CC License

Friday, December 19, 2014

Shaden M. Tageldin, Disarming Words Empire and the Seductions of Translation in Egypt, UCP 2011

Disarming Words

Empire and the Seductions of Translation in Egypt
Shaden M. Tageldin 

Univesity of California Press 2011

[Thanks to Mohammed Lafi for the reference]

In a book that radically challenges conventional understandings of the dynamics of cultural imperialism, Shaden M. Tageldin unravels the complex relationship between translation and seduction in the colonial context. She examines the afterlives of two occupations of Egypt—by the French in 1798 and by the British in 1882—in a rich comparative analysis of acts, fictions, and theories that translated the European into the Egyptian, the Arab, or the Muslim. Tageldin finds that the encounter with European Orientalism often invited colonized Egyptians to imagine themselves “equal” to or even “masters” of their colonizers, and thus, paradoxically, to translate themselves toward—virtually into—the European. Moving beyond the domination/resistance binary that continues to govern understandings of colonial history, Tageldin redefines cultural imperialism as a politics of translational seduction, a politics that lures the colonized to seek power through empire rather than against it, thereby repressing its inherent inequalities. She considers, among others, the interplays of Napoleon and Hasan al-'Attar; Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Silvestre de Sacy, and Joseph Agoub; Cromer, 'Ali Mubarak, Muhammad al-Siba'i, and Thomas Carlyle; Ibrahim 'Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini, Muhammad Husayn Haykal, and Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat; and Salama Musa, G. Elliot Smith, Naguib Mahfouz, and Lawrence Durrell. In conversation with new work on translation, comparative literature, imperialism, and nationalism, Tageldin engages postcolonial and poststructuralist theorists from Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak to Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Emile Benveniste, and Jacques Derrida.

Contents 

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation and Transliteration

Overture | Cultural Imperialism Revisited: Translation, Seduction, Power
1. The Irresistible Lure of Recognition
2. The Dismantling I: Al-'Attar's Antihistory of the French in Egypt, 1798–1799
3. Suspect Kinships: Al-Tahtawi and the Theory of French-Arabic "Equivalence," 1827–1834
4. Surrogate Seed, World-Tree: Mubarak, al-Siba'i, and the Translations of "Islam" in British Egypt, 1882–1912
5. Order, Origin, and the Elusive Sovereign: Post-1919 Nation Formation and the Imperial Urge toward Translatability
6. English Lessons: The Illicit Copulations of Egypt at Empire's End
Coda | History, Affect, and the Problem of the Universal

Notes
Index


More about the book from the publisher's website: http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520265523 .

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Eurocentrism,European Civilization, and European exceptionalism

From Wikipedia; Eurocentrism is:

Eurocentrism is a political term coined in the 1980s, referring to the notion of European exceptionalism, a worldview centered on Western civilization, as it had developed during the height of the European colonial empires since the Early Modern period.

The term Eurocentrism itself dates to the late 1980s and became prevalent in the discourse of political correctness and cultural relativism during the 1990s, especially in the context decolonization and development aid and humanitarian aid offered by industrialised countries ("First World") to developing countries ("Third World").

More about it is to be found in Wikipedia through this link

There is no Arabic translation of this article in Wikipedia, so I translate this passage as follows:

المركزية الأوروبية هو مصطلح سياسي يشير الى فكرة الاستثنائية الأوروبية ؛ وهى نظرة إستعلائيه عن العالم تنطلق من و تتمحور حول فكرة "تفوق الحضارة الأوربية-الغربية كما أُسس لها أثناء أوج إذهار وتوسع دول الإستعمار الأوربية منذ "أوائل العصر الحديث".
ويعود هذا المصطلح  "المركزية الأوروبية" تحديداً إلى أواخر العقد الثامن من القرن التاسع عشر الميلادى( 1970-1979) حيث ساد بعد ذلك في خطاب الباقة السياسية و النسبية الثقافية  بعدها بعقد من الزمن(1980-1989)، وخاصة في سياق محاولة إنهاء تبعية الدولة المستعمرة سابقا لدول الإستعمار وذلك في إطار "مساعدات التنمية" و "المساعدات الإنسانية" التي تقدمها البلدان الصناعية ( "العالم الأول") إلى البلدان النامية ( " العالم الثالث ").

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Encyclopedia of Mediterranean Humanism (EMH), Houari Touati, Bayt al-hikma La Maison de la sagesse des Abbassides

Houari Touati, « Bayt al-hikma : la Maison de la sagesse des Abbassides », in Houari Touati (éd.), Encyclopédie de l’humanisme méditerranéen, printemps 2014, URL = http://www.encyclopedie-humanisme.com/?Bayt-al-hikma.




Monday, December 15, 2014

Journal for the History of Arab Science, Aleppo Volumes I-XV ( Free download)

Through the below link, one could donwload pdf-files of the  first 15th volumes (1977-1997) of Journal for the History of Arab Science published by The Insititute of Arabic scientific heritage in Aleppo Univerisity (Syria). The links to download the volumes are to be found here.

Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, Dimitri Gutas, Routledge 1998



Greek Thought, Arabic Culture
The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.) (Arabic Thought and Culture),  Dimitri Gutas, Routledge 1998





From the middle of the eighth century to the tenth century, almost all non-literary and non-historical secular Greek books, including such diverse topics as astrology, alchemy, physics, botany and medicine, that were not available throughout the eastern Byzantine Empire and the Near East, were translated into Arabic.
Greek Thought, Arabic Culture explores the major social, political and ideological factors that occasioned the unprecedented translation movement from Greek into Arabic in Baghdad, the newly founded capital of the Arab dynasty of the 'Abbasids', during the first two centuries of their rule. Dimitri Gutas draws upon the preceding historical and philological scholarship in Greco-Arabic studies and the study of medieval translations of secular Greek works into Arabic and analyses the social and historical reasons for this phenomenon.
Dimitri Gutas provides a stimulating, erudite and well-documented survey of this key movement in the transmission of ancient Greek culture to the Middle Ages.
Table of contents

Title Page                                                                    iii

Contents                                                                      ix

Preface                                                                                    xiii

Note on Dates, Names, and Transliteration                xvii

Introduction                                                                1

Part I - Translation and Empire                                   9

1 - The Background of the Translation Movement     11

2 - Al-ManṢŪr                                                            28

3 - Al-MahdĪ and His Sons                                        61

4 - Al-Ma’mŪn                                                           75

Part II - Translation and Society                                 105

5 - Translation in the Service of Applied and Theoretical Knowledge107

6 - Patrons, Translators, Translations                          121

7 - Translation and History                                         151

Epilogue187

Appendix: Greek Works Translated into Arabic        193

Bibliography and Abbreviations                                 197

Chronological Bibliography of Studies on the Significance of the Translation Movement for Islamic Civilization                                                        212

General Index                                                              216


Index of Manuscripts                                                  230

Before and After Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused, Garth Fowden Princton University press 2013.



Islam emerged amid flourishing Christian and Jewish cultures, yet students of Antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly ignore it. Despite intensive study of late Antiquity over the last fifty years, even generous definitions of this period have reached only the eighth century, whereas Islam did not mature sufficiently to compare with Christianity or rabbinic Judaism until the tenth century. Before and After Muhammad suggests a new way of thinking about the historical relationship between the scriptural monotheisms, integrating Islam into European and West Asian history.
Garth Fowden identifies the whole of the First Millennium--from Augustus and Christ to the formation of a recognizably Islamic worldview by the time of the philosopher Avicenna--as the proper chronological unit of analysis for understanding the emergence and maturation of the three monotheistic faiths across Eurasia. Fowden proposes not just a chronological expansion of late Antiquity but also an eastward shift in the geographical frame to embrace Iran.
In Before and After Muhammad, Fowden looks at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alongside other important developments in Greek philosophy and Roman law, to reveal how the First Millennium was bound together by diverse exegetical traditions that nurtured communities and often stimulated each other.
Garth Fowden is Research Director at the Institute of Historical Research, National Research Foundation, Athens, and Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths at the University of Cambridge. His books include The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind and Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (both Princeton).

