The Fada´il Genre in Arabic-Islamic Writings from the Late Middle Ages up to the 18th Century - Investigation into Ideas of Order of Nature and Society

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Otfried Weintritt
• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: from 2009 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 145389016

Up to now, investigation of the Fada´il writings (writings of excellences) has been focusing on three kinds of subjects and has yielded the following results: (1) presentation of nature and society aimed at describing the order of this world in a condition of perfection. This holds equally true of nature and society. This perfection comes about thanks to the Fada´il as the excellences of the dynasty through which they generate order. The same is true for excellences related to cities and regions. It is constitutive for both kinds of presentation that they do not point out deficiencies, but affirm the condition of perfection of this world by showing the absence of defects. Thus, for both fields we may speak of positive self-description. The prefaces of the works have been shown to have particular expressive power as they make it possible to reconstruct (2) reasons for creating the works so that very diverse purposes underly the individual works. They can deal with ties to the city/region up to the influence of the rulers. When the society is the subject the creator of the accomplishments producing order and thereby producing perfection are mentioned directly. Furthermore the writings give rise to (3) questions of genre regarding the relationship of Fada´il genre and historiography. When the history of the city/region itself becomes an excellence, history as a continuous performance of order becomes an excellence of the dynasty. In view of the quantitative relationships it would therefore be reasonable to classify part of the works as "mixed forms".Further investigations during the extension period would concern the following phenomena: Homogeneous contents during the period studied up to constellations similar to plagiarism make it necessary to include in the study the genesis and development of the genre in order to locate the diverse possibilities of forming the Fada´il writings in the context of literary history. For this purpose the earlier works of the genre of Syrian and Egyptian origin should be added. It can already be seen that the Fada´il as prerequisites for successful order have undergone an astounding transformation: In the period discussed up to now these excellences are presented as prerequisites for the production of social order in its present condition. In the earlier works they refer in a prescriptive attitude to a condition to be achieved, even regardless of congruities of contents.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants