Reflections on Knowledge and Language in Middle Eastern Societies

This book presents a collection of articles that put forward original research and significant insight regarding several key issues related to knowledge and language in Middle Eastern societies. The aspects studied include: the role of knowledge and language in affirming and negating political agendas and self-identities within areas of conflict and tension; ideas regarding the usefulness and interaction of religious and secular knowledge; and the attributes that render knowledge and language, especially that which is believed to be of divine origin, outstanding and worthy of admiration. The selection of studies has been purposefully diverse to include a variety of languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew and Persian, within multiple traditions, including Hellenism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, while focussing on a range of periods, from the classical to the mediaeval to the modern, and examining a range of issues, such as methods of analysing and interpreting Persian, Turkish and Arabic literature, literary and other attributes of the Bible and the Qurâ (TM)an, diglossic languages, the Turkish modernisation project, Turkish-Kurdish tensions, Andalusian music, Azerbaijani politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By underlining the substantial commonalities that exist between such seemingly different fields of research, the book highlights the ideaâ "increasingly on the wane in departments of Middle Eastern Studies across many universitiesâ "that a shared area of study, viz. the Middle East, naturally and inherently entails a shared cultural, historical, and sociological milieu. It suggests that academics who engage in different branches of research related to this area shouldâ "rather than focussing singly on their own fieldâ "avail substantially and meaningfully of one anotherâ (TM)s scholarship, learn from each otherâ (TM)s methodologies, and collectively build upon a body of knowledge that should never be seen as dissociated.