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Prefatory Note and Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Chapter 1. INCLUDING ISLAM 1
The West and the Rest 1
Edward Gibbon 5
Islam and late Antiquity 9
Summary 15
Chapter 2. TIME: BEYOND LATE ANTIQUITY 18
The roots of late antique studies 18
Burckhardt to Strzygowski 23
The Orient and Islam: Views from Vienna 30
Pirenne to the present 37
Chapter 3. A NEW PERIODIZATION: THE FIRST MILLENNIUM 49
Decline versus transformation 49
Maturations 53
Monotheist historiography 68
For and against the First Millennium 82
Chapter 4. SPACE: AN EASTWARD SHIFT 92
Discovering the Mediterranean 92
Discovering the East 96
Empires and commonwealths 101
The Mountain Arena 116
Chapter 5. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 1: ARISTOTELIANISM 127
Greek Aristotelianism 129
Christian polemic 136
Aristotle in Latin, Armenian, and Syriac 139
Alexandria to Baghdad 146
Arabic Aristotelianism 153
Chapter 6. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 2: LAW AND RELIGION 164
Roman law 166
Rabbinic Judaism 173
Patristic Christianity 181
Islam 188
Chapter 7. VIEWPOINTS AROUND 1000: ?US, BASRA,
BAGHDAD, PISA 198
Tus/Iran 199
Basra/Encyclopedism 204
Baghdad/Rationality 207
Pisa/The Latin West 212
Prospects for Further Research 219
Map: the Eurasian Hinge, with Circum-Arabian Trade Routes 106

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

The Arabic Islamic Consummatum in Translation and Cultural Dialoge: From Baghdad to Toledo by Ahmed Etman, 2013 (posthumously)


It seems to me that the late Ahmed Etman has left us a very powerful message. You have to read only the title of the book written by him and published posthumously. The book is entitled " The Arabic Islamic Consummatum in Translation and Cultural Dialoge: From Baghdad to Toledo" and published by the Egyptian General Writers` Association 2013.  I'm eager to know what did Ahmed Etman state about the translation movement between Greek, Latin and Arabic.

I don't have a copy of it now to give the table of contents, but I will seek to have it of course.
[Thanks to Belal Sobhy of the reference]


Saturday, December 6, 2014

Galen. Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics Book I


Vagelpohl, Uwe

Galeni In Hippocratis Epidemiarum librum I commentariorum I-III versio Arabica /
Galen. Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics Book I

Edidit, in linguam Anglicam vertit, commentatus est

The present volume offers the first critical edition of Book I of the medieval Arabic translation of Galen's Commentary on the Hippocratic Epidemics produced by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. ca. 870). The edition is based on all extant Arabic textual witnesses, including the Arabic secondary transmission.
The translation of this text became a crucial source for the development of medicine in the Islamic world, especially in the nascent field of clinical medicine; the number and extent of quotations in later Arabic medical works and the wide range of didactic writings created on the basis of this translation attest to its importance.
The English translation, which aims to convey some of the favour of the Arabic translation, comes with extensive notes on the differences between the Greek original and the Arabic translation. A thorough comparison between the two versions of the commentary provided important insights into the translation style and terminology of Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his associates.

for more see here.

Arabic into Latin in the Middle Ages


Charles Burnett (2009)Arabic into Latin in the Middle Ages, Ashgate Variorum

This collection of Charles Burnett's articles on the transmission of Arabic learning to Europe concentrates on the identity of the Latin translators and the context in which they were working. The articles are arranged in roughly chronological order, beginning with the earliest known translations from Arabic at the end of the 10th century, progressing through 11th-century translations made in Southern Italy, translators working in Sicily and the Principality of Antioch at the beginning of the 12th century, the first of the 12th-century Iberian translators, the beginnings and development of 'professional' translation activity in Toledo, and the transfer of this activity from Toledo to Frederick II's entourage in the 13th century. Most of the articles include editions of texts that either illustrate the style and character of the translator or provide the source material for his biobibliography.


Contents: Preface; King Ptolemy and Alchandreus the philosopher: the earliest texts on the astrolabe and Arabic astrology at Fleury, Micy and Chartres; Physics before the Physics: early translations from Arabic of texts concerning nature in MSS British Library, Additional 22719 and Cotton Galba E IV; Adelard of Bath and the Arabs; Antioch as a link between Arabic and Latin culture in the 12th and 13th centuries; 'Magister Iohannes Hispalensis et Limiensis' and Qusta ibn Luqa's De Differentia Spiritus et Animae: a Portuguese contribution to the Arts curriculum?; John of Seville and John of Spain, a mise au point; The coherence of the Arabic-Latin translation program in Toledo in the 12th century; Michael Scot and the transmission of scientific culture from Toledo to Bologna via the court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen; Master Theodore, Frederick II's philosopher: Addenda and corrigenda; Indexes.


About the Author: Charles Burnett is Professor of the History of Islamic Influences in Europe at the Warburg Institute, University of London, UK

Look at the content from. here

Friday, December 5, 2014

Creative Commons license

Creative Commons (CClicense is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwisecopyrighted work. A CC license is used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have created. CC provides an author flexibility (for example, they might choose to allow only non-commercial uses of their own work) and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work.

This is from Wikipedia, to know more see here.

Digital Averroes Research Environment

Access here.
The Digital Averroes Research Environment (DARE) collects and edits the works of the Andalusian Philosopher Averroes or Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Rušd, born in Cordoba in 1126, died in Marrakesh in 1198.
DARE makes accessible online digital editions of Averroes's works, and images of all textual witnesses, including manuscriptsincunabulaand early prints. Averroes's writings and the scholarly literature are documented in a bibliographical database.
At the same time, DARE is a research platform, giving scholars who work on Averroes the opportunity to present their research and to discuss questions related to Averroes's thought in theForum. A collaborative, evolving, and open-ended project hosted by DARE is the Averroes Encyclopaedia, designed to document Averroes's philosophical, scientific and technical vocabulary.
Launched by the Thomas-Institut in February 2010, DARE will continue to evolve during the next years before reaching the complete documentation and digitization of Averroes's works that is intended. DARE is funded by DFG.

Brief Bibliographical Guides in Medieval Islamic Philosophy and Theology

see here.

Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Open Access)

To some extent, scholars disagree about the role of the Greek sources in Arabic and Islamic philosophy (henceforth falsafa, the Arabic loan word for φιλοσοφία). While acknowledging the existence of a Greek heritage, those who consider the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition as the main source of inspiration for falsafa claim that the latter did not arise from the encounter of learned Muslims with the Greek philosophical heritage: instead, according to them falsafa stemmed from the Qur’anic hikma (“wisdom”). As a consequence, the Greek texts in translation are conceived of as instruments for the philosophers to perform the task of seeking wisdom. read more from here.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Master of Arts (M.A.) in Ancient Civilization Studies (Altertumswissenschaften); Saarland's Example !


See here how a German an Ancient Civilization Studies MA look like !

Here is a brief description:

Venus of Willendorf, the prince's grave in Gommern, Homer's epics, Martial's epigrams, Greek statues, Pompeian homes, the Greek city-states and the Roman empire are just some of the many facets of early European art, literature and history explored by students on the M.A. programme "Ancient Civilization Studies" at Saarland University. The programme is unique in Germany, offering students a combination of ancient history, classical archaeology, classical philology, prehistory and early history to provide them with insight into the early phases of Europe and its cultures.


The Master's degree programme "Ancient Civilization Studies" follows on from the more broad-based Bachelor's programme and provides students with the specialist skills needed for challenging professional positions. Students select one of the four core subject areas as their main subject. Depending on their choice, they focus on the analysis and interpretation of Greek and Latin texts, or of pictorial and visual sources, or of material culture. Excursions, practical training and archaeological excavations complete the M.A. programme. Students will develop and deepen their understanding of their chosen fields and the associated scientific and academic methodologies. The Master's programme enables them to earn a specialized qualification that reflects their individual interests, while at the same time specifically encouraging interdisciplinary learning and research. In addition to their main subject, students also select a subsidiary subject either from the field of ancient civilization studies or from another subject area.


Students should choose a combination of subjects that reflects the career areas in which they later wish to work. By combining a core subject area with individual areas of specialization, graduates can prepare themselves for museum work, curating exhibitions, working on archiving projects or on the preservation of archaeological sites, or for work in journalism, publishing, adult education, tourism, or cultural and public relations. Graduates with a good Master's degree can of course also go on to study for a doctoral degree and a career in academic

Roger D. Woodard (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Europe, Cambridge 2008.


Roger D. Woodard (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Europe, Cambridge 2008.




This book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Europe, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The volume brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for scholars and students of linguistics, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language.


