Yezidi Texts

This important work is a source-critical study of a group of traditions (aḥādīth) found in Ibn Isḥāq's Biography (Sīra) of the prophet Muḥammad, widely considered one of the most important early historical texts on the Prophet's life. Through a meticulous isnād-cum-matn analysis, the author reveals that Ibn Isḥāq relied on Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad, a hitherto undocumented source of his. Important new light is also shed on problems with Ibn Hishām’s recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra.

What was Joseph’s reaction when he arrived home to find Mary pregnant? How did Mary manage to persuade him that her child was none other than the Son of God? The Syriac literary tradition had a unique way of answering these sorts of questions raised by the Bible. Dialogue poems (sughyotho) offer lively, thought-provoking, and often delightful re-imaginings of Biblical events. They expand the Biblical stories, giving the familiar characters more dialogue and describing their inner thoughts. The collection provides five dialogue poems featuring Mary, in Syriac original with facing English translation.

This work focuses on the literary and textual concerns of the Georgian and Armenian recensions of the Barlaam and Josaphat legend, and provides translations of all that remains of the Georgian text and the relevant Armenian parallels.

The heretofore unpublished Kitab al-Zina, virtually unknown in western scholarship, is a glossary of important Islamic terms by the 9th/10th-century Ismaili polymath Abu Hatim al-Razi. Some lament that Razi’s historical approach to etymology failed to catch on and that had it done so, the face of Arabic dictionary writing might have been altered for the better. His organization of material was uniquely Ismaili as he took pains to synthesize contradictory information into a harmonious whole. This study examines sections of Razi’s work with a view towards his contributions to the field of grammar and linguistics.