Supervisors info:
Μιχάλης Μαριόρας, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Ιστορίας Θρησκευμάτων, Θεολογική Σχολή, Τμήμα Θεολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών.
Summary:
This paper is dedicated to the work and contribution of Nabia Abbott, a distinguished and prolific researcher and the first female professor of the Oriental Institute of Chicago. The pioneer Nabia Abbott is considered to be one of the 20th century orientalists who seems to represent a different trend in the academic field in question that clearly distinguishes her from the so-called Orientalists’ predecessors’ hasty and biased attitudes. Initially, an attempt is made to present the most important aspects of her multidimensional work, which is characterized by the breadth of its range. At the same time, an effort is made to expose her methodology. Armed with the methods of papyrology and palaeography, she attempts to reconstruct the historical framework of the examined Arabic papyri fragments, in comparison to the appropriate parallel, surviving texts provided by the Islamic sources.
The paper is divided into two parts. The first part introduces briefly the biography and studies of Nabia Abbott. These first introductory information are followed by a chronological presentation of Abbott's articles and books. The first category consists mostly of a report of the main topics and conclusions drawn by Nabia Abbott's doctoral dissertation, based on the “Kurrah Papyri from Aphrodito in the Oriental Institute”. In the next category, a series of articles are presented, which deal with the development of the written tradition of the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, this chapter investigates the history of the development of the so-called North Arabic Script and the early evolution of the Islamic book. The third category concerns the publication of her three-volume work with the title “Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri” (Vol.1 Historical Texts, Vol.2 Quranic Commentary and Tradition, Vol.3 Language Literature), which highlights the hitherto unrecognized contribution of the first dynasty of Islam, namely the ‘Umayyad (661-750 AD). The first part of the work concludes with her until today valid theory about the “Thousand and One Nights” where she determines the historical process of the assimilation of its material and its chronological evolution.
The second part of the paper is dedicated to the study of the first women in Islam. Nabia Abbott's engagement with the women's issue has been a systematic historical study of years. In total, her study counts the publication of three articles and two books, which cover a wide historical period. From the ancient past of the Arabian Peninsula, with the narrations of important female figures from the period of the rule of the Sabean and the Himyar (c. 800 BC) to Roman times. In her second article she proceeds to the pre-Islamic situation and the general presentation of women's roles in pre-Islamic social and private life. The third and last article refers to the status of women and outlines the conditions of manifestation of the unfavorable Islamic perceptions regarding women during the contemporary with the Prophet period extending to the period of the first four rightly guided caliphs (631-661 A.D.).
Abbott's two books, which seem to have had the greatest impact and for which she became widely known, are the first complete biography of the beloved wife of the Prophet ʿĀʾishah in English and the book about the two queens of Baghdad, during early period of ‘Abbāsid (750-1258 AD). The summary of these two books and the conclusions deriving from them constitute the content of the last chapters of this work.
Keywords:
women in Islam, gender studies, Oriental Studies, Oriental Institute of Chicago, Paleography, Papyrology
