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CATEGORIES:Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: This lecture reads al-Maqāma al-Mawṣiliyya of Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī as a sustained meditation on sacred language and its transformation. Drawing on a new critical edition based on forty manuscripts, I examine how the maqāma reworks Qurʾānic motifs, biblical resonances, legal norms, and medical discourse into a tightly structured narrative of performance and deception. In this tale, Abū al-Fatḥ al-Iskandarī appears first as healer-prophet at a funeral and later as savior of a village threatened by flood. Central to both episodes is the allusion to the “yellow cow” (Q 2:67–73), the scriptural narrative in which sacrifice leads to the miraculous revival of the dead. Al-Hamadhānī inverts this promise: divine sign becomes theatrical fraud, and prophetic rhetoric becomes a tool of survival. Qurʾānic diction, rhythms, and commands echo throughout the text, lending authority to a trickster who ultimately exposes the instability of that very authority. Through close philological reading attentive to intertextuality and textual transmission, I argue that the maqāma’s dark humor unsettles religious, social, and epistemological certainties without resolving them. Sacred discourse is neither affirmed nor rejected; it is staged, manipulated, and transformed. In this sense, the maqāma reveals adab as a site where scripture, performance, and literary artistry converge—and where meaning itself remains deliberately unstable.   Bio: Bilal Orfali is a scholar of Islamic thought and Arabic literature, distinguished by his close engagement with rare manuscripts and the critical editing of early texts. His work reflects a sustained effort to combine rigorous philological scholarship with a nuanced understanding of the conceptual frameworks of early Arabic intellectual heritage. He is the author and editor of more than two dozen books. Most recently, he has been working on a series of volumes on dream manuals in Islam. His recent publications also include Poetry and Spiritual Insights: A Study and Edition of Kitāb al-Shawāhid wa-l-Amthāl by Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī (d. 514/1120), and a critical edition of al-Muḥāsibī’s Kitāb al-Shubuhāt (2026). https://www.bilalorfali.com/en/books https://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/arabic/Pages/Bilal-Orfali-Par.aspx https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/academics/divisions/arts-and-humanities/faculty/bilal-orfali.html748955
DTSTAMP:20260514T022115
DTSTART:20260608T050000
DTEND:20260608T063000
LOCATION:Online only: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/VMC2b0OAShOR4mwBrFIXuA 
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:CSI Monday Majlis: Bilal Orfali
UID:aed8599910c63b5e166c04cc05999e1a@www.exeter.ac.uk
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