Table of Contents

Editor's foreword Roger D. Woodard
1. Language in ancient Europe: an introduction Roger D. Woodard
2. Attic Greek Roger D. Woodard
3. Greek dialects Roger D. Woodard
4. Latin James P. T. Clackson
5. Sabellian languages Rex E. Wallace
6. Venetic Rex E. Wallace
7. Etruscan Helmut Rix
8. Continental Celtic Joseph F. Eska
9. Gothic Jay H. Jasnoff
10. Ancient Nordic Jan Terje Faarlund
Appendix 1. Indo-European Henry M. Hoenigswald, Roger D. Woodard and James P. T. Clackson
Appendix 2. Full table of contents from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.
More about this book and a link to buy it from here.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Hungarian Contributions and Arabic Contributions to international scholarship in Classics: A Diagnostic Contrast


I'm not trying here to give a detailed diagnostic contrast between the Hungarian contributions to the international scholarship in the field of classics. My aim is to give a link to an interesting article that I've recently found online, about the Hungarian contributions in this field. The article is Rttook, Zsigmund. (1997) "The contribution of Hungary to international classical scholarship" Hungarian Studies, 12. Archived here.

The Hungarian case is very informative in many ways; first its language, like the Arabic, is not a modern science language. Nevertheless the Hungarian contributions has been recognizing internationally, cf. e.g. and I quote p. 12 of this article "At the centre of Gyula Moravcsik's interests stood the relationship of Byzantium and the Turcic peoples. (Turcic in the broadest sense of the word, more or less as Byzantine historians used the word, so even Hungarians were included.) His  monumental Byzantino-turcica remains an indispensable instrument for all who  deal with Byzantine history and with Turcic languages because the first volume of the work gives a detailed survey with a full bibliography of all Byzantine histo­rians who mention some Turcic people. The second volume contains all refer­ences to Turcic peoples and records of their languages on the basis not only of  printed texts, but also on the examination of the manuscript tradition. It was he,  further, who produced the standard edition of Constantine Porphyrogennetus' work De administrando imperio."

This monumental work appeared first in Hungarian Budapest 1942 & 1943 then in Berlin 1958 as a second edition in German. This in my opinion is a true case in which the genuine work recieves recognition even if it was composed in a language not considered as a science language.  

Homer's Iliad into Arabic Prose by Ahmed Etman et alli

Homer's Iliad is translated into Arabic prose by Ahmed Etman and alii. The translation was published by the NTC in 2008.


The Clouds (Νεφέλαι Nephelai) of Aristophanes into Arabic by Ahmed Etman

The clouds of Aristophanes was translated into Arabic by Ahmed Etman in 2011 (2nd Edition). The pdf file is available through the website of the classical department in Mansoura Univeristy from this link.


Saturday, November 8, 2014

Œdipe (Oedipus)1931 and Thésée (Theseus) 1946 of André Gide into Arabic by Taha Hussein

Even though it is not an original Greek plays, but there are important to have them in Arabic. Taha Hussein has translated two of the works of André Gide, the famous French author and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947, into Arabic. The first is his play Œdipe (Oedipus)1931 and the second is his novel Thésée (Theseus) 1946. The Arabic translation is available as an open source in Hindawi Foundation's website through this link


De Generatione et Corruptione or Περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς into Arabic by Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed

A translation of  De Generatione et Corruptione or Περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς a philosophical treatise by Aristotle is available in Arabic as an open source through Hindawi Foundation. The translation was done by  Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed (15 January 1872 – 5 March 1963), the first director of Cairo University. The translation is done through the French, as the Arabic translator didn't use the original Greek edition, but used the French translation of this treatise; Traité de la production et de la destruction des choses d'Aristote ; suivi du Traité sur Mélissus, Xénophane et Gorgias by J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire (Paris, 1866). The french translation is to be free of charge found in this link, while the Arabic translation is to be found in Hindawi Foundation's website as usual and again free of charge.

go to this link to have the Arabic translation.


Thursday, November 6, 2014

Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία into Arabic by Taha Hussein (1921)

The  Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία or  the Constitution of the Athenians the text which is contained in two leaves of a papyrus codex discovered at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1879, was translated into Arabic by Taha Hussein in 1921. Now the Hindawi Foundation is publishing this book, free of charge, in PDF, Kindle and epub formats.  The book can be downloaded from this link.

