The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature-Volume One

Wide-ranging essays on Moroccan history, Sufism, and religious life

Al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī was arguably the most influential and well-known Moroccan intellectual figure of his generation. In 1084/1685, at the age of roughly fifty-four, and after a long and distinguished career, this Amazigh scholar from the Middle Atlas began writing a collection of short essays on a wide variety of subjects. Completed three years later and gathered together under the title Discourses on Language and Literature (al-Muhadarat fi l-adab wa-l-lughah), they offer rich insight into the varied intellectual interests of an ambitious and gifted Moroccan scholar, covering subjects as diverse as genealogy, theology, Sufism, history, and social mores.

In addition to representing the author’s intellectual interests, The Discourses also includes numerous autobiographical anecdotes, which offer valuable insight into the history of Morocco, including the transition from the Saadian to the Alaouite dynasty, which occurred during al-Yūsī’s lifetime. Translated into English for the first time, The Discourses offers readers access to the intellectual landscape of the early modern Muslim world through an author who speaks openly and frankly about his personal life and his relationships with his country’s rulers, scholars, and commoners.

An English-only edition.

1131619901
The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature-Volume One

Wide-ranging essays on Moroccan history, Sufism, and religious life

Al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī was arguably the most influential and well-known Moroccan intellectual figure of his generation. In 1084/1685, at the age of roughly fifty-four, and after a long and distinguished career, this Amazigh scholar from the Middle Atlas began writing a collection of short essays on a wide variety of subjects. Completed three years later and gathered together under the title Discourses on Language and Literature (al-Muhadarat fi l-adab wa-l-lughah), they offer rich insight into the varied intellectual interests of an ambitious and gifted Moroccan scholar, covering subjects as diverse as genealogy, theology, Sufism, history, and social mores.

In addition to representing the author’s intellectual interests, The Discourses also includes numerous autobiographical anecdotes, which offer valuable insight into the history of Morocco, including the transition from the Saadian to the Alaouite dynasty, which occurred during al-Yūsī’s lifetime. Translated into English for the first time, The Discourses offers readers access to the intellectual landscape of the early modern Muslim world through an author who speaks openly and frankly about his personal life and his relationships with his country’s rulers, scholars, and commoners.

An English-only edition.

12.49 In Stock
The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature-Volume One

The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature-Volume One

The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature-Volume One

The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature-Volume One

eBook

$12.49  $16.00 Save 22% Current price is $12.49, Original price is $16. You Save 22%.

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Wide-ranging essays on Moroccan history, Sufism, and religious life

Al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī was arguably the most influential and well-known Moroccan intellectual figure of his generation. In 1084/1685, at the age of roughly fifty-four, and after a long and distinguished career, this Amazigh scholar from the Middle Atlas began writing a collection of short essays on a wide variety of subjects. Completed three years later and gathered together under the title Discourses on Language and Literature (al-Muhadarat fi l-adab wa-l-lughah), they offer rich insight into the varied intellectual interests of an ambitious and gifted Moroccan scholar, covering subjects as diverse as genealogy, theology, Sufism, history, and social mores.

In addition to representing the author’s intellectual interests, The Discourses also includes numerous autobiographical anecdotes, which offer valuable insight into the history of Morocco, including the transition from the Saadian to the Alaouite dynasty, which occurred during al-Yūsī’s lifetime. Translated into English for the first time, The Discourses offers readers access to the intellectual landscape of the early modern Muslim world through an author who speaks openly and frankly about his personal life and his relationships with his country’s rulers, scholars, and commoners.

An English-only edition.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781479810574
Publisher: New York University Press
Publication date: 11/09/2021
Series: Library of Arabic Literature , #77
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī (Author)
Al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī (d. 1102/1691) was a major eleventh/seventeenth-century Moroccan scholar and a prolific author of books on a wide variety of subjects, including Flowers from the Greatest Proverbs and Sayings.

Ayesha Ramachandran (Foreword by)
Ayesha Ramachandran is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University. She is the author of The Worldmakers: Global Imagining in Early Modern Europe.

Justin Stearns (Translator)
Justin Stearns is Associate Professor in Arab Crossroads Studies at NYU Abu Dhabi. He is the author of Infectious Ideas: Contagion in Pre-Modern Islamic and Christian Thought in the Western Mediterranean and Revealed Sciences: The Natural Sciences in Islam in Seventeenth-Century Morocco.

Table of Contents

Letter from the General Editor iii

Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xviii

Introduction xxi

Map: al-Yusi's Morocco xxxiii

Map: Topography of the Poetry Cited by al-Yusi xxxiv

Note on the Text xxxv

Notes to the Introduction xxxviii

The Discourses, Volume One 1

Notes 243

Glossary of Names and Terms 260

Chronology of Major Events Relevant to The Discourses 293

Bibliography 296

Further Reading 301

Index of Qur'anic Verses 303

Index of Hadith 307

Index 313

About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute 324

About the Translator 325

The Library of Arabic Literature 326

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews