SPbU scientists and scholars: Mathematics and sociolinguistics – a new insight into the origin of Islam

Interdisciplinary in nature, the research integrates mathematics and oriental studies to analyse Arabic texts, both ancient manuscripts and today’s mass media. The results were discussed with the journalists by: Alexander Knysh, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Michigan, Head of the Research Laboratory for Analysis and Modelling of Social Processes, SPbU; Oleg Redkin, Deputy, Head of the Department of Arabic Philology, SPbU; Oleg Granichin, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, member of the Laboratory; and Aleksandr Senov, post-graduate student, SPbU.

 Authorship of the manuscripts

The methodology for the analysis of the Arabic texts combines two approaches: first, it focuses on the content of the texts, while the second approach, handwriting of the author. Beyond the pure mathematics and linguistics, the research becomes therefore , as all experts agreed, historical and cultural in scope. Today, the scholars and scientists are working on the “Travelling Light”, attributed to Imam al-Ghazali, an outstanding Sunni Muslim theologian and jurist.

“A true theologian al-Ghazali, as some experts skeptically claim, hardly could be interested in mysticism, which means that “Travelling Light” was attributed to him on ideological grounds, mainly to justify austerity and mysticism in Islam. It’s been much debated and discussed, and our aim is therefore to connect the dots to get a whole picture. Attribution of the manuscript is ideologically important for the Muslims: if al-Ghazali, as it may be discovered, was interested in mysticism, apart from theology, the Muslims will see Sufism, the inner mystical dimension of Islam, as righteous”, — said Alexander Knysh.

In their endeavours to identify the authorship of the manuscript, the scholars analysed al-Ghazali’s “Revival of the Religious Sciences”, which has gained recognition as his most influential work. The content-analysis will be made with special software which identifies the individual style of the author. This software is also used in another interdisciplinary corpus research on pre-Islamic poetry.

Origin of the poetry

“Origin of the pre-Islamic poetry is yet to be discovered, — said Oleg Redkin. — In V-VI centuries, poetry existed only in the oral tradition and was recorded only at the early VIII century. Its origin and recording has remained therefore a much debated issue so far. We are aiming either to prove, or reject a hypothesis”.

Pre-Islamic poetry, according to the expert, is a masterpiece of the Arabic literature and of great significance and value. Many Arabic politicians allude to or cite them in their speeches, and the texts themselves are included in the school curriculum. Thus, it is crucial to identify authenticity of the pre-Islamic poetry.

Modern Arabic mass media: Analysis

Another fundamental text research is analysis of Arabic mass media, which is primarily concerned with how to relate political changes with deformation of the Arabic linguistic worldview as expressed in the mass media. Based on the editorials in the political and social publications in Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen in 2010, 2011 and 2014, it particularly focuses on the texts published during the revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests riots, known as the Arab Spring.

“The experiment allowed to give a write essays money definite structure and shape to rather abstract data, - said Oleg Granichin. — We have developed a programme to analyse the newspaper texts, editorials in particular, and identify so-called “upsurges" — changes in the textual structure expressed by graphic means. We have concluded that these “upsurges” preceded protests riots during the Arab Spring”.

The outcomes of the first part of the experiment on the Arabic mass media, Egypt’s “Al-Ahraam” (“The Pyramid”) and Lebanon’s “Al-Akhbaar” (“News”) are discussed in an article published in one of the leading journals in May 2016. Other research publications are underway, with a particular focus on ancient texts: al-Ghazali’s manuscripts and pre-Islamic poetry.

Background Info

In July 2016, the laboratory successfully proved the authorship of “Al-Khitat” (“Description of Egypt”) by an Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, which had been so far regarded as a copy of the legendary manuscript. The discovery was possible with the advent of new technologies in text recognition, based on the artificial neural network to identify handwriting in all languages. Developed by SPbU post-graduate students Aleksandr Senov and Andrey Boyarov, the model is based on the principles of how the human brain works, and was presented to the public in July in 2016.

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