The Second International Conference on Christian Egypt Historiography in Christian Egypt 284-641 AD.

This is the announcement arrived to my inbox from Prof. Dr. Tarek M. Muhammad

The Second International Conference on Christian Egypt

Historiography in Christian Egypt 284-641 AD.

Dear colleague(s),

I have the pleasure to invite you to attend the conference “Historiography in Egypt 284-
641 AD.: Historical, Ecclesiastical, Documentary, and Archaeological Evidence " which will 
be held on 5th– 7th May 2015 and will be organized by History Dept., Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams 
University, Cairo, Egypt in collaboration with “The Annual Symposium of Medieval History, Ain 
Shams University”.


You can find more information on this through this  link.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) ! WOW !

It is amazing to see something like this in the Arabic World. I didn't believe that this would exist some day in our region, but I was wrong. I think this is a good start in Libraries , manuscripts  and collection management. So, Go ahead QDL !



Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī's editions of the Arabic versions of ancient Greek mathematical texts


First part of a collection of Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī's (نصير الدين محمد بن محمد الطوسي; d. 1274) editions (تحارير) of the so-called intermediate books (متوسطات), Arabic versions of ancient Greek mathematical texts and responses to them which were meant to be read after Euclid's Elements and in preparation for Ptolemy's Almagest . The second part of this collection is found in manuscript IO Islamic 923.

The script, ornamentation and binding of the volume indicate that it is part of a set comprising also manuscripts IO Islamic 923 and IO Islamic 924. Since the latter was transcribed in 1198/1784, probably for Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785 (see front paper iirecto ), the collation notes in this manuscript dated to the month of Jumādá I without indication of the year probably refer to 1198 (March-April 1784).

Contents:
(1) Euclid (أقليدس), Data (تحرير كتاب المعطيات لإقليدس; ff. 1v-35r);
(2) Euclid (أقليدس), Optica (تحرير المناظر لإقليدس; ff. 36v-56r);
(3) Euclid (أقليدس), Phenomena (كتاب ظاهرات الفلك لأقليدس; ff. 57v-86r);
(4) Autolycus (أوطولوقس), De ortibus et occasibus (كتاب أوطولوقس في الطلوع والغروب; ff. 87v-110r);
(5) Hypsicles (إبسقلاوس), Anaphoricus (كتاب في المطالع; ff. 111v-116r);
(6) Archimedes (أرشميدس), De sphaera et cylindro (كتاب الكرة والأسطوانة; ff. 118v-231v);
(7) Archimedes (أرشميدس), Dimensio circuli (مقالة أرشميدس في تكسير الدائرة; ff. 231v-238r).

The book is extremely beautiful ! see from here.

Ancient Greek online Grammar course for Arabic Students

I and my colleauge Ahmed Abdalazem (Menoufia University) have begun an online Ancient Greek grammar Course for the Arabic students. The audio series are posted regularly online on the channel of Ahmed Abdalazem on Youtube. The text book used in this series is Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn, Greek : An Intensive Course, 1992 Fordham University press.

We hope that a lot of students will find the series useful for them to catch up, revise, or intensive what they already know of this language.



Tuesday, October 21, 2014

List of Publications of Magda El-Nowieemy

I've to record my admiration of what Prof. Dr. Magda El-Nowieemy are doing in her Academia.edu page. She is very active. Most recently she has put a list of her publications on the website. I do have a problem collecting material concerning academic publications of Egyptian and Arabic scholars of classics, but if all the Arabic scholars inside and outside Egypt followed the example of Magda El-Nowieemy, I would not have any problem at all. So, thanks you !

Her is the link to the file containing her publications: Publications-Magda-El-Nowieemy.  

Saturday, October 18, 2014

A Digital Corpus for Graeco-Arabic Studies

Between the 8th and 10th centuries AD, hundreds of Greek philosophical and scientific works were translated into Arabic. These translations exerted immense influence on the development of philosophy and science in the Islamic world and, through a later process of translation and transmission, in the Latin West as well.

The Digital Corpus assembles a wide range of such texts together with their Greek counterparts, where available, but also a number of Arabic commentaries and crucial secondary sources such as Arabic bio-bibliographical works.

Access the database through this link.

