Gorgias Press
Founded in 2001 Gorgias Press is an independent academic publisher of books and journals related to history, languages, and religious studies, with specific areas of expertise in the Ancient Near East, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Early Christianity, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Syriac.
Gorgias [GOR-gee-us] Press was originally created by George and Christine Kiraz as a specialty press that could keep up with their research interests. With a background in computational linguistics, George Kiraz envisioned combining cutting-edge technology with humanities research. The new company would be completely online, with no physical storefront, and it would use automation and digital printing technology rather than traditional print runs. With these tools, the press could afford to publish rare and understudied topics that were previously considered unprofitable, and Gorgias soon became known for its pioneering work in language and linguistics, religion, and especially Syriac and Eastern Christianity.
Gorgias’ philosophy of “Publishing for the Sake of Knowledge” rather than profit, attracted a number of new authors, and the press’ areas of interest rapidly began to expand. Today, Gorgias Press publishes 50-60 new titles a year, including monographs, edited volumes, translations, and more, and Gorgias books can be found in academic collections all over the world.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 244
ISBN: 9781463242695
Pub Date: 26 Feb 2021
Description:
The current volume is an annotated translation of selections from a noteworthy Muslim theologian Said Nursi (1876-1960) on the Quranic theme of oneness of God (tawhid). Given the scarcity of theological themes in Islamic literature in English as well as the lack of studies on Said Nursi, who wrote in Ottoman Turkish, the book is an important contribution to the field. It offers a contemporary peek into the view that faith in God could be profoundly meaningful and fulfilling spiritual path.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 265
ISBN: 9781463241629
Pub Date: 26 Feb 2021
Description:
Born in the late 9th century Baghdad, the ʿAbbāsid grammarian ‘Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Saḥl Ibn al-Sarrāj came to be remembered as the Banisher of Madness and the virtuous scholar whose life has exemplified the culture of Arabs in its fullness. Lauded as the arch-enemy of Hellenistic sciences and, at the same time, as the main source of transmission of Aristotelian logic from the 10th century philosophers to the grammarians of Baghdad; Ibn al-Sarrāj nonetheless remains a shadowy figure in the history of Arabic grammar studies up until today.
This book addresses this issue by examining the problematic relationship between language, logic and grammar in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s teachings.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 500
ISBN: 9781463207144
Pub Date: 26 Feb 2021
Description:
The Kitāb al-Aghānī (the Book of the Songs) stands as one of the most important extant sources for Arabic literature and Islamic history. Compiled during the first half of the tenth century, the Kitāb al-Aghānī emerges from a pivotal period in the formation of Islamic sectarian identities, a subject of keen and ongoing scholarly debate that is fundamental to our understanding of the later development of Shīʿī Islam. While its compiler, Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (died after 356/967), is generally viewed as a 'Zaydī Shīʿī', no in-depth study has investigated what can be gauged from the Kitāb al-Aghānī about his sectarian perspectives.
The present study addresses the question of whether or not al-Iṣfahānī's sectarian leanings can be discerned from the Kitāb al-Aghānī through an analysis based primarily on redaction criticism. By examining the compiler's editorial interventions, this book argues that al-Iṣfahānī, to some extent at least, presents past people and events central to the Shīʿī worldview in accordance with his sectarian affiliation. Furthermore, this work questions the label 'Zaydī' that is commonly associated with al-Iṣfahānī. Based on textual analyses of the Kitāb al-Aghānī, as well as on evidence from his Maqātil al-Ṭālibīyīn ('The Ṭālibid Martyrs') and other sources rooted in the tenth-century milieu, this book suggests that al-Iṣfahānī's religious thought can be construed as a 'mild' form of Shīʿism - in the sense that it neither comprises belief in a specific lineage of imams, nor repudiation of most of the Companions including the first three caliphs. However, it cannot necessarily be identified with any sect, as set down in the heresiography.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 438
ISBN: 9781463242923
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2021
Series: Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Description:
Widely regarded as a premier journal dedicated to the study of Syriac, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies was Established in 1998 as a venue devoted exclusively to the discipline. An organ of Beth Mardutho, the Syriac Institute, the journal appears semi-annually and will be printed in annual editions. A peer-reviewed journal, Hugoye is a respected academic source for up-to-date information about the state of Syriac studies and for discovering what is going on in the field.
