New Releases

This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars.

A Spanish translation of George Kiraz's popular New Syriac Primer. This fruitful integration of scholarly introduction and practical application provides a primer that is more than a simple grammar or syntactic introduction to the language. Written in a style designed for beginners, Kiraz avoids technical language and strives for a reader-friendly inductive approach.

The book analyses all extant works by Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 224/839–310/923), referring to their individual methodologies; their legacy as al-madhhab al-jariri; and their scholarly and socio- political context. Through the study of al-Tabari’s works, the book addresses research debates over dating the legal and scholarly institutions and their disciplines; authorship and transmission of scholarly writings; political theory and administration; and ‘origins’ of the Qur’an and Islam.

The Scholastic Culture of the Babylonian Talmud studies how and in what cultural context the Talmud began to take shape in the scholastic centers of rabbinic Babylonia. Bickart tracks the use of the term tistayem ("let it be promulgated") and its analogs, in contexts ranging from Amoraic disciple circles to Geonic texts, and in comparison with literatures of Syriac-speaking Christians. The study demonstrates increasing academization during the talmudic period, and supports a gradual model of the Talmud's redaction.

This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars.

The book comprises an annotated critical edition and a detailed study of Kitāb al-Sawād al-a‘ẓam by al-Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī (d. 342/953).

Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley’s new book is both an updated academic study and an autobiographical account of her decades-long Mandaean encounters. The book includes the author’s intellectual timeline in Mandaean studies from the late 1960s until today, a study of Mandaean scribal lineages, accounts of private and public meetings with Mandeans around the world with 26 anecdotes / vignettes, as well as selections from a privately printed book on her international human rights work for Mandaeans. The book is dedicated to a treasured Mandaean friend, the yalufa (learned layman) Sh. Salem Choheili.

Ottoman Architecture is the first modern history of Ottoman architecture written by Ottomans themselves, yet it is little known outside the field of late Ottoman studies. This magnificently-illustrated volume codifies the empire’s architectural history into a series of preliminary stages culminating in the efflorescence of the Ottoman classical tradition in the sixteenth-century.

An English translation of a Latin work on the Syriac grammatical tradition ('Historia artis grammaticae apud Syros') by the 19th-century German theologian and linguist, Adalbert Merx.

The most significant and by far largest collections of Zaydi manuscripts are housed by the many public and private libraries of Yemen, an endangered cultural heritage tradition, currently at risk due to the conflict and warfare in Yemen. The contributions brought together in this volume address a wide spectrum of aspects concerning Yemeni manuscript cultures, with some focusing on their history and present state within Yemen and others discussing the collections of manuscripts of Yemeni provenance in Europe and elsewhere.