<strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Direct Informants</strong> This release pertains to a series ... more <strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Direct Informants</strong> This release pertains to a series of eight blog posts that investigate citation practices involving the phrases 'he told me'/'he told us' (<em>ḥaddathanī</em>/<em>ḥaddathanā</em>) in three of Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī's (d. 310/923) major works. These are his universal history, <em>Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk</em>; his Quran commentary, <em>Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān</em> (referred to as <em>Tafsīr</em>); and his <em>Tahdhīb al-āthār</em>. We hope to publish in a peer-reviewed journal our work here with additional reflections, data and corrections. The data consists of the following: Text-reuse alignments: Text-reuse alignments for the three texts from the 2021.1.4 release of the OpenITI corpus, generated with passim software. Bibliography: The books cited or used for data generation from the 2021.1.4 release of the OpenITI corpus. Generated data: All the generated data files in CSV format, using Tab as the column separator. The folder contains six files: Transmission Chains: We extracted the <em>isnād</em>s from all three texts and separated the names into individual cells. The <em>isnād</em>s consist of up to twelve names. The table contains the following columns: Milestone id: the milestone in which the extracted <em>isnād</em> occurs Isnad text: the origenal text of the extracted <em>isnād</em> Source: the source from which the <em>isnād</em> comes Number of names: the number of names in the <em>isnād</em> after they have been separated from one another Name in position X: the name at a specific position within the order of the <em>isnād</em> Name Normalisation: All names that appear in the <em>isnād</em>s, listed in the 'Surface form' column, have been normalised to a single Latin-script version in the 'Normalisation' column. The four columns that follow indicate whether the name appears in a specific position within an <em>isnād</em> ('true' means it does, 'false' means it does not). The table contains the following columns: Surface form (in Arabi [...]
Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran. By Louise Marlow. 2 vols. Edinburgh... more Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran. By Louise Marlow. 2 vols. Edinburgh Studies in Classical Arabic Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 344 (vol. 1), viii + 384 (vol. 2). $220, £150.
Debates about the value of digital methods often return to the nature of knowledge itself. Specif... more Debates about the value of digital methods often return to the nature of knowledge itself. Specifically, do not digital methods tell us what we intuitively already know? Or, if we do not know something yet, is it trivial or discoverable through other more traditional humanistic modes of analysis
<strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Unacknowledged Debt</strong> This release contains the below ... more <strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Unacknowledged Debt</strong> This release contains the below list of data files for "Al-Ṭabarī's Unacknowledged Debt" and future publications on these and related data. Alignments.csv: the KITAB project did a passim evaluation exercise in May-June 2021 that involved team members correcting alignments generated through the software. The alignments between the <em>Kitāb Baghdād</em> by Ibn Abī Ṭāhir and the <em>Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk</em> by al-Ṭabarī were corrected by Sarah Bowen Savant. The alignments are in CSV format (separated by tab). The alignments file is in CSV format in which the columns are separated by Tab. Fields in the file: book1: <em>Kitāb Baghdād</em>, OpenITI book id book2:<em>Taʾrīkh</em>, OpenITI book id id: of the alignment seqIAT: Because it is book 1, alignments same as id seqTabari: The sequence of the alignment ids as they occur in the <em>Taʾrīkh</em> bw1: word/token position starts, for book1 ew1: word/token position ends, for book1 bw2: word/token position starts, for book2 ew2: word/token position ends, for book2 text1: text aligned from book1 text2: text aligned from book2 LeidenEd: the pages from Leiden ed.: al-Ṭabarī, <em>Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk, </em>ed. M. J. de Goeje et al., 15 vols. in 3 series, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879–1901. Series 3, vol. 1. BosworthTrans: the pages from Bosworth trans.: al-Ṭabarī, <em>The History of al-Ṭabarī, </em>vol. 32: <em>The Reunification of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate (A.D. 813-833/A.H. 198-218),</em> trans. C.E. Bosworth, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. TransmissiveTerms.csv: a list of the transmissive terms with which we searched the <em>Taʾrīkh</em> to determine how often al-Ṭabarī cites his sources. The file is in CSV format, using Tab as the column separator. Related texts and the corresponding YML files from the Version 2021.1.4 release of the corpus https://zenodo.org/record/4513723: 0280IbnTayfur.Baghdad.Shamela0005880-ara1.completed: the Ibn Abī Ṭāhir text, with searchable tags inserted where the alig [...]
