Interpreting the Self

by Reynolds, Dwight F.; Brustad, Kristen

• ISBN13: 9780520220225
• ISBN10: 0520220226
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

A comprehensive work on the autobiographical tradition in Arabic letters, which includes a detailed introduction to the genre and a selection of autobiographical texts ranging from the 9th to the 19th centuries.

Author Biography

Dwight F. Reynolds is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(16)
Part I. A Thousand Years Of Arabic Autobiography
The Fallacy of Western Origins	17	(19)
Western Reception of Arabic Autobiography	20	(11)
Redefining the Issues	31	(5)
The Origins of Arabic Autobiography	36	(16)
Biographical Traditions: Early Prototypes	36	(2)
Biographical Writing: Literary Genres	38	(1)
Sira (Exemplary Life Story)	38	(2)
Tabaqat (Biographical Dictionaries)	40	(2)
Tarjama (Biographical Notice)	42	(2)
Autobiographical Subgenres	44	(1)
Other Influences	45	(7)
Toward a History of Arabic Autobiography	52	(20)
Historical Clusters	52	(7)
Authorial Motivations	59	(7)
Autobiographical Anxieties	66	(6)
Arabic Autobiography and the Literary Portrayal of the Self	72	(169)
Essentializing the Self: Private Life and Personality in the Memoirs of Ibn Buluggin	74	(5)
Historicizing the Self: Deciphering the Autobiography of Ibn Hajar	79	(8)
Reading for Stylistic Convention in the Autobiography of al-Suyuti	87	(1)
Dreams, Visions, and Unseen Voices	88	(5)
Poetry: An Alternative Discourse	93	(14)
Part II. Translations
Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873 or 877)	107	(12)
Al-Tirmidhi (d. between 905 and 910)	119	(13)
Al-Mu'ayyad al-Shirazi (d. 1077)	132	(13)
`Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani (d. 1201)	145	(11)
`Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (d. 1231)	156	(9)
Ibn al-`Adim (d. 1262)	165	(14)
Abu Shama (d. 1268)	179	(9)
Al-Simnani (d. 1336)	188	(6)
`Abd Allah al-Turjuman [Fray Anselmo Turmeda] (d. 1432?)	194	(8)
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505)	202	(6)
Al-`Aydarus (d. 1628)	208	(8)
Yusuf al-Bahrani (d. 1772)	216	(8)
`Ali Mubarak (d. 1893)	224	(17)
Conclusion	241	(14)
Personality and Self	242	(3)
Literary Conventions	245	(2)
The Status of Arabic Autobiographies as Texts	247	(2)
Into the Twentieth Century	249	(6)
Annotated Guide to Arabic Autobiographical Writings	255	(34)
Glossary	289	(6)
References	295	(16)
List of Contributors	311	(2)
Index	313