Showing papers in "Middle Eastern Literatures in 2008"

The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry

Abstract: KUMIKO YAMAMOTO Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures, 26. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2003. xxiv + 191 pp. ISBN 90 04 12587 6 The central argument of this book concerns how oral tradition intera...

La literatura marroquí contemporánea: La novela y la crítica literaria

Abstract: demonstrating them to be not only brave and challenging women writers but also skilful and sophisticated artists. While we can debate the best approach to fiction (and Hartman’s approach is as valid as a more formal one), there is no question that the book deserved to be edited much better. Even the second, more analytical section is in places too repetitive. Some doubts arise about references to non-primary texts: Badr al-D ıb’s novel Awr aq Zumurruda Ayy ub (not Awr aq zumurrud at Ayy ub, p. 61) only marginally engages with the character of Job; the Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury appears in the index only under this spelling of his name, even though when two of his novels are discussed (pp. 100 – 101) he is referred to in the text as Ily as Kh ur ı. The book’s intended readership does not appear to have been given due consideration: if most transliterated Arabic phrases and expressions are duly translated into English, why leave the non-Arabist reader in doubt about the meaning of al: hass al-wa: tan ı (p. 141) and why not spend few words to clarify what Gerard Genette’s definition of paratextuality is (p. 63) and what the term mu‘ ara : da refers to (p. 36)? All these are minor faults compared to the transliteration, which is annoyingly inconsistent throughout the book, and to the many typographical and grammatical errors (unfortunately too many inconsistencies and errors to be mentioned here).

‘Arabs Dancing in a New Light of Arabesques’: Minor Hebrew Works of Palestinian Authors in the Eyes of Critics

Abstract: The attitudes of Arab intellectuals to texts written in the language of the ‘other’ have usually been ambivalent; but when Arab writers who were Israeli citizens have written in Hebrew their antagonism and disregard have been particularly pronounced. Apparently, this attitude stemmed from their ignorance of the language, its marginality relative to other languages, and the existence of a great many political, ideological and psychological prejudices resulting from the long-standing violent Arab – Israeli conflict. This article discusses three novels—Atallah Mansour's In a New Light, Anton Shammas's Arabesques, and Sayed Kashua's Dancing Arabs—which are representative of three generations of Hebrew writing by Arab authors. All three seem to be hybrid works, on the margin between Hebrew and Arabic, combining personal and political elements to express the collective experience of Palestinian Arabs within Israeli society. All of them are novels with some autobiographical elements, but there are arti...

The Traffic in Boys: Slavery and Homoerotic Liaisons in Elite ‘Abbāsid Society

Abstract: The prominence of cultured slave women in early ‘Abbāsid Baghdad, as objects of sale, gift, infatuation, and scandal, is well known, not least from a famous monograph about them by al-Jāi. Less attention has been paid to a similar situation obtaining with regard to slave boys. Numerous anecdotes testify to this phenomenon, however, and a preliminary analysis of the available material suggests that the ‘traffic in boys’ developed in imitation of that in slave women, sometime after the public expression of homoerotic sentiment in general had come to be accepted. The parallelism is nevertheless imperfect, due to several complicating factors, including the possibility of eunuchs serving as an object of erotic attraction as well as lingering resonances of an earlier paternal rather than erotic stance adopted by gentlemen toward their valets.

Pastoralism and the ‘Wild Man’ in an Early Arabic Romance

Abstract: This article analyzes the tragic mode in Majnūn Laylā, an Arabic romance from the late seventh and early eighth centuries ce, i.e. the Umayyad period. It argues that this romance constructs the tragic mode in terms of a thematics of social conflict between the old Bedouin order and the new Islamic ethos. This is accomplished through an examination of the two main polarities that characterize Majnūn Laylā, namely ‘pastoral’ versus ‘anti-pastoral’ and ‘domestic’ versus ‘wild’. A key claim is that the romance hero, Majnūn, is rendered as a ‘wild man’ who embodies the clash between the two opposing social orders, Bedouin and Islamic.

Al-Maqqarī's Ziryāb: The Making of a Myth

Abstract: This essay compares al-Maqqarī's well-known seventeenth-century biography of the famous singer Ziryāb with its eleventh-century source text, Kitāb al-Muqtabis, composed by the Andalusian writer Ibn ayyān. Ibn ayyān's text is a complex work with parallel, sometimes contradictory, quotations from seven different sources, all of which were melded into a single narrative voice in al-Maqqarī's text. Close analysis reveals that al-Maqqarī systematically eliminated all passages that shed unflattering light on Ziryāb, including references to rival singers, the achievements of his own children, off-colour jokes of which Ziryāb was the butt, and anecdotes where he was portrayed in an undignified manner. Al-Maqqarī drew heavily on one of the sources quoted by Ibn ayyān, the anonymous Kitāb Akhbār Ziryāb. The essay concludes by offering a theory as to the identity of author of the Kitāb Akhbār Ziryāb and the motivations of that author and al-Maqqarī for their ‘mythification’ of the famous singer.

