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'anic studies, adab, folk literature, sufism, and poetry.

Review:

[L]e volume revet un grand interet pour tous ceux qui s'interessent a la langue arabe et, plus particulierement, aux questions linguistiques qu'elle souleve, ainsi qu'a sa longue et riche tradition grammaticale. La qualite generale des articles, ainsi que l'erudition des contributeurs, representent le plus bel hommage a une figure incontournable dans le domaine, un des pionniers des etudes sur l'histoire de la grammaire arabe. - Francesco Binaghi, in: Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Mediterranee 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 fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 103 (2013): 451-453