In the Shadow of Arabic: The Centrality of Language to Arabic Culture

The collection of articles in this volume is dedicated to Ramzi Baalbaki of the American University of Beirut on the occasion of his 60th birthday. It provides an interesting glimpse into the early medieval and modern traditions related to the Arabic language, its grammar, historical development, and demonstrate its centrality to other fields of study such as qur’ānic studies, adab, folk literature, sufism, and poetry.

"[L]e volume revêt un grand intérêt pour tous ceux qui s’intéressent à la langue arabe et, plus particulièrement, aux questions linguistiques qu’elle soulève, ainsi qu’à sa longue et riche tradition grammaticale. La qualité générale des articles, ainsi que l’érudition des contributeurs, représentent le plus bel hommage à une figure incontournable dans le domaine, un des pionniers des études sur l’histoire de la grammaire arabe." – Francesco Binaghi, in: Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée "All things considered, the editor has been successful in putting together a volume, which represents the multifaceted nature of research on the history of Arabic grammar and Arabic lexicography and encompasses a wide range of topics as well as of different theoretical perspectives on these subjects. The papers include linguistics and socio-historical analyses, detailed case studies describing the development of different grammatical traditions as well as discussions about formal aspects of both classical and modern standard Arabic grammar. Despite this great heterogeneity, the volume constitutes a coherent collection of studies demonstrating the strength of the relationship interrelating language, culture and religion in the arabophone world." – Stefano Manfredi, in: Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 103 (2013): 451-453

Bilal Orfali, Ph.D. (2009), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut. He is the author of several articles and books on classical Arabic literature and Islamic mysticism.