Peter Webb
Leiden University, Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Faculty Member
Part 5.1 of Al-Maqrīzī's al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar A critical edition and translation of al-Maqrīzī’s text on Arabian Outlaws, including detailed study that interrogates the outlaw lore in wider Arabic literature to uncover the ways in which... more
Part 5.1 of Al-Maqrīzī's al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar
A critical edition and translation of al-Maqrīzī’s text on Arabian Outlaws, including detailed study that interrogates the outlaw lore in wider Arabic literature to uncover the ways in which Arabic writers constructed outlaw identities and how al-Maqrīzī used the tales to communicate his vision of pre-Islam.
A critical edition and translation of al-Maqrīzī’s text on Arabian Outlaws, including detailed study that interrogates the outlaw lore in wider Arabic literature to uncover the ways in which Arabic writers constructed outlaw identities and how al-Maqrīzī used the tales to communicate his vision of pre-Islam.
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Arabic edition of Ibn al-Qutayba's 'Excellence of the Arabs'
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By Ibn Qutaybah
Arabic Edition and Translation into English
Edited by James Montgomery and Peter Webb
Translated by Sarah Bowen Savant and Peter Webb
Arabic Edition and Translation into English
Edited by James Montgomery and Peter Webb
Translated by Sarah Bowen Savant and Peter Webb
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This is the introduction to Ibn Qutaybah's Excellence of the Arabs. For the full book, see: https://nyupress.org/books/9781479809578/
A new interpretation of Arab origins and the historical roots of Arab identity Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs’ role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about... more
A new interpretation of Arab origins and the historical roots of Arab identity
Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs’ role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history through close interpretation of pre-Islamic evidence and the extensive Arabic literary corpus in tandem with theories of identity and ethnicity prompts new answers to the riddle of Arab origins and fundamental reinterpretations of early Islamic history.
Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs’ role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history through close interpretation of pre-Islamic evidence and the extensive Arabic literary corpus in tandem with theories of identity and ethnicity prompts new answers to the riddle of Arab origins and fundamental reinterpretations of early Islamic history.
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Arabic Literature, Arabic, Identity (Culture), Race and Ethnicity, Islamic Studies, and 8 morePre-Islamic Arabic Literature, Islamic History, Ethnicity, Arabic Historiography (History), Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Arab world, Arabian Peninsula in Antiquity, and History of Pre-Islamic Arabia
A focused study of pre-Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca described in Arabic poetry. Via exhaustive and in-depth analysis of the poetry corpus, this paper analyses the full gamut of pre-Islamic poetry about Hajj and opens new avenues to... more
A focused study of pre-Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca described in Arabic poetry. Via exhaustive and in-depth analysis of the poetry corpus, this paper analyses the full gamut of pre-Islamic poetry about Hajj and opens new avenues to reconstruct pilgrimage before Islam. The findings are compared and contrasted to the depictions of Hajj in the Qur’an and in early hadith.
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Study of the meaning of Mecca in the Qur'an, evidence for the pilgrimage in pre-Islam, and a study of the status of Mecca and pilgrimage during the Umayyad Era
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A study of grants of protection offered by women to men in pre-Islamic Arabia and early Islam, comparing pre-Islamic customs, Islamic law provisions, and Arabic literary accounts of the practice
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In Empires and Communities in the Post-Roman and Islamic World, C. 400-1000 CE, eds. Rutger Kramer and Walter Pohl, pp. 283-328
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Response to the contributions of Hugh Kennedy and Walter Pohl in Empires and Communities in the Post-Roman and Islamic World, C. 400-1000 CE, eds. Rutger Kramer and Walter Pohl, pp. 76-88
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in Herbert Berg (ed), Routledge Handbook on Early Islam, 2017, pp. 129-58
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Spatial Narratives and History Telling in Arabic
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Encyclopaedia of Islam Third Edition, 2020
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Encyclopaedia of Islam Third Edition, 2020
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Encyclopaedia of Islam Third Edition, 2020
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Encyclopaedia of Islam Third Edition, 2020
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EI3 Part 2019-4, pp.117-121
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Review of Inventing the Berbers: History and Ideology in the Maghrib. Ramzi Rouighi (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).
