Arabic Title Research Articles

Translating Migration: Art Installations against Dehumanizing Labelling Practices

Migration is commonly described as a threat through images of invasion and flood in Western media. Migrants and asylum seekers tend to be the target of hate speech together with other vulnerable groups and minorities, such as disabled people, and definitions and labels have precise implications in terms of social justice and human rights. Migrant is an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of people who leave their countries of origin. Out-of-quota and dubliner are further labels, together with asylum seekers. Through an interdisciplinary approach, adopting a translation perspective on social justice, I would like to focus on the ways these labelling practices affect migrants’ and asylum seekers’ lives to the point of violating their rights. A clear example is represented by the English term dublined, translated as dublinati/dublinanti into Italian, and with no translation into German. It derives from the Dublin regulations, signed in 2013 and still valid, and indicates those people who want to apply for asylum in a given country but cannot do so because their fingerprints have been taken and registered in another EU country. Classifications of this kind, combined with further categorisations, such as “ordinary” or “vulnerable”, are applied throughout EU countries and languages to determine whether asylum seekers deserve, and are thus granted, asylum or not. They are informed by a dehumanizing view of migration and translate into “bordering practices” which prevent access to reception systems and welfare services. Resistant translation practices, a new language and art activism can contribute to reversing dehumanizing practices by putting displaced people’s identities at the centre. The Sicilian artist Antonio Foresta is the author of the installation Pace Nostra, a symbolic wave made of migrants’ clothes and Caltanissetta inhabitants’ bedsheets, with both an Italian and Arabic title, which translates migration, commonly perceived as “their” drama, into “our” drama, a common human experience, leading to a common goal: peace.

Review: Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri, by Ryan J. Lynch

Review: <i>Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri</i>, by Ryan J. Lynch

Indexing War: The Craft of the Catalogue in Sinan Antoon’s The Book of Collateral Damage

This article explores how Sinan Antoon's novel The Book of Collateral Damage (2019) brings Arabic literary history into unlikely conversation with US military jargon as it offers an alternative catalogue of the destruction incurred during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the violence that followed. First, by drawing attention to the novel's original Arabic title Fihris (2016), which can be translated as ‘index' or ‘catalogue', I consider the titular transformation the novel underwent by translation and unpick intertextual strands woven through the text, focusing in particular on the tenth-century compendium of Arabic books Kitāb al-Fihrist, compiled by Ibn al-Nadim, as a key intertext. I then interrogate how the concept of ‘collateral damage', which has been widely used to refer to the unintentional damage and deaths incurred during military operations including the 2003 Iraq War, is creatively redeployed in the novel. Rather than reading the text as an attempt to ‘write back to' or ‘resist’ the dehumanising rhetoric of collateral damage, I argue instead that Antoon repurposes the logic of this abstract term, which blurs human and non-human destruction, to expose its absurd politics of personification. Presenting readers with a chorus of uncanny narrators – both human and non-human – who each tell the story of their destruction, the novel forms a literary compendium of collateral damage. By bringing together Arabic literary history and contemporary military jargon in this way, I argue that Antoon creates a poetics of infinity which asserts the impossibility of ever indexing the consequences of war while also attesting to the writerly compulsion to record, however imperfectly, this destruction.

Arabic Script Rare Books at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan: An Annotated Bibliography

ABSTRACT This bibliography lists and describes forty-one volumes of old and rare books in Arabic script held in the Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan located in Bishkek. This small but unique collection has been neglected, untouched, and uncatalogued due to lack of linguistic expertise. The publication dates of the books in the collection generally range from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Each bibliographic entry consists of the original Arabic title of the work, full imprint information, and a brief annotation. Most items described in this bibliography are not found in modern catalogs, including the WorldCat database. This bibliography is a first step in providing access to one of the many hidden and rare collections in Central Asia.

