Sobriety And Mirth: A Selection Of The Shorter Writings Of Al-Jahiz
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Good
Few writers of the medieval Islamic world command the breadth, wit, and intellectual audacity of al-Jāḥiẓ, the ninth-century Arab polymath whose restless curiosity ranged across theology, zoology, rhetoric, and human folly with equal relish. Sobriety and Mirth presents a carefully curated selection of his shorter prose pieces — epistles, satirical sketches, and moral reflections — rendered into fluent English by Jim Colville and published as part of the prestigious Kegan Paul Arabia Library. These compact yet remarkable texts illuminate a civilization at its intellectual zenith, where wit and wisdom were considered inseparable companions, and where the boundaries between sacred learning and sharp comedy were gloriously blurred. Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote with a voice at once encyclopaedic and mischievous, and Colville's translation honours that dual register, preserving the author's legendary facility for irony and paradox. The shorter writings gathered here serve as a window into Abbasid Baghdad — its markets, its scholars, its eccentrics, and its arguments — offering a portrait of Islamic culture that is richly human and persistently surprising. For any reader who believes the classical Arabic literary tradition is merely solemn or austere, this collection delivers a decisive and delightful corrective.
Author: Al-Jahiz
Format: Hardback
Published: 2002, Kegan Paul
Genre: Anthology
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Good
Few writers of the medieval Islamic world command the breadth, wit, and intellectual audacity of al-Jāḥiẓ, the ninth-century Arab polymath whose restless curiosity ranged across theology, zoology, rhetoric, and human folly with equal relish. Sobriety and Mirth presents a carefully curated selection of his shorter prose pieces — epistles, satirical sketches, and moral reflections — rendered into fluent English by Jim Colville and published as part of the prestigious Kegan Paul Arabia Library. These compact yet remarkable texts illuminate a civilization at its intellectual zenith, where wit and wisdom were considered inseparable companions, and where the boundaries between sacred learning and sharp comedy were gloriously blurred. Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote with a voice at once encyclopaedic and mischievous, and Colville's translation honours that dual register, preserving the author's legendary facility for irony and paradox. The shorter writings gathered here serve as a window into Abbasid Baghdad — its markets, its scholars, its eccentrics, and its arguments — offering a portrait of Islamic culture that is richly human and persistently surprising. For any reader who believes the classical Arabic literary tradition is merely solemn or austere, this collection delivers a decisive and delightful corrective.