© 2014 - Supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Harvard University, Tufts University


Thursday, October 16, 2014

Seneca's Medea, Phaedra and Agamemnon into Arabic

Dr. Abdel Moaty Shaarawy has translated Three tragedies of  the nine tragedies attributed to Seneca the Younger. He translated Medea, Phadera and Agamemnon directly from Latin into Arabic. The book was published in 2002 by The Anglo-Egypian publishing house.


Friday, September 26, 2014

Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad by Magda El-Nowieemy

An article about Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad by Magday El-Nowieemy is published by the Greek Academy of Institutions and Cultures Society in its webpage in Academia.edu. The paper is titled:  "Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad: A Study of Creation and Trans-Creation", Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Graeco-Oriental andAfrican Studies , held in Delphi, May 2009, in: Graeco-Arabica , vol. 11 (Heraklion, Crete 2011)pp. 247- 256.

The paper is in English and in a pdf format and could be downloaded free through this link.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Taha Hussein's Book : The Future of Culture in Egypt, a free pdf download

Hendawi Foundation is putting online many important Arabic books in Pdf, Kindle, and ePUB format. One of these books is Taha Hussein's " The Future of  Culture in Egypt". The book in my view is better to be called "The Future of Education in Egypt", since he propose to integrate Greek and Latin not only to the secondary schools, but also in many departments in the Egyptian Universities.  His call is up-till now remains completely unfulfilled. The Egyptian universities are still in the process of the implementation of his Nr. 1 idea i.e. Greek and Latin departments. No secondary school whatsoever in Egypt teach Greek or Latin, neither there are full integration of these languages in the departments of the universities in which they are mostly needed e.g. in The faculties of Law !



The book could be downloaded through this link.

ُExpanding the Arabic content of Wikipedia via educational initiative

Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Adel Alnahas, the head of Greek and Latin studies department of Cairo University a pilot project was done in Cairo University to translate the English content into Arabic through students in the department. The guardian has put all the details of this initiative in this article.You can access the program description in Arabic through this link also. The whole archive of the project is to be found here as well.

Dr. Sameh Farouk's Blog

Dr. Sameh Fraouk of Cairo University publishes some of his linguistics thoughts in  an Arabic blog titled " Linguistics Studies in the NT". It appears that the blog was inactive since 2012, I hope he will continue to feed it with his ideas in the days to come. Her is the link to this blog.  

The award-winner of Critisism & Literature Studies award 2012/2013 was the late Prof. Dr. Ahmed Etman

It is to be stated that Prof. Dr. Ahmed Etman was the Winner of the Criticism & Literature Studies award in its thirteenth session 2012-2013. The prize is given by Sultan Bin Ali Alowais Foundation. Here is the CV of Ahmed Etman on the website of the foundation.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

The concept of ἀγᾰθός in Homer and Hesiod by Dr. Farid Hassan

My dear colleague in the department of Ancient European Civilization ( Ain Shams University, Egypt) Dr. Farid Hassan has generously put a pdf version of his published paper titled  The concept of ἀγᾰθός in Homer and Hesiod  in the Facebook website of the Greek society of the department. You can find and download this paper through this link (agathos).

Monday, September 15, 2014

The last days of Socrates: A Greek philosopher in a Lebanese flavor !

This time a theatrical performance but not from Egypt, but Lebanon. A musical theatrical play called "The Last days of Socrates". It is about Socrates and Athens, but it is a political-charged play about modern day Lebanon. One of the performer is the famous Lebanese musician and actress  Carole Samaha. Enjoy !

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Oedipus at Colonus : An Arabic performance based on the translated original

Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus translated by Taha Hussein and performed by Egyptian actors. The audio track starts with an introduction about the author (Sophocles) and the myth of Oedipus.


The Egyptian stage performance of Phaedra ( Jean Racine ?)

I found this video recording of a play titled in Arabic (فيدرا) or Phaedra. I think this is the Arabic translation of the  French play Phèdre by Jean Racine.


