This course covers Arabic cultural production from 750 to 850, one of the periods often described as the Islamic golden age. Students will learn to read formative texts in a variety of genres, including history, biography, Qur’an-commentary, Hadith, legal theory, prose essays, and poetry, as well as modern Arabic scholarship on this period. Questions to be addressed include the relationship of standard and non-standard languages, the emergence of religious and literary institutions, and the retrospective creation of a golden age.