This dissertation studies the transmission of the variant readings of the Qur'an, the canonization of the system Readings, and the emergence of the non-canonical (shawadhdh ) readings. I argue that Ibn Mujahid and the Muslim scholars before him had different criteria from the la…
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Imam Musa al-Sadr (1347 AH, 1928 CE), is an Iranian Shi'i Imam with Lebanese ancestry. He became the leader of the Shi'i community in Lebanon in 1959 after the death of the local leader. He lived in Lebanon for about nineteen years before his sudden disappearance during an offic…
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the biographical material on astrologers contained in the Faraj al-mahmum of Ibn Tawus. This thirteenth century Shì('c)i scholar painstakingly assembled a unique corpus of information on both astrologers and on scholars who were…
The undisputed orality of the Qur'an both in its origins and in the life of the Muslim community raises substantial questions about the meaning of the dominant description of the Qur'an as kitab Allah--usually translated as 'the book of God.' This study begins with a critique of…
Shafi`i's Risala is generally thought to represent the very first work on legal theory in the Islamic legal tradition. Yet, despite its widely recognized importance, its actual content has received only superficial attention. Most students of it have contented themselves with re…
This thesis explores the writing of Salman Rushdie and Nawal el Saadawi, two writers that position themselves in some way within the Eastern literary tradition. It contends that both The Satanic Verses and The Fall of the Imam display a postmodern form and a postmodern content. …
This study focuses on an unedited and previously unexamined diary of a 15th-century sufi's dream conversations with the Prophet Muhammad. Entitled Tuhfat alnazir wa-nuzhat al-manazir, Muhammad al-Zawawi al-Bija'i's "Confession" is a unique autobiographical record of one man's da…
This is an examination of the biographical dictionary written by Muhammad al-Nur b. Dayf Allah (d. 1809), commonly known as Tabaqat Wad Dayf Allah. This Tabaqat contains two hundreds and seventy biographical notices on the lives of saints, jurists, pious men and poets who lived …
This dissertation examines repetition as a method of communicating meaning in the Qur'an. Repetition--defined here as verses of the Qur'an that repeat with minor changes--is an undervalued feature of the Qur'an. The methodology used in this dissertation to investigate repetition…
A partial reconstruction of the lost Tafsìr (Qur'anic Exegesis) of the Mu tazilite theologian Abu Alì al-Jubba'ì (d.303/916), reassembled from quotations in work of the Qadì Abd al-Jabbar, al-Sharìf al-Murtada, al-Ash arì, Fakhr al-Dìn al-Razì, and others. Included are a biograp…
This dissertation is a case study in the genre of Qur'anic commentary (Arabic: tafsir ), using the major work by the Imami Shi`i scholar al-Fad[dotbelow]l b. al-H[dotbelow]asan al-T[dotbelow]abrisi (d. 548/1154), Majma` al-bayan fi `ulum al-Qur'an [The Confluence of the Clarific…
This study examines Ismaʿil ibn ʿUmar ibn Kathir's (ca. 1300-1374) introduction to his exegesis of the Qur'an, Tafsir al-Qur'an al-ʿAzim. The analysis is predicated upon the importance of understanding a foreign, classical and culturally distant text approximate to the understan…
This dissertation traces the ninth century origin and later historical development of a popular strand of the Islamic Ascension tradition ascribed to a companion of Muhammad named Ibn 'Abbas. It illustrates how scenes from the Primitive Version of the pseudo-Ibn 'Abbas Ascension…
Since the English Qur'an debuted in 1649, there has not been a comprehensive study examining the historical changes of this translation. There are approximately forty-nine English translators and this study will examine twenty-eight. The study is limited to the translators' pref…
This dissertation is a translation of al-Rummanis Nukat, which is one of a small number of treatises dealing with the miraculous inimitability of the Qur'an that have come down to us. The special importance of this work lies in the fact that the author was not only a man of grea…
This dissertation primarily concerns the belief held by a majority of traditional scholars that al-Tafsir bi al-Ma'thur is hujja (a binding proof). This type of al-Tafsir (Qur'anic exegegis) is based upon the traditions of the Prophet, his Companions, and the immediate Successor…
The Generation of '52 in Algeria produced three writers: Albert Camus, Mouloud Feraoun and Mohammed Dib, who represent three remarkably different perspectives on the Algerian land and milieu. Although Algeria is the birthplace of all three, what emerges from a close study of the…
This is an interpretive study of the life of the Prophet Muhammad as it is artistically depicted in the repertoire (especially the narrative ballads) of fifty-one contemporary Egyptian maddahin (singers of eulogies in honour of the Prophet Muhammad, sing. maddah). The elements o…
In film studies, Iranian films are kept at a distance, as 'other, ' different, and exotic. In reponse, this book takes these films as philosophically relevant and innovative. Each chapter of this book is devoted to analyzing a single film, and each chapter focuses on one philoso…
"...A formidable yet intimately rendered report on the relationship between philosophy and literature as expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson." -David LaRocca, Cornell University, USA, author of On Emerson (2003) "Positioning Emerson within both ancient and contemporary philosophica…