A. F. L. Beeston – författare

The aim of this introduction to modern written Arabic is to bring the student quickly to a reading knowledge of the language so that he can use Arabic sources in subjects like history, economics and sociology. The book can also be used in conjunction with others as an ordinary grammar. Professor Beeston presents essential features of Arabic needed for an accurate comprehension of written material. He excludes the mass of linguistic detail contained in traditional Arabic grammars which assume the student wishes to master all aspects of the language. On the other hand the book provides for a sound understanding of abstract literature on scholarly subjects, in contrast to manuals teaching a quick understanding of journalistic Arabic.

Professor Beeston's Written Arabic is designed primarily to bring research students and others quickly to a reading knowledge of modern Arabic in order to use Arabic source materials. Because Arabic has a very specialised vocabulary Written Arabic contains comparatively little exercise material within the text. Instead Professor Beeston is providing accompanying booklets of Arabic exercise material in specific major fields - history, economics and sociology - so that students can begin immediately to learn the vocabulary and style of Arabic in their own field of interest. Arabic Historical Phraseology contains exercise material taken from historical writing in modern Arabic and is related directly to the chapters of Written Arabic.

Originally published in 1983, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature was the first general survey of the field to have been published in English for over fifty years and the first attempted in such detail in a multi-volume form. The volumes of the History provide an invaluable source of reference and understanding of the intellectual, literary and religious heritage of the Arabic-speaking and Islamic world. This volume begins its coverage with the oral verse of the sixth century AD, and ends with the fall of the Umayyad dynasty two centuries later. Within this period fall major events: the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the founding of the Islamic religion, the great Arab Islamic conquests of territories outside the Arabian Peninsula, and their meeting, as overlords, with the Byzantine and Sasanian world. Contributors to this volume discuss an array of topics including the influences of Greeks, Persians and Syrians on early Arabic literature.