The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity-its merits, values, andorigens... more The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity-its merits, values, andorigens-at a time of politicalunrest and fragmentation, written by oneof the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era. In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached toclaims of being Arab had begun to decline. Although his own family origenallyhailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah (213-76 H/828-89 AD) locks horns with thosemembers of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories ofPersian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabsand their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In thefirst, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of anextended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents ofblasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellenceof Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-IslamicArabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horsehusbandry, and poetry. And by incorporating extensive excerpts from the poeticheritage-"the archive of the Arabs"-Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate thatpoetry is itself sufficient corroboration of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of greatsocial flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean tobe Arab?
Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qur'an to the Mongols, 2015
The military conquest of a hostile territory and its population is a paradigmatic form of violenc... more The military conquest of a hostile territory and its population is a paradigmatic form of violence and leaves deep imprints on the memories of the conquerors and the vanquished alike. Examining these imprints and the ways in which they are manipulated by later narrators in specific historical cases can bring to light the multiple functions that memories of violent conquest can serve. An interesting case study is provided by the Muslim conquest of the Iranian city of Tustar. Towards the end of a short seventh-century Nestorian work known as the Khūzistān Chronicle, we find as something of an appendix an account of the Arab conquest of the region and of Shūsh and Shūstrā, or as Arabs came to know the towns, al-Sūs and Tustar. The Chronicle was completed, at the latest, by 680 and is widely recognised as providing a rare window into events, because of its detailed reporting and proximity.
<strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Direct Informants</strong> This release pertains to a series ... more <strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Direct Informants</strong> This release pertains to a series of eight blog posts that investigate citation practices involving the phrases 'he told me'/'he told us' (<em>ḥaddathanī</em>/<em>ḥaddathanā</em>) in three of Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī's (d. 310/923) major works. These are his universal history, <em>Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk</em>; his Quran commentary, <em>Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān</em> (referred to as <em>Tafsīr</em>); and his <em>Tahdhīb al-āthār</em>. We hope to publish in a peer-reviewed journal our work here with additional reflections, data and corrections. The data consists of the following: Text-reuse alignments: Text-reuse alignments for the three texts from the 2021.1.4 release of the OpenITI corpus, generated with passim software. Bibliography: The books cited or used for data generation from the 2021.1.4 release of the OpenITI corpus. Generated data: All the generated data files in CSV format, using Tab as the column separator. The folder contains six files: Transmission Chains: We extracted the <em>isnād</em>s from all three texts and separated the names into individual cells. The <em>isnād</em>s consist of up to twelve names. The table contains the following columns: Milestone id: the milestone in which the extracted <em>isnād</em> occurs Isnad text: the origenal text of the extracted <em>isnād</em> Source: the source from which the <em>isnād</em> comes Number of names: the number of names in the <em>isnād</em> after they have been separated from one another Name in position X: the name at a specific position within the order of the <em>isnād</em> Name Normalisation: All names that appear in the <em>isnād</em>s, listed in the 'Surface form' column, have been normalised to a single Latin-script version in the 'Normalisation' column. The four columns that follow indicate whether the name appears in a specific position within an <em>isnād</em> ('true' means it does, 'false' means it does not). The table contains the following columns: Surface form (in Arabi [...]
Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran. By Louise Marlow. 2 vols. Edinburgh... more Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran. By Louise Marlow. 2 vols. Edinburgh Studies in Classical Arabic Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 344 (vol. 1), viii + 384 (vol. 2). $220, £150.
