Gibb Memorial Trust – serie

This sixteenth century biographical dictionary of Ottoman poets with comments on their style and examples of their work was one of Gibb's principle sources for Ottoman poetry in its most flourishing period. Turkish text.

Academician Barthold’s famous work begins in the late 7th century with the Muslim invasions of what became Russian Central Asia and carries the history of the region through the period of Abbasid centralization, that of the rise of local Muslim dynasties and successive phases of Turkish dominance down to the arrival of Chingiz Khan in the early 13th. Barthold’s mastery of the historical and geographical sources and his sound critical judgement were remarkable and ‘Turkestan’ remains a basic work of reference for the area it covers. The book first appeared in St Petersburg in 1900 in the form of a Russian doctoral theses. The English edition of 1928 was thoroughly revised by the author, and that of 1968 supplemented by the translation of a further chapter found among his papers after his death: ‘Turkestan under Mongol Domination (1227-69)’. A 2007 reprint contains an updated map of the region.

Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama (1147-1223) was an ascetic, jurisconsult and traditionalist theologian of the Hanbali school mainly resident in Damascus. His Tahrim al-Nazar is an attack on the rationalist views of the earlier jurist of Baghdad, Ibn ‘Aqil (d. 119). Ibn Qudama took the traditionalist position that speculative theology (kalam) and allegorical interpretation (ta’wil) were innovations and ipso facto not permissible. The edition is based on the unique Haidarabad MS.

The term nasikh wa mansukh, usually translated as ‘abrogation’, relates to theories arising from the early exegesis of the Qur’an, in an attempt to resolve apparent contradictions in the Qur’anic text between different statements, especially those bearing on regulations. In such cases, verses later in date are held to modify or even suspend earlier verses. The same principle was applied to contradictions between Traditions forming the basis of the Sunnah. In the lifetime of the author of this volume the question of which should ‘abrogate’ the other, in the event of conflict between Qur’an and tradition, had already arisen. Abu ‘Ubaid’s book represents the oldest yet recovered systematic application of ‘abrogation’ theories to both Qur’an and Sunnah when there is perceived to be a conflict between them. Best known for his work on taxation, the Kitab al-Amwal, Abu ‘Ubaid (ca. 154/770-224/838) was born at Herat but resided at various centres in the Abbasid Empire; he was a scholar of note in the area of theological, legal and philosophical studies. His book, which antedates the crystallization of the Schools of Fiqh and presents a view of the relation between the Qur’an and Sunnah diverging from that of Shafi’i, is of relevance to studies of the Qur’an and the formulation of Islamic jurisprudence.

Sanglax begins with a grammar of the variety of Turkish known as Cagatay but the bulk of the work consists of a Turkish-Persian dictionary. Facsimile text in Persian and Turkish.

A study of the tradition and practice of early Arabic poetry, this book provides an investigation of the multiple versions of early poems that exist in various Abbasid collections. It offers a corrective to the more exaggerated claims concerning this poetry and revises some hitherto fundamental attitudes by advancing an individual philologically-driven vision of the period.

Al-Hujwīrī came from Ghazna, now in Afghanistan, then the capital of the mighty Ghaznavid Empire. He was a Sufi mystic who travelled widely in the Middle East and Transoxiana. The Kashf al-Maḥjūb was probably written in Lahore, where he is buried, not long before his death in about 1074. One of the oldest Sufi works in Persian, it is a substantial treatise aiming to set forth a complete system of Sufism. This is achieved partly by the discussion of acts and saying of the great figures of the past, partly by discussion of features of doctrine and practice and the examination of the different views adopted by different Sufi schools. It is enlivened by episodes from the author’s own experiences.

This is an anthology of outstanding literary importance, probably the most valuable work of Arabic poetry to surface this century. It contains the largest and best collection of Andalusian Muwashshat, 354 in all, of which over 280 are not known from any other source. This is an Arabic text.

The description of his mission to the court of the Shah Tahmasp I of Persia by the Venetian Michele Membre is one of the most informative as well as one of the most individual of the few European accounts of 16th century Persia.

