Bücher der Reihe Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (University of Hamburg, Germany, Editor-in-Chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan, USA), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware, USA), Kristina L. Richardson (Queens College New York, USA).

This book deals with a prominent literary element of the Koran, the "counter-discourse", the citations of opposing voices. This feature of the Koranic text has been neglected in earlier scholarship although it is connected to the larger question of the religious milieu in which the Koran emerged. Accordingly, the topic is of considerable importance to our understanding of Islamic origins.

The corpus coranicum eludes familiar categories and resists strict labels. No doubt the threads woven into the fabric are exceptionally textured, varied, and complex. Accordingly, the introductory chapter of this book demonstrates the application of form criticism to the text. Chapter two then presents a form-critical study of the prayer genre. It identifies three productive formulae and addresses distinct social settings and forms associated with them. The third chapter begins by defining the liturgy genre vis-a-vis prayer in the QurE an. Drawing a line between the hymn and litany forms, this chapter treats each in turn. Chapter four considers the genre classified as wisdom literature. It identifies sapiential formulae and sheds light on wisdom contexts. The fifth chapter examines the narrative genre writ large. It also surveys narrative blocks of the long saga. The subsequent chapter on the proclamation genre inspects a set of vocative formulae, which occurs in the messenger situation. The concluding chapter looks at the corpus through synchronic and diachronic lenses. In the end, QurE anic genres encapsulate the form-critical elements of formulae, forms, and settings, as well as an historical dimension.

This work treats in one volume the most important fields in Islamic studies: Persian literature and philology; Islamic history and historiography; The essays are representative of the fields in which one of the most illustrious Arabists and Persianists in the world, Ahmad Mahdavi Damgani, has been an indispensible contributor for close to 65 years.

In the Islamic period, the term "Khorasan" came to be used for a much larger area, reaching into Central Asia well beyond the Oxus river, encompassing large parts of northern Afghanistan, and even extending to southeastern Iran. This volume brings together research on the history, geography, archaeology, and the material culture of this region.

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (University ofHamburg, Germany, Editor-in-Chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan, USA), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware, USA).

Dieses Buch belegt anhand neuer Forschungen die praktische Bedeutung islamischen Rechtsdenkens in der Geschichte. Es behandelt unterschiedliche Rechtsordnungen, juristische Strömungen und Urkunden sowie Rechtsfelder in ihrer gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung. Dabei widerlegt es das Bild der unwandelbaren Scharia. Als Referenzwerk legt es die Grundlage für ein neuartiges Verständnis von Recht in islamischer Geschichte und zeitgenössischer Rezeption.