A First Book of Animals

Product Information

It’s obvious that people can do incredibly stupid things and come to grief. You may congratulate yourself for not choosing to push your child towards a buffalo for a photo op. Unfortunately, many people get hurt just going about their normal lives. There but for the grace of God…. Human populations are increasingly encroaching on the territory of wild animals. Predation can happen but it’s more likely that the creatures are stressed for one reason or another. Yāqūt, Shihāb al-Dīn ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥamawī (1913). Margoliouth, D. S. (ed.). Irshād al-Arīb alā Ma'rifat al-Adīb (in Arabic). Vol.VI (7). Leiden: Brill.

There is a lot to cover here and obviously not every animal can be covered in detail so there is some disappointment when the animal you want to hear about is glossed over (I could have used way more birds and cephalopods.) Some sections are stronger than others and while I don't mind the insertion of Grice's personal experience there were a couple occasions where it felt unnecessary to the topic although I would say that the majority of his transitions are really good. A devout Muslim, al-Jahiz regarded the physical world as the visible sign of God's will. His purpose in writing the Book of Animals was not merely to entertain, but to lead his readers to an appreciation of the wonders of God's creation, which he believed to be as manifest in the most insignificant as in the grandest: I had really never shown it to anyone apart from my parents, who saw me drawing it growing up as a child,’ he said. In every generation and among every nation, there are a few individuals with the desire to study the workings of nature; if they did not exist, those nations would perish," wrote Abu 'Uthman 'Ami ibn Bakr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri, better known as al-Jahiz - the Goggle-Eyed - in his magnum opus, the Book of Animals.For al-Jahiz never lost sight of his readers, and developed a very personal and characteristic style, which blended anecdote, serious subjects and jokes, in an effort to hold their interest. He described his style himself, saying: Edgerton, Frank N. (2002). "A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 6: Arabic Language Science: Origins and Zoological Writings". Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 83 (2): 142–146. JSTOR 20168700. Watt, Watt, W. Montgomery (1986), "Kināna", in Bosworth, CE; Donzel, E van; Lewis, B; Pellat, C (eds.), Encyclopedia of Islam, vol.5 (Newed.), Leiden: Brill, p.116 {{ citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)

i'm not sure what else i have to say about this book. i loved it and i am horrified by it and greg wrote a review of it here His greatest service, perhaps, was in popularizing science and the rational method, and in showing that a literary man could concern himself with any subject. The ancestor of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ was Abū al-Qallamas; [9] the first of the Nasāh [10] of the Banū Kināna who were overseers of observance of the religious holy months, when warfare was forbidden.G. J. H. Van Gelder, Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, pg. 2. Volume 8 of Studies in Arabic literature: Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1982. ISBN 9789004068544 Al-Jāḥiẓ moved to Baghdad, then the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 816 AD, because the caliphs encouraged scientists and scholars and had just founded the library of the Bayt al-Ḥikmah. But al-Nadim suspected al-Jāḥiẓ's claim that the caliph al-Ma’mūn had praised his books on the imamate and the caliphate, for his eloquent phraseology, and use of market-place speech, and that of the elite and of the kings, [26] was exaggerated self-glorification and doubted that al-Ma’mūn could have spoken these words. [n 9] Al-Jāḥiẓ was said to have admired the eloquent literary style of the director of the library, Sahl ibn Hārūn (d. 859/860) and quoted his works. [28] Because of the caliphs' patronage and his eagerness to establish himself and reach a wider audience, al-Jāḥiẓ stayed in Baghdad.