Michael cooperson classical arabic biography sample

This outstanding study discusses the origins, development, and function of pre-modern Arabic biography through an examination of the biographies of four figures of the late second and early third Islamic centuries whose life stories have been contested in interesting ways: the Abbasid caliph alMa 'mun r. These figures were chosen because they lived during the same period and their careers intertwined and overlapped, thus bringing to the fore the contests over religious authority between the societal groups they represented.

Although the caliph al-Ma'mun is famous for having appointed 'Ali al-Rida, his heir apparent, a move which has puzzled many historians, since he is also accused of murdering the Shi'ite imam. Bishr al-Hafi, the famous barefoot ascetic, was trained as a Hadith specialist in his youth but gave it up for what he saw as a more moral life.

Michael cooperson classical arabic biography sample: The first book-length study to

The association of Bishr al-Hafi with lbn Hanbal, equally renowned for his religious scrupulousness, provides fertile ground for comments on the relative merits of the groups and religious approaches that they represent. Chapter 1, "The Development of the Genre," addressing the history of the biographical genre, argues, following Tarif Khalidi and against the traditionally accepted view, that biography did not originate as a by-product of the Hadith scholars' obsession with isnad criticism.

Rather, it originated in the work of akhbaris or "collectors of reports," in essence the first historians of the Islamic period, who drew on pre-Islamic oral models, combining genealogies and name-lists with narrative material. Biographies, in Cooperson's view, are fundamentally intertextual: the reader naturally compares the accounts in one biography with alternative versions presented in other texts.

Each serves to mold and comment on the interpretation of When an article is accepted for publication, copyrights of the publication are transferred from the author to the Journal and reserved for the Publisher. Permission will be required from the publisher for any work for which the author does not hold copyright and for any substantial extracts from work by other authors.

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