The Cell and the Ward: Imprisonment, Servitude and Nationalist Identity in Two Novels by Abdalkarīm Ghallāb

Abstract: This article addresses issues of nationalist activity against the French protectorate by the central characters in two novels by Moroccan editor and author Abdalkarīm Ghallāb: Dafannā al-Māī (1966) and al-Muallim Alī (1971). Both central characters in these two very similar novels are sent to prison for their nationalist activity; their time in prison encourages them to bond with other nationalists and to become more effective activists rather than discouraging them from further activity. In Dafannā al-Māī, the central character's freedom to engage in nationalist activity is dependent upon the labour of household servants who are themselves imprisoned in his family home. These women are effectively voiceless, not only in the text of the novel itself but also in the most comprehensive scholarly criticism of the work. Hamid Lahmadani's detailed analysis of the text completely erases the servants in order to foreground the central character's development. Al-Muallim Alī rewrites essentially the same...

The Shifā’ al-‘Alīl of Āzād Bilgrāmī (d.1200/1786): Introducing an Eighteenth-century Indian Work on al-Mutanabbī's Poetry

Abstract: Arabic belletristic literature outside the time frame c.1500 to c.1800 is relatively unstudied and, in many cases, unknown; the same is true of Arabic belletristic literature outside Arabic-speaking lands. By presenting and describing the Shifā’ al-‘alīl (1196/1782), this article endeavours to bring to light a work in which Ghulām ‘AlīĀzād Bilgrāmī (d.1200/1786)—hailed in India as assān-i Hind for his superior panegyrics of the Prophet Muammad—engages with 180 of al-Mutanabbī's verses. Although he is relatively well known to Persianists and to historians of India, Āzād Bilgrāmī belongs also to Arabic literature, as his engagement and dialogue with al-Mutanabbī's poetry shows.

Recent Publications on Arabic Literature

Abstract: The following list (a sequel to an earlier one in Vol. 6:1) includes books on Arabic literature, alphabetically on the author’s last name; it also mentions articles on Arabic literature in a number of collective volumes. Where possible, each entry includes a brief objective description of the contents of the book, but no critical judgement is expressed, nor does mention of the book amount to a recommendation. Authors, publishers and interested readers are invited to send books they wish to bring to the attention of Middle Eastern Literatures, or relevant information about them, to Dr Hilary Kilpatrick, 155 Avenue de Cour, CH-1007 Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Maqāmāt of Amad b. Abī Bakr b. Amad al-Rāzī al-anafī and the Ideology of the Counter-Crusade in Twelfth-century Syria

Abstract: This essay argues that the little-studied Maqāmāt of Amad b Abī Bakr b Amad al-Rāzī al-anafī was completed in Aleppo in 573–575/1178–1179, during the reign of the Zengid ruler al-Malik al-āli Ismā‘īl The work glorifies the counter-Crusade of the Zengids while expressing opprobrium for Christians, Twelver Shiites, and the Assassins or Nizārī Ismā‘īlīs of Syria It should thus be interpreted as part of the jihād propaganda patronized by Nūr al-Dīn and later Muslim rulers, which espoused the theory of unified jihād, linking the internal threat of Shiism with the external threat of the Crusader Franks

Tawfiq al-Hakim. A Reader's Guide

Abstract: WILLIAM MAYNARD HUTCHINS London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003. 267 pp. The main ambition behind William Maynard Hutchins's readers' guide to the works of Tawfiq al-Hakim (Tawfīq al-akīm, 1898 – 1...

Method in Turkish Literary History

Abstract: This is a translation of Mehmed Fuad Koprulu's (1890 – 1966) essay ‘Turk edebiyati tarihinde usul’, which originally appeared in Ottoman Turkish in the journal Bilgi mecmuasi, 1 (1339/1913), pp. 3 – 52. It was later republished in the Latin alphabet and in ‘modernized’ Turkish in a volume of Koprulu's articles entitled Edebiyat arastirmalari[Research on (Turkish) literature] (Ankara 1966, rpt, 1986), pp. 3 – 47. Koprulu was the founder of the modern study of Turkish literature. In this essay, his first scholarly work, he described, in general, method in historical research and method in research on the history of literature. More specifically, he described late 19th-century French thought on method in the history of literature and its applicability to the history of Turkish literature. He followed this with a discussion of the special problems of doing research on the history of Turkish literature. This essay was a benchmark in the establishment of the modern study of Turkish literature and in th...

Between Ibn Baūa and al-ahāwī: Arabic Travel Accounts of the Early Ottoman Period

Abstract: This article offers a preliminary survey of a neglected genre, Arabic travel accounts from the early Ottoman period. It proposes to classify known texts according to the traveller's aim: pilgrimage, spiritual initiation, diplomacy, requests for support, commerce, and private reasons. It draws attention to issues such as the writer's milieu, the level of language used, and the relation of the time when the account was composed to the time when the journey took place. Finally, it argues for further comprehensive study of the genre, in both the Maghrib and the Mashriq and among both Christians and Muslims.

Rising to Greet You: Some Comedies of Manners

Abstract: Many narratives from the ‘Abbāsid period touch on the negotiation of social niceties. ‘Rising to greet you’ deals with three such texts from al-Tanūkhī's (d.389/994) Nishwār al-mu ā ara. In two of them a host's transparent pretext for not rising when a guest calls leads to an at least partly humorous give and take. Neither party suffers insult, and civilized relations are preserved. In the third text the man who refuses to rise intends manifest insolence. Having thus removed the bar that the forms of courtesy set against egomaniacal passions, he launches himself on a course that ends in his destruction.

The Middle Eastern Press as a Forum for Literature (Heidelberger Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des modernen Vorderen Orients; vol. 30)

Abstract: translations from classical and modern Arabic literature into Hebrew helped both consolidate and later, open up Jewish-Israeli identity to other voices. Though the volume as a whole presents a somewhat eclectic variety of subjects and approaches, it nonetheless offers a larger window into the fundamental ‘irony’ of national scriptings, whether these scriptings are constructed as myth-making formations (Ya’qub, Suleiman, Ginsburg, Shalan) or as the articulation of the ambiguities and absences at the core of modern identities (Muhawi, Hout, Amit-Koshavi). While a handful of the essays truly stand out as original and thought-provoking contributions to the field of literary/cultural studies in general and Middle Eastern literatures in particular, some represent useful introductory surveys of their topics while still others rely heavily on the kind of close textual analysis of interest primarily to the specialist in literary studies. Moreover, the choice of title leaves one somewhat bewildered as to the geographic and linguistic framework of ‘the Middle East’ in question. The volume is heavily weighted towards Arabic literature, with Palestine as a focal point (four essays), along with Hebrew and literatures of the Arab Diaspora. In this respect, the inclusion of material on Turkish, Persian and Kurdish or Urdu literatures would have been a welcome addition, particularly given the urgent need for new kinds of comparative work in and between Middle Eastern literatures as a whole. Still, Literature and Nation in the Middle East is certainly a step in the right direction, and should offer a useful resource to students in Middle Eastern and postcolonial studies.

Orientalism and the Male Subject of Turkish Nationalism in the Stories of Ömer Seyfeddin

Abstract: This article analyses different manifestations of Orientalism in the Turkish author Omer Seyfeddin's stories. Being a nationalist author, the facets of his relationship with Orientalism range from submission and resistance to a semi-conscious orientalization of the Balkans by means of Orientalistic imagery in his post-Balkan Wars stories. Given the centrality of sexuality to the Orientalist discourse, a close reading of several stories aims to show how Turkish nationalism (as represented by Omer Seyfeddin's work) adopts and reproduces the power structure and the masculine Subject inherent in Orientalism since it is a derivative of it. Omer Seyfeddin's designation of the Balkans as Turkey's Orient sheds light on the psychological complexities of a peculiar turn in the critical period of nation formation (1908 – 1922).

The Other Shore: Dialogue and Difference in MahdīĪsā al-aqr's al-Shāi al-thānī

Abstract: MahdīĪsā al-aqr was a prominent member of the Fifties Generation of Iraqi writers, a contemporary of Abd al-Malik Nūrī and Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb. Initially a short-story writer, he published seven novels in the last two decades of his life, which are remarkable for their technical innovation. After a brief introduction to the writer, his novel al-Shāi al-thānī (The Other Shore) is discussed in detail, with particular focus on the unusual use of internal dialogue and second-person narration. It is through dialogue that the main character, an unassuming and introverted schoolteacher, is shown confronting an unforeseen change in his mundane life. ‘The other shore’ of the title is more than a symbol for a risky way of living for the protagonist: the division between the two shores (of the Sha al-Arab in Basra) emerges at the end of the novel as a symbol of the division between the powerful and the non-powerful in Iraqi society.

An Attempt to Apply Gérard Genette's Model of Hypertextuality to Najīb Mafū's Malamat al-arāfīsh

Abstract: This paper attempts to apply Gerard Genette's model of hypertextuality to Najīb Mafū's Malamat al-arāfīsh in order to demonstrate the problem of employing theories of literature developed in the West to the Arabic novel. The paper begins with a brief outline of the principal terms of Genette's hypertextuality before examining how Arab popular narrative and religious myth are used in Malamat al-arāfīsh. By reworking some of the principles of sīra into a modern literary context, Mafū produces a more indigenous style of novel, which exploits the romantic vision of sīra and Islamic legend to convey themes relating to man's social and existential problems. Genette's theory fails to account properly for the genre transformation effected in arāfīsh and for the intertextual relationships Mafū sets up to confirm certain themes and messages. The conclusion is therefore that, like other theories of literature developed with the western canon in mind, Genette's model cannot be applied to the Arabic novel wit...