1,432 research outputs found
L'Italia e l'islam: 12 secoli di storie in movimento. Un'introduzione e un bilancio
No full textIntroduzione al volum
The wedding of al-Hadhād and al-Ḥarūrā. Glimpses of paganism in Arabia
No full textHere is an analysis of the tale of the marriage of al-Hadhād (of the Ḥimiar royal dynasty)
with a woman of jinn found in Arabic sources dated from the 9th to 12th century. In
the light of archaeological data and other folklore sources collected by scholars in the
last 60 years (Serjeant, Daum, Rodionof), this tale could be interpreted as a foundation
myth, with its strong anthropological and political implications, for the community of
Maʾrib, the capital city and the main site of Sabaic religiousness in pre-Islamic times.
It could also provide some keys of interpretation of a more general religious sensitivity
in Arabia encompassing polytheistic or monotheistic creeds
Some Verses by Ḥassān b. Ṯābit al-Anṣārī Not Included in His Dīwān
No full textMany poems and fragmentary verses have been ascribed to Ḥassān b. Ṯabit al-Anṣrī (d. ca. 40/659). In some sources of Southern-Arabian cultural or political orientation—as al-Hamdānī’s Kitāb al-Iklīl, the commentary to Našwān al-Ḥimyarī’s Qaṣīda al-ḥimyariyya, and particularly the anonymous Waṣāyā al-mulūk (occasionally ascribed to al-Aṣmaʿī or to al-Ḫuzāʿī)—about fifty lines by Ḥassān are found which are not recorded in his “official”
dīwān. Here a brief investigation is conducted in order to reconstruct the poems which could be ascribed either to Ḥassān b. Ṯābit or one of his forgers. A collation of those same verses is then presented together with an English translation
Towers, marching, cows. Lexical notes of words occurring in Hadramitic inscriptions compared to some Classical Arabic poems
No full textAnalysis of some lines of poetry recorded in Classical Arabic repertories (namely in the Aḫbār by ʿAbīd b. Šariyya and in the commentary on Našwān al-Ḥimyarī’s Qaṣīda
ḥimyariyya, as well as lexical literature), may receive light from Hadramautic inscriptions from al-ʿUqla (Shabwa, Yemen), and vice versa. Here three terms (gndl, s 1 yr, bqr) are investigated, with an attempt to establish a semantic-linguistic connection between two cultural contexts: the Hadramite monarchy of early 3 rd century CE and the military environment of the first century of Hijra
The Conversion of Himyarite King Marṯad b. ʿAbd Kulāl and the Book of Ifrīqīs – Another Story of Monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia
No full textThis paper contains an analysis of the story about the conversion to monotheism of the pre-Islamic Arab ruler Marṯad Ḏū al-Aʿwād, as is reported in the narrative-historical work Nihāyat al-irab fī aḫbār al-Furs wa-l-ʿArab, (“The end of yearning for stories about Persians and Arabs”) ascribed to al-Aṣmaʿī (d. 829 ca). This story includes a quotation from a phantom text titled Kitāb Ifrīqīs b. Ibrāhīm (“The Book of Ifrīqīs son of Ibrāhīm”), which stimulated Marṯad’s conversion by the foreseeing of the coming of the Muslim Prophet Muḥammad. The analysis of this story is also an occasion to reconsider the Arab-Muslim perception of the Himyarite kingdom in the second half of 5th century and the beginning of the 6th in light of historical and epigraphical data
ARABI. Arabs Recount Arabia Before Islam, Part I
No full textThe present work – Arabs Recount Arabia Before Islam – is conceived as a little step toward a synthesis of epigraphic and historical data and a revision of the sources of Arab Islamic Tradition. In this First Part, a brief critical study of selected traditional and classical Arabic sources on a given subject (Himyar Dynasty) is put side by side with some short tales, both in Arabic original and English translation, as examples of how the Tradition itself recorded and re-narrated events and characters of Pre-Islamic Arabian history
ARABI - Arabs Recount Arabia before Islam - Part III
No full textThe ARABI (Arabs Recount Arabia Before Islam) series aims to investigate the narration about pre-Islamic Arabia built in the Arab-Muslim Tradition, and compare it, whence possible, with the historical data desumed from direct (epigraphy, archaeology) and external sources. Each volume introduced some short tales, both in Arabic original and English translation, as examples of how the Tradition itself recorded and re-narrated events and characters of Pre-Islamic Arabian history; these stories are selected preferably among unpublished texts or texts which were not yet translated in English. The tales are preceeded by a brief critical study discussing the historical and cultural context either those same tales are framed in, or the sources narrating those tales were collected and written down. Part III of this series (Forseeing the Prophecy: monotheism vs. polytheism) deals with the shift from polytheism to monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia. The voice of the first left little traces in contemporary sources; at the same time the voice of the latter re-shaped every narration according to its historical-religious perspective, since its main goal was to find Arab precedents of the prophecy that revealed in the 7th century CE with the coming of Islam. This volume introduces excerpts from: - Nihāya al-irab fī aḫbār al-Furs wa-l-ʿArab (“The final purpose on the news about the Persians and Arabs”) a work preserved in several manuscripts in European libraries – ascribed to al-Aṣmaʿī (d. 213/828), but highly suspected to be apocryphal. - A commentary to the poem Ḏāt al-furūʿ fī buyūt ʿAdnān wa-qabāʾili-hā wa-faḍāʾili-hā (“The branchful [poem] on the houses of the ʿAdnān, their tribes and their qualities”) by al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. al-Imām al-Manṣūr (d. 623/1226), found in the Arabic manuscript A 68 ar. preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. - The Waṣāyā al-mulūk wa-abnāʾ al-mulūk min walad Qaḥṭān b. Hūd (“The testaments of the kings and the the princes of the children of Qaḥṭān b. Hūd”, a work again ascribed to al-Aṣmaʿī or al-Ḫuzāʿī. - The Kitāb al-tīǧān fī mulūk Ḥimyar, (“The book of crowns on the kings of Ḥimyar”) by Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 729 ca.), though remastered by Abū Muḥammad Ibn Hišām al-Ḥimyarī (d. 833)
Le gesta di Šammar Yurʿiš dall'epigrafia alla tradizione arabo-islamica
No full textThis paper follows the stages of the construction of legends about pre-Islamic Yemeni rulers’ gestae in
Arab-Islamic historiography and literature, pointing out how narrative material of the Islamic conquests
possibly contributed in this construction. The given examples concern specifically the story of Šammar
Yurʿiš, the king of ancient Yemen well-known from epigraphic sources, and their presumptive raids and
conquests in Central Asia, as exposed by South-Arabian historiographers from ʿAbīd b. Šariyya to Našwān
al-Ḥimyarī
A puzzling cue of Yūsuf Ḏū Nuwās: hypothesis on its interpretation and its connections with non-written languages of Yemen
No full textA sentence recorded in Arabic sources (namely Wahb b. Munabbih and Ibn Isḥāq) about the story of Ḥimyarite king Ḏū Nuwās shows some features that may be interpreted as "South-Arabian", though they can hardly be ascribed specifically to one of the epigraphic languages we know. The suggested interpretation could be a little hint for a reflection on non-written languages of Yemen in Late Antiquity and early Islamic Age
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