The subject of Mystical Languages of Unsaying is an important but neglected mode of mystical discourse, apophasis. which literally means "speaking away." Sometimes translated as "negative theology," apophatic discourse embraces the impossibility of naming something that is ineffable by continually turning back upon its own propositions and names. In this close study of apophasis in Greek, Christian, and Islamic texts, Michael Sells offers a sustained, critical account of how apophatic language works, the conventions, logic, and paradoxes it employs, and the dilemmas...
The subject of Mystical Languages of Unsaying is an important but neglected mode of mystical discourse, apophasis. which literally means...
Not since the Crusades of the Middle Ages has Islam evoked the degree of fear, hostility, and ethnic and religious stereotyping that is evident throughout Western culture today. As conflicts continue to proliferate around the globe, the perception of a colossal, unyielding, and unavoidable struggle between Islam and the West has intensified. These numerous conflicts, both actual and ideological, have revived fears of an ongoing "clash of civilizations"--an intractable and irreconcilable conflict of values between Western cultures and an Islam that is portrayed as hostile and alien. The...
Not since the Crusades of the Middle Ages has Islam evoked the degree of fear, hostility, and ethnic and religious stereotyping that is evident throug...
Not since the Crusades of the Middle Ages has Islam evoked the degree of fear, hostility, and ethnic and religious stereotyping that is evident throughout Western culture today. As conflicts continue to proliferate around the globe, the perception of a colossal, unyielding, and unavoidable struggle between Islam and the West has intensified. These numerous conflicts, both actual and ideological, have revived fears of an ongoing "clash of civilizations"--an intractable and irreconcilable conflict of values between Western cultures and an Islam that is portrayed as hostile and alien. The...
Not since the Crusades of the Middle Ages has Islam evoked the degree of fear, hostility, and ethnic and religious stereotyping that is evident throug...
The recent atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have stunned people throughout the world. With Holocaust memories still painfully vivid, a question haunts us: how is this savagery possible? Michael A. Sells answers by demonstrating that the Bosnian conflict is not simply a civil war or a feud of age-old adversaries. It is, he says, a systematic campaign of genocide and a Christian holy war spurred by religious mythologies. This passionate yet reasoned book examines how religious stereotyping--in popular and official discourse--has fueled Serbian and Croatian ethnic hatreds. Sells, who is...
The recent atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have stunned people throughout the world. With Holocaust memories still painfully vivid, a question haunts...
According to legend, the Bedouin tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia held poetry competitions during annual fairs near Mecca. The wining poems called Mu'allaqat, or Hanging Odes, were embroidered in gold on banners and suspended from the walls of Arabia's most sacred shrine, Ka'ba. Desert Tracings is a translation of six classical sixth to eighth century odes. Arabic codes (qasidas) traditionally begin with the relationship of the lover to the loved. Usually set at opening in the beloved's abandoned desert campsite, where the only evidence that remains is tent marks and torrent beds in the sand -...
According to legend, the Bedouin tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia held poetry competitions during annual fairs near Mecca. The wining poems called Mu'alla...
Maria Rosa Menocal Michael A. Sells Raymond Scheindlin
The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: The Literature of Al-Andalus explores the culture of Iberia from the eighth to the thirteenth century, and to the centuries following the Christian conquest, when Arabic continued to be used. While the focus is on literature, the study extends to the related fields of philosophy, art, architecture and music. Edited by an Arabist, a Hebraist and a Romance scholar, with individual chapters by a team of the world's leading experts in the field, this is a truly interdisciplinary and comparative work offering a radical new approach.
The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: The Literature of Al-Andalus explores the culture of Iberia from the eighth to the thirteenth century, and...
This longstanding and highly regarded volume is the first to explore the doctrine of prophetic revelation, a critical and definitive area of Islamic religious and political thought. In it, the esteemed Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman traces the inception of this doctrine from ancient Greek texts, its interpretation and elaboration by Muslim philosophers in order to suit their vision of the Prophet, and, finally, the varying degrees of acceptance of these convergent ideas by the Muslim orthodoxy. The latest edition of this classic text includes a new foreword by Islamic studies expert...
This longstanding and highly regarded volume is the first to explore the doctrine of prophetic revelation, a critical and definitive area of Islami...
