Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose

Sarah R. bin Tyeer is a Research Associate in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, UK.  Her recent publications include essays in the volumes: Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of Classical Literary Tradition, The Beloved in Middle East Literature: The Culture of Love and Languishing, and The City in Premodern and Modern Arabic Literature.Foreword by Angelika Neuwirth, Professor of Quranic studies, Freie University, Berlin, Germany.

"In this complex book the author adopts a bold approach, shows a willingness to take some risks, and undertakes a lively engagement with the material ... . The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose remains a highly original work that creatively combines attention to key qurʾānic concepts with the interpretation of Arabic literary texts." (Devin J. Stewart, Review of Qur'anic Research, Vol. 7 (7), 2021)“The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose is a brilliant book. It enriches the field at the theoretical level and proposes original, well-informed, and highly plausible readings of premodern Arabic prose. It also illustrates the problems and dangers of decontextualized, anachronistic, and atomistic readings and offers efficient remedies to them.In so doing, the book joins other efforts to herald a new era in Arabic literary criticism which promises deeper appreciation of the tradition’s intellectual legacy.” (Sarra Tlili, Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 50, 2019)“Bin Tyeer shows persuasively that ‘Islam’ has often been reduced to a caricature of puritanism, and that such a view has prevented people from considering the cultural bounty of the Middle East as owing to Islam, not being in spite of it. ... Islam, contrary to its stereotyped depictions in mainstream Western media, does have a rich tradition of creativity, humor, and complicatedness. Recognizing this reality should, says Bin Tyeer, be the starting point for a more generous view of the Islamic cultural tradition.” (Kevin Blankinship, Marginalia Review of Books, July, 2018)

• Foreword by Angelika Neuwirth.- Introduction.- Part I The Hermeneutics of the Qurʾan for the Arts: Key Terms.- Chapter One Ḥusn: The Route to a Conceptual Query.- Chapter Two Qubḥ and the Way to Hell.- Chapter Three Hell and the Aesthetics of qubḥ.- Chapter Four Language: Beautiful Speech/Ugly Speech.- Part II Popular Literature: Thousand and One Nights.- Chapter 5 The Aesthetics of Reason. - Chapter 6 Of Misplacement of Things, People and Decorum.- Chapter 7 The Transgression of Reason.- Part III Canonical Literature.- Chapter 8 Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful.- Chapter 9 The Littérateurs of Hell and Heaven.- Coda: The Interpretation and Misinterpretation of adab in Modern Scholarship.