Seminar in Arabic Studies

Muhammad al-Muwayalihi's HADITH `ISA IBN HISHAM: its author, his texts, and my life

Speaker: Roger Allen

Thursday, October 1

Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Location: Columbia's Faculty House  64 Morningside Drive 

New York, NY 10027

In a reconsideration of the Egyptian journalist Muhammad al-Muwaylihi`s Hadith `Isa ibn Hisham (trans. What Ibn Hisham Told Us) - the subject of Roger Allen's doctoral dissertation and first book publication - Professor Allen will discuss the latest edition that he has published in the Library of Arabic Literature.  This edition is the first one ever to use only the original newspaper articles, thus producing a version of Muwaylihi's text which is the most contemporary to its period, the most controversial in its content, and the one that does not reflect the author's subsequent attempts (needs?) to edit (censor?) it.

In June 2011 Roger Allen retired from his position as the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also served Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations for 43 years.  From 2005-11 he served as Chair of the Department.  In 2008 he was elected President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) for the year 2009-2010. 

Among his published studies on Arabic literature are The Arabic Novel: an historical and critical introduction (1st edition 1982, Arabic edition, 1986; 2nd edition 1995, 2nd Arabic edition 1998) and The Arabic Literary Heritage in 1998 (and in abbreviated paperback form in 2000, as Introduction to Arabic Literature). Both of these works have also been published in Arabic translation. He has served in multiple editorial capacities, most recently as Series Editor of the three-volume Essays in Arabic Literary Biography. He is currently modern Arabic literature sub-editor for the third edition of Encyclopedia of Islam.

The talk will begin at 7:00 pm. If you have any questions, please write to the seminar's rapporteur Sahar Ishtiaque Ullah, su2156@columbia.edu.  For a listing of upcoming seminars in Arabic Studies this Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 click here.

This event is sponsored by the Seminar in Arabic Studies, University Seminars.