The text excerpts are accompanied by grammatical and lexical commentaries, supplemented, where necessary, by notes pointing to historical, cultural, and religious background information. The notes are conceived as a pedagogical tool for students in their third semester of Arabic or above. Elements of native Arabic grammatical theory and issues in comparative Semitic linguistics are introduced, where appropriate. Throughout the chrestomathy, students will find copious references to Wolfdietrich Fischer's Grammatik des Klassischen Arabisch (viz. Jonathan Rodgers' English translation) and...

This study aims at investigating the important role that language plays as a medium of legal norms and cultural values as surfacing in documents in the United Nations system. The author focuses on diplomatic documents (bi- and multilateral treaties and correspondence) that simultaneously have official status ("authenticity") both in Arabic and in other languages. The investigation of the role of language as a window onto culture and religious background is especially relevant in the case of Arabic due to the interference of religion with law in most Islamic societies. More specifically,...