Projecting a new empire : formats, social meaning, and mediality of imperial Arabic in the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods / Eugenio Garosi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Garosi, Eugenio, author.

Series:

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East ; v.42

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arabic language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (466 pages)

Place of Publication:

Berlin, Germany : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, [2022]

Summary:

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam which was founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. The mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations--in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences.

Contents:

Intro

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of Illustrations

Note on Conventions

Maps

Introduction

Becoming Empire

Semantics of Empire

Empires and Arab History

Views on Early Islamic History

A Review of the Documentary Evidence and Coping with its Limitations

Previous Studies

Approach and Methodology: Form over Substance

The Definitional Trap: A Note on Terminology and Anachronism

Timeframe

Organization of this Study

I Towards an Ecology of Documentary Arabic

A Sudden Language: Pre-Islamic Arabic Writing and the Epigraphical Habit

The Rise and Dissolution of "Imperial Arabic" (From Reichssprache to Lingua Franca)

Concluding Remarks

II Imperial Arabic: Between Text and Visual Text

Images of the Word

The Word and the Image: An Arab Late Antiquity

From Image to Word

The Eye of the Beholders

Conclusion

III Shaping Official Umayyad Arabic

Introduction: Reichsarabisch or Early Islamic Official Arabic?

If the Mountain Will Come: Arabic Letters

If the Mountain Will Not Come: Official Inscriptions

Umayyad Official Documentary Standard as Early Islamic Documentary Standard

IV A Culture of Ambivalence

Negotiating "Arab Style"

Shifting Boundaries between Scribal Cultures in the Umayyad Empire

Parallel Scribal Traditions: Numismatics

Parallel Scribal Traditions: Independent Arab-Style Scribal Practices

V An Empire of Words

Regional Idiolects in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Documentary Arabic

The Loanwords in Imperial Arabic (640-800)

Regional Diversity in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Early Islamic Documentary Arabic

Terminology and Regional Settings: The Role of Umayyad Syria and the Looming Shadow of Abbasid Iraq

Summary and Conclusions.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Formal and Layout Structure of Early Islamic Arabic Official Letters

Appendix 2: Formal and Layout Structure of Early Islamic Official Inscriptions

Appendix 3: Comparative Table of Early Islamic Arab-style Letters

Bibliography

Indices

General Index

Index Locorum I: Papyri

Index Locorum II: Inscriptions.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Garosi, Eugenio Projecting a New Empire

ISBN:

3-11-074082-6