Philologisches und Historisches zwischen Anatolien und Sokotra

Philologisches und Historisches zwischen Anatolien und Sokotra
Author: Werner Arnold
Publisher: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2009
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9783447061049

Der Sammelband ist eine Gedenkschrift fur den Semitisten Alexander Sima, der im Jahr 2004 wahrend linguistischer Feldforschungen im Jemen verungluckt ist. Der Band enthalt fast dreissig Beitrage, deren uberwiegende Zahl philologische, archaologische oder historische Themen in der Region Naher Osten/Sudarabien zum Thema haben. Zeitlich gesehen reichen die in diesem Gedenkband versammelten Artikel von den Epochen des Alten Orients bis zur Gegenwart. Die Beitrage versammeln insbesondere ein weites Spektrum an philologischen Studien zu Sprachen wie Akkadisch, Aramaisch, klassisches und dialektales Arabisch sowie Alt- und Neusudarabisch. Das Buch reflektiert den aktuellen Forschungsstand zu den oben genannten Themenkreisen und ist eine der wenigen aktuellen Sammelschriften zu diesen Fachgebieten.

Islam and its Past

Islam and its Past
Author: Carol Bakhos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2017-06-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191081663

Islam and its Past: Jāhiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur'an brings together scholars from various disciplines and fields to consider Islamic revelation, with particular focus on the Qur'an. The collection provides a wide-ranging survey of the development and current state of Qur'anic studies in the Western academy. It shows how interest in the field has recently grown, how the ways in which it is cultivated have changed, how it has ramified, and how difficult it now is for any one scholar to keep abreast of it. Chapters explore the milieu in which the Meccan component of the Qur'an made its appearance. The general question is what we can say about that milieu by combining a careful reading of the relevant parts of the Qur'an with what we know about the religious trends of Late Antiquity in Arabia and elsewhere. More specifically, the issue is what we can learn in this way about the manner in which the 'polytheists' of the Qur'an related to the Jewish and Christian traditions: were they Godfearers in the sense familiar from the study of ancient Judaism? It looks at the Qur'an as a text of Late Antiquity-not just considering those features of it that could be seen as normal in that context, but also identifying what is innovative about it against the Late Antique background. Here the focus is on the 'believers' rather than the 'polytheists'. The volume also engages in different ways with notions of monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia. This collection provides a broad survey of what has been happening in the field and concrete illustrations of some of the more innovative lines of research that have recently been pursued.

The Mehri Language of Oman

The Mehri Language of Oman
Author: Aaron Rubin
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2010-05-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004187626

This volume contains a detailed grammatical description of the Omani dialect of Mehri, an unwritten Semitic language of the Modern South Arabian group. It is the first complete grammar of any Modern South Arabian language in a hundred years, and the first ever Mehri grammar based on the Omani dialect, making it an important contribution to the field of Semitic studies in general. Topics in phonology, all aspects of morphology, and a variety of syntactic features are covered in this volume. The grammar is based on texts collected by T.M. Johnstone, and published by H. Stroomer.

Structural Dividers in the Qur'an

Structural Dividers in the Qur'an
Author: Marianna Klar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2020-12-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000210669

This volume showcases a wide range of contemporary approaches to the identification of literary structures within Qur’anic surahs. Recent academic studies of the Qur’an have taken an increasing interest in the concept of the surah as a unity and, with it, the division of complete surahs into consecutive sections or parts. Part One presents a series of case studies focussing on individual Qur’anic surahs. Nevin Reda analyzes the structure of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān (Q 3), Holger Zellentin looks at competing structures within Sūrat al-ʿAlaq (Q 96), and A.H. Mathias Zahniser provides an exploration of the ring structures that open Sūrat Maryam (Q 19). Part Two then focusses on three discrete aspects of the text. Nora K. Schmid assesses the changing structural function of oaths, Marianna Klar evaluates how rhythm, rhyme, and morphological parallelisms combine in order to produce texture and cohesion, while Salwa El-Awa considers the structural impact of connectives and other discourse markers with specific reference to Sūrat Ṭāhā (Q 20). The final section of the volume juxtaposes contrasting attitudes to the discernment of diachronic seams. Devin Stewart examines surah-medial oracular oaths, Muhammad Abdel Haleem questions a range of instances where suggestions of disjointedness have historically been raised, and Nicolai Sinai explores the presence of redactional layers within Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (Q 4) and Sūrat al-Māʾidah (Q 5). Bringing a combination of different approaches to Qur’an structure into a single book, written by well-established and emerging voices in Qur’anic studies, the work will be an invaluable resource to academics researching Islam, religious studies, and languages and literatures in general. Chapters 3 and 6 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Creating an Empire of Informers

Creating an Empire of Informers
Author: Poppy Tushingham
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2024-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 3111323439

