Humanities Scholar Wins the Prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award
Tahera Qutbuddin embarked on a 10-year journey researching and writing the first study in English of seventh-century Arabic oration, which strongly influenced its literature and culture. The result was Arabic Oration: Art and Function (2019), which recently received the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Arabic Culture in Other Languages and reveals similarities between Arabic and Greek oral traditions.
“Tahera is a master translator; many of the sermons and speeches in her book were translated into English from Arabic for the first time,” said Ahmed El Shamsy, associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC). “Her analyses are so insightful. The coming generations of students will use her pathbreaking work as a foundation for further study.”