| Description |
xi, 169 p. ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-163) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction: Reclaiming Arabian Myth -- The Textual Puzzle -- The Thamudic Backdrop to the Puzzle -- The First Answer to the Puzzle: The Raid on Tabuk -- The Totem and the Taboo. The Multiple Identity of Abu Righal. The Ambiguities of Stoning -- Poeticizing the Thamud -- Demythologizing the Thamud -- The Scream -- The Arabian Golden Bough and Kindred Branches: Frazer, Vergil, Homer, and Gilgamesh. |
| Summary |
The richness of myth in Arab-Islamic culture has long been ignored or even denied. In Muhammad and the Golden Bough Jaroslav Stetkevych demonstrates the existence of a coherent pre-Islamic Arabian myth that was subsequently incorporated into Islamic poetic tradition and the Qur'an. The book dissects the intriguing Arab-Islamic myth built around Muhammad's unearthing of a "golden bough" from the grave of the last survivor of an ancient Arab people, the Thamud, who, according to the myth, were destroyed by a divine scourge for their iniquity. In the myth the episode of the slaying of the she-camel of the prophet Salih, which precipitates the downfall of the Thamud, is symbolically linked with Muhammad, the discoverer of the golden bough. Through its development of a methodology for analyzing the mythic and folkloric material of pre-Islamic Arabia and the process of its incorporation into Islamic myth and Qur'anic exegesis, Muhammad and the Golden Bough offers compelling insights for students of Islam, comparative religion, and anthropology. |
| Subject |
Mythology, Arab.
|
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Muhammad, Prophet, -632 -- Legends.
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Thamud (Arabian people)
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Mythology -- Comparative studies.
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| ISBN |
0253332087 (alk. paper) |
|
9780253332080 (alk. paper) |
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