Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture - A Ninth Century Bookman in Baghdad (Hardcover)

In spite of the considerable attention devoted to the third/ninth century by scholars of Arabic literature, credit for the elaboration of the notion of adab in its wider meaning of literary culture is given to and concentrated upon only a handful of writers. The disproportionate emphasis, within and outside the Arabic literary-historical and critical tradition, has been at the expense of certain crucial aspects of that tradition. This book re-evaluates the literary history and landscape of the third/ninth century by demonstrating and emphasising the significance of an important transformation, namely the one signalled by the transition from a predominantly oral-aural culture to an increasingly writerly, literate, and bookish one. This transformation had a profound influence on the production of learned and literary culture; on the modes of transmission of learning; on the nature and types of literary production; on the nature of scholarly and professional occupations and alliances; and on the ranges of meanings of certain key concepts, such as plagiarism. In order better to understand these, attention is focused on a central but understudied figure, Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (d. 280/893