Lives in Adab
Essays in Honour of Julia Bray
Published on 31. May 2026
Book
Hardback
496 pages
978-1-3995-4313-2 (ISBN)
Description
Adab is not an English word, but it could become one. This collection, in honour of Julia Bray, experiments with juxtaposed articles, quotations, translations and lines of poetry to let readers create connections in the same way authors did a thousand years ago in Arabic. The collaboration is inspired by the ongoing work of Julia Bray, which continues to demonstrate the rewards of taking what we read seriously.
The field of Arabic studies is increasingly rejecting a hard line between the modern and the premodern. This book is an intervention in that development - arguing that the premodern can structure contemporary thinking. It offers translations, commentaries and discussions of important and insufficiently known primary texts together with the original Arabic text of poems. These cross-genre and cross-disciplinary connections can catalyse future research and show how a key feature of the Arabic literary tradition is relevant to how we think about scholarship today. The chapters provide readers with both an academic resource and an intellectual conversation with the past.
The field of Arabic studies is increasingly rejecting a hard line between the modern and the premodern. This book is an intervention in that development - arguing that the premodern can structure contemporary thinking. It offers translations, commentaries and discussions of important and insufficiently known primary texts together with the original Arabic text of poems. These cross-genre and cross-disciplinary connections can catalyse future research and show how a key feature of the Arabic literary tradition is relevant to how we think about scholarship today. The chapters provide readers with both an academic resource and an intellectual conversation with the past.
Reviews / Votes
This remarkable volume, paying tribute to Julia Bray, also honors the intellectual rigour and curiosity she has modelled, exemplified in her persistent questioning of what adab is, what it does and why it continues to matter. The essays explore the multiple dimensions of adab, redefining boundaries, challenging assumptions and opening new avenues for understanding the richness and complexity of Arabic literary culture. -- Nadia El-Cheikh, American University in BeirutMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
871 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-4313-2 (9781399543132)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Alexander Key is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He is the author of Language between God and the Poets: Ma'na in the Eleventh Century (University of California Press, 2018) and is currently working on an under-contract edition and translation of al-Jurjani's Dala'il al-I'jaz for the Library of Arabic Literature. Letizia Osti is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures at the University of Milan. She is the author/editor of numerous books, including most recently The Historian of Islam at Work: Essays in Honor of Hugh N. Kennedy (co-edited with Maaike van Berkel, Brill, 2022) and History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate: Writing the Past in Medieval Arabic Literature (Bloomsbury, 2022).
Content
Transliterations, Translations and Thanks
List of Illustrations
1. Practical adab and the practice of adab
Alexander Key and Letizia Osti
2. Bodily peculiarities and lists in Ibn Qutayba's Kitab al-ma?arif
Antonella Ghersetti
3. Insects: The Tiniest Creatures in Kalila wa-Dimna
Beatrice Gruendler with Dima Mustafa Sakran and Mahmoud Kozae
4. The absence of Baghdad in the ?Iqd al-farid--Abbasid myth in the making
Isabel Toral
5. Nobility and Prestige (???) as Criteria for Inclusion in Anthologies
Bilal W. Orfali and Maurice A. Pomerantz
6. The Novel in Adab: a Modern genre placed in conversation with al-Tanukhi
Alexander Key
7. Al-birka al-husna and the birkas of Samarra
Alastair Northedge
8. Al-Mutanabbi in Tiberias and Shiraz
James E. Montgomery
9. Virtue in Misfortune: al-Buhturi on al-Fath ibn Khaqan's Fall from a Bridge
Gabrielle Russo
10. Barmakid Benevolence: An Account from Deliverance Follows Adversity
Shawkat M. Toorawa
11. Al-Tanukhi, Storytelling and Adab
Wen-chin Ouyang
12. A text from AR3222
Robert Hoyland
13. Letter to a treacherous lover: love and responsibility in Abbasid romance
Pernilla Myrne
14. Parody and Play, Gender and Genre
Jonny Lawrence
15. Trailing John Greaves's Timeline
Taha Yasin Arslan, Fyza Parviz Jazra
16. In Search of Intertexts: Literary Imitation, Authorial Lineage and Networked Time in Premodern Arabic Criticism
James White
17. Death in the monastery: visualising emotions, space, and performance in al-Tanukhi
Letizia Osti
18. The flattening of the Arabic lexicon
Michael Cooperson
19. Ibn Taymiyya on Reason, Anger and Desire
Robert Gleave
20. The Emotional Lives of Prophets in al-Kisa?i's Qisas al-anbiya?
Helen Blatherwick
21. Remarks on Recognition in Hadith and Akhbar
Philip Kennedy
22. Inspired by Ibn al-Farid? An anonymous mukhammas (????????) featuring St. John of Damascus, St. Peter and the Virgin Mary
Hilary Kilpatrick
23. From Poem to Song: The Artistry of Singer-Composers in Abu l-Faraj al-Isbahani's Kitab al-Aghani
Dwight F. Reynolds
24. Revisiting The Letter to the Proponents of Freewill (al-Risalah ila l-Qadariyyah) attributed to the Umayyad caliph ?Umar b. ?Abd al-?Aziz (r. 99-101/717-720)
Sean W. Anthony
25. How to be a bad ruler: Miskawayh's demolition of ?Izz al-Dawla Bakhtiyar (r. 356/967-367-977)
Hugh Kennedy
26. Al-Tanukhi and the Arabian Adventure Tale
Peter Webb
27. Ibn Rushd on Fraud, Morality and The Law
Joseph E. Lowry
28. You Can Take it with You: Self, Wealth, and Legacy in Arabic Letters
Devin J. Stewart
Julia Bray's Published Works to Date
Index
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
1. Practical adab and the practice of adab
Alexander Key and Letizia Osti
2. Bodily peculiarities and lists in Ibn Qutayba's Kitab al-ma?arif
Antonella Ghersetti
3. Insects: The Tiniest Creatures in Kalila wa-Dimna
Beatrice Gruendler with Dima Mustafa Sakran and Mahmoud Kozae
4. The absence of Baghdad in the ?Iqd al-farid--Abbasid myth in the making
Isabel Toral
5. Nobility and Prestige (???) as Criteria for Inclusion in Anthologies
Bilal W. Orfali and Maurice A. Pomerantz
6. The Novel in Adab: a Modern genre placed in conversation with al-Tanukhi
Alexander Key
7. Al-birka al-husna and the birkas of Samarra
Alastair Northedge
8. Al-Mutanabbi in Tiberias and Shiraz
James E. Montgomery
9. Virtue in Misfortune: al-Buhturi on al-Fath ibn Khaqan's Fall from a Bridge
Gabrielle Russo
10. Barmakid Benevolence: An Account from Deliverance Follows Adversity
Shawkat M. Toorawa
11. Al-Tanukhi, Storytelling and Adab
Wen-chin Ouyang
12. A text from AR3222
Robert Hoyland
13. Letter to a treacherous lover: love and responsibility in Abbasid romance
Pernilla Myrne
14. Parody and Play, Gender and Genre
Jonny Lawrence
15. Trailing John Greaves's Timeline
Taha Yasin Arslan, Fyza Parviz Jazra
16. In Search of Intertexts: Literary Imitation, Authorial Lineage and Networked Time in Premodern Arabic Criticism
James White
17. Death in the monastery: visualising emotions, space, and performance in al-Tanukhi
Letizia Osti
18. The flattening of the Arabic lexicon
Michael Cooperson
19. Ibn Taymiyya on Reason, Anger and Desire
Robert Gleave
20. The Emotional Lives of Prophets in al-Kisa?i's Qisas al-anbiya?
Helen Blatherwick
21. Remarks on Recognition in Hadith and Akhbar
Philip Kennedy
22. Inspired by Ibn al-Farid? An anonymous mukhammas (????????) featuring St. John of Damascus, St. Peter and the Virgin Mary
Hilary Kilpatrick
23. From Poem to Song: The Artistry of Singer-Composers in Abu l-Faraj al-Isbahani's Kitab al-Aghani
Dwight F. Reynolds
24. Revisiting The Letter to the Proponents of Freewill (al-Risalah ila l-Qadariyyah) attributed to the Umayyad caliph ?Umar b. ?Abd al-?Aziz (r. 99-101/717-720)
Sean W. Anthony
25. How to be a bad ruler: Miskawayh's demolition of ?Izz al-Dawla Bakhtiyar (r. 356/967-367-977)
Hugh Kennedy
26. Al-Tanukhi and the Arabian Adventure Tale
Peter Webb
27. Ibn Rushd on Fraud, Morality and The Law
Joseph E. Lowry
28. You Can Take it with You: Self, Wealth, and Legacy in Arabic Letters
Devin J. Stewart
Julia Bray's Published Works to Date
Index
Bibliography