In the past four decades, as the field of late antique studies has begun to gather real momentum, scholars have debated the place of early Islam within the late antique world, particularly in relation to the issue of where and when ‘Late Antiquity’ ends. Although the Sasanian empire (in what is now modern Iran) became as powerful as the Byzantine empire, and the two often forged their characters and practices on the basis of their relations with each other, that has rarely translated into equal coverage for the eastern part of the late antique world in studies of the period. Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives aims to redress this balance and situate Iran with the broader world of this era. Eight papers serve as case studies for considering narratives and perspectives other than those emanating from Byzantium or, more generally, ‘the West’. They demonstrate the potential of eastern source-material, particularly James Howard-Johnston’s double-length article which produces a detailed reconstruction of the Sasanian army.

Islam as a cultural, intellectual, and religious venture appears in the popular imagination as a monolithic entity. Orientalists of the traditional ilk have tended to describe it in essentialist terms, whilst many fundamentalist Muslims themselves promote their construction of a pure and unadulterated Islamic past, to which they strive to return by purging foreign or unauthentic elements from their religion. Next to these attempts, another more traditional view sees the influence between the Western and the Islamic world in linear and teleological terms. Knowledge was transmitted, so to speak, from Alexandria to Baghdad, and hence to Toledo and Paris. The present volume challenges both these concepts regarding the development of Islamic cultures. To do justice to the complexity of structures within which the Muslim Middle Ages unfolded, it approaches the questions of interaction and influence through a novel conceptual framework, that of crosspollination. Instead of telling the story of the transmission of Western works from Greece via Islam into the Latin world, a number of case studies highlight the plurality of encounters between Islam and other adjacent cultures.

Ibn Rushd, known to Christian Europe as Averroes, came from Córdoba in Spain and lived from 1126 to 1198. He is regarded as the last great Arab philosopher in the Classical tradition, and, under the patronage of the Almohad ruler Abu Ya’quib Yusuf, was a very prolific one. The Tahafut al-Tahafut, written not long after 1180, is his major work and the one in which his original philosophical doctrine is to be found. It takes the form of a refutation of Ghazali’s Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), a work begun in 1095 which attacked philosophical speculation and declared some of the beliefs of the Philosophers to be contrary to Islam. Averroes sets his Aristotelian views in contrast with the Neo-Platonist ones attributed to the philosophers by Ghazali.Published in the UNESCO Collection of Great Works under the auspices of the Gibb Memorial Trust and the International Commission for the Translation of Great Works.

This book is about an aspect of medieval Arabic culture and literature known in Arabic as mujùn (roughly ‘libertinism, licentiousness, frivolity, indecency, profligacy, shamelessness, impertinence’, etc.), a concept that students of mediaeval Arabic texts may find rather hard to define but which is a recurrent term and a widespread phenomenon in medieval Arabic literature, and probably common in real life. The social implications and the background of mujùn are focused on in an attempt to learn what the popularity of mujùn during a specific period of the medieval Middle East can tell us about the society and the culture that produced such works. It is a study of the society in which such literature flourished, of the values and norms of that society, and of the májin (the man who does or writes mujùn) rather than of mujùn in itself. The author uses many excepts from primary source texts to explore the nature, concepts and content of mujùn, including its vernacular language, religious irreverence and not infrequent indecency of subject matter, within its socio-religious context. It provides a critical inventory of the varied motifs of mujùn in literature so as to define this elusive term by way of an accumulation of concrete examples.

The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. For Muslims it is the word of God revealed in Arabic by the archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, and thence to mankind. Originally it was delivered orally: traditional sources indicate that Muhammad always recited his message.

The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. For Muslims it is the word of God revealed in Arabic by the archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, and thence to mankind. Originally it was delivered orally: traditional sources indicate that Muhammad always recited his message.

Provides an unusual history of an important institution promoting Islamic scholarship in BritainPresents authoritative biographies of leading scholars by those working in the same fieldBrings together leading scholars of Middle Eastern history, literature, Islamic mysticism and religious studies to discuss their influential predecessors in these fieldsDraws on the unpublished archives of the Gibb Memorial Trust and first-hand memoirsReveals how the Gibb Memorial Trust was able to promote and support the publication and study of key Middle Eastern sources for over a centuryThe Gibb Memorial Trust, founded at the start of the 20th century, comprised among its trustees some of the most celebrated and prominent orientalists of their day. Together, they sponsored and supported research on editing and translating Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts on a range of subjects, from history, literature, geography and poetry to Sufism and the Islamic sciences.This volume covers the development of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies over the last 120 years or so, as seen through the biographies of the leading scholars of the period. It opens with a short history of the Trust, before presenting a series of short biographical and often personal appreciations of these eminent Middle Eastern scholars of the past, written by existing trustees. In providing a history of this important institution, the book shines a light on the history and development of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in Britain more broadly.

