The genesis of literature in Islam : from the aural to the read / Gregor Schoeler ; in collaboration with and translated by Shawkat M. Toorawa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schoeler, Gregor.

Contributor:

Toorawa, Shawkat M.

Series:

New Edinburgh Islamic surveys

The new Edinburgh Islamic surveys

Standardized Title:

Ecrire et transmettre dans les débuts de l'islam. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Islamic literature, Arabic--History and criticism.

Islamic literature, Arabic.

Transmission of texts--Islamic Empire--History.

Transmission of texts.

History.

Islamic Empire.

Physical Description:

viii, 152 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

Revised edition.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2009]

Language Note:

Translated from the French.

Summary:

In the beginning was the Qur'ān, 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.

Contents:

1 The oral and the written during the Jāhiliyyah and early Islam 16

2 The Qur'ān and Qur'ān 'readers' (qurrā') 30

3 The beginnings of religious scholarship in Islam: Sīrah, Hadīth, Tafs̄r 40

4 Literature and the caliphal court 54

5 The turn toward systematisation: the tasnīf movement 68

6 The birth of linguistics and philology 85

7 Books and their readership in the ninth century 99

8 Listening to books, or reading them? 111.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [130]-144) and index.

ISBN:

0748624678

9780748624676

0748624686

9780748624683

OCLC:

226360315