'Ali, son of Abi Talib, Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin, is the only Companion of the Prophet who has remained to this day the object of fervent devotion of hundreds of millions of followers in the lands of Islam, especially in the East. Based on a detailed analysis of several categories of sources, this book demonstrates that Shi'ism is the religion of the Imam, of the Master of Wisdom, just like Christianity is that of Christ, and that 'Ali is the first Master and Imam par excellence. Shi'ism can therefore be defined, in its most specific religious aspects, as the absolute faith in 'Ali: the divine Man, the most perfect manifestation of God's attributes, simultaneously spiritual refuge, model and horizon. With contributions by Orkhan Mir-Kasimov & Mathieu Terrier Translated from French by Francisco Jose Luis & Anthony Gledhill

Michael Rand's The Evolution of al-Harizi's Tahkemoni investigates the stages whereby the text of al-Harizi's maqama collection as we currently know it, on the basis of manuscripts (and the editio princeps), came into being during al-Harizi's travels in the East over the course of approximately the last ten years of his life. The discussion is based on a close examination of the textual evidence, the investigation of a number of relevant literary motifs, and a comparison to al-Harizi's model, the Maqamat of al-Hariri. The book includes a catalogue of fragments of the Tahkemoni in the Genizah and Firkovitch IIA collections, and some previously unpublished material that can reasonably be claimed to belong to a heretofore unattested version of the Tahkemoni.

How it is possible that the story about Elisha's succession in 2 Kings 2:1-18 is now remembered as the story about Elijah's ascent? The intertextual answer is provided by the contrast between the number of references about the human heavenly ascension in the Hebrew Bible, and the popularity of this theme in the Ancient Near East. However, in this dissertation we focus on the more direct intratextual approach. We analyze the construction of the narrative in order to discern the features of style, structure, and symbolism which emphasize Elijah's ascent, rather than Elisha's succession. As a result, we can identify the proto-symbol of the narrative (Gilgal) which is interpreted by three elements (whirlwind, chariotry, and rolled mantle) referring to Elijah's ascent.

This work offers a seminal research into Arabic translations of the Pentateuch. It is no exaggeration to speak of this field as a terra incognita. Biblical versions in Arabic were produced over many centuries, on the basis of a wide range of source languages (Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, or Coptic), and in varying contexts. The textual evidence for this study is exclusively based on a corpus of about 150 manuscripts, containing the Pentateuch in Arabic or parts thereof.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible, from multiple versions of biblical texts to "revealed" books not found in our canon. Despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, "Bible," and a bibliographic one, "book." The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged. Using familiar sources such as the Psalms, Ben Sira, and Jubilees, Mroczek tells an unfamiliar story about sacred writing not bound in a Bible. In many texts, we see an awareness of a vast tradition of divine writing found in multiple locations only partially revealed in available scribal collections. Ancient heroes like David are not simply imagined as scriptural authors, but multi-dimensional characters who come to be known as great writers and honored as founders of growing textual traditions. Scribes recognize the divine origin of texts like the Enoch literature and other writings revealed to ancient patriarchs, which present themselves not as derivative of material we now call biblical, but prior to it. Sacred writing stretches back to the dawn of time, yet new discoveries are always around the corner. While listening to the way ancient writers describe their own literature-their own metaphors and narratives about writing-this book also argues for greater suppleness in our own scholarly imagination, no longer bound by modern canonical and bibliographic assumptions.

This volume is a collection of essays on transregional aspects of Malay-Indonesian Islam and Islamic Studies, based on Peter G. Riddell's broad interest and expertise. Particular attention is paid to rare manuscripts, unique inscriptions, Qur'an commentaries and translations, textbooks, and personal and public archives. This book invites readers to reconstruct the ways in which Malay-Indonesian Islam and Islamic studies have been structured. Contributors are Khairudin Aljunied, Majid Daneshgar, R. Michael Feener, Annabel Teh Gallop, Mulaika Hijjas, Andrew Peacock, Johanna Pink, Gregorius Dwi Kuswanta, Michael Laffan, Han Hsien Liew, Julian Millie, Ervan Nurtawab, Masykur Syafruddin, Edwin P. Wieringa and Farouk Yahya.