Treats the strands of Shi'ite legal theory as a family of legal traditions, providing illustrative examples with editions of previously unpublished worksExamines for the first time in English an intergrated analysis of Shiite traditions and legal theories, including the validity of personal juristic reasoning (ijtih?d), linguistic interpretations, the role of certainty in the deduction of law and the legal authority of the im?msCovers Shi?i u??l, which has received little attention in scholarly discussions of Islamic legal theoryFocuses not only on the less-neglected Twelver u??l but also on Isma?ili and Zaydi u??l traditionsPresents texts from a range of regions (Yemen, Iraq and Safavid Persia) and written across a broad time period (from the 5th/11th century to the 13th/18th century)Incorporation of Zaydi, Isma?ili and Twelver legal traditions in a single analytical framework Alongside the individual rules of God's law (shar??a), there has been a vibrant history of more philosophical or theoretical discussions in Islamic thought. Where does God's law come from? How are God's rules to be discovered for situations not covered in the revealed sources? Who, within the Muslim community, can make a valid pronouncement on the content of the shar??a? The answers to these questions have been debated and discussed by Muslim scholars in the genre of literature called u??l al-fiqh, glossed in English language secondary literature as Islamic legal theory". This volume contains editions and commentaries of hitherto un-edited manuscripts from the various strands of the Shi?ite tradition of Islamic thought (Zaydi, Isma?ili and Twelver). A careful side-by-side reading of these texts and commentaries will help identify themes peculiar to the Shi?ite "family" of legal theories. The distinctive Shi?ite contribution to the history of u??l al-fiqh has not received the attention it deserves in contemporary scholarship; this volume forms part of wider attempt to bring the richness and diversity of Shi?ite u??l to the wider field."

The book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Maj?lis, or Pearl of Gatherings a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate.The book illustrates how the Durr al-Maj?lis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called 'Balkans-to-Bengal' borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.

This book offers the first-ever partial English translation and commentary of what are arguably the two most important Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets: the tezkires of As??k C?elebi and Latifi. While tezkires are mostly culled for their factual data, this book focuses on the non-entry materials, especially the prefaces. These offer intimate glimpses into the authors' lives, charting their professional ambitions, frustrations and feuds, set against the backdrop of the sixteenth-century Ottoman literary world a world in which patrimonial relations made and broke careers, poetry was appraised, attacked, monetised and stolen, and the ambitions of aspiring poets were fuelled and foiled.The two tezkires reflect this milieu, and their authors were personally acquainted, exchanging thoughts over their work and, finally, falling out over an accusation of plagiarism. The translations are supplemented with a reflection on the nature and translatability of Ottoman high prose, a discussion of the tezkire genre and a detailed presentation of the two authors and their dictionaries. Through a novel study of these interconnected works, this book provides a panorama of Ottoman literary history, as well as insights into the authors' personal struggles.

Volume I of E.J.W. Gibb’s classic study of Ottoman Poetry – here reissued with a new foreword by Christine Woodhead – covers the period 1300 to c. 1450.Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, first published in six volumes between 1900 to 1909, provided the first extended account in English of Ottoman Turkish literature. Based on an impressively wide reading of over five centuries of Ottoman classical poetry and of literary critical works produced by Ottoman commentators, it conveyed not only fascinating information but also a deeply informed understanding of the cultural world of educated Ottomans. Gibb selected and analysed epic poems, religious verse, romances, panegyrics and, above all, lyric poetry. He examined the biographies and social contexts of poets, and he prefaced his work with a much-admired introductory account of Ottoman mysticism and religious philosophy. He included throughout the volumes a wealth of explanatory notes designed to help ‘the ordinary English reader’ appreciate this little-known culture. The History is a classic work which remains a valued introduction to its subject.This volume is part of a six-volume set. Volumes I–IV focus purely on poetry and poets, while Volume V includes additionally 100 pages of indices to the volumes, prepared by Reynold A. Nicholson. Volume VI, the final volume, comprises the Ottoman text of poems included in the preceding volumes.

