The genesis of literature in Islam : from the aural to the read

Bibliographic Information

The genesis of literature in Islam : from the aural to the read

Gregor Schoeler ; in collaboration with and translated by Shawkat M. Toorawa

Edinburgh University Press, c2009

Rev. ed

  • : hardback

Other Title

Écrire et transmettre dans les déb́uts de l'islam

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Note

Originally published: Paris in 2002

Bibliography: p. [130]-144

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In the beginning was the Qur'an, the first book of Islam and also the first book of Arabic literature. Occasioned by the need to understand and interpret the word of God, and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims made an inventory and study of their tradition. This involved the collection, transmission and instruction of the sacred text, of the words and deeds of Muhammad, and also of poetry, from both before and after the rise of Islam - indeed of all matters regarded as pertinent to the proper and scholarly study of the tradition. This activity, which began in the last third of the seventh century, relied predominantly on aural study with a master, that is, on oral communication between teacher and student, although writing was already an integral part of this process. In the present work Gregor Schoeler explains how Muslim scholarship evolved from aural to read. The result was the genesis of one of the richest literatures of late antiquity and the early middle ages, as is clear from the widespread dissemination of scholarship through writing and the attendant proliferation of books.

Table of Contents

  • Translator's Preface
  • Author's Preface
  • Introduction
  • 1. The Oral and the Written during the Jahiliyya and Early Islam
  • 2. The Qur'an and Qur'an 'Readers'
  • 3. The Beginnings of Religious Scholarship in Islam: Sirah, Hadith, Tafsir
  • 4. Literature and the Caliphal Court
  • 5. The Turn toward Systematisation: The Tasnif Movement
  • 6. The Birth of Linguistics and Philology
  • 7. Books and their Readership in the Ninth Century
  • 8. Listening to Books, or Reading Them?
  • Concluding Remarks: From the Aural to the Read
  • Glossary
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA89116891
  • ISBN
    • 9780748624676
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Original Language Code
    fre
  • Place of Publication
    Edinburgh
  • Pages/Volumes
    viii, 152 p
  • Size
    24cm
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