Arabic Oration: Art and Function.

• Author: Jones, Linda G.

Arabic Oration: Art and Function. By TAHERA QUTBUDDIN. Handbook of Oriental Studies, I, vol. 131. Leiden: BRILL, 2019. Pp. xvi + 644. $222, [euro]169 (cloth); $59, [euro]49 (paper).

Arabic Oration: Art and Function studies the classical Arabic oration (khutba) from its origins in pre-Islamic Arabia until the Abbasid period and assesses its continuing influence upon preaching in the contemporary Muslim world. Tahera Qutbuddin uses the introduction to raise the key questions that guide the reader through this "long and complicated book": "What were the thematic, functional, and aesthetic typographies of Arabic oratory? How did orality shape its art and efficacy? Who were the major orators? Why did notions of authority and public space mediate an oration's reception?" She interrogates the historical value of the khutba and its continued impact on contemporary Arabic literature and Islamic governments, and tackles the scholarly debates surrounding the authenticity of preserved khutba specimens. Although the study of premodern Arabic oration is based necessarily upon written sources, Qutbuddin's research is groundbreaking in her focus on the orality, "oral milieu," and performative aspects of the genre, and in her commitment to studying Arabic oratory "on its own terms." Since Arabic oration is a hybrid genre of "oral literature," the author employs a "multipronged approach," combining an eclectic mix of methodologies judiciously deployed, depending on the topic of each chapter. These methodologies include studies in orality, literary criticism, discourse analysis, linguistics, communication theory, anthropology, sociology, theology and religious studies, historiography, political science, Islamic jurisprudence, music theory, gender studies, postcolonial studies, quranic exegesis, hadith studies, biblical studies, philosophy, Hellenistic studies, and trauma studies.

The introduction summarizes the objectives, content, and methodology of the book and defines the khutba. The work consists thereafter of twelve chapters, an appendix of orations, two glossaries of early Arabic orators and Arabic literary terms, respectively, an extensive bibliography, and a general index. Chapter one, "The Preservation of Orations," discusses the oral transmission of oration and surveys the textual sources. Qutbuddin then critiques the authenticity debate articulated by scholars such as Albrecht Noth and Lawrence Conrad, who dismissed all early Arab orations as fictitious. Against this supposition, which is "based on unsupported skepticism rather than evidence," she counters that one must distinguish between literacy and orality on the one hand, and authenticity and inauthenticity on the other, rather than conflate the two or automatically equate orality with inauthenticity and vice versa. Emulating the methods that early Muslim scholars devised to authenticate hadith, Qutbuddin evaluates the authenticity of orations based upon criteria such as their broad diffusion across sectarian lines and the absence of anachronistic sectarian, theological, or philosophically loaded terminology. The author advocates taking the khutba seriously as an historical source, rather than dismissing it as irrelevant from an historical point of view.

Chapter two, "Structure of the Oration," analyzes the essential components of Arabic oration and illustrates how individual orators tailored those elements in pursuit of delivering a particular religiopolitical message. She provides in-depth analysis of the five-part structure of the oration...