Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of plates
- Editorial preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map Literary, political and religious centres in the ʿAbbasid period
- 1 Sunnī theology
- 2 Shīʿī theological literature
- 3 Ibāḍī theological literature
- 4 Quranic exegesis
- 5 The prose literature of Ṣufism
- 6 Philosophical literature
- 7 Arabic lexicography
- 8 Arabic grammar
- 9 Islamic legal literature
- 10 Administrative literature
- 11 Arabic biographical writing
- 12 History and historians
- 13 Faṭimid history and historians
- 14 Mathematics and applied science
- 15 Astronomy
- 16 Astrology
- 17 Geographical and navigational literature
- 18 The literature of Arabic alchemy
- 19 Arabic medical literature
- 20 Al-Kindī
- 21 Al-Rāzī
- 22 Al-Fārābī
- 23 Ibn Sīnā
- 24 Al-Bīrūnī and the sciences of his time
- 25 Al-Ghazālī
- 26 Christian Arabic literature in the ʿAbbasid period
- 27 Judaeo-Arabic literature
- 28 The translation of Greek materials into Arabic
- 29 Didactic verse
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
27 - Judaeo-Arabic literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of plates
- Editorial preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map Literary, political and religious centres in the ʿAbbasid period
- 1 Sunnī theology
- 2 Shīʿī theological literature
- 3 Ibāḍī theological literature
- 4 Quranic exegesis
- 5 The prose literature of Ṣufism
- 6 Philosophical literature
- 7 Arabic lexicography
- 8 Arabic grammar
- 9 Islamic legal literature
- 10 Administrative literature
- 11 Arabic biographical writing
- 12 History and historians
- 13 Faṭimid history and historians
- 14 Mathematics and applied science
- 15 Astronomy
- 16 Astrology
- 17 Geographical and navigational literature
- 18 The literature of Arabic alchemy
- 19 Arabic medical literature
- 20 Al-Kindī
- 21 Al-Rāzī
- 22 Al-Fārābī
- 23 Ibn Sīnā
- 24 Al-Bīrūnī and the sciences of his time
- 25 Al-Ghazālī
- 26 Christian Arabic literature in the ʿAbbasid period
- 27 Judaeo-Arabic literature
- 28 The translation of Greek materials into Arabic
- 29 Didactic verse
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The medieval period witnessed a vigorous and variegated output of Arabic literature written by Jews, which in virtue of both its intellectual and linguistic enrichment of Jewish and Arabic culture deserves to be included in any historical survey of Arabic letters.
Judaeo-Arabic literature arose at a time when the majority of Jews lived beneath the dominion of Islam, when the latter itself was at the height of its cultural achievements. A decline began to set in at the end of the ʾAbbasid period, when the employment of Hebrew for literary purposes started to gain ground. There were two factors, one external, the other internal, that caused the decline of J udaeo-Arabic letters. First cultural introversion and a subsequent inadequacy in Classical Arabic, and secondly the fostering of an elaborate Hebrew culture in the wake of the Hispanic schools of translation, which was then propagated throughout the Mediterranean after the expulsions from Spain in 1391 and 1492. However a distinctly vernacular brand of Arabic continued to be written, albeit among the culturally less favoured classes, right down to modern times, when in the wake of the European enlightenment the Jews experienced a cultural renaissance (nahḍah) and the revival of a certain form of literary Arabic. In north Africa a “classicized vernacular” was employed to express the new themes inspired by the European Haskalah, whereas in the East the Arabic employed, sometimes in Arabic characters, was nearer the standard language.
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- Information
- Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period , pp. 461 - 476Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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