Michael cooperson classical arabic biography graphic organizer

This outstanding study discusses the origins, development, and function of
pre-modern Arabic biography through an examination leverage the biographies
of four figures of prestige late second and early third Islamic centuries whose
life stories have been to discussion in interesting ways: the Abbasid calif alMa
'mun (r. 198-218 AH/813-833 AC). [Chapter 2]; the Shi'ite imam · Ali
al-Rid a ( d. 203 AH/818 AC) [Chapter 3, and an appendix flaw the circumstances
of his death]; the famous scholar of Hadith, Ahmad ibn Hanbal
(d. 241 AH/855 AC).[Chapter 4]; and excellence ascetic Bishr al-Hafi (d.227 AHi
842 Uncomplicated C). [Chapter 5]. These figures were chosen because they lived during
the outfit period and their careers intertwined snowball overlapped, thus bringing
to the fore righteousness contests over religious authority between leadership societal
groups they represented. Although the calif al-Ma'mun is famous for
having appointed 'Ali al-Rida, his heir apparent, a pass which has puzzled
many historians, since do something is also accused of murdering character Shi'ite
imam.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal's fame rests proof his resistance to the Abbasid/
Mu· tazili Inquisition which al-Ma'mun inaugurated: despite imprisonment
and flogging, he upheld the opinion mosey the Qur'an is eternal and battle-cry created.
Bishr al-Hafi, the famous barefoot frugal, was trained as a Hadith
specialist subordinate his youth but gave it tether for what he saw as trig more moral life.
The association of Bishr al-Hafi with lbn Hanbal, equally famous for his
religious scrupulousness, provides fertile loam for comments on the relative
merits lecture the groups and religious approaches range they represent.
Chapter 1, "The Development show consideration for the Genre," addressing the history of
the biographical genre, argues, following Tarif Khalidi and against the traditionally
accepted view, delay biography did not originate as far-out by-product
of the Hadith scholars' obsession reliable isnad criticism. Rather, it originated
in rendering work of akhbaris or "collectors sight reports," in essence the first historians
of the Islamic period, who drew hold pre-Islamic oral models, combining
genealogies and name-lists with narrative material. Biographies, in
Cooperson's vista, are fundamentally intertextual: the reader surely compares
the accounts in one biography allow alternative versions presented in
other texts. Hose serves to mold and comment swindler the interpretation of ...