Suchergebnisse

It is no easy task to present the state of Arabic studies as a whole in Spain. Furthermore, the situation is constantly and normally evolving. I will nonetheless try to give a summary picture here.In the first place one must present the bibliography of the other studies on this subject already published.

Technological inventions in recent decades having so totally revolutionized the nature and extent of communications between various parts of the world, it is difficult to appreciate how severely restricted inter-cultural knowledge was even in the almost immediate past. Translation has always been one of the few media available for the transference of ideas and emotions from one language group to another and, as we shall see, even it has been of remarkably limited range and influence, certainly between the peoples of the Near East and the English-speaking world. Fear and dislike of what is different and therefore seemingly threatening are natural human responses that have governed international relations throughout history; that translation has been and continues to be so limited an influence mitigating such fear and dislike is surely tragic. A brief survey of translation from Arabic to English in previous centuries will hopefully assist us in viewing the range of modern materials available in book form in a proper perspective.

The forms, themes and patterns of classical Arabic poetry were laid down in the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam. Indeed the oldest poem of which we have any record dates back to the period of Jâhiliyya, a derogatory term meaning 'ignorance' coined by the early Muslims to denote the state of religious and moral depravity of pre-Islamic Arabs. This period covers scarcely more than a century and a half (c. a.d. 500–622). Yet when the Arabs first sprang onto the stage of world history to carve an empire for themselves, they already had an extremely complex and refined poetic art. This remarkable phenomenon has baffled the student of Arabic literature and history: 'The most striking feature in Arabic literature is its unexpectedness' remarks Gibb, while Goitein refers to it as 'the miracle of pre-Islamic poetry and literary language'. The Jâhili poets, though springing from primitive and illiterate nomadic tribes, were no beginners declaiming shaky lines in a mixture of dialects in prevalence at the time. These were a host of poets erupting all over northern Arabia, from Syria to Yemen and from the fringes of Iraq to the borders of Egypt, masterfully reciting highly developed qasîdas (odes) in one and the same language, betraying little of the dialects of their region. Above all, their poetry, vigorous and vivid as it was in general, was cast in the same, steel structure of a set of complex metrical schemes.

The American Association of Teachers of Arabic was organized in 1963 with the encouragement of the Modern Language Association, to promote study, criticism, research and instruction in the field of Arabic language and literature. It has worked toward these aims primarily through annual meetings and the publication of a newsletter An-Nashra. Begun eight years ago by a handful of interested teachers of arabic, the organization has since grown to a membership of almost 100 in 1970 including teachers of Arabic to Americans in Cairo and interested students who plan a future career which includes the teaching of Arabic.

During recent decades and, more specifically, since the time of the NDEA Act, significant progress has been made in the sphere of language instruction in Arabic. The old anecdote concerning Cambridge University, where beginning students were instructed to purchase Wright's Grammar and study it for a week before commencing a reading of the Kamil of al-Mubarrad, may be apochryphal or at least have suffered some of the embellishments characteristic of folk tales, but the situation described came reasonably close to the reality for British undergraduates not too long ago. More attention is now being paid to the preparation of teaching grammars, readers and a whole variety of textbooks which will enable students with a wide variety of ages and language aptitudes to acquire proficiency in Arabic. Another area in which a great deal of research is now in progress is that of testing and test validity; in the case of Arabic, instructors in the U.S.A. now have access to a revised and improved version of a standardized test which will assess the proficiency of students at three different levels. In all this the American Association of Teachers of Arabic (AATA)— an international organization in spite of its title— has played an important role, in that it affords a forum for discussion and publication in which problems can be identified and potential solutions suggested. In what follows I will discuss some recent developments in Arabic language instruction implemented by members of AATA on their campuses, all of which can be subsumed under the general heading of "individualization."

This article is a personal account of how I, a professor of Arabic with no computer background, managed to get Arabic word-processing capabilities out of the computing facilities already intact in my college, with relatively little capital outlay. Although many of the details would be different at other institutions, it is clear that the same basic strategies could be followed to get word-processing capabilities anywhere the basic computing facilities already exist.Before I begin my story, I should explain that there are Arabic word processors "out there" of varying qualities. CPT, Wang, Apple, Merganthaler, Xerox, and others have products either out or almost out which range in cost from a few thousand to almost a hundred thousand dollars. Except for the Xerox product, the Arabic on the screen is rather ugly, but when connected to a letter quality Arabic printer the hard copy of most is acceptable.

Arabic Short Stories, by Mahmoud Manzalaoui

It is a good omen that an essay on the current study of Arabic philosophy is appropriate. In the first place, it is a sign that the field is flourishing. Indeed, there are now so many who pursue this kind of inquiry, and those hail from such far-flung locales, that hardly any single scholar is acquainted with all of his fellows or even with all of their research. Names of new scholars, announcements of long forgotten manuscripts, and novel interpretations of well-known works spring forth at each learned conference as well as in each issue of scholarly journals. What is more, it is a sign of the extent to which the field of Arabic studies in general has now become populous and diversified. No longer can an individual scholar aspire to keep up with all of the research being pursued in all of the various sub-disciplines of the field. Finally, it is a sign that even in the midst of such burgeoning activity and specialization there is an abiding interest in the field as a whole. It is the latter, above all, that warrants this general account of what is happening with respect to the study of Arabic philosophy.

Focussing on the study of individual authors (al-Kindi, al-Farabi (Alfarabi), Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Gazali, Ibn Baggah, Ibn Tufail, Ibn Rusid (Averroes), and Ibn Haldun) this essay examines the extent to which the writings of these authors are available in critical editions as well as the kind of research currently being carried out on them. Brief remarks on bibliographic or manuscript research as well as on research directed to the history of Arabic philosophy. (DÜI-Hns)