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Review of Blair and Bloom, "By the Pen and What they Write", Osborn, "Letters of Light", Mozzati, "Islamic Art"
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Journal of Arabic Literature 49 (2018) 162-7
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Bulletin of the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia (2017) 43-5
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 79.3 (2016), 640-642
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Forthcoming in Andrew Marsham (ed.), "The Umayyad World", Routledge, 2021
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Forthcoming chapter in Walter Pohl and Rutger Kramer (eds.), "Empires and Communities in the Post-Roman and Early Islamic World" (Oxford UP)
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British Academy Review 27 (2016) 34-9
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https://mouse.digitalscholarship.nl This online, interactive textbook contains a growing collection of lessons in codicology-the study of handwritten documents or codices-and palaeography from the Middle East, Islamic Africa and beyond.... more
https://mouse.digitalscholarship.nl This online, interactive textbook contains a growing collection of lessons in codicology-the study of handwritten documents or codices-and palaeography from the Middle East, Islamic Africa and beyond. The lessons guide the student through the ways books were made and used there before the printing press, by investigating the traces left by producers, owners and readers of manuscripts. Using your mouse, you will come close to people in the manuscript age as they produced, transmitted, cherished and "consumed" the written texts. The lessons are centered around fully digitalised manuscripts from the oriental collection of Leiden University Libraries. They include samples in Arabic, Persian and Coptic, from cultures ranging from the Maghrib to Mughal India. The lessons can be read in any order. All include suggestions for further reading and questions (with answers) or assignments.
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Overview of the early development of Arab identity and outline of the research aims of my British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship 2015-18 (pf150079)
http://blog.britac.ac.uk/arab-origins-identity-history-and-islam/
http://blog.britac.ac.uk/arab-origins-identity-history-and-islam/
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In The Arab Thieves, Peter Webb critically explores the classic tales of pre-Islamic Arabian outlaws in Arabic Literature. A group of Arabian camel-rustlers became celebrated figures in Muslim memories of pre-Islam, and much poetry... more
In The Arab Thieves, Peter Webb critically explores the classic tales of pre-Islamic Arabian outlaws in Arabic Literature. A group of Arabian camel-rustlers became celebrated figures in Muslim memories of pre-Islam, and much poetry ascribed to them and stories about their escapades grew into an outlaw tradition cited across Arabic literature. The ninth/fifteenth-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrīzī arranged biographies of ten outlaws into a chapter on ‘Arab Thieves’ in his wide-ranging history of the world before Muhammad. This volume presents the first critical edition of al-Maqrīzī’s text with a fully annotated English translation, alongside a detailed study that interrogates the outlaw lore to uncover the ways in which Arabic writers constructed outlaw identities and how al-Maqrīzī used the tales to communicate his vision of pre-Islam. Via an exhaustive survey of early Arabic sources about the outlaws and comparative readings with outlaw traditions in other world literatures, The Arab Thieves reveals how Arabic literature crafted lurid narratives about criminality and employed them to tell ancient Arab history.
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The premodern Islamic world was multilingual and multicultural, and by necessity was continually engaged in comparative critical practices. Mapping the interconnected trajectories of these practices, everywhere they arose between Urdu,... more
The premodern Islamic world was multilingual and multicultural, and by necessity was continually engaged in comparative critical practices. Mapping the interconnected trajectories of these practices, everywhere they arose between Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and other language traditions of Asia and Africa, is the aim of this conference. We invite scholars to employ methodologies based on direct engagement with primary sources that negotiate the multilingual Islamic world(s) in ways that are overlooked or misunderstood by Comparative Literature.