This dictionary undertakes, for the first time, to group the substantives and adjectives in the Arabic Koran by topics, with glosses in English. The categories are partly derived from nature such as “Astronomy”, “Metals” or “Human Sexuality”. Even specialists in the field may be surprised to learn that there occur for example over seventy designations for parts, organs and fluids of the human body, partly they reflect the great themes of the text such as “Guidance and Straying” or “Obedience and Disobedience”. An English index enables the user to check if a certain concept occurs and how it is expressed in the Arabic Koran.
This dictionary undertakes, for the first time, to group the substantives and adjectives in the Arabic Koran by topics, with glosses in English. The categories are partly derived from nature such as “Astronomy”, “Metals” or “Human Sexuality”; even specialists in the field may be surprised to learn that there occur for example over seventy designations for parts, organs and fluids of the human body, partly they reflect the great themes of the text such as “Guidance and Straying” or “Obedience and Disobedience”. An English index enables the user to check if a certain concept occurs and how it is expressed in the Arabic Koran.
„But why publish such a work? is not the same vocabulary more easiliy accessible in a conventional dictionary, arranged alphabetically? Certainly, dictionaries, such as the CDKA (Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabiv, also published by Reichert), are indispensable and the aim of this volume is not to supercede them but to supplement them. And supplement them it does. The semantic classification is indispensable as it lays bare the world view of the text. Categories such as „8. Astronomy“, or „9. Meterologx“, albeit relatively brief, do show the importance of these phenomena to the contemporary audience and the Koran itself. Interspersed, here and there, in alphabetical order, the words of these categories are buried in the mass of the total vocabulary and it needs a keen eye to realize their importance. A semantic dictionary lays them open to any reader at a glance.
The present book is, side by side with the CDKA, an important tool for Koranic studies. A student may perhaps do without this volume (but not without the CDKA!), but a scholar studying the Koran either from a linguistic or a conceptual viewpoint will certainly welcome it.“
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila
In: Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes. 98 (2008). S. 423.
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„El trabajo de Ambros, en este sentido, representa, en cierta medida, una importante contribución que trata de paliar los problemos de significado que ofrecen determinados items léxicos, ya sean palabras o idiomatismos, en el texto coránico.“
In: Collectanea Christiana Orientalia (CCO). 4 (2007). S. 386-390.
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