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Loss sings

The seventh-century poet Tumadir, also known as al-Khansa'--a sobriquet that means "the Snub-nosed Gazelle doe"--survived both her brothers. Her poetic output consists of dirges for those dead brothers. In Loss Sings, James Montgomery translates a number of these dirges from the Arabic and weaves a cahier around them. Bringing this little-known ancient Arabic poet to contemporary readers for the first time, Montogomery intersperses personal and poignant observations throughout the collection as he explores related elements of death and loss.

Al-Jāḥiẓ : in praise of books

Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. 'In Praise of Books' explores the centrality of books to Al-Jahiz's work and to the society he lived in.This book introduces the writings and Abbasid-period textual world of Al-Jahiz, the 'father of Arabic prose'. Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived in Iraq during the first century of the Abbasid caliphate. He advised and argued with the major power brokers and leading religious and intellectual figures of his day, and crossed swords in debate and argument with the architects of the Islamic religious, theological, philosophical and cultural canon. His many, tumultuous writings engage with these figures, their ideas, theories and policies. They give us an invaluable but much-neglected window onto the values and beliefs of this cosmopolitan elite. Edinburgh University Press will publish two self-contained guides to reading al-Jahiz that also shed light on his society and its writings. Volume 1, In Praise of Books, is devoted to bibliomania and al-Jahiz's bibliophilia. Volume 2, In Censure of Books, explores Al-Jahiz's bibliophobia.

The Diwan of 'Antarah Ibn Shaddad : a literary-historical study

The pre-Islamic warrior-poet 'Antarah ibn Shaddad, a composer of one of the Mu'allaqat, attracted the attention of the philologists who were active in Iraq at the nascence of the scholarly study of Arabic. These philologists collected and studied the diwan of 'Antarah as part of their recovery and codification of the Jahiliyyah: 'Antarah became one of the Six Poets, a collection of pre-Islamic poets associated with al-Asma'i, "the father of Arabic philology." Two centuries later, in al-Andalus, al-Shantamari and al-Batalyawsi composed their commentaries on the diwans of the Six Poets. This study uncovers the literary history of 'Antarah's diwan and presents five editions, with critical apparatus, of the extant recensions, based on an extensive collation of the surviving manuscripts.

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