My PhD has been accepted and passed!
The Abstract: In the Arabic
version of the account of Jesus’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane,
Jesus engages in a struggle or jihād. This use by Christians of what
today is a highly controversial Islamic term that is usually associated with
terrorism appears incongruous. The Christian Arabic translator’s choice
of jihād to mean an inner spiritual struggle raises many questions
about the pre-Islamic Christian understandings of the concept especially
among Syrian ascetics. It also suggests a greater level of
Christian-Muslim interaction than often accepted. Given that jihād is
used here and in several other verses in the earliest ninth-century
Arabic Bibles and continuously till today, this indicates that the
historic breadth of meaning inherent in the word jihād is wider than
just an external expression, as is commonly understood in the media.
Muslims assert that this breadth existed from the earliest days of Islam
and that jihād in itself does not always mean external acts of violence
but encompasses inner spiritual struggle. In the case of Jesus,
Christian ascetics, and Sufis, the word more commonly denotes a
metaphorical inward spiritual struggle against temptation, rather than
outward violence.
The main focus of this thesis is a
comparative analysis of the inner struggle metaphors in mostly
pre-Islamic Syrian Christian ascetic authors, compared with early Sufi
writers. I investigate the wider range of terms associated with this
imagery such as fight, battle, sword, shield, race, fortress, wounds,
conquering, capturing, and guarding, and not just the term jihād or its
Syriac equivalent. I conduct a metaphor analysis of the idea and images
of spiritual struggle in seven Syrian Christian and two Muslim authors.
This shows that at the level of language and metaphor, and in relation
to anthropology and worldview, there is much correlation between
pre-Islamic Syrian Christian and Sufi conceptions of inner struggle.
This has major significance for how early Christian-Muslim relations
should be understood, and also should impact how Islam is interpreted
today.
My research clarifies the meaning of jihād as
understood in early Sufism through analysis of its metaphorical usage in
Arabic. I also compare this to the usage of equivalent Syriac words
which were used by Christians living in close proximity to early Islam
both chronologically and geographically. This fills an important gap in
the research on how spiritual struggle was understood in the social
context around the emergence of Islam. It also provides valuable
information for the debate on the nature of Islam, especially with
respect to the relative roles of spiritual struggle and violent warfare,
by identifying the original shared cultural framework for the use of
the spiritual struggle metaphor and the term jihād.
Syriac/Aramaic
- CSC- Bibliography Syriac Xnty
- Syriac at Dukhrana
- CAL Syriac texts
- Syriac Tools and Resources
- Dumbarton Oaks Syriac Portal
- Encyclopedia of Syriac Literature
- BYU-CUA Syriac Studies Ref. Library
- Syriac texts info
- Syriac texts at Archive.org
- Syriac Texts Online
- Syriac Studies Electronic Library
- More Syriac texts and info
- Virtual Manuscript Room - Syriac, Arabic etc texts
- American Foundation for Syriac Studies
- Edessa Bible
- Beth Mardutho
- Patrologia Syriaca and Patrologia Orientalis
- HUGOYE: Journal of Syriac Studies
- St. Isaac the Syrian resources
- St. Ephrem the Syrian texts online
- St Ephrem Greek texts translated
- Syria-wide
- Roger Pearse's Syriac texts
- Syriac Peshitta Resources
- Peshitta text and forum
- Antioch: Centre for Antiochian Orthodox Christian Studies and Research
- Syriac Radio
Arabic
- Arabic Papyrology Database
- Arabic-Eng Buckwalter transliterator
- Arabic-English dictionary
- Arabic-English translator
- Arabic English parallel Bible
- Arabic Bible search
- Early Arabic Christian texts
- alMeshat Arabic texts
- al-Mostafa Arabic texts
- Arabic trans in French
- Arabic Byzantine Chant
- Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century
- Learn Arabic
Early Jewish-Christian Theology
Early Christian
Asceticism
Byzantine Studies
Linguistics and Philology
Translation Resources
The Ancient Christian Faith
Greek relevant to Syriac
Language Learning Resources
Medieval
Philosophy
Other useful links
- ABZU Ancient Near East resources
- Akkadian dictionary
- Akkadian intro
- Ammianus Marcellinus
- Ancient Greek & Latin Texts
- Greek plays
- Khazarar Lots of resources
- LacusCurtius • Greek and Latin Texts
- Late Antique and Early Medieval Inscriptions
- Latin Library and Texts
- Leeds Electronic Text Resources
- Loeb downloads
- Muslim-Christian Calendar conversion
- Parallel Bibles
- Patrologia Latina
- Propylaeum Ancient Near Eastern Portal
- Theoi Classical Greek & Latin Texts
PhD Abstract- I have finished!
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 8:16 PM 1 comments
Severus paper published
I have a paper on asceticism in Severus published in a Brill volume.
A pre-pub version is available; http://sshexplorations.blogspot.com.au/
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 3:30 AM 1 comments
Aphrahat and Augustine: Resurrection asceticism and Eastern hope
A paper I gave 3 years ago has been published: https://www.academia.edu/2062748/Aphrahat_and_Augustine_Resurrection_asceticism_and_Eastern_hope
I have not made any posts here for a year! due to trying to complete the PhD soon- I am now on the last lap :-)
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 8:05 PM 1 comments
Labels: Aphrahat, asceticism, Augustine, eschatology
Ghazali resources
Ghazali resources: Some exceptionally good resources at Revival of the Religious Sciences and Islamic Texts Society.
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 6:54 PM 0 comments
Parole de l'Orient
All of Parole de l'Orient is available here: http://documents.irevues.inist.fr/handle/2042/34760
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 3:36 AM 0 comments
Arabic keyboard layout, useful dictionaries etc
There are lots of good Arabic resources around but sometimes they take a long time to find!
1. Arabic keyboard layout- the normal MS one is useless, so many prefer the one used by the excellent (and free) Shibboleth software (which is excellent for Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew and about 15 other exotic languages). So to add a new keyboard layout follow the instructions at: http://ilgthegeek.livius.net/2010/05/31/editing-windows-custom-keyboard-layouts/ using the unicode info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_script_in_Unicode.
2. Online Arabic Dictionaries-quite a variety to choose at: Lexilogos. Plus there's lots of vocab and learning resources there too.
3. Arabic-English parallel texts- top quality books with important Arabic texts: Uni Chicago press/BYU books.
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 9:08 PM 0 comments
Labels: Arabic keyboard layout, Arabic language, dictionary
Learning Syriac
After the initial stage of learning some basic Syriac, what is the best way to develop vocabulary and acquire (as opposed to memorise) grammar? For me it is using the Peshitta analysis tool at: http://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta/index.php
Truly a brilliant resource for Syriac research, and works for learning Syriac- just work on a chapter a day.
Posted by Fr. Dr. John N D'Alton at 11:42 PM 0 comments
Labels: language learning, Syriac language