The Oral and the Written in Early Islam

Over the last few decades a number of books have appeared on aspects of the written and the oral within pre-modern Islamic societies and their intellectual ideas. Traditionally, these books have focused mainly on the religious dimensions, on literature and the development of genres, on the transmission of scholarly ideas and practices, or the intellectual foundations of the Islamic sciences. To date, however, there are no books available in English which provide an authoritative, reasoned and comprehensive overview of how written and the oral interacted in early Islam. The Oral and Written in Early Islam fills this void and investigates the diverged and received cultural articulation among Muslims and within Muslim intellectual life of the early centuries of the Islamic Era which includes the seventh to ninth centuries of the Common Era. This volume is a translation of six German articles by Professor Gregor Schoeler the majority of which have not been translated into English before. Each
article has been brought up to date, made accessible as possible to the non-specialist, and includes a glossary of key terms. The work also benefits from a substantial introduction by James Montgomery.