All Questions
Tagged with arabic-literature or arabic-language
20 questions
1
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0
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61
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Is there such a thing as "Syrian literature"?
Mohja Kahf's 2001 article "The silences of contemporary Syrian literature" opens as follows:
There is, of course, no such thing as Syrian literature. Certainly, citizens of the modern ...
- 76.7k
10
votes
1
answer
368
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When did Ja'far ibn Yahya start being portrayed as an evil vizier?
Ja'far ibn Yahya or Ja'far al-Barmaki was an 8th century vizier of the caliph Harun al-Rashid. From a distinguished central Asian family, he was known for his knowledge of science, as well as his ...
- 1,513
11
votes
1
answer
439
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What significance does the opening grid illustration of Burton’s 1,001 Nights have?
In Burton’s The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, the first thing in each volume is a whole page illustration of a grid or a maze:
What’s the significance of this? Arabic art centres on ...
- 213
11
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2
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1k
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Which story from 'One Thousand and One Nights' does the following artwork by Léon Carré depict?
The following illustration by Léon Carré supposedly depicts a passage from a story in One Thousand and One Nights. I am searching for the title of the story the artwork was intended to illustrate. ...
2
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0
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53
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What are the jinn in The Case of the Animals versus Man?
The Case of the Animals versus Man is a 10th-century Arabic philosophical text about a court case held between humans, arguing that animals should rightfully be their slaves, and animals, arguing that ...
- 76.7k
4
votes
1
answer
251
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How long did it take a scribe to manually copy the Quran before the invention of printing?
According to the article Your Copy of the Quran Was Probably Written by this Man (undated),
A Mushaf usually requires more than 3 years to write a Quran and an additional year to proofread it. This ...
- 51.1k
5
votes
1
answer
84
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I would like to identify a specific part of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah
I would like to identify the passage from the Arabic original text of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah whose translation is the following one. It corresponds to Chapter 38 of Book 6, and the quoted ...
- 51
2
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0
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169
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Why is the Quran said to be the most beautiful Arabic literature?
Various sites on the Internet claim that the Quran is the most beautiful book written in the Arabic language, e.g. on Blogspot and a chapter from the course Keane World Religions on Course Hero.
The ...
- 137
4
votes
1
answer
180
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Is Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's poem 'The Camel Rider' really a translation?
I came across an interesting poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in a forgotten old tome, The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. Blunt's own note states it is 'From the Arabic'. Is this just a device, or ...
- 1,182
5
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1
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113
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Identify Arabic book, Flowers of the Spring
From Wavell's A Modern Pilgrim in Mecca (1913), p. 138:
Sir Richard Burton got into hot water with many people for translating
literally and without expurgation the “Arabian Nights.” A perusal of
his ...
- 191
5
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1
answer
218
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How can we explain the porter's order of events in The Arabian Nights?
In The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy, the following chronology appears in The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies on the 28th night (my emphasis):
She walked before him until ...
- 3,529
1
vote
0
answers
654
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Why is poetry so important in 1001 Nights?
I'm currently reading "1001 Nights", the first book, and I realized that a lot of characters seem to be very fond of expressing themselves through poetry, this seems to be true (I haven't finished the ...
- 19
11
votes
3
answers
2k
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What are the 1001 stories in One Thousand and One Nights?
Recently I bought a One Thousand and One Nights book hoping that I would read 1001 stories. But then I find out that the number of stories varies depending on the version.
Some versions have 200 - ...
- 203
3
votes
1
answer
434
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Automata in the Arabian Nights, specifically "The Story of the Magic Horse"
Christa A. Tuczay writes in “Motifs in ‘The Arabian Nights’ and in Ancient and Medieval European Literature: A Comparison” that automata remain a recurring motif in The Arabian Nights and that their ...
- 31
11
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2
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3k
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Did Dante plagiarize the Divine Comedy from Kitab al-Miraj?
By looking up what the Kitab al-Miraj was, you can see many similarities to the Divine Comedy: a traveler's journey through the afterlife.
Is it possible that Dante plagiarized this work?
- 227
1
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1
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270
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In "Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman", from Arabian Nights, what does gars me pine mean?
From The Arabian Nights:
Each morn that dawns I wake in travail and in woe,
And strange is my condition and my burden gars me pine.
Many others are in luck and from miseries are free,
And Fortune ...
- 21
3
votes
1
answer
385
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Are modern editions of the Koran still written in the original form of Arabic?
The Koran, the most important sacred text of Islam, was originally written in Arabic, and some Muslims argue that it should only be read in Arabic, as translating it to other languages would mar the ...
- 76.7k
12
votes
1
answer
853
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How does scansion work in Arabic poetry?
I was reading about Arabic poetry on Wikipedia, and specifically the description of scansion:
The rhymed poetry falls within fifteen different meters collected and explained by al-Farahidi in The ...
- 76.7k
10
votes
1
answer
171
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Why do the translators of "Social Justice in Islam" strongly hint at its controversiality, without mentioning what's controversial?
I recently started reading the book, "Social Justice in Islam." This is a book by Sayyid Qutb, translated into English by John B. Hardie, commissioned by the Near Eastern Translation Program. There's ...
user80
27
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3
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142k
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Origin of the phrase "Open Sesame"
The phrase, "Open Sesame", is a curious one indeed. Until a few days ago I foolishly believed that it was derived from a slurring of the words "Open, says me".
But after coming to the story of Ali ...
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