Gorgias Press

Founded in 2001 Gorgias Press is an independent academic publisher of books and journals related to history, languages, and religious studies, with specific areas of expertise in the Ancient Near East, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Early Christianity, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Syriac.

Gorgias [GOR-gee-us] Press was originally created by George and Christine Kiraz as a specialty press that could keep up with their research interests. With a background in computational linguistics, George Kiraz envisioned combining cutting-edge technology with humanities research. The new company would be completely online, with no physical storefront, and it would use automation and digital printing technology rather than traditional print runs. With these tools, the press could afford to publish rare and understudied topics that were previously considered unprofitable, and Gorgias soon became known for its pioneering work in language and linguistics, religion, and especially Syriac and Eastern Christianity.
Gorgias’ philosophy of “Publishing for the Sake of Knowledge” rather than profit, attracted a number of new authors, and the press’ areas of interest rapidly began to expand. Today, Gorgias Press publishes 50-60 new titles a year, including monographs, edited volumes, translations, and more, and Gorgias books can be found in academic collections all over the world.

Seeing Islam as Others Saw It Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 752
ISBN: 9781463239268
Pub Date: 25 Mar 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
This seminal work continues to shape the thought of specialists studying the Late Antique crossroads at which Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Islamic histories met, by offering the field a new approach to the vexing question of how to write the early history of Islam. The new edition of the study produces the original text with the addition of a substantial forward in which Hoyland discusses how the field has developed over the two decades that proceeded the book’s first publication. Hoyland also shares some personal reflections on how his thinking has since developed and the potential impact of this on the findings of the original study.
Women in Shiʿism Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 402
ISBN: 9781463207267
Pub Date: 13 Feb 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
What is the nature and social role of women? In today’s Shi‘ism, these questions are often answered through the “separate-but- equal” ideology which emphasizes the role of women as wives and mothers, and places men in authority. But is this the only ideology which can be derived from Shi‘i scriptural sources?
Women in Islamic Biographical Collections Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 217
ISBN: 9781463239305
Pub Date: 06 Feb 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: From Ibn Sa'd to Who's Who is a groundbreaking study of 40 bibliographical collections, dating from the 9th century to the present, investigating which type of woman Muslim scholars have deemed worthy of recording for posterity. The analysis clearly indicates that Muslim women have achieved prominence in certain fields at certain times.
Zwischen Māturīdīya und Ašʿarīya Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 515
ISBN: 9781463239411
Pub Date: 06 Feb 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The present work provides a new edition and substantial German commentary of the important theological Arabic work Al-Tamhīd fī bayān al-tauḥīd (“Introduction to the explanation of monotheism”) by the 5th/11th century scholar Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī. The work and its author belong to the theological school that succeeded Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (died 333/944) and still serve as important markers of Sunnī theology into the nineteenth century.
Biblical Ethics Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 349
ISBN: 9781463239459
Pub Date: 30 Jan 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Biblical theology is confronted with tensions between love and justice. There are sometimes attempts to avoid these tensions by dissolving one side of the opposing concept. One such attempt is to identify love and mercy as the essence of Christian theology, overcoming law and reciprocal justice.
Current Research in Nubian Archaeology Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 219
ISBN: 9781463239404
Pub Date: 30 Jan 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
A compilation of the latest scientific and archaeological research carried out by scholars working in Sudan, providing an insight into the daily life and health of ancient Nubians.
The Naval Commanders of Early Islam Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 221
ISBN: 9781463206451
Pub Date: 20 Dec 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Translated from Hebrew, this groundbreaking study sets out to answer one simple question: who were the commanders of the early Islamic navy? Using the prosopographical method, Elmakias unearths fresh information about early Islam's inexperienced and pioneering naval commanders. Through their fascinating biographies, we learn about the people who led the Islamic navy during the first conquests of the Islamic empire and helped to realise the spread and expansion of Islamic influence.
Half of my Heart Cover Half of my Heart Cover
Format: 
