“Holy Body, Wholly Other: Sanctity and Society in the Lives of Irish Saints” focuses on the ways in which Ireland’s hagiographers portrayed holy otherness in the Lives of their subjects, using the Latin vitae, the vernacular bethada and the Lives containing both languages that survive from the 600s through the end of the fourteenth century. This study considers three broad themes, namely the transition of a sanctified essence into a holy body and the resulting alteration of an otherwise mortal form into a wholly other, the saintly prosecution of vengeance against those who wrong the body Christian and the enactment of hagiographical healing to bring the community of the faithful back to full integrity. These themes are analyzed within the social and cultural context of medieval Ireland, and are particularly compared with the biblical, apocryphal, heroic and legal writings of the Irish Middle Ages. Depictions of male and female saints are also compared and contrasted, as are the shifts in such depictions that occur between Latin and Irish narratives. Throughout the Lives the language of the laws of church and society inform the saint’s portrait, firmly situating these holy men and women within the sphere of medieval Ireland. Elements of Irish sanctity are drawn from vernacular heroic saga, but the predominant influence upon the Lives of Ireland’s sanctified is a powerful combination of apocryphal and canonical scriptures, demonstrating that Irish holiness can only have emanated from heaven. This combination, moreover, differs between male and female saints and between Latin and Irish Lives; holy men are modeled very strongly upon both Old and New Testament figures, while lady saints are painted more in the hues of imitatio Christi. Further, Latin vitae follow patterns capable of speaking to both Irish and non-Irish audiences alike, while vernacular Lives observe models that needed to appeal only to the Irish themselves.

“Holy Body, Wholly Other: Sanctity and Society in the Lives of Irish Saints” focuses on the ways in which Ireland’s hagiographers portrayed holy otherness in the Lives of their subjects, using the Latin vitae, the vernacular bethada and the Lives containing both languages that survive from the 600s through the end of the fourteenth century. This study considers three broad themes, namely the transition of a sanctified essence into a holy body and the resulting alteration of an otherwise mortal form into a wholly other, the saintly prosecution of vengeance against those who wrong the body Christian and the enactment of hagiographical healing to bring the community of the faithful back to full integrity. These themes are analyzed within the social and cultural context of medieval Ireland, and are particularly compared with the biblical, apocryphal, heroic and legal writings of the Irish Middle Ages. Depictions of male and female saints are also compared and contrasted, as are the shifts in such depictions that occur between Latin and Irish narratives. Throughout the Lives the language of the laws of church and society inform the saint’s portrait, firmly situating these holy men and women within the sphere of medieval Ireland. Elements of Irish sanctity are drawn from vernacular heroic saga, but the predominant influence upon the Lives of Ireland’s sanctified is a powerful combination of apocryphal and canonical scriptures, demonstrating that Irish holiness can only have emanated from heaven. This combination, moreover, differs between male and female saints and between Latin and Irish Lives; holy men are modeled very strongly upon both Old and New Testament figures, while lady saints are painted more in the hues of imitatio Christi. Further, Latin vitae follow patterns capable of speaking to both Irish and non-Irish audiences alike, while vernacular Lives observe models that needed to appeal only to the Irish themselves.

Masters of Art / study analyses the concept of al-Karāmah al-Sūfīyah (the Sufi Saintly Miracle) in both its religious and literary dimensions. The researcher will shed more light on this genre of narrative literary phenomena by developing its definition and placing it in the social and historical context of the Sufi thought as a whole. Many communities in the Islamic world embrace and practice the Sufi doctrine and also believe in the Ṣūfī Sheikhs’ saintly miracles and its paranormal aspects, which they also consider to be parallel in its sacredness to the miracles of the Prophets. Furthermore, in this study the researcher will not only focus on the religious significance of the saintly miracle but also on their literary approach and aesthetic dimensions. In fact many of the contemporary Arab scholars and Litterateurs categorize this narrative discourse to fall under the cloak of al-Adab al-‘ajāibī (miraculous literature) due to the nature of its narrative style and structure from which it achieves its goals, such as: Myth – Legend – Superstition – Storytelling, etc. The study will be mainly qualitative. It is a content analysis study in the sense that the researcher will analyse the stylistic, formal and rhetorical techniques of the saintly miracles’ discourse with specific reference to extracts taken from al- Sheikh al-Hassan al- Shadili and al-Sheikh Abdelssalam Bin Machich. The study will use an eclectic theoretical and conceptual framework which combines the historical approach with the reception theory.