Contributors include some of the most respected names in the world of Syriac today.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 490
ISBN: 9781463242831
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2021
Series: Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Description:
Widely regarded as a premier journal dedicated to the study of Syriac, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies was Established in 1998 as a venue devoted exclusively to the discipline. An organ of Beth Mardutho, the Syriac Institute, the journal appears semi-annually and will be printed in annual editions. A peer-reviewed journal, Hugoye is a respected academic source for up-to-date information about the state of Syriac studies and for discovering what is going on in the field.
Contributors include some of the most respected names in the world of Syriac today.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 255
ISBN: 9781463240493
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2021
Description:
This book deals with the life and pioneering work of Georg Bühler in the various fields of Indology. It argues that Bühler's interactions with the 19th c. India influenced his approach as a researcher and in turn his methodology which then followed his self-developed path of Ethno-Indology.
The work is a result of study for the doctoral degree of the Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. Along with source materials available in India, the author consulted those in Germany and Austria.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 460
ISBN: 9781463241391
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
This volume presents and analyzes information on the pre-Islamic and early Islamic historical geography and toponyms of the Beth Qaṭraye region as well as newly discovered vocabulary from a language referred to as Qaṭrāyīth (“in Qatari”) used by its inhabitants.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 307
ISBN: 9781463239206
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East
Description:
Culture of Defeat is based on a 2017 conference focusing on the impact on, and responses by, the defeated parties in conflicts in the ancient Near East. Shifting the focus of analysis from the conqueror to the vanquished, the (re-)examination of written sources and the archaeological record sheds new light on the consequences and reactions after often traumatic defeats and allows to gain a more nuanced and complete picture of such events.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 736
ISBN: 9781463242138
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Description:
After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars. The volume is also available in a beautiful gilded leather edition (ISBN 978-1-4632-4217-6).
Format: Hardback
Pages: 736
ISBN: 9781463242176
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Description:
After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars. The volume is also available in a beautiful gilded leather edition.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781463241957
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Texts and Studies
Description:
This volume brings together contributions by scholars focussing on peritextual elements as found in Middle Eastern manuscripts: dots and various other symbols that mark vowels, intonation, readings aids, and other textual markers; marginal notes and sigla that provide additional explanatory content akin to but substantially different from our modern notes and endnotes; images and illustrations that present additional material not found in the main text. These elements add additional layers to the main body of the text and are crucial for our understanding of the text’s transmission history as well as scribal habits.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 199
ISBN: 9781463242336
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
This is a basic introduction to the various Syriac translations of the Bible and the ways in which they were used in the Syriac tradition. After an initial discussion of the general problems of biblical translation, the different surviving Syriac translations are outlined, as well as biblical manuscripts, lectionaires, printed editions, and translations. A reception history of the Syriac Bible covers the ways in which it has been interpreted, the commentary tradition, its use in preaching, in liturgy, and in spirituality.
An appendix offers some comparative samples (in translation) to illustrate some of the differences between the different Syriac translations.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 266
ISBN: 9781463242534
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Pro Oriente Studies in the Syriac Tradition
Description:
The proceedings of the fourth PRO ORIENTE Colloquium Syriacum, which focussed on a culture of co-existence in pluralistic societies in the Middle East and in India.
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9781463242091
Pub Date: 15 Jan 2021
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9781463244088
Pub Date: 22 Oct 2021
Description:
When, on an autumn Medina night in 61/680, the night that saw al-Ḥusayn killed, Umm Salama was torn from her sleep by an apparition of a long-dead Muḥammad, she slipped effortlessly into a progression of her co-religionists who, irrespective of status, gender or standing with God, were the recipients of dark and arresting visions. At the core of those Delphian dreams, peopled by angels or ğinn or esteemed forbears and textured with Iraqi dust and martyrs' blood, was the Karbalāʾ event. Her dream would be recounted by an array of Muslim scholars, from al-Tirmiḏī, stellar pupil of al-Buḫārī, and Ibn ʿAsākir, untiring chronicler of Syrian history, to bibliophile theologian Ibn Ṭāʾūs and Egyptian polymath al-Suyūṭī.
But this was not Umm Salama’s only otherworldly encounter and she was not the only one to have al-Ḥusayn’s fate disturb her nights. This is their story.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 383
ISBN: 9781463242060
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2020
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
For students of Ge’ez, this book will function as a learning grammar and resource. It will also be of interest to scholars interested in the culture and religion of Ethiopia and Eritrea, non-western Christian intellectual traditions, and the Tawahedo Church.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 107
ISBN: 9781463207311
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2020
Description:
George was one of the last scholarly Syrian Orthodox bishops to live in the early Islamic period. His metrical homily, probably composed to be sung during the consecration of the Myron, is presented here with the vocalised Syriac text and English translation on facing pages.