Ihsan Abbas (December 2, 1920 – January 29, 2003) was a Palestinian professor at the
American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...
, and was considered a premier figure of Arabic and Islamic studies in the East and West during the 20th century. The "author of over one hundred books", during his career, Abbas was renowned as one of the foremost scholars of Arabic language and literature and was a respected literary critic.
Suheil Bushrui
Suheil Badi Bushrui (September 14, 1929 – September 2, 2015) was a professor, author, poet, critic, translator, and peace maker.
He was a prominent scholar in regard to the life and works of the Lebanese-American author and poet Kahlil Gibran.
...
, "Jubran Khalil Jubran." Taken from "Essays in Arabic Literary Biography: 1850–1950," p. 184. Vol. 3 of Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, Band 17. Eds. Roger M. A. Allen, Joseph Edmund Lowry and
Devin J. Stewart
Devin J. Stewart is a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic language and literature. His research interests include Islamic law, the Qur'an, Islamic schools and branches and varieties of Arabic.University College London historian Lawrence Conrad as a custodian of Arabic heritage and culture, and a figure whose scholarship had dominated the Middle East's intellectual and cultural life for decades.Lawrence Conrad, "Ihsan Abbas: Custodian of Arabic Heritage and Culture." Al-Qantara, vol. xxvi, iss. #1, pp. 5–17. 2005.
Life
Abbas was born in the former Palestinian village of Ayn Ghazal near Haifa on December 2, 1920, though the village's population was forced to leave in 1948 at the time of the 1948 War, and was subsequently destroyed during
Operation Shoter
Operation Shoter ( he, מִבְצָע שׁוֹטֵר, ''Mivtza Shoter'', ''lit.'' Operation Policeman), also Operation Jaba', was a three-day Israeli operation during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War against an area called the "Little Triangle" south o ...
. As a child, the only books in his family's impoverished home were the Qur'an and a famous 15th-century Arabic encyclopedia known as ''Al-Mustatraf''; Abbas would often sadden at the mention of the latter due to the memories it brought him.Ulrich Marzolph, "Medieval Knowledge in Modern Reading: A Fifteenth Century Arabic Encyclopedia of ''Omni Re Scibili''." Taken from ''Pre-modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second Comers Congress, Groningen, 1–4 July 1996.'', pg. 407. Ed. Peter Binkley. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997. Growing up in
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
Acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imp ...
Gordon Memorial College
Gordon Memorial College was an educational institution in Sudan. It was built between 1899 and 1902 as part of Lord Kitchener's wide-ranging educational reforms.
Named for General 'Chinese' Charles George Gordon of the British army, who was kill ...
or, as it became known during his tenure, the University of Khartoum. Abbas' master's thesis focused on Arabic literary culture in Sicily, while his doctoral dissertation was on the subject of religious asceticism and its influence in Umayyad culture. At the end of his tenure in
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
, he was appointed to a professorship position in the Arabic literature department at the
American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...
, a post which he held until his retirement in 1985. Abbas remained active, performing post-retirement research projects for the University of Jordan, especially on Andalusian Arabic literature and the translation of world literature to the Arabic language.
Abbas was often at the center of intellectual life wherever he was living, and camaraderie with his colleagues was an important part of his life. Abbas was an avid participant in the cafe gatherings of Naguib Mahfouz in Cairo during the 1950s and 1960s. In the midst of the Lebanese Civil War in 1981, perhaps the primary intellectual activity in Beirut which continued despite the conflict was a weekly meeting of intellectuals and academics at Abbas' house.
Abbas died in
Amman
Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...
, Jordan on January 29, 2003, at the age of 82 after a prolonged illness. On December 14, 2005, a day-long seminar was held at
Birzeit University
Birzeit University (BZU; ar, جامعة بيرزيت) is a public university in the West Bank, in the State of Palestine, registered by the Palestinian Ministry of Social Affairs as charitable organization. It is accredited by the Palestinian Mi ...
in Birzeit in honor of and to discuss Abbas' lifetime achievements and contributions to the fields of Arabic and Islamic studies; attendees included visiting scholars from
Hebron University
Hebron University is a non-profit, public university in the city of Hebron, West Bank. It has an undergraduate enrollment of more than ten thousand students.
History
The late mayor of Hebron, Sheikh Mohammad ‘Ali Al-Ja’bari, wished to est ...
North–South divide The North-South divide can refer to:
* North–South divide of the world (Global North and Global South)
* North–South divide in Belgium
* North–South divide in China
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* North–South divide in Italy
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, emphasizing improvement of quality of life in the Third World rather than conflict between the north and the south. Abbas was also distinguished as a Palestinian figure who defended contributions to Arabic and Islamic studies by Israeli scholarship, on one occasion reacting angrily to when a student claimed that Israeli academia was unable to master the Arabic language, a claim that Abbas found to be racist.
