Arabic Oration: Art and Function

Reviews / Votes

Winner of the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award (category: Arab Culture in Other Languages)



"This erudite study is a major breakthrough in our understanding of Arabic oratory. Qutbuddin has painstakingly reconstructed this vast tradition in all its diverse guises and contexts, from the battlefield to the pulpit, from political to legislative speeches. She presents its complexities with lucid precision and scrupulous attention to detail-and it is a truly pioneering work for Qutbuddin's discussion of women's orations and her survey of contemporary sermons." - James Montgomery, Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic, University of Cambridge


"For a scholar of Western traditions of political thought, this book is a revelation. The Western canon also begins with oratory and with the ideas of the relation between public speech and politics that lay at the heart of Greek practice. To come to understand how the Arabic tradition thinks of language's role in shaping communal and political life will significantly advance the capacity of scholars to engage with the political discourse of the Arabic speaking world. This project is of fundamental importance and should transform the capacity of the non-Islamic and Islamic worlds to communicate with each other about political subjects." - Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor, Harvard, and Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics


"Arabic Oration: Art and Function undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the Arabic oration, a prominent genre of Arabic literature that has roots in ancient Arab oral tradition. Tahera Qutbuddin presents a masterful survey of the genre, identifying the major sub-categories of the genre and analyzing their formal conventions, themes, rhetorical strategies, and aesthetics. Drawing on examples attributed to orators from the pre-Islamic period, key figures of the nascent Muslim community, and commanders, governors, and other prominent figures of early Islamic history, including women, she addresses the reception of orations and the important functions they served in political, social, and religious life. This ground-breaking work provides essential background for an understanding of Arabic literary history, early Islamic political history, and the history of the Arabic language." - Devin J. Stewart, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Emory University


"Pious sermons, stirring battle speeches, chilling political rhetoric by stern governors, splendid literary artefacts: they are the subject of this magisterial book on Arabic oratory in which Tahera Qutbuddin deals with Arabic speeches as they have been recorded in the early centuries of Islam. Their stylistic and structural characteristics, their oral nature, their function, their influence even on present-day Friday sermons in Muslim countries, all this is expertly handled, as is the controversial matter of their authenticity. This book about an important but somewhat neglected genre is essential reading for all students of early Islam, its history and its literature." - Geert Jan van Gelder, Laudian Professor of Arabic Emeritus, University of Oxford



"This study has meticulously unearthed the hitherto under-explored elements of an oral cultural heritage of immense value. It is a monumental contribution towards filling the lacuna in scholarly research about Arabic oration in the wider context of world culture, and indeed represents the first detailed investigation of the oldest verbal performances in the Arabic tradition before and after Islam. For those who are interested in the development of the discourse on orality and literacy, as well as audience-speaker interaction in the public sphere, Qutbuddin's book is a truly indispensable resource." - Amidu Olalekan Sanni, Professor of African and Middle Eastern Studies, and Vice Chancellor, Fountain University, Osogbo, Nigeria in: Journal of Arabic Literature, Volume 52 Issue 3-4(2021), 425-436.



"Qutbuddin's work will stand as a definitive study of Arabic oration that will surely encourage future scholars to attend to the powerful words that once were uttered from Friday pulpits or from generals leading troops into battle." - Maurice Pomerantz, New York University Abu Dhabi in: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, Volume 117 Issue 2 (2022).



"Arabic Oration is a magisterial study of early Arabic oratory that is mainly aimed at specialists in the field of Arabic literature. Due to its comprehensive nature, it can serve as an important resource for scholars of early Islamic history. Thanks to the long quotations from primary texts translated into English, it provides much comparative material for scholars in other fields, such as orality, rhetoric, and communication studies. The close analyses of individual texts can also be used in the classroom context. I look forward to seeing the new interest in the study of early Arabic oratory that Qutbuddin's Arabic Oration should spark." - Pamela Klasova, Macalester College, St Paul, USA in: Al-?U?ur al-Wus?a, Volume 30 (2022), 644-653.



"This is an original and outstanding piece of scholarship that contributes to the fields of classical Arabic oral and written literature. It also contributes substantially to the field of Islamic Studies by showing the importance of oratory as a primary source for understanding Islamic cultural history." - Linda G. Jones, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 143.2 (2023).