Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
What Makes Islamic Literature Islamic?

What Makes Islamic Literature Islamic?

Elias, Jamal J.

Hardcover

Literary CriticismIslam

ISBN10: 1512828696
ISBN13: 9781512828696
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: Jan 27 2026
Pages: 232
Weight: 1.06
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

A collection of essays that examines literature in seven languages from across the Islamic world and explores the place of religion in society

This volume contributes to a vibrant ongoing debate about the degree to which religion is treated as a defining feature of Muslim-majority societies. The first book of its kind focusing on literature from across the Islamic world to explore the question of what the concept of the Islamic means, this collection of well-researched and highly readable essays by renowned experts in their fields examines different time periods, places, and languages. Individually and collectively, the essays ask and answer questions such as how being Islamic is articulated, how such particularities help shape a universal concept of the Islamic, and how are they themselves shaped by it.

The essays tackle literature from the medieval to the modern period in a broad range of languages: Arabic, Bengali, Persian, Punjabi, Urdu, Telugu, and Turkish. They deal with several genres of prose and poetry, including romantic, courtly and religious verse, epics, ethical treatises, satire, erotica, metaphysics, and politics. Taken together, they answer important questions about the place of religion in society, secularity and literature, the complexities of treating religion as a stable category, and its relationship to virtue, ethics, legitimacy, and social hegemony.

Contributors: Jamal J. Elias, Matthew L. Keegan, Pasha M. Khan, Oscar Aguirre Mandujano, Afsar Mohammad, Austin O'Malley, Tony Stewart, Sarah R. Bin Tyeer.

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