Research Group LiDiAC

General Aim

LiDiAC, active between 2012 and 2017, was an interdisciplinary contribution to the history of ideas centered on the disciplines of grammar, logic, and rhetoric in Arabic-Islamic culture 800–1100.

While the core of this project was dedicated to a historico-philosophical investigation of the linguistic disciplines, they were contextualized by parallel inquiries into the historical, cultural, theological, and juridical spheres, as well as by consideration of their social significance.

The linguistic disciplines form an excellent reference point due to the pivotal role of language within Arabic-Islamic culture and the struggle for its interpretation across diverse social groups.

Team

The Research Group consisted of four fellows: its director, a postdoc, and two doctoral students, each focusing on different disciplines. The cross-disciplinary and topical division of the team members was as follows:

• Nadja Germann (Director):
  Language and Thought: The Problem of Saying and Meaning to Say in the Age of al-Fārābī
  
• Feriel Bouhafa (Postdoc):
  Philosophy of Language in Uṣūl al-Fiqh and Balāgha
  

• Mostafa Najafi (Doctoral Student):
  Tafsīr, Uṣūl al-Fiqh, and Falsafa: Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī’s Unified System of Linguistic Understanding
• Noel A. Rivera (Doctoral Student):
  Speculation, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Language: Ibn Jinnī and the Introduction of Uṣūl al-Naḥw

Funding

LiDiAC was funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the DFG.