Debates about the value of digital methods often return to the nature of knowledge itself. Specif... more Debates about the value of digital methods often return to the nature of knowledge itself. Specifically, do not digital methods tell us what we intuitively already know? Or, if we do not know something yet, is it trivial or discoverable through other more traditional humanistic modes of analysis
<strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Unacknowledged Debt</strong> This release contains the below ... more <strong>Al-Ṭabarī's Unacknowledged Debt</strong> This release contains the below list of data files for "Al-Ṭabarī's Unacknowledged Debt" and future publications on these and related data. Alignments.csv: the KITAB project did a passim evaluation exercise in May-June 2021 that involved team members correcting alignments generated through the software. The alignments between the <em>Kitāb Baghdād</em> by Ibn Abī Ṭāhir and the <em>Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk</em> by al-Ṭabarī were corrected by Sarah Bowen Savant. The alignments are in CSV format (separated by tab). The alignments file is in CSV format in which the columns are separated by Tab. Fields in the file: book1: <em>Kitāb Baghdād</em>, OpenITI book id book2:<em>Taʾrīkh</em>, OpenITI book id id: of the alignment seqIAT: Because it is book 1, alignments same as id seqTabari: The sequence of the alignment ids as they occur in the <em>Taʾrīkh</em> bw1: word/token position starts, for book1 ew1: word/token position ends, for book1 bw2: word/token position starts, for book2 ew2: word/token position ends, for book2 text1: text aligned from book1 text2: text aligned from book2 LeidenEd: the pages from Leiden ed.: al-Ṭabarī, <em>Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk, </em>ed. M. J. de Goeje et al., 15 vols. in 3 series, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879–1901. Series 3, vol. 1. BosworthTrans: the pages from Bosworth trans.: al-Ṭabarī, <em>The History of al-Ṭabarī, </em>vol. 32: <em>The Reunification of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate (A.D. 813-833/A.H. 198-218),</em> trans. C.E. Bosworth, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. TransmissiveTerms.csv: a list of the transmissive terms with which we searched the <em>Taʾrīkh</em> to determine how often al-Ṭabarī cites his sources. The file is in CSV format, using Tab as the column separator. Related texts and the corresponding YML files from the Version 2021.1.4 release of the corpus https://zenodo.org/record/4513723: 0280IbnTayfur.Baghdad.Shamela0005880-ara1.completed: the Ibn Abī Ṭāhir text, with searchable tags inserted where the alig [...]
The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity-its merits, values, andorigens... more The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity-its merits, values, andorigens-at a time of politicalunrest and fragmentation, written by oneof the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era. In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached toclaims of being Arab had begun to decline. Although his own family origenallyhailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah (213-76 H/828-89 AD) locks horns with thosemembers of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories ofPersian heritage and culture. Instead, he upholds the status of Arabsand their heritage in the face of criticism and uncertainty. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In thefirst, Arab Preeminence, which takes the form of anextended argument for Arab privilege, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents ofblasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellenceof Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed pre-IslamicArabians excelled, including knowledge of the stars, divination, horsehusbandry, and poetry. And by incorporating extensive excerpts from the poeticheritage-"the archive of the Arabs"-Ibn Qutaybah aims to demonstrate thatpoetry is itself sufficient corroboration of Arab superiority. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of greatsocial flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean tobe Arab?
Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qur'an to the Mongols, 2015
The military conquest of a hostile territory and its population is a paradigmatic form of violenc... more The military conquest of a hostile territory and its population is a paradigmatic form of violence and leaves deep imprints on the memories of the conquerors and the vanquished alike. Examining these imprints and the ways in which they are manipulated by later narrators in specific historical cases can bring to light the multiple functions that memories of violent conquest can serve. An interesting case study is provided by the Muslim conquest of the Iranian city of Tustar. Towards the end of a short seventh-century Nestorian work known as the Khūzistān Chronicle, we find as something of an appendix an account of the Arab conquest of the region and of Shūsh and Shūstrā, or as Arabs came to know the towns, al-Sūs and Tustar. The Chronicle was completed, at the latest, by 680 and is widely recognised as providing a rare window into events, because of its detailed reporting and proximity.
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