Four scholars from the 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍ic Studies Unit at the IIS, Drs Nuha Al-Sha鈥檃r, Karen Bauer, Stephen Burge and Asma Hilali, presented papers at the 223rd American Oriental Society meeting. This year鈥檚 meeting was held in Portland, USA, between 15 and 18 March 2013, and was attended by over 150 academics from across the globe.
Dr Nuha Al-Sha鈥檃r presented a paper entitled 鈥楾he Use of the 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍 in Andalusian Poems (Muwashshahat) of the Thirteenth Century: A Case 久久久福利国产 of Ibn Sahl al-Ishbili鈥.
Dr Al-Sha鈥檃r commented on how little attention has been paid to the religious components of the muwashshahat, especially regarding its 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍ic themes and their functions in the text. She sought to set this right by providing a case study of some of the muwashshahat by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Ibn Sahl al-Isra鈥檌li al-Ishbili (died ca. 1250). He was a convert to Islam from Judaism, who is considered one of the greatest poets of al-Andalus.
Dr Karen Bauer presented a paper entitled 鈥榃omen鈥檚 Rights are Like their Duties 产颈鈥檒-尘补鈥檙耻蹿: The Ethical Treatment of Wives in Classical Tafsir and Marriage Contracts鈥. Dr Bauer noted that classical Islamic marital ethics has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years, with authors particularly focusing on the inequalities between husbands and wives. She pointed to Kecia Ali鈥檚 study of Hanafi, Shafi’i and Maliki juridical opinions of marriage and divorce, and the jurists鈥 justifications for their rulings, which shows that notions of equality in marriage that are common in some parts of the world today are not reflected in Classical Islamic juridical opinions on the role of husband and wife.
Dr Stephen Burge presented a paper entitled 鈥楢l-Suyuti:Hadith, Politics, Power, and 鈥淧eople Control鈥濃. Dr Burge provided a survey of the works of Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505) and argued that many of them can be viewed as means to control the masses. He noted that al-Suyuti sought to influence the religious and social practices of the masses by accommodating popular aspects of culture into normative Islam.
Dr Asma Hilali presented a paper entitled 鈥楾he Oldest Manuscript of the 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍Muslims believe that the Holy 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍 contains divine revelations to the Prophet Muhammed received in Mecca and Medina over a period of 23 years in the early 7th century CE. More: An Edition and Commentary on Selected Passages of the 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍 Manuscript 27.1 Dar al-Makhtutat, Yemen鈥. In her paper, Dr Hilali provided a summary of the oldest fragments of this 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍 manuscript, which was discovered in 1979. Dr Hilali described the page as containing two layers of 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍ic texts, an initial layer which had been deleted and replaced with a second layer. In her presentation she discussed the problematic passages of the manuscript (folios 5a; 5b; 6a; 11b; 21a) and presented the particularities of each passage, focusing on the problem of the 蚕耻谤鈥檃苍ic variants (additions/omissions, 鈥榚xtra-qur鈥檃nic鈥 texts). Based on these particularities, Dr Hilali presented conclusions related to the manuscript鈥檚 use and status.
The meeting is an annual event, hosted by The American Oriental Society, the oldest learned society in the United States devoted to basic research in the languages and literatures of Asia. It includes such subjects as philology, literary criticism, textual criticism, paleography, epigraphy, linguistics, biography, archaeology, and the history of the intellectual and imaginative aspects of Oriental civilisations, especially of philosophy, religion, folklore and art.
Further details of the papers presented can be found here.
Related Pages on the IIS Website:
- News Archive, 2012: IIS Research Associate Presents Paper at Annual Meeting of American Oriental Society
- Academic Article: Al-Suyuti on the Merits of Imam 鈥楢li by Dr Stephen Burge
- News Archive, 2009: Dr Karen Bauer Presents Paper on 鈥淭afsir and its Audience鈥