Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period

by Edited by A. F. L. Beeston , T. M. Johnstone , R. B. Serjeant , G. R. Smith

• ISBN13: 9780521126212
• ISBN10: 0521126215
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Originally published in 1983, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature was the first general survey of the field to have been published in English for over fifty years and the first attempted in such detail in a multi-volume form. The volumes of the History provide an invaluable source of reference and understanding of the intellectual, literary and religious heritage of the Arabic-speaking and Islamic world. This volume begins its coverage with the oral verse of the sixth century AD, and ends with the fall of the Umayyad dynasty two centuries later. Within this period fall major events: the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the founding of the Islamic religion, the great Arab Islamic conquests of territories outside the Arabian Peninsula, and their meeting, as overlords, with the Byzantine and Sasanian world. Contributors to this volume discuss an array of topics including the influences of Greeks, Persians and Syrians on early Arabic literature.

Table of Contents

Editorial introduction

Maps

Background topics

Pre-Islamic poetry

Early Arabic prose

The beginnings of Arabic prose literature: the epistolary genre

The role of parallelism in Arabic prose

The Qur'an - I

The Qur'an - II

Qisas elements in the Qur'an

Aspects of the Qur'an today

Hadith literature - I: the development of the science of Hadith

Hadith literature - II: collection and transmission of Hadith

Shi'i Hadith

Narrative elements in the Hadith literature

European criticism of Hadith literature

The impact of the Qur'an and Hadith on medieval Arabic literature

The Maghazi literature

The Sirah literature

The poetry of the Sirah literature

Fables and legends in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times

Umayyad poetry

Music and verse

The Greek impact on Arabic literature

The Persian impact on Arabic literature

The Syrian impact on Arabic literature

D. Pearson

Glossary

List of sources

Index

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