The second volume in E.J.W. Gibb’s classic study of Ottoman Poetry, reissued with a new foreword by Christine Woodhead, covers the period c.1450 to the early 16th century.Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, first published in six volumes between 1900 to 1909, provided the first extended account in English of Ottoman Turkish literature. Based on an impressively wide reading of over five centuries of Ottoman classical poetry and of literary critical works produced by Ottoman commentators, it conveyed not only fascinating information but also a deeply informed understanding of the cultural world of educated Ottomans. Gibb selected and analysed epic poems, religious verse, romances, panegyrics and, above all, lyric poetry. He examined the biographies and social contexts of poets, and he prefaced his work with a much-admired introductory account of Ottoman mysticism and religious philosophy. He included throughout the volumes a wealth of explanatory notes designed to help ‘the ordinary English reader’ appreciate this little-known culture. The History is a classic work which remains a valued introduction to its subject.This volume is part of a six-volume set. Volumes I–IV focus purely on poetry and poets, while Volume V includes additionally 100 pages of indices to the volumes, prepared by Reynold A. Nicholson. Volume VI, the final volume, comprises the Ottoman text of poems included in the preceding volumes.

Volume III of E.J.W. Gibb’s classic study of Ottoman Poetry covering the period from 1520 to c. 1700, is now reissued with a new foreword by Christine Woodhead.Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, first published in six volumes between 1900 to 1909, provided the first extended account in English of Ottoman Turkish literature. Based on an impressively wide reading of over five centuries of Ottoman classical poetry and of literary critical works produced by Ottoman commentators, it conveyed not only fascinating information but also a deeply informed understanding of the cultural world of educated Ottomans. Gibb selected and analysed epic poems, religious verse, romances, panegyrics and, above all, lyric poetry. He examined the biographies and social contexts of poets, and he prefaced his work with a much-admired introductory account of Ottoman mysticism and religious philosophy. He included throughout the volumes a wealth of explanatory notes designed to help ‘the ordinary English reader’ appreciate this little-known culture. The History is a classic work which remains a valued introduction to its subject.This volume is part of a six-volume set. Volumes I–IV focus purely on poetry and poets, while Volume V includes additionally 100 pages of indices to the volumes, prepared by Reynold A. Nicholson. Volume VI, the final volume, comprises the Ottoman text of poems included in the preceding volumes.

Volume IV of E.J.W. Gibb’s classic study of Ottoman Poetry – here reissued with a new foreword by Christine Woodhead – covers the 18th and early 19th centuries.Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, first published in six volumes between 1900 to 1909, provided the first extended account in English of Ottoman Turkish literature. Based on an impressively wide reading of over five centuries of Ottoman classical poetry and of literary critical works produced by Ottoman commentators, it conveyed not only fascinating information but also a deeply informed understanding of the cultural world of educated Ottomans. Gibb selected and analysed epic poems, religious verse, romances, panegyrics and, above all, lyric poetry. He examined the biographies and social contexts of poets, and he prefaced his work with a much-admired introductory account of Ottoman mysticism and religious philosophy. He included throughout the volumes a wealth of explanatory notes designed to help ‘the ordinary English reader’ appreciate this little-known culture. The History is a classic work which remains a valued introduction to its subject.This volume is part of a six-volume set. Volumes I–IV focus purely on poetry and poets, while Volume V includes additionally 100 pages of indices to the volumes, prepared by Reynold A. Nicholson. Volume VI, the final volume, comprises the Ottoman text of poems included in the preceding volumes.

Volume V of E.J.W. Gibb’s classic study of Ottoman Poetry – here reissued with a new foreword by Christine Woodhead – covers the later 19th century.Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, first published in six volumes between 1900 to 1909, provided the first extended account in English of Ottoman Turkish literature. Based on an impressively wide reading of over five centuries of Ottoman classical poetry and of literary critical works produced by Ottoman commentators, it conveyed not only fascinating information but also a deeply informed understanding of the cultural world of educated Ottomans. Gibb selected and analysed epic poems, religious verse, romances, panegyrics and, above all, lyric poetry. He examined the biographies and social contexts of poets, and he prefaced his work with a much-admired introductory account of Ottoman mysticism and religious philosophy. He included throughout the volumes a wealth of explanatory notes designed to help ‘the ordinary English reader’ appreciate this little-known culture. The History is a classic work which remains a valued introduction to its subject.This volume is part of a six-volume set. Volumes I–IV focus purely on poetry and poets, while Volume V includes additionally 100 pages of indices to the volumes, prepared by Reynold A. Nicholson. Volume VI, the final volume, comprises the Ottoman text of poems included in the preceding volumes.