Abbas, like most other historians of Arab literature, held the view that classical biography and autobiography in the Arabic language tended to reduce the subject to a type rather than an individual. He also echoed the sentiment that in Arabic poetry, the description of the city as a genre and the details of urban life revealed the writer's ideological biases. Abbas was also a defender of Kahlil Gibran's maligned ''Al-Mawakib'', considering it a measuring stick for the literature produced by the Arabic renaissance in the United States.
Work
Abbas was a celebrated man of letters and a prolific writer during his lifetime. He republished Ibn Bassam's 12th-century biographical dictionary of the Iberian Peninsula's intellectuals, editing it into eight "mammoth" volumes. Abbas' analysis of Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati's poetry and the significance of Bayati's references to Sisyphus and Prometheus was criticized as Shmuel Moreh; Abbas saw the references as being philosophical allegory, while Moreh tied them to the fall of the
Iraqi Communist Party
The Iraqi Communist Party ( ar, الحزب الشيوعي العراقي '; ku, Partiya Komunista Iraqê حزبی شیوعی عێراق) is a communist party and the oldest active party in Iraq. Since its foundation in 1934, it has dominated the ...
. Abbas contributed significantly to the history of Arabic literature and writers, and was responsible for collecting and compiling the work of Abd al-Hamid al-Katib in 1988, uncovering archived letters between the Umayyad secretary and the empire's last caliph which shed light on the inner workings of the dynasty in its last days. He was also one of the few writers to critically analyze the
Kharijites
The Kharijites (, singular ), also called al-Shurat (), were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the ...
, a now extinct sect of Islam. Though reserved in revealing his own beliefs, Abbas adhered to
Sunni
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...
Islam and leaned toward the Zahirischool of Islamic jurisprudence. He was responsible for reviving the works of Ibn Hazm, one of the main philosophers of the school and of Islam in general, editing and republishing many of them and even uncovering previously unpublished works on Ibn Hazm's legal theory from various archives; Abbas' 1983 edition of Ibn Hazm's book on legal theory ''Ihkam'' is considered a key moment in Arab intellectual history and the modernist revival of Zahirite legal method.
Abbas also participated in a number of collaborative projects during his career. He served, alongside Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Jacob Lassner, Ehsan Yarshater and Franz Rosenthal, on the editorial board for William Montgomery Watt's book ''
Muhammad at Mecca
''Muhammad at Mecca'' is a book about the Islamic prophet Muhammad, specifically about the first phase of his public mission, which concern his years in Mecca until the hijra to Medina. It was written by the non-Muslim Islamic scholar W. Montgome ...
History of the Prophets and Kings
The ''History of the Prophets and Kings'' ( ar, تاريخ الرسل والملوك ''Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk''), more commonly known as ''Tarikh al-Tabari'' () or ''Tarikh-i Tabari'' or ''The History of al-Tabari '' ( fa, تاریخ طب� ...
. From 1951 to 1952, Abbas assisted fellow scholar Ahmad Amin and his student Shawqi Daif in editing and republishing an anthology of Egyptian contributions to Arabic poetry during the Middle Ages, which had previously been thought to be minimal or non-existent.
Abbas earned the King Faisal International Prize from the King Faisal Foundation in 1980. He was also a significant contributor to the cultural magazine ''
Al-Arabi Al-Arabi may refer to:
Companies
*Al-Arabi Group, a holding company in the Kuwait Stock Exchange#Services
*Al Arabi Investment Group (AB Invest), a subsidiary of Arab Bank
*Al Arabi Investment Group Company, a subsidiary of Arab Bank
Media
*'' A ...
Ibn al-Kattani
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Husayn Ibn al-Kattani al-Madhiji () (951–1029), sometimes nicknamed "al-Mutatabbib" (the physician), was a well-known Arab scholar, philosopher, physician, astrologer, man of letters, and poet.
Born in Córdoba i ...
, ''Kitab al-Tashbihat''. Beirut: 1966.
* Ibn Bassam, ''Dhakhira fî mahâsin ahl al-Gazira''. Beirut: 1979.
* Ibn Hazm, ''al-Ihkam fi usul al-ahkam''. Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida, 1980.
*Ibn Hazm, ''Al-Taqrib li Hadd al-Mantiq bi al-Alfaz al-`Ammiyya''. Beirut: 1959.Sarah Stroumsa, ''Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Rawāndī, Abū Bakr Al-Rāzī and Their Impact on Islamic Thought'', p. 243. Vol. 35 of Islamic philosophy, theology, and science: Texts and studies. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1999.
*Ibn Hazm, ''Rasa`il Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi''. Beirut, 1981.
*Ibn Hazm, '' Ṭawq al-Ḥamāmah''. Cairo: Dar al-huda lil-thaqafah wal-nashr, 2002.
* Ibn Khallikan, ''Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān''. Beirut: 1968–1977.Clifford Edmund Bosworth, p. 347.
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