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Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful by Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1039)
In his Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful (Taḥsīn al-qabīḥ wa-taqbīḥ al-ḥasan) the prolific anthologist al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1037) offers a thematically arranged selection of Arabic poems and prose anecdotes or sayings with contrary or paradoxical purport, such as praise of miserliness, boredom, sickness, and death, or condemnation of generosity, intelligence, youth, and music. The book is both entertaining and informative, giving insight in premodern Arab and Islamic culture. It contains a new edition of the Arabic text and a complete English translation (the first in any language) with extensive annotation, preceded by an introduction with the necessary background of the genre.
Editor / Translator:
Nahj al-Balāghah, the celebrated compendium of orations, letters, and sayings of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661) compiled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016), is a masterpiece of Arabic literature and Islamic wisdom studied and memorized avidly and continually for over a thousand years. Showcasing ʿAlī’s life and travails in his own words, it also transcribes his profound reflections on piety and virtue, and on just and compassionate governance. Tahera Qutbuddin’s meticulously researched critical edition based on the earliest 5th/11th-century manuscripts, with a lucid, annotated facing-page translation, brings to the modern reader the power and beauty of this influential text, and confirms the aptness of Raḍī’s title, “The Way of Eloquence.”
[Exegesis of Sūrat al-Fatḥ by the scholar Muḥammad Abū al-Surūr al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī (d. 1007H/1598 CE)]
هذا الكتاب عبارة عن تحقيق علمي لـ«تفسير سورة الفتح» للمفسّر محمّد أبي السرور البكريّ الصدّيقيّ، العلّامة الصوفيّ المصريّ البارز في القرن السادس عشر للميلاد. يشمل هذا الكتاب أيضًا السيرة الذاتيّة للمفسّر وأسرته، آل البكريّ الصدّيقيّ. يعتمد هذا الكتاب على مخطوطةٍ تُوجد النُّسخة الأَصليّة لها في المكتبة السُّلَيْمانيّة في إسطنبول. يمثّل هذا التفسير مدرسةً في الفكر الإسلاميّ لم يُكتَب عنها كثيرًا والتي اهتمّ بها في ذلك العصر العُلماء بتأييد سلاطين الخلافة العثمانيّة. يقدّم الكتاب النصّ العربيّ الأصليّ للمخطوطة مع تحقيق وتعليق، إضافةً إلى ملخّص باللغة الإنجليزيّة.


This is a scholarly edition of Muḥammad Abū al-Surūr al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī’s Exegesis of Sūrat al-Fatḥ. Al-Ṣiddīqī was a prominent Sufi scholar in Ottoman Egypt in the 16th century. The edition includes a biography and family history of its author. The book is based on a unique manuscript found in the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul and represents a lesser-explored philosophical school of thought within Islam, which enjoyed the patronage and endorsement of the Ottoman caliphate of the time. It presents the original Arabic text and a commentary in Arabic, as well as an English introduction.
The Vulgate Recension. From Adam to the End of the Achaemenids
Author:
When the 13th-century Coptic official al-Makīn Ibn al-ʿAmīd was thrown into prison by Sultan Baybars, he set out to compile a summary of Biblical, Graeco-Roman, and Islamic history for his own consolation. His work, which drew from a vast array of sources, enjoyed enduring success among various readerships: Oriental Christians, in Arabic-speaking communities but also in Ethiopia; Mamluk historians, including Ibn Ḫaldūn and al-Maqrīzī; and early modern Europe. A major instance of Christian-Muslim interaction in the pre-modern era, Ibn al-ʿAmīd’s chronography is still unpublished in its pre-Islamic part. This volume edits, analyzes, and translates the section from Adam to the Achaemenids.
كتاب الأنوار القدسية في بيان آداب العبودية هو نسخة من النص العربي للمتصوف المصري عبد الوهاب الشعراني الذي يعود إلى القرن السادس عشر. يعتبر النص من نواحٍ عديدة مقدمة للعديد من الموضوعات المركزية لآراء الشعراني ومدرسته الصوفية الكبيرة، حول موضوعات مثل النظرية الشرعية، والعلاقة بين الشرع والتصوف، وعلاقة المريد بالشيخ، وأخلاق كل منهما، وما إلى ذلك. فهو يوضح لنا تطور أفكار الشعراني في وقت مبكر نسبيًا، قبل أن يتم التوسع فيها في أعمال لاحقة.
اكتشف المحرر مخطوطة جديدة توفر قراءة أكثر صحة للنص، وتحل عددًا من المشاكل في النسخ المنشورة سابقًا، وباستخدام هذه المخطوطة كنص أساسي، بالإضافة إلى النسخ الأخرى الموجودة، أعاد المحرر تحرير هذا العمل بهدف توفير نسخة متفوقة وصحيحة من الكتاب للمرة الأولى.


Al-Anwār al-Qudsiyya fī Bayān Ādāb al-ʿUbūdiyya is an edition of the Arabic text of an early work of the sixteenth century Egyptian Sufi ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (d. 973 H/1565 CE). The text can be considered as an introduction to many of the central themes of his large corpus on subjects like legal theory, the relationship between law and Sufism, the master-shaykh relationship, and ethics. It shows us the development of al-Shaʿrānī's ideas in his early careeer, before building on them in later works.
The editor has discovered another manuscript that provides a more correct reading of the text, resolving a number of problems in the previously published versions. Using this new manuscript as the base text along with other existing witnesses, this critical edition provides the first comprehensive and complete version of this important text.