Volume VI of E.J.W. Gibb’s classic study of Ottoman Poetry – here reissued with a new foreword by Christine Woodhead – contains the original Turkish of poems translated by Gibb in volumes I-V.Gibb’s History of Ottoman Poetry, first published in six volumes between 1900 to 1909, provided the first extended account in English of Ottoman Turkish literature. Based on an impressively wide reading of over five centuries of Ottoman classical poetry and of literary critical works produced by Ottoman commentators, it conveyed not only fascinating information but also a deeply informed understanding of the cultural world of educated Ottomans. Gibb selected and analysed epic poems, religious verse, romances, panegyrics and, above all, lyric poetry. He examined the biographies and social contexts of poets, and he prefaced his work with a much-admired introductory account of Ottoman mysticism and religious philosophy. He included throughout the volumes a wealth of explanatory notes designed to help ‘the ordinary English reader’ appreciate this little-known culture. The History is a classic work which remains a valued introduction to its subject.This volume is part of a six-volume set. Volumes I–IV focus purely on poetry and poets, while Volume V includes additionally 100 pages of indices to the volumes, prepared by Reynold A. Nicholson. Volume VI, the final volume, comprises the Ottoman text of poems included in the preceding volumes.

Volume 1 of Reynold A. Nicholson’s authoritative translation and edition of Rúmí’s magnum opus – reissued with a new foreword by Alan Williams – provides the Persian edition of books I and II of the Mathnawí.The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí is his greatest work in every sense. As well as being his longest single composition, it is his most mature, as it was his last work, written from 1261 until his death in 1273 CE. It comprises six books, which amount to over 25,600 rhymed couplets in Nicholson’s edition, plus six brief prose prefaces, variously in Arabic and Persian. The Mathnawí relates a range of folk stories, from traditional Iranian and Muslim lore, as well as from pre-Islamic, Western Classical and Indian Sanskritic traditions. It also includes moral and mystically contemplative discourse, exegesis and meditation on the Qur’ān and Hadith, and stories not recorded before Rúmí’s writing, which may have been composed for the work.This volume is part of an eight-volume set by Nicholson. Three volumes present his edition of the Persian text, three volumes provide his English translations, and two volumes offer his commentary.

Volume 2 of Reynold A. Nicholson’s authoritative translation and edition of Rúmí’s magnum opus – reissued with a new foreword by Alan Williams – provides the English translation of books I and II of the Mathnawí.The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí is his greatest work in every sense. As well as being his longest single composition, it is his most mature, as it was his last work, written from 1261 until his death in 1273 CE. It comprises six books, which amount to over 25,600 rhymed couplets in Nicholson’s edition, plus six brief prose prefaces, variously in Arabic and Persian. The Mathnawí relates a range of folk stories, from traditional Iranian and Muslim lore, as well as from pre-Islamic, Western Classical and Indian Sanskritic traditions. It also includes moral and mystically contemplative discourse, exegesis and meditation on the Qur’ān and Hadith, and stories not recorded before Rúmí’s writing, which may have been composed for the work.This volume is part of an eight-volume set by Nicholson. Three volumes present his edition of the Persian text, three volumes provide his English translations, and two volumes offer his commentary.

Volume 3 of Reynold A. Nicholson’s authoritative translation and edition of Rúmí’s magnum opus – reissued with a new foreword by Alan Williams – provides the Persian edition of books III and IV of the Mathnawí.The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí is his greatest work in every sense. As well as being his longest single composition, it is his most mature, as it was his last work, written from 1261 until his death in 1273 CE. It comprises six books, which amount to over 25,600 rhymed couplets in Nicholson’s edition, plus six brief prose prefaces, variously in Arabic and Persian. The Mathnawí relates a range of folk stories, from traditional Iranian and Muslim lore, as well as from pre-Islamic, Western Classical and Indian Sanskritic traditions. It also includes moral and mystically contemplative discourse, exegesis and meditation on the Qur’ān and Hadith, and stories not recorded before Rúmí’s writing, which may have been composed for the work.This volume is part of an eight-volume set by Nicholson. Three volumes present his edition of the Persian text, three volumes provide his English translations, and two volumes offer his commentary.