Introduction and General

Introduction and General Brent A. Strawn and Christopher T. Begg 2437. [Bullae from the Shara Temple] Nawala Ahmed Al-Mutawalli, Khalid Salim Ismael, and Walther Sallaberger, Bullae from the Shara Temple (Cuneiform Texts from the Iraqi Excavations at Umma [Jokha] 2; with contributions by Hamza [End Page 872] Shahad Al-Harbi and Adelheid Otto; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019). Pp. 201 + plates + 6 [Arabic title, table of contents, & preface]. €68. ISBN 978-3-447-11159-1. This volume is the second in a series (but the first to appear) that will publish the cuneiform texts from the Iraqi Excavations at Umma (Jokha) that were conducted in the years 1999 to 2002. It focuses on 107 bullae from the Shara Temple, which all stem from a single room, Room 21. The rest of the bullae (more than 200) from Umma (Jokha) were recovered from the main tell; they will be published in vol. 3 of the series. The Umma (Jokha) cuneiform tablets date to the Early Old Babylonian period, with many belonging to the time when Umma was ruled by Sumuel of Larsa (1894–1866 b.c.e.). The bullae as well are from the Early Old Babylonian period. After an introduction to the archaeological evidence for the Shara Temple of Umma in the Early Old Babylonian Period, the authors provide an extensive overview of the bullae archive from the temple administration and the information that can be gleaned from this. The catalogue follows, after which one finds the texts in transliteration and translation (in both English and Arabic), a treatment of the seals and seal inscriptions, and a consideration of the iconography of the seal impressions. A bibliography, plus indexes (year dates, personal names, divine names, geographical names, field names, glossary) and plates of the 107 texts conclude the volume.—B.A.S. 2438. Victoria Altmann-Wendling, Mondsymbolik-Mondwissen. Lunare Konzepte in den ägyptischen Tempeln griechisch-römischer Zeit (2 vols.; Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion 22; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018). Pp. xx + 698 (vol. 1); 699-1055 + 31 b/w plates + 8 color plates (vol. 2). €198. ISBN 978-3-447-11136-2. In this reworking of her 2017 Tübingen dissertation, A.-W. provides a comprehensive account concerning the moon (Egyptian ʾIʿḥ, ʾIwnḥʿʿ) in the life and religion of Greco-Roman Egypt. Vol. 1 surveys the relevant source material for the study, i.e. the pictorial and/or textual evidence drawn from central temples of the era (Dendara, Edfu, and Karnak in particular), local cult sites at oases, and papyri. In her second volume, A.-W. then seeks to synthesize the data generated in the first, here highlighting the range of mythological/theological, cultic, astronomical, symbolic, and calendrical conceptions surrounding the "lunar phenomenon," the iconographical representations of these, and the complex interplay among them in the late period of ancient Egypt's history. Her vol. 2 also includes an appendix consisting of a catalogue of texts containing the two above-mentioned words for "moon," an extensive bibliography, various indexes, and a series of plates illustrating her previous discussion of Egyptian lunar iconography.—C.T.B. 2439. [Egyptian and ANE Palaces] Manfred Bietak, Paolo Matthiae, and Silvia Prell (eds.), Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Palaces, Vol. II: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, 25-26 April 2016 (Contributions to the Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia, and the Levant [CAENL] 8; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019). Pp. 256. €98. ISBN 978-3-447-11183-6. This collection of studies on ANE and Egyptian palaces derives from a workshop organized jointly by the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei that was held in Vienna in April 2016 in conjunction with the 10th meeting of the ICAANE. The objective of the workshop was to present and augment existing knowledge about ANE palaces in relation to those of ancient Egypt. It has become clear that while concepts [End Page 873] of axial plans and symmetry in Egyptian palaces reflect the pharaonic mindset, ANE palace architects were more flexible in planning their constructions. Besides the...

May the Weak Be Helped!

May the Weak Be Helped!

An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities trans. and ed. by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith

Reviewed by: An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities trans. and ed. by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith Ismail K. Poonawala An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith (eds and trans), 2014. Leiden and Boston: Brill, xii + 698 pp., + facsimile of Bodleian MS Arab c. 90, fol. 1A-fol. 49A ( 92 pp.), £188.25. ISBN: 9789004255647 (hbk). This thick volume of over 700 pages is a detailed account of the heavens and earth, illustrated by an unparalleled series of maps and astronomical diagrams. With topics ranging from comets to the island of Sicily, from lunar mansions to the sources of the Nile, it represents the extent of geographical, astronomical and astrological knowledge of the eleventh century. It is lavishly and aesthetically produced with a colour facsimile of the unique manuscript and numerous maps, including two of the world, one rectangular and the other circular. In addition, it includes maps of the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas, Sicily, Cyprus, the Bays of Byzantium, the sources of the Nile, as well as river maps of the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus and the Oxus. This authoritative and critical edition of An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe, with annotated translation, is of high scholarly quality. It opens a unique window on the worldview of medieval Islam and represents the extent of the geographical, astronomical and astrological knowledge of the time. It is a welcome addition, particularly, to the list of Muslim contributions to cosmological science and cartography. Both Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith should be congratulated for their valuable efforts. The project for the preparation of this book extended over a decade. We do not know the history of this highly illustrated manuscript of a hitherto-unknown Arabic cosmological treatise, nor where it was [End Page 359] discovered, or how. What we do know is that on 10 October 2000 Christie's, a prestigious auction house in London, offered it for sale and Sam Fogg, a well-known London dealer in rare books and manuscripts, bought it. Later, it was discovered that eight other copies of the entire text, or portions of it, without most of the illustrations, were preserved in manuscripts dating from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries that had gone unnoticed by scholars due to the work's anonymity. Fogg, thereafter, offered the manuscript to the Bodleian Library at a price well under its true market value. Following an extensive fundraising effort, in June 2002 the Bodleian acquired it. The manuscript contains a remarkable series of early maps and astronomical diagrams, most of which are unparalleled in any Greek, Latin or Arabic sources known to be preserved today. Both its illustrations and the Arabic text preserve material gathered from Muslim astronomers, historians, scholars and travellers during the ninth to eleventh centuries whose works are now either totally lost or only partially preserved in fragments in later sources. The Arabic title of the book is Kitāb Gharā'ib al-funūn wamulaḥ al-'uyūn (The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes). It has been recognized as one of the most important discoveries in the history of cartography during recent decades. The manuscript copy is without colophon, that is, unsigned and undated. However, from the appearance of the paper, ink and script, the editors presume a possible dating to the end of the twelfth century. Unfortunately, the author's name is unknown. What is known is that it was composed in Egypt during the reign of the Fatimids, but the name of the reigning caliph is not mentioned. Following the basmala, ḥamdala and taṣliya, the introduction simply states 'And [may the prayers of God be] on the leaders of the community from among his [Muhammad's] descendants, the virtuous chosen ones, the good caliphs.'1 The book begins with a response to a plea for information from a fellow scholar. The author states: You have asked me … to write a volume encompassing the principles of the raised-up roof [i.e. the sky] and the laid-down bed [i.e...

The Transformation of Images in French Publications for North African Troops, 1939–46

The Maghreb Review, Vol. 39, 2, 2014 © The Maghreb Review 2014 This publication is printed on longlife paper THE TRANSFORMATION OF IMAGES IN FRENCH PUBLICATIONS FOR NORTH AFRICAN TROOPS, 1939–46 ALLAN CHRISTELOW * The second world war was a turning point in Algerian history, marking the transition from efforts to promote gradual change in the 1930s to the severe conflict that began with the brutal repression of protests at Sétif and Guelma in May 1945, and then was transformed into a revolution starting in November 1954. Historians have extensively studied the political dimensions of this crisis, working mainly with written material such as newspapers and archival documents. 1 But there are also psychological and socio-cultural dimensions to this dramatic historical change, dimensions that can be seen in artistic images made available to a wide audience through publications. This article will explore these dimensions through examining magazines that were published during the war for North African Muslim troops, mainly Algerians, serving in the French armed forces. These publications were bilingual, with one cover and part of the texts in French, the other cover and texts in Arabic. Until the end of the war, they were printed by the Imprimerie Jules Carbonel in Algiers, a printing house that often published works aimed at building French understanding of the culture and languages of Algeria. The first of these magazines was given the name, Ya Allah!, with the exclamation mark appearing only in the French version of the title. This was a phrase shouted by troops as they charged against the enemy. It recalls the intensity of trench warfare during the first world war, when some 175,000 Algerian troops, many of them conscripts, served on the Western Front. It also had a subtitle, Illustré Mensuel des Militaires Musulmans Nord-Africains. It was published from December 1939 until June 1940, when the French government surrendered, allowing the Germans to occupy the north of France, and establishing a new government in the resort town of Vichy in southern France. This government, tied to conservative political forces, controlled the south of France and French colonial territories in North Africa. The second magazine, An Nasr (Victory), started in June 1943, some seven months after Operation Torch, when American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, and just after the Allied forces had driven the Germans and Italians out of Tunisia. It would continue publication until 1946. Initially it had a French subtitle (but not one in Arabic), Illustré Mensuel Arabe, but this was dropped after the fifth issue (October 1943). Unlike Ya Allah, it had a price (5 francs), suggesting that it was * Idaho State University 1 One the history of this period, see Charles Robert Ageron, L’histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine (1830-1976), 6th edn, Paris: PUF, 1977; Mahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1830-1987, Cambridge University Press, 1988. 160 ALLAN CHRISTELOW aimed at a broader audience, including civilians, to secure their support for the Free French government and the Allied powers in the war against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In between these two publications there was a magazine published by the Government General of Algeria, the Bulletin de Documentation, given the Arabic title al-Dalil (The Guide). It began publication in May 1940, probably in anticipation that France would be unable to continue the fight after the Battle of Sedan on 13 May. It had no artistic illustrations, and only an occasional photograph. This article will focus on the visual images presented in these publications, looking at the artists who produced them, the styles of imagery, the printing facilities that were used, and the military and political contexts that influenced them. The last topic will involve a fair amount of interpretation since I have not had access to documents that would shed light on how decisions were made to choose particular images and artists. Some of the illustrations are not signed, and this raises further possible complications. The article will also look at some of the written material. Underlying the problems mentioned are the discussions about French artistic presentations of North Africa, especially since the appearance of Edward Saïd’s classic work, Orientalism, published in 1978. Saïd...