The Tragedy of Oedipus: An Arabic Adaptation by Ali Ahmed Bakatheer

An Arabic Islamic reproduction of Sophocles, Oedipus Rex by the writer Ali Ahmed Bakatheer. An audio track on YouTube produced by the Egyptian Radio and TV union  and performed by some of Egyptians famous actors. I can even recognize the voice of the actress  Samiha Ayoub (Jocasta). Because of her long and outstanding  performance in the stage she is called "Arab theatre's leading lady". Oedipus is performed by the Egyptian actor Karam Motawea (Wikipedia page is in Arabic sorry, there is no English page for this actor, but if interested you could translate it by Google). There is also an audio file in Archive.org here: https://archive.org/details/OedipusTheKing

I'm listening to it now. Wow ! this is wonderful !


Friday, September 12, 2014

Learn Arabic online (Aljazeera.net)

It's my pleasure to introduce this platform to all my colleagues all over the world.  Aljazeera Network has now a modern online platform, where one the Arabic language learn, improve, or just explore for fun. It's a professional learning platform mixing traditional Arabic-learning methods  with the modern digital ones. I hope you will enjoy it.

You can learn Arabic in a daily, or weekly basis with just a mouse-click !You can try this website through this link.

P.S.

It's fun for me too !  

Monday, September 8, 2014

Students studying Greek and Latin in Egyptian Universities

Greek and Latin  languages are introduced for students  in Egypt only in universities.These two languages are not taught in secondary schools. During their study students of classics, ancient history, Philosophy ,classical archaeology, English and sometimes German are taught the grammar of these two languages. It goes without saying that students of classics are the only ones who learn  the grammar of these two languages in their first and second semesters and continue to learn intensively their syntax, philology and texts throughout their studies. The other students learn their grammar in various stages of their study program, sometimes in the last semester.

     The total number of students who learn Greek and Latin for the first time in Egypt is estimated to be thousands, but accurate and documented numbers are lacking in this regard. I'm trying to collect these information for the last year 2013/2014 from my colleagues who teach these languages in their class rooms in Ain Shams, Cairo , Alexandria and other universities across the country.

Here is a list where one can find course descriptions ( in Arabic) of Greek and Latin in Egyptian Universities ( I will continue to update this list as long as I find new material online)


  1. Cairo University: Greek and Latin, Second Semester, 4 h.w.  (http://classicscu.edu.eg/tawsifat.html).
  2.  Ain Shams University: Greek and Latin, First semester, 4 h.w. (http://arts.asu.edu.eg/course/index.php?action=show&cid=1299).
  3. Alexandria University, no information available online(http://arts.au.alexu.edu.eg/Arabic/Departments/Department16645/Pages/default.aspx).  

Epistulae Heroidum by Ovidius into Arabic


Epistulae Heroidum  of Ovidius is translated into Arabic for the first time ever. The translation is done by Dr.Ali Abdeltwab Ali and his student Bahaddin Ibrahim. The book is published as the 25th issue of the Cairo university's Project for Translation.


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Ancient Greek Grammar series to the Arabic apologetic of the Coptic church in Youtube !

What a multilingualism that one can find even today in this country, Egypt. Ancient Greek Grammar series to the Arabic apologetic of the Coptic church in Youtube.

Searching the internet for an Arabic content, I found this interesting Youtube learning series. The so-called apologetic team ( most probably related to the Coptic Orthodox church) has streamed - completely in Arabic- an Ancient Greek grammar series. It's very interesting for me to see how this language are taught in this context.

Note: they are pronouncing the Ancient Greek not according to Erasmus' reconstruction, but as the modern-day Greek. Accents play no role also for their pronunciation.

  

Thursday, August 7, 2014

A list of Authors and Titles of "Classical Papers" Academic Journal

Below is the link to a list of Authors and their titles published in Classical Papers journal of Cairo University.  The list covers the period between 1991-2008. Among the papers, written mainly in Arabic but includes  contributions in English and French, many -in my opinion- interdisciplinary treatments of classical receptions not only in  Arabic,  but also in English , French , and even German Literature.


Monday, August 4, 2014

Once more The Garrison of Dionysias

A recent paper about the garrison of Dionysias by our Colleague Mohamed Zayed is available now in academia.edu in his website and downloadable  through this link. 

Mohamed Zayed, The Byzantine Garrison in Dionysias (Qaṣr Qarun in Fayoum) during
The 4th Century, Reading in Abinnaeus Archive", Bulletin of the Ain shams Center of Papyrological Studies and Inscriptions, Cairo, Vol. 30 (2013), pp. 139-163.