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Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
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11 Dec, 4 tweets, 2 min read
The Muslim scholar Abū Jaʿfar al-Idrīsī (1173-1251) wrote a wonderful book about the pyramids and Egyptian lore that I’ve always thought abt translating to dispel this type of trash (but it really shouldn't take all that). And @LibraryArabLit has already published a wonderful...
ʿAbd al-Laṭif al-Baghdadī that can legitimately be called a medieval work of Egyptology written for the Abbasid caliph in 1204. It's one of those rare medieval books that make for a truly great read.
google.com/books/edition/…
For an #openaccess copy of al-Idrīsī's book on the pyramids, see here:
menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/inhouse/conten…
And if you need something in English, see Ulrich Haarmann's "In Quest of the Spectacular"
d-nb.info/112342800X/34

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More from @shahanSean

Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
12 Dec
Reports like these make me think that there’s a tendency to grossly underestimate of the multilingualism in the Ḥijāz.
In this report, the Prophet Muḥammad says to the young scribe Zayd ibn Thābit, “There are letters [kutub|كتب] coming to me, which ...
I do not wish for everyone to read. Are you able to learn Syriac – or: Hebrew – writing?”
“Yes,” I said, and I learned it in 17 nights.
google.com/books/edition/…
And this famous ḥadīth from Abū Hurayrah, “The People of Scripture [ahl al-kitāb] used to read the Torah in Hebrew and explain it in Arabic to the People of Islam [ahl al-islām]. The Messenger of God ﷺ said:
Read 4 tweets
Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
12 Nov
Precious photos of the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus taken in 1862 by the famous landscape photographer Francis Bedford (1815-1894), some 3 decades before the a devastating fire nearly destroyed it in 1893, digitized and made available courtesy of @RCT
rct.uk/collection/sea…
There's a lot more at the website, including the dashing portraits of 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri (1808-83) below, for the exhibit, "Cairo to Constantinople," here: rct.uk/collection/the…
And, yes, if you can't tell, I've been reading Alain George's incredible book on the mosque which has one of Beford's photos on the cover
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
Read 5 tweets
Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
22 Sep
It's said that the Umayyads’ governor of Iraq, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī, denied that al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī was the Prophet’s progeny because he only recognized patrilineal lineage and discounted matrilineal descent. When in public al-Ḥajjāj thus declared, “Ḥusayn is not...
the progeny of the Prophet,” the renowned scholar of the Qurʾan, Yaḥyā ibn Yaʿmur, protest, “O emir, you lie!”
Irate, al-Ḥajjāj turned to him and said, “Then bring forth a proof of what you say from God’s Scripture, or else I shall kill you.” Yaḥyā replied, ...
“Thus says the Almighty, «And from [Abraham’s] progeny are David, Solomon, Job, … Zechariah, John, and Jesus » (Q. Anʿām 9:84-85). Thus does God Almighty proclaim that Jesus is from progeny of Abraham [read إبراهيم for آدم] via his mother.”
Read 4 tweets
Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
22 Jul
It's been a while since I've written a 🧵, but someone recently asked me whether or not there is a connection between the famous ḥadīth about the prostration of the sun in the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī and a passage in the Alexander Legend. Here’s my attempt at a cogent answer …
First, let’s look at the ḥadīth. Abū Ḏarr al-Ġifārī reports that he was at the mosque with the prophet at sundown, and unprompted the prophet asked,
“Abū Ḏarr, do you know where the sun sets?” “God and his messenger know best,” he replied. He answered, ...
“[The sun] proceeds until she prostrates (tasğuda) beneath the Throne; she asks permission, and permission is granted her. But soon [the sun] shall prostrate and it will not be accepted, and she shall seek permission but shall not receive it. It will be said to her, ...
Read 11 tweets
Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
24 Jun
An attempt to define the word millah/religion by the philosopher Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 951) from his Kitāb al-Millah,
"Religion is comprised of creeds and deeds determined and bounded by certain conditions which the founder prescribes for the collective. By seeking ...
to have [the collective] put [the creeds and deeds] into practice, he aims to attain his specified goal for them or through them. The collective might be a kin group, it might be a city or region, and it might a great nation or many nations."
Later on, he addresses ...
the issue of millah vs. dīn (take heart, even he has trouble). He says:
"The words millah and dīn are nearly synonymous with one another – so too the words sharīʿah/law and sunnah/custom. These two merely indicate and apply to the majority of determined deeds from the 2 parts...
Read 5 tweets
Sean W. Anthony Profile picture
19 Jun
Nice visualization of the different colors attested for the kiswah of the Kaaba over time.
What the kiswah actually looked like in the early days is uncertain. Here’s a few interesting traditions from the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shaybah (d. 235/849)
[1] “Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq reported from an elderly woman from Mecca that she said, 'When [ʿUthmān] Ibn ʿAffān was killed,...
I was 14 yrs old.' She continued, 'I had seen the House when it had no kiswah except for the red felt wrap cast over it and the white fabric and the woolen wrap and whatever thing that hung down covering it. I saw it neither gold nor silver was on it.'
Read 7 tweets

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