Middle Eastern Literatures 

About: Middle Eastern Literatures is an academic journal published by Routledge. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Poetry & Narrative. It has an ISSN identifier of 1475-262X. Over the lifetime, 284 publications have been published receiving 1220 citations.

On Graeco-Arabic Epistolary ‘Novels’

Abstract: The Correspondence between Aristotle and Alexander the Great. An Anonymous Greek Novel in Letters in Arabic Translation, Documenta et Monographiae V MIKLOS MAROTH Piliscsaba, The Avicenna Institute...

Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th-20th centuries)?

Abstract: (2003). Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th-20th centuries)? Middle Eastern Literatures: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 39-76.

The Wiles of Creation: Philosophy, Fiction, and the ‘Ajā’ib Tradition

Abstract: In the introduction to the Arabic cosmology of marvels, ‘Ajāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt (‘Marvels of Creation and Rarities of Existence’), Zakariyyāʾ al-Qazwīnī (d. 682/1283) raises the issue of veracity in the narration of the wondrous. Central to al-Qazwīnīʾs exposition of the strange and marvellous is a sustained interest in the pleasure produced through the narration of elegant tales. Despite this aesthetic awareness, al-Qazwīnī returns repeatedly to the question of authenticity. For al-Qazwīnī, the estimation of these wondrous accounts also depends on their relative truth-value. This article traces the tension between the fictive and the real by exploring some of the Greek, Arabic, and Persian antecedents to al-Qazwīnīʾs phenomenology of creation.

Palaces, Pavilions and Pleasure-gardens: The context and setting of the medieval majlis

Abstract: The performance context of medieval Arabic and Persian lyric poetry has yet to receive sufficient scholarly attention. This paper attempts to reconstruct the physical context of medieval Islamic poetic performance and (to a lesser extent) the social setting and human dynamics of such gatherings, with a view to enabling modern-day readers to better appreciate how contemporary audiences enjoyed and understood lyric poetry. This article focuses on the convivial majlis , the primary performance context for lyric poetry in both ‘Abbāsid Baghdad and medieval Iran (c.1000-1450), two key milieux in which lyric poetry flourished. Information on majālis at which poetry was performed is scattered through a variety of medieval Arabic and Persian prose sources (primarily works of adab and histories), and is largely anecdotal. The poetry itself, insofar as it reflects the context in which it was performed, is also a valuable source of information which can aid our understanding of the medieval majlis . Reference has al...

The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early Ottoman Period, 1500 – 1800

Abstract: The Arabic poetry of the early Ottoman period (1500 – 1800) is still, to a large extent, unexplored territory. The few secondary monographs on the poetry of the period suggest that love-poetry as a rule portrayed a female beloved. In the first part of the article I argue that this is misleading. The portrayed beloved seems often, and perhaps most often, to have been a beardless or downy-cheeked male youth. In the second part of the article, I address the issue of how such poetry should be understood. According to some modern scholars, such pederastic poetry indicates a widespread tolerance of ‘homosexuality’ in the pre-19th century Arabic – Islamic world, despite Islamic legal prohibitions. Other scholars argue that such poetry was cultivated openly because they were conceived to be nothing more than time-honoured literary exercises. I argue that both positions overlook the fact that much of this poetry celebrated a passionate but chaste love in the ‘udhrī tradition, and that Islamic jurists did not consi...