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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > General
The book analyses all extant works by Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d.
224/839-310/923), referring to their individual methodologies;
their legacy as al- madhhab al-jariri; and their scholarly and
socio- political context. Through the study of al- Tabari's works,
the book addresses research debates over dating the legal and
scholarly institutions and their disciplines; authorship and
transmission of scholarly writings; political theory and
administration; and 'origins' of the Qur'an and Islam. Al-Tabari
defined the Qur'an in linguistic and legal terms. The linguistic
terms refer to rhetoric and semiotics, and the legal to theories of
social contract, 'natural law', and rule of law. Both sets of terms
go into al-Tabari's theory of prophecy and administration,
including of 'minorities'. By engaging current debates about the
usefulness or not of the medieval Muslim scholars in research on
the Qur'an and early Islam, this book argues that the - 2 - 20:59
contribution of each medieval scholar be assessed on an individual
basis. Al-Tabari's philosophical, ethical, historical, linguistic,
and legal education produced analysis of the Qur'an and 'origins'
of Islam that stands up to some fronts in contemporary research.
The book thus adds to research on al-Tabari; early Islamic
disciplines and institutions; and the Qur'an and early Islam.
The "Bidun" ("without nationality") are a stateless community based
across the Arab Gulf. There are an estimated 100,000 or so Bidun in
Kuwait, a heterogeneous group made up of tribes people who failed
to register for citizenship between 1959 and 1963, former residents
of Iraq, Saudi and other Arab countries who joined the Kuwait
security services in '60s and '70s and the children of Kuwaiti
women and Bidun men. They are considered illegal residents by the
Kuwaiti government and as such denied access to many services of
the oil-rich state, often living in slums on the outskirts of
Kuwait's cities. There are few existing works on the Bidun
community and what little research there is is grounded in an Area
Studies/Social Sciences approach. This book is the first to explore
the Bidun from a literary/cultural perspective, offering both the
first study of the literature of the Bidun in Kuwait, and in the
process a corrective to some of the pitfalls of a descriptive,
approach to research on the Bidun and the region. The author
explores the historical and political context of the Bidun, their
position in Kuwaiti and Arabic literary history, comparisons
between the Bidun and other stateless writers and analysis of the
key themes in Bidun literature and their relationship to the Bidun
struggle for recognition and citizenship.
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