Categories : Field-specific (academic)

The Shi’i Past in the Great Book of the Songs
A New Perspective on the Kitāb al-Aghānī by Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī and Shīʿī Islam in the Tenth Century

I-Wen Su

The Kitāb al-Aghānī (the Book of the Songs) stands as one of the most important extant sources for Arabic literature and Islamic history. Compiled during the first half of the tenth century, the Kitāb al-Aghānī emerges from a pivotal period in the formation of Islamic sectarian identities, a subject of keen and ongoing scholarly debate that is fundamental to our understanding of the later development of Shīʿī Islam. The present study addresses the question of whether or not its compiler, Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s, sectarian leanings can be discerned from the Kitāb al-Aghānī through an analysis based primarily on redaction criticism. By examining the compiler’s editorial interventions, this book argues that al-Iṣfahānī, to some extent at least, presents past people and events central to the Shīʿī worldview in accordance with his sectarian affiliation.

Saturday 27 Feb. 2021 @ 9:30am CST / 10:30am EST / 7pm Tehran

The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago
and
the Department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan

announce a joint initiative for a series of dialogues with scholars in Iran
about the current state of study in various topics/fields of Iranian Studies.

The inaugural conversation (in Persian) will feature a discussion between:

Prof. Kathryn Babayan of the University of Michigan
Prof. Rasul Jafarian at the University of Tehran, and
Prof. Nozhat Ahmadi at the University of Isfahan

about the state of Safavid studies.

Please register here: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_h80X2M-sSmC3NZeJmtwHwQ