With over forty thousand identified specimens in southern Syria, northern Arabia, and eastern Jordan, Safaitic inscriptions are among the most important primary sources for understanding the language, culture, religious beliefs, and daily life of pre-Islamic Arabs. The study of these texts can provide researchers with a more independent picture than the later sources of the Islamic period and contribute to a more precise understanding of the historical and cultural context of the Quran's emergence.
In this workshop, participants will become familiar with the Safaitic script, its varieties, and related digital resources, and will then examine topics such as phonology, nominal and verbal morphology, syntax, Arab genealogies and tribes, wars and conflicts, rituals, gods, and the worldview reflected in the inscriptions. A part of the course is also dedicated to the application of Safaitic inscriptions in Quranic studies.
The course structure is designed as a workshop so that, in addition to gaining theoretical knowledge, participants gradually acquire the ability to read, transcribe, translate, and analyze Safaitic texts. Familiarity with the Arabic dialect of these inscriptions, which, while close to Classical Arabic, has important grammatical, lexical, and phonetic differences from it, is also of particular importance for studying the history of the Arabic language's development.
This course is suitable for students and researchers in Quranic studies, Arabic language and literature, Islamic history, archaeology, religious studies, linguistics and Semitic languages, as well as those interested in the history of ancient Arabia and epigraphy. Participation provides an opportunity for humanities researchers to work directly with one of the richest corpora of pre-Islamic Arabic writing.
Tehran
Kordestan Expressway, corner of Dr. Sadegh Ayenevand Street (West 64th)