cultural Scene
Cultural Trafficking in a Communicative Sphere
Cultural Production as Commodity
Diversity and Stratification
Institutionalized Knowledge Undermined
The Hard Politics of Rhetoric: Decentering the Sacral
The Verbal Subtext of Hegemonic Discourse
The Breakdown of Representation
Rhetoric for the State
chapter five Superfluous Proliferation or Generative Innovation?
The Transgeneric Medium: Hazz al-qu f
The Subject of Parody and Contrafaction
Countryside and City: Textual Juxtaposition
The Polymath as Knowledge Subject
Shifting Grounds in the Acquisition of Knowledge
The Sacral as a Life Force: Al- ill s Bad iyyah
From Court to Reading Communities
Keys to Sciences?
Textual Communities and Cultural Production
chapter six Disputation in Rhetoric
In Pursuit of Adab
The Litt rateur s Anecdotal Network
An Open-Market Cultural Economy
Speculative Theology at Work
The Encyclopedic East
Defining a Cultural Milieu: Multiple Genealogies
Al- afad s Navigations: Theology and Traditionalists
Literary Venues
Logic, Grammar, and Jurisprudence
Traditionalist Alarm at Translating the Greeks
chapter seven Translation, Theology, and the Institutionalization of Libraries
Contentious Theological Grounds
The Oneiric Imagination
Grammatica : The Domain of the Lords of the Pen
Grammatica : A Comprehensive Framework for Knowledge
The Divine in Governance
Inventories of Individual Readings
Liberating the Islamic Canon
Implications of Textualization: The Qur n
Textual Archaeology as an Independent Pursuit
Reconstructing the Literary Republican Model
Literary Agency in a Global Sphere
Individual Inventories in a Global Sphere
Public Acknowledgment of Readings
The Encyclopedic Literary and Social Consortium
chapter eight Professions in Writing: Street Poetry and the Politics of Difference
Verbal Escapades
Craftsmen s Poetry
Poetry in Islamic Knowledge
The Esoteric and the Discursive
Poetic Production in a Democratic Space
Artisans as Poets
Street Poetry
Sufis in the Public Domain
Homoerotics?
Ibn al- ajj j s Poetics
Homoerotic Compilations
Delicacy and Wine Rituals
Exploring Islamic Poetics
Sufi heds and Homoerotics
The Carnivalesque Street
Unease at Sufi Love Language
Esoteric Poetics
Between Sufi Verse and Bad iyy t
Sacral Itineraries
Conclusion: Al-Kh timah
Appendix: T m r s Debate with Damascene Theologians outside the Gates of Damascus (803/1401)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My interest in the Arabic thrust of medieval and premodern Islamic culture has a long history, and it is certainly bound up with my engagement with the Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights). The material that I collected and worked on regarding medieval Islamic culture took many directions later, and from the present project another one has branched off with a focus on the complexity of the nah ah (the modern Arab awakening or renaissance, as it is often called). But, practically speaking, the current book started with two invitations early in 2001, the first from the editors for Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period , Roger Allen and D. S. Richards, who invited me to write a survey essay, published under the title Pre-modern Belletrist Prose, covering the prose section in that volume. I hereby express my gratitude to both of these editors and to the publisher, Cambridge University Press, and in particular to my dear friend Roger Allen, who cherished the book and provided generous suggestions and support throughout the years of preparation. I also extend thanks to Bruce Craig and to Th. Emil Homerin for the invitation to participate in the Mamluk Studies Review issue on Mamluk literature, with my essay Vindicating a Profession or a Personal Career? Al-Qalqashand s Maqamah in Context. Without their devotion to Mamluk studies, many scholars would not risk treading in this thinly nurtured field. Although these two essays are not included in the present book, they are nevertheless part of the background that substantiates its argument. Many thanks are due to Marlis Salih, editor for Mamluk Studies Review , for reproducing part of chapter 3 as The Medieval Islamic Literary World-System: The Lexicographic Turn ( Mamluk Studies Review 17, 2013), and for the invitation to give a talk on the medieval Islamic republic of letters at the University of Chicago, April 27, 2012. The two anonymous readers for the University of Notre Dame Press were no less helpful in providing extensive notes and queries. I also need to thank my colleagues and friends Suzanne P. Stetkevych at Georgetown University and Li Guo at the University of Notre Dame for their invaluable comments and notes. Thanks are due as well to my former students and present colleagues Anne-Marie McManus at Washington University in St. Louis and Nizar Hermes at the University of Oklahoma for going through an early version of the manuscript and making some insightful suggestions. I also thank my colleagues Moneera al-Ghadeer, Visiting Professor at Harvard University, and Bilal al-Orfali from the American University of Beirut for helping in the acquisition of some relevant material. To my assistant Joscelyn Shawn Ganjhara Jurich go sincere thanks for helping out in locating images; and similar thanks go to the Turkish scholar Osman Yilmaz.
For their help with a generous subvention, I express gratitude to the Warner Fund of the University Seminars at Columbia University. Ideas in this book were presented early on at the University Seminar on Arabic Studies, and I express gratitude to the discussants, George Saliba, Richard Bulliet, and Pierre Cachia. For the reproduction of images and illustrations, thanks and acknowledgments are due to the Beinecke Rare Book Manuscript Library, Yale University, and to Moira Fitzgerald in particular for her help; to Houghton Library at Harvard University, and to Mary Haegert and Robert Zinck for making the acquisition of images a smooth process; to D r al- Ilm lil-Mal y n for reproduction of images from their publication Mu la t fi al-shi r al-Maml k wa-al- Uthm n ; and to S leymaniye Library, Esad Efendi 3638, Istanbul, for the reproduction of the image from Ikhw n al- af . My warm gratitude goes to my friend the Iraqi painter Dhia Azzawi for providing the art for the cover of this book; and to Wendy McMillen from the Press for her attention to artistic production.
Warm thanks go to Stephen Little, the acquisition editor at the University