Pages: 309
ISBN: 9781463239374
Pub Date: 07 Dec 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Pages: 309
ISBN: 9781463242367
Pub Date: 17 Sep 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
As Abû ʿAbd Allâh al-Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlî and Fâṭima and grandson of Muḥammad, moved inexorably towards death on the field of Karbalâʾ, his sister Zaynab was drawn ever closer to the centre of the family of Muḥammad, the ‘people of the house’ (ahl al-bayt). There she would remain for a few historic days, challenging the wickedness of the Islamic leadership, defending the actions of her brother, initiating the commemorative rituals, protecting and nurturing the new Imâm, al-Ḥusayn’s son ʿAlî b. al-Ḥusayn b.
Umayyad Christianity Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 484
ISBN: 9781463207571
Pub Date: 06 Dec 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
A study of the identity-formation process that the Christians of Syria-Palestine experienced during the Umayyad Caliphate. It approaches this subject by using John of Damascus and his writings on Islam as a case-study. This provides an exhaustive study of the available historical data in order to stimulate some further thought on John of Damascus’s theology and legacy from a contextual and intercultural methodology.
Mar Narsai: Homily 33 on the Sanctification of the Church Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 69
ISBN: 9781463205522
Pub Date: 06 Nov 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Narsai’s memra 33 is made of 12 by 12 syllables, and its title “On the Sanctification of the Church” suggests that it was written for the feast of the Dedication of the Church celebrated by the Church of the East to this day on the first of November. The memra names the Church of the Nations the Bride of the Bridegroom Christ. The Church had a pagan origin but Christ chose her to become his bride.
Women in Drag Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 294
ISBN: 9781463207168
Pub Date: 02 Nov 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
From Jael’s tent peg to Judith’s sword, biblical interpreters have long recognized the power of the "lethal women" stories of the Hebrew Bible and related literature. The tales of Jael and Judith, female characters who assassinate enemy commanders, have fascinated artists, writers, and scholars for centuries, no doubt partly because of the gender of the characters doing the killing. Tamber-Rosenau presents the first systematic study, both text-centered and deeply engaged with a variety of queer-theoretical frameworks, of the motif of the woman-turned-warrior in ancient Jewish literature.
Early Philosophical Ṣūfism Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781463239176
Pub Date: 30 Oct 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
This study challenges the conventional image of the tenth-century Sufi mystic Al-Husayn Ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ (d. 929) as an anti-philosophical mystic. Unlike the predominantly theological or text-historical studies which constitute much of the scholarly literature on Ḥallāğ, this study is completely philosophical in nature, placing Ḥallāğ within the tradition of Graeco-Arabic philosophy and emphasizing, in a positive light, his continuity with the pagan Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus.
Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 18 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 98
ISBN: 9781463207564
Pub Date: 30 Oct 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies
Description:
A refereed journal published annually by the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies.
Jacob of Sarug’s Homilies on the Six Days of Creation: The Fourth Day Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 66
ISBN: 9781463239121
Pub Date: 25 Oct 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
In this fourth installment of the long Homily 71, On the Six Days of Creation, Jacob treats of the events of the fourth day, the creation of the spheres of light over the earth: the sun to rule over the day, and the moon and the stars to rule over the night.
Neologisms in Modern Literary Syriac Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 450
ISBN: 9781463239367
Pub Date: 25 Oct 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
This book is the culmination of the Turabdin Project, the goal of which is to monitor the development of Modern Literary Syriac from the 1980s to the present. The approach is descriptive and contrastive relative to the Classical language, significant differences between Modern Literary Syriac and Classical Syriac are noted. The main focus is on neologisms and new developments in the lexicon.
Materials for the Intellectual History of Imāmī Shīʿism in the Safavid Period Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 564
ISBN: 9781463239237
Pub Date: 27 Sep 2018
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
In 1934 the New York Public Library (NYPL) purchased a sizable collection of 250 volumes of Arabic manuscripts through the fund for Semitic literature that had been provided by Jacob Heinrich Schiff. Ms New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Arabic Manuscripts Collection, Volume 51985A, a facsimile of which is included in the present publication, belongs to the Shīʿī material among the collection. It is a multitext volume of 269 leaves which in its present form comprises seven individual works.