Description
Book SynopsisProfessor Nur Masalha is a Palestinian writer, historian and academic. He is a member of the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS, University of London, UK, and editor of Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies. His books include
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History (2018),
An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba (with Nahla Abdo, 2018),
The Palestine Nakba (2012) and
The Bible and Zionism (2007).
Trade Review‘Taking us through a tour du force of 4000 years of Palestine he reveals to the reader a rich and multi-layered history of literacy, learning and education embedded in a fabric of culturally and religiously diverse society. Nur’s exploration of this rich history reveals to us the wealth and complexity of the culture of Palestine and reclaims its history as an al-Andalusian model of cultural and religious Convivencia.’ * Yosefa Loshitzky, SOAS, University of London, UK *
"This is a truly magnificent and revealing work. It will hopefully destroy once and for all the inane myths about literacies and education intended to belittle Palestinian millennial achievements in these fields. In reminding us of these achievements, debunking suspect 'regimes of truth' and unearthing subjugated (deliberately?) knowledge, the book is an exercise in cognitive justice on behalf of an oppressed people...genealogically sound and convincing." * Peter Mayo, University of Malta, Malta *
'In this ground-breaking study, Nur Masalha brilliantly traces the pedagogical and intellectual beginnings, evolution and multifaceted histories of Palestinian learning, literacy and education. Masalha’s exciting book deepens and broadens our understanding of oral representation, textuality and written literacy in modern and ancient Palestine. Drawing on a rigorous intellectual and historical framework, Masalha dismantles mainstream Zionist propaganda and its patronizing myths of cultural and educational superiority.' * Tayseer Abu Odeh, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Jordan *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter One: Literacy and Functionality: The Scribal Schools of Ancient Palestine Chapter Two: Cities of Learning: The Intellectual Revolutions of Byzantine Palestine (3rd-early 7th Centuries) Chapter Three: Greek and Syriac into Arabic and the Palestine’s Translation Movement under Islam: Monasteries of Learning, Mar Saba and Arabic belles lettres (8th -11th Centuries) Chapter Four: Latin Learning and the Crusader Kingdoms of Palestine: The Library of Nazareth Chapter Five: The Golden Age of the Islamic Law Colleges of Jerusalem:The Palestinian Madrasas under the Ayyubids and Mamluks (1187-1517) Chapter Six: Legal Pluralism and the Social World of Palestine in the 17th Century: The Azhar College of Cairo and Palestinian Muslim Scholars Chapter Seven: The ‘Azhar’ of Palestine. The Ahmadiyya Seminary of Acre (1782-1948) Chapter Eight: Modernity, the Printing Press and Mass Literacy: The Educational Revolution of Late Ottoman Palestine and the Mandatory Period (1860s-1948) Chapter Nine: Humanism and Arab Nahda Education: Khalil Sakakini and Reforming Palestinian Education Chapter Ten: Learning From Below:The Kuttab Schools in Palestine (Muslim, Jewish and Christian) Chapter Eleven: Between Professionalism and Cultural Nationalism: Palestinian Education in Mandatory Palestine (1918-1948) Epilogue: The Libraries, Archival Collections and Sharia Courts’ Records of Modern Palestine Bibliography
