The Last of the Rephaim

Brian R. Doak | 7 January 2018

The History of Beyhaqi: The History of Sultan Mas‘ud of Ghazna, 1030–1041, Volume III

Abu’l-Fażl Beyhaqi, a secretary at the court of a number of Ghaznavid rulers in eastern Iran and Afghanistan in the early Middle Ages, is a most perceptive, as well as intriguing, commentator on the history of the Islamic Near East. The surviving volumes of his massive project, dealing in depth with the years 1030–1041, combine astute criticism and wry humor with an unobtrusive display of mastery of the learned literature… Read more

The History of Beyhaqi: The History of Sultan Mas‘ud of Ghazna, 1030–1041, Volume II

Abu’l-Fażl Beyhaqi, a secretary at the court of a number of Ghaznavid rulers in eastern Iran and Afghanistan in the early Middle Ages, is a most perceptive, as well as intriguing, commentator on the history of the Islamic Near East. The surviving volumes of his massive project, dealing in depth with the years 1030-1041, combine astute criticism and wry humor with an unobtrusive display of mastery of the learned literature… Read more

The History of Beyhaqi: The History of Sultan Mas‘ud of Ghazna, 1030–1041, Volume I

Abu’l-Fażl Beyhaqi, a secretary at the court of a number of Ghaznavid rulers in eastern Iran and Afghanistan in the early Middle Ages, is a most perceptive, as well as intriguing, commentator on the history of the Islamic Near East. The surviving volumes of his massive project, dealing in depth with the years 1030–1041, combine astute criticism and wry humor with an unobtrusive display of mastery of the learned literature… Read more

Jaya: Performance in Epic Mahābhārata

JAYA is a study of how the four poets of the Indian epic Mahābhārata fuse their separate performances of the poem into a single and seamless work of art. The book examines in detail the different mnemonic forms engaged by this verbal activity focusing primarily on the distinction between what is seen and what is heard, as the poets stage and dramatize the four dimensions of their heroic song within one timely occasion.… Read more

The Rhetoric of Biography

In the context of a growing scholarly literature devoted to the topics of biography and autobiography, especially in the Arabic literary tradition, the essays in this volume explore the forms and meanings of these genres with particular reference to Persian writings, as well as to writings in Arabic and Turkish that were also composed in Persianate societies. The authors address, among other topics, biographies and autobiographies of women; biographies of… Read more

Persian Literature and Judeo-Persian Culture: Collected Writings of Sorour S. Soroudi

This volume presents several articles and other writings of Sorour S. Soroudi (1938–2002), who taught in the Department of Iranian Studies at the Hebrew University for three decades. Soroudi’s research was concentrated in three main areas, all of which are well represented in this collection. First, Soroudi was an early specialist in modern Persian poetry, particularly that of the constitutional era; her studies and translations did much to bring this poetry to… Read more

Strī

This book is a study of heroic femininity as it appears in the epic Mahabharata, and focuses particularly on the roles of wife, daughter-in-law, and mother, on how these women speak and on the kinship groups and varying marital systems that surround them. It portrays those qualities that cohere about women in the poem, which are particular to them and which distinguish them as women, and describes how women heroes function… Read more

Dreaming Across Boundaries

Descriptions of dreams abound in the literatures of the Near East and North Africa. The Prophet Muhammad endowed them with a theological dimension, saying that after him “true dreams” would be the only channel for prophecy. Dreams were often used to support conflicting theological and political arguments, and the local chronicles contain many accounts of royal dreams justifying the advent of new dynasties. This volume explores the context of these… Read more