Books by Yasir Suleiman

The pre-modern period saw a background of inter-ethnic strife among Arabs and non-Arabs, mainly Persians. Starting from the symbolic and cognitive roles of language, Yasir Suleiman shows how discussions about the inimitability and (un)translatability of the Qur'an in this period were, at some deep level, concerned with issues of ethnic election. In this respect, theology and ethnicity emerge as partners in theorising language. Staying within the symbolic role of language, Suleiman goes on to investigate the role of paratexts and literary production in disseminating language ideologies and in cultural contestation. He shows how language symbolism is relevant to ideological debates about hybrid and cross-national literary production in the Arab milieu. In fact, language ideology appears to be everywhere, and a whole chapter is devoted to discussions of the cognitive role of language in linking thought to reality.

The question of identity in relation to language has hardly been dealt with in the Middle East and North Africa, in spite of the centrality of these issues to a variety of scholarly debates concerning this strategically important part of the world. The book seeks to cover a variety of themes in this area.

This book sets out to deal with the concept by investigating the major works of those grammarians who have contributed most in theoretical terms to its development and elaboration in the Arabic Grammatical Tradition.

This survey of current research into Arabic sociolinguistics highlights the importance of the interdisciplinary nature of the topics. In addition to Arabic linguistics themselves, it deals with a range of areas including Islamic law and aspects of cultural and political history.

This compelling and timely study of Arabic culture, language, history, and nationalism by distinguished Arabic linguist Yasir Suleiman allows English-speaking audiences an inside view of key issues in understanding the Arab world.