Theology, Ethics and Metaphysics * Edited by HIROYUKI MASHITA (Royal Asiatic Society Classics of Islam. London: Routledge-Curzon, 2004), 5 vols., 2080 pp. Price 550.00 (set). ISBN 0-700-7167-0X.

This is a set of well-produced reprints of works of European scholarship on various aspects of Islamic culture, originally published between 1831 (or 1830, according to the Arabic title page of Khwārazmī's Algebra) and 1953. Not only do the works contained in this set cover a long period, they also cover a wide variety of subjects, from mathematics through mysticism to Ḥadīth. Indeed, the range is so broad that one may wonder if the title of the series (Theology, Ethics and Metaphysics) is not somewhat misleading. On the other hand, it would seem that the choice of a broad range of topics is deliberate. It appears that its aim is to represent the work of the Royal Asiatic Society in general, and that of its (de facto) subsidiary, the Oriental Translation Fund, in particular. The introduction by C. E. Bosworth is most helpful in this respect, because it...

Creativity, Random Selection, and pia fraus : Observations on Compilation and Transmission of the Arabian Nights

The number alf (1,000) in the Arabic title has been a permanent challenge for copyists and compilators committed to the transmission of texts of the Arabian Nights. Complete sets of the work seem to have survived in their entirety only a short time. So copyists must have felt invited to (re)create a complete Nights. This paper presents the different solutions applied by copyists and compilators in order to achieve their ambitious goals, the honest and deceitful methods and the tricks displayed in the Arabic texts as well as in the European translations of the Nights.

The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives

The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (KAFRA) (Arabic title: Darat al-Malik Abdulaziz) was established in 1972 with the aim of preserving the history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with its geography, literature, thought, and architecture. The Foundation is an independent academic establishment governed by a board of directors, chaired by HRH Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud. Its funds are based on project returns, investment activities, government funds, and private donations. Its major sections are: Saudi History Archives, Oral History Center, Information Center, Research Department, Female Center, Ad-darah Journal, the Library, King Abdulaziz Memorial Exhibition Hall, Muraba Palace, and the Royal Family History Center.During its twenty-nine years of existence, the King Abdulaziz Foundation has collected and preserved huge quantities of historical source materials: documents, manuscripts, books, magazines, photographs, sketches, paintings, films, and oral traditions. The Foundation is keen to collect, classify, and preserve historical documents in both original and duplicate forms. It has collected, as well as copied from, various archives and research centers outside the Kingdom.

King Avicenna: The Iconographic Consequences of a Mistranslation

The writer discusses the depiction in manuscripts and printed books of the ninth-century Islamic philosopher and physician Avicenna as a king. These depictions, the first of which date from about 1300, depict Avicenna with regal iconographic attributes, such as a crown, a throne, and a book. Although these attributes were sometimes employed metaphorically to indicate Avicenna's supreme position in the world of medical learning, the iconographic representation of him as a king was based on a mistake, having its origin in a mistranslation of an Arabic title bestowed upon Avicenna, the precise meaning of which so far remains unsolved.

The use of topic sentences for evaluating the representativeness of Arabic article titles

This paper provides another partial answer to the question of whether titles of Arabic periodical articles can be used for keyword indexing techniques and for the production of Arabic title-derivative printed indexes. It examines and evaluates the representativeness of Arabic article titles in five different disciplines by comparing the substantive words found in titles to the content of their accompanying topic sentences in the introduction or objectives parts of articles. Although significant differences are found between titles in library and information science and titles in philosophy, Arabic titles appear to provide good representations of their articles. Between 70% and 88% of the substantive words in titles matched substantive words in the corresponding topic sentences. To give a full answer to the above question, there are still other issues to be investigated

The information content of titles of Arabic periodical articles

This paper provides a partial answer to the question of whether titles of Arabic periodical articles can be used for keyword indexing techniques. It examines the information content of titles of Arabic research papers in 16 scientific and non-scientific fields by counting the number of their substan tive words and comparing the results with those for English periodical articles in the same subject areas. Although signifi cant differences are found between the two samples in some subjects, such as agriculture, philosophy, linguistics, law, and library and information science, Arabic titles generally appear to be as informative as English titles. Some practical problems are found in using Arabic titles for indexing, e g the need to strip prefixes from keywords.

