Books in the Oxford Oriental Monographs series

In third-century CE Palestine, the leading members of the rabbinic movement put together a treatise entitled Tractate Avot. With an effort to situate Avot within the socio-political and intellectual context of the Graeco-Roman Near East, this book probes comparable Jewish, Greek, Roman and Christian sources.

This book traces the development of philology (the study of literary language) in Persian tradition in India, focusing socio-political ramifications, and provides an intellectual biography of rzu, an innovative and influential eighteenth-century scholar and poet in India.

This work highlights the importance of Abraham ben Asher's commentary on Genesis Rabba, demonstrating the influence of this commentary on both his contemporaries and printed editions of the classical Midrashim to the present day.

Against the long-standing and prevalent belief that Mesopotamian Flood traditions came from very early time in Mesopotamian cultural history, this book argues that the traditions emerged relatively late in Sumerian traditions. Through a systematic examination of the relevant cuneiform sources Y. S. Chen charts the evolution of the Flood traditions.

A portrait of daily life in tenth-century China during the turbulent period of transition following the disintegration of the Tang dynasty, using the anecdotal memoirs of the scholar Wang Renyu and providing extensive translations of these hitherto unreconstructed texts.

Discovering myths of religious celibacy, of filial piety, and of ritual salvation of the dead, this book studies the legend of princess Miaoshan who defied her father by refusing to marry, and pursued her austere religious vocation to the death. It is for students of Chinese popular literature, theatre, and religion.

The tension between tradition and reform in the Arab world is one of the most urgent and problematic issues of today. Using material recorded at contemporary Sufi gatherings, this is a detailed analysis of the Sufis of Egypt, one of the most important sects in the Islamic world.

This text presents the epistle ascribed to Salim Ibn Dhakwan, written sometime before AD 800 and discovered in the early 1970s. The epistle which is edited, translated, and discussed in full is an early Islamic tract against "wrong" doctrines regarding the classification and treatment of opponents.

This title examines two inter-related developments in 19th-century India: the transformation wrought by English culture on religion and the emerging religious-communal identity. The text considers the conceptual changes brought by each and the construction and politics of religious identity.

Afghanistan has played a crucial role in shaping the history of Islam. This book provides the first in-depth study of the sacred sites and landscape of medieval Balkh, in today's northern Afghanistan, in the five centuries from the Islamic conquests of the eighth century to the arrival of the Mongols in the thirteenth century.

This book traces the history of classical Arabic wine poetry from its origins in the sixth century to its heyday in Baghdad at the turn of the ninth century. The focus is on the wine songs of the great Abu Nuwas (d. c.813) whose compositions are analysed within the context of the various related genres of classical Arabic poetry.

The first full-length monograph devoted to the Diwan (collected poems) of Muhyi I-Din Ibn `Arabi (1165-1240), a hugely influential figure in the development of Sufism.

Ibadism represents the surviving branch of the third great division in Islam which originated in the civil war a quarter of a century after the death of the Prophet and flourished as a state ideology in Oman until well into the twentieth century. This includes detailed discussion of the earliest evolution of Islamic theology and law.

This is an annotated translation of the Christian Chronicles of Georgia, adapted by the Armenians in the 13th century. An important source for writers on Armenia after 1200, the Chronicles deal with the history of Georgia from the time of its mythical origins.

This accessible study is the first critical investigation of the cult of saints among Muslims and Jews in medieval Syria and the Near East. Josef Meri's critical reading of a wide range of contemporary sources reveals a vibrant religious culture in which the veneration of saints and pilgrimage to tombs and shrines were fundamental.

Christopher T. Fleming provides an account of various theories of ownership and inheritance in Sanskrit jurisprudential literature.

This book is the first in-depth study of the Saiva oeuvre of the celebrated polymath Appaya Diksita (1520-1593).

A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-option under the Islamic Republic offers, for the first time, an original, timely examination of the pivotal role poetry plays in policy, power and political legitimacy in modern-day Iran. Through a compelling chronological and thematic framework, Shams presents fresh insights into the emerging lexicon of coercion and unrest in the modern Persian canon.