Throughout history, many states have attempted to harness the attention of their populations for their own ends. This study argues that the Assyrian Empire in the year 672 BC is such a case. In 672 BC, Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, imposed a succession covenant (adê) on his subjects, the inhabitants of the Assyrian Empire. This covenant required the empire's population to monitor one another, and themselves, for signs of disloyalty to the monarch and his chosen successor, Ashurbanipal. This study examines the aims and outcomes, desired and undesired, of imposing this duty of vigilance across the Assyrian Empire. To consider the presentation and implementation of this duty of vigilance, the study draws largely on evidence supplied by the covenant and other royally-commissioned texts. To examine the outcomes of the covenant's enactment, meanwhile, it explores cuneiform sources, such as letters to the crown, private legal documents, and literary compositions, as well as the Aramaic Story of Ahiqar and the biblical Book of Deuteronomy. By providing a sustained analysis of the real-world implications and outcomes of the covenant, this book sheds new light on a text that fundamentally altered the political makeup of the Assyrian Empire.

The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East

The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East
Author: Karen Sonik
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 1074
Release: 2022-08-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000656284

This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study. Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing theoretical and methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based approaches to specific emotions. Part I addresses emotions and history, defining the terms, materialization and material remains, kings and the state, and engaging the gods. Part II explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, disgust, and shame; anger and hate; envy and jealousy; love, affection, and admiration; and pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts. The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and accessible resource for Near Eastern studies and adjacent fields, including Classical, Biblical, and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions.

Establishing Value

Establishing Value
Author: Vitali Bartash
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501510266

This book explores the reasons for which weights and scales were used to measure goods in Early Mesopotamia (ca. 3,200-2,000 BCE). The vast corpus of cuneiform records from this period sheds light on the various mechanisms behind the development of this cultural innovation. Weighing became the means of articulating the value of both imported and locally-produced goods within a socioeconomic system that had reached an unprecedented level of complexity. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of this cultural and economic phenomenon, which simultaneously reflected and shaped the relationships between individuals and groups in Mesopotamia throughout the third millennium BCE.

Camels in the Biblical World

Camels in the Biblical World
Author: Martin Heide
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 164602169X

Camels are first mentioned in the Bible as the movable property of Abraham. During the early monarchy, they feature prominently as long-distance mounts for the Queen of Sheba, and almost a millennium later, the Gospels tell us about the impossibility of a camel passing through a needle’s eye. Given the limited extrabiblical evidence for camels before circa 1000 BCE, a thorough investigation of the spatio-temporal history of the camel in the ancient Near and Middle East is necessary to understand their early appearance in the Hebrew Bible. Camels in the Biblical World is a two-part study that charts the cultural trajectories of two domestic species—the two-humped or Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) and the one-humped or Arabian camel (Camelus dromedarius)—from the fourth through first millennium BCE and up to the first century CE. Drawing on archaeological camel remains, iconography, inscriptions, and other text sources, the first part reappraises the published data on the species’ domestication and early exploitation in their respective regions of origin. The second part takes a critical look at the various references to camels in the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels, providing a detailed philological analysis of each text and referring to archaeological data and zoological observations whenever appropriate. A state-of-the-art evaluation of the cultural history of the camel and its role in the biblical world, this volume brings the humanities into dialogue with the natural sciences. The novel insights here serve scholars in disciplines as diverse as biblical studies, (zoo)archaeology, history, and philology.

The Exegetical Terminology of Akkadian Commentaries

The Exegetical Terminology of Akkadian Commentaries
Author: Uri Gabbay
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2016-06-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004323473

In The Exegetical Terminology of Akkadian Commentaries Uri Gabbay offers the first detailed study of the well-developed set of technical terms found in ancient Mesopotamian commentaries. Understanding the hermeneutical function of these terms is essential for reconstructing the ancient Mesopotamian exegetical tradition. Using the exegetical terminology attested in the large corpus of Akkadian commentaries from the first millennium BCE, the book addresses the hermeneutics of the commentaries, investigates the scholastic environment in which they were composed, and considers the relationship between the terminology of commentaries and the divine authority of the texts they elucidate. The book concludes with a comparative study that traces links between the terminology used in Akkadian commentaries and that used in early Hebrew exegesis.

Pre-Islamic Arabia

Pre-Islamic Arabia
Author: Valentina A. Grasso
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1009252976

This book delves into the political and cultural developments of pre-Islamic Arabia, focusing on the religious attitudes of the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension into the Syrian desert. Between the third and the seventh century, Arabia was on the edge of three great empires (Iran, Rome and Aksūm) and at the centre of a lucrative network of trade routes. Valentina Grasso offers an interpretative framework which contextualizes the choice of Arabian elites to become Jewish sympathisers and/or convert to Christianity and Islam by probing the mobilization of faith in the shaping of Arabian identities. For the first time the Arabians of the period are granted autonomy from marginalizing (mostly Western) narratives framing them as 'barbarians' inhabiting the fringes of Rome and Iran and/or deterministic analyses in which they are depicted retrospectively as exemplified by the Muslims' definition of the period as Jāhilīyah, 'ignorance'.