Trois Hauts Dignitaires Bornoans du XVIeSiècle: Le Digma, Le Grand Jarma et Le Cikama

Little attention has until now been directed to the rich information on title-holders contained in the two chronicles of the imām Aḥmad b. Furṭū written in 1576 and 1578 respectively. This neglect is partly due to the very confusing style of the imām's writing. In particular, he refers to the three highest ranking Bornoan officials by translating their Bornoan titles into Arabic: the Digma is called ‘al-wazīr al-kabīr’, the great Jarma ‘al-rā'id al-kabīr’, and the Cikama ‘al-ḥājib’. Once the meaning of these Arabic titles is decoded it appears that the political organisation of sixteenth century Borno owes very little to the Islamic model. Furthermore it becomes clear that the commander of the Bornoan corps of musketeers was the great Jarma, an official of Ngizim origin, and not a Turkish military instructor as one may have suspected.However, since Ibn Furṭū is mainly concerned with military activities, only a few functions of the three high-ranking court officials emerge from his account; others have to be inferred from the information provided by nineteenth-century European travellers and from more recent anthropological accounts. In Borno the political organisation of the Sayfuwa state fell to pieces in the first half of the nineteenth century, when al-Amīn al-Kānemī and his successors built up a new system of administration. This progressively supplanted the old system, which was based on a great number of court titles and attendant offices. Important elements of the political organisation of the Sayfuwa survive until the present day in some former vassal states of Borno which became independent in the course of the nineteenth century or earlier.

Malik Ifrīqiya: The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Fāṭimids

AbstractThis article reviews some aspects of the interesting history of a briefly held Norman Kingdom in Africa in the mid-twelfth century. The question of whether or not the Norman rulers of Sicily ever adopted a formal Arabic title for their African kingdom (malik Ifrīqiya) is discussed in detail, with attention drawn in particular to multilingual inscriptions set up in 1148 by Grizant, priest of King Roger. The significant date of these inscriptions, being the very year at which the African conquests became firmly established, suggests an official title which was experimented with and discarded (at least in formal use, since it occurs in private documents later). The reasons why the style was not more widely adopted are examined in the second part of the article, focusing on the changing pattern of relations between the Norman court in Sicily and the Fāṭimid administration in Egypt.

Al-Fārābī's Aphorisms of the Statesman

As is well known, al-Fārābī formulated his political philosophy on more than one occasion. The most comprehensive statements of his political views are to be found in two texts which engaged the attention of the German orientalist Dieterici and whose Arabic titles may conveniently be rendered the Ideal State and the Political Philosophy. It is apparently these two works which are mentioned together in terms of the highest praise by the Qāḍī Ṣā'id of Toledo (died 462/1070). The general position developed in both works is the same, but the relation between them remains quite obscure. As certain topics receive greater development in the Political Philosophy it is natural to think of it as later in date than the Ideal State, which is said to have been begun at Baghdad in 330/941 and completed at Damascus in the following year. If this is correct, the Political Philosophy, like Plato's Laws, was produced in the last years of its author's lifetime. (Al-Fārābī died in 339/950.)

Art. XIX.—Al-Muzaffariyé: containing a Recent Contribution to the Study of 'Omar Khayyām

Under the above Arabic title there has just appeared in St. Petersburg a Festschrift to Baron Victor Rosen, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his professional activity. It contains articles extending over a wide range of subjects by eleven of his former pupils, who are most of them at present professors or lecturers at the University of St. Petersburg.

XXXVII. On the Origin and Antiquity, Use and Advantage of Cufic Coins. By the Rev. Stephen Weston, in a Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, K.T. F.R.S. President

I offer to your Lordship and the Society a short Paper on the origin and antiquity, use and advantage of Cufic Coins.Wheresoever the arms and religion of the disciples of Mahomed have forced their way, coins that have Arabic titles, whether struck in Syria, Persia, Africa, Spain, or Arabia, are called Mahometan. The most ancient of these are said to be Cufic, because their legends are written in Cufic letters, that is, in characters first used in Cufa, a city of Mesopotamia, and first employed in transcribing the Koran for the space of three hundred years, and for inscriptions on stones and coins for three hundred more, to the 13th century of the Christian æra.