scholarly journals Estrangement and Selfhood in the Classical Concept of Waṭan

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 16-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaseen Noorani
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Classical Concept ◽  
Subjective Meaning ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Primary Love

The modern Arabic term for national homeland, waṭan, derives its sense from the related yet semantically different usage of this term in classical Arabic, particularly in classical Arabic poetry. In modern usage, waṭan refers to a politically defined, visually memorialized territory whose expanse is cognized abstractly rather than through personal experience. The modern waṭan is the geopolitical locus of national identity. The classical notion of waṭan, however, is rarely given much geographical content, although it usually designates a relatively localized area on the scale of a neighborhood, town, or village. More important than geographical content is the subjective meaning of the waṭan, in the sense of its essential place in the psyche of an individual. The waṭan (also mawṭin, awṭān), both in poetry and other types of classical writing, is strongly associated with the childhood/youth and primary love attachments of the speaker. This sense of waṭan is thus temporally defined as much as spatially, and as such can be seen as an archetypal instance of the Bakhtinian chronotope, one intrinsically associated with nostalgia and estrangement. The waṭan, as the site of the classical self’s former plenitude, is by definition lost or transfigured and unrecoverable, becoming an attachment that must be relinquished for the sake of virtue and glory. This paper argues that the bivalency of the classical waṭan chronotope, recoverable through analysis of poetic and literary texts, allows us to understand the space and time of the self in classical Arabic literature and how this self differs from that presupposed by modern ideals of patriotism.

Towards the Reappraisal of Classical Arabic Literature and History: Some Aspects of Tāhā Husayn's Use of Modern western Criteria

1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Al-Nowaihi
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Fellow Citizen ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic

In modern Arabic scholarship, it would be difficult to find a hypothesis more implausible than that advanced by Tāhā Husayn in his fī‘l-’adab al-jāhilī. Yet it may be wondered whether any other book, written by a contemporary Arab, has had a comparable influence in changing the fundamental attitude of the Arab intelligentsia towards their classical literature and history. The unsoundness of the book's central assertion—that the bulk of pre-Islamic poetry was fabricated by Muslims, and portrays Islamic, rather than pre-Islamic, conditions and conceits—has been exposed by several critics, both native, in varying degrees of wrathful condemnation, and orientalist, with different approaches to conclusiveness. Of the latter, one at least, the late A. J. Arberry, had some pretty strong words to say, not of the Arab propagator of the fallacy, but of D. S. Margoliouth, who, in the same year 1926, had, as it happened, published identical views, supported by largely similar arguments. Said Arberry, introducing his stern refutation, “The sophistry — I hesitate to say dishonesty — of Professor Margoliouth's arguments is only too apparent, quite unworthy of a man who was undoubtedly one of the greatest erudites of his generation.” He went on to castigate Margoliouth's disregard of certain Qur'anic meanings and intentions of which “he must have been very well aware,” his “shocking misapplication of scholarship,” his “immodesty”, and the rest. Quite restrained criticism when compared to the diatribe which the Arab debaters poured on the heads of their fellow citizen and his presumed infidel mentor, but rather unusual in the serene Arcady of orientalism.

Literary Dynamics in Synchronic Cross-section

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuven Snir
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Autonomous Networks ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Literary System ◽  
Literary Networks

This chapter looks at the literary dynamics of Arabic literature in synchronic cross-section. Inventories of canonized and non-canonized literary texts are presented separately in three subsystems: texts for adults, children’s literature, and texts in translation. The resulting six subsystems ― three canonized and three non-canonized ― are seen as autonomous networks of relationships and as interacting literary networks on various levels. The internal and external interrelationships and interactions between the various subsystems need to be studied if we want to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the modern Arabic literary system. The structure of the canonical center of the Arabic literary system is discussed referring to the phenomenon of Islamist literature and the reasons for its exclusion from the secular literary center.

Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 1185)

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taneli Kukkonen
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Arabic Philosophy ◽  
Great Chain Of Being ◽  
Ibn Tufayl ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
The Brain

Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān is one of the most abidingly popular works in all of Arabic literature. At once inviting and expansive, accessible and surprisingly deep, the book offers an excellent introduction to the themes of classical Arabic philosophy. What often goes unnoticed is how deliberately Ibn Ṭufayl spins his story of Ḥayy, the self-taught philosopher who grows up alone on an equatorial island. Ḥayy in fact takes the reader on a tour of the Arabic Aristotelian curriculum, with ethical and political themes following upon a comprehensive exploration of the great chain of being. Ḥayy furthermore contributes to numerous sixth-/twelfth-century debates, ranging from the role that the heart and the brain play in the organism’s life, through the weighting of immanent and transcendent factors in the process of coming-to-be, to the relationship of philosophy to revealed religion.

Modern Egyptian renaissance man

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Ostle
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Classical Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Renaissance Man ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic

The rise of political consciousness in the Arab Provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century has long been referred to as an era of rebirth or resurrection (nahḍa), and from its earliest stages this period saw a dual process of aspirations to political emancipation and creative waves of cultural regeneration. Thus George Antonius was moved to attribute the beginnings of the Arab national movement to the foundation of a modest literary society in Beirut in 1847; the two figures who dominated the intellectual life of Syria in the mid nineteenth century—Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī and Buṭrus al-Bustānī—were ded icated to the resurrection of the lost world of classical Arabic literature, to the virtual re-creation of Arabic as one of the languages of the modern world, and to preaching the virtues of education based on inter-confessional tolerance and patriotic ideals. The most distinguished area of the early history of modern Arabic literature is neo-classical poetry, whose revival of the achievements of the golden age of the ‘Abbāsids provided the foundation on which the first tentative steps towards the renewal of the great tradition were to be based. Indeed the technical excellence of the neo-classical mode was such that it dominated poetry in Egypt at least until the late 1920s, and for even longer in Iraq and the rest of the Levant.

scholarly journals The Language of the Quran: Verb Morphology

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Oleg Red'kin ◽  
Ol'ga Bernikova
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Automatic Data ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Morphological Aspects ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Source Of Information

The Quran is in focus of many researchers as a crucial source of information, including its language. The aim of the study is to describe the morphology of the Quran language in comparison with the modern Arabic literature language, which requires a thorough and comprehensive analysis of its text. The available scientific literature describes the style and vocabulary of the Quran language in detail, while the morphological aspects are not fully studied. The complementary use of modern methods of automatic data processing and techniques of comparative historical linguistics allows not only getting an unbiased picture of the morphology of the classical Arabic language, but also provides the basis for further typological studies. A quantitative analysis of individual verbal word forms in the Quran text in comparison with similar models of the modern Arabic language demonstrates the predominance of archaic forms, which in this case are typical for Arabic dialects, both ancient and modern. The findings substantiate the need for extra insights into the language of the Arabian Peninsula during the emergence of Islam, including on the basis of the Quran studies.

scholarly journals SEJARAH PRA KEMUNCULAN NOVEL ARAB

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 184
Author(s):  
Moh. Wakhid Hidayat
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Literature ◽  
The Third ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic

Novel (riwayah) is categorized as a genre of modern Arabic literature. The birth of this genre has something to do with the revival period of Arabic in general. Yet the pre-natal of this new genre in Arab world is left undiscussed. This research aims at disclosing the birth of Arabic novel. It is found that Egypt has been the center of the labor of this genre. Its pre-natal period is marked by the translation of the Western literature and the resurrection of the genre of maqamah. There are some arguments on the situation and condition of the pre-natal of the Arabic novel. First, it was imported from the west. The second argument is that novel is indigenous genre, and the third is that novel is rooted from both classical Arabic and modern Western world.

Writing the Self: Autobiographical Writing in Modern Arabic Literature

1999 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Saadi A. Simawe ◽  
Robin Ostle ◽  
Ed de Moor ◽  
Stefan Wild
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Autobiographical Writing ◽  
Modern Arabic

Toward a Theory of the Arabic Novel

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waïl S. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic

This chapter traces the genealogy of the Arabic theory of novel to its English sources, which it locates in the context of twentieth-century European theories of the novel. It first considers how the novel emerged as the premier genre of modern Arabic literature, then discusses its modernity as well as its continuity with the narrative genres of classical and post-classical Arabic. It examines the dominant account of the “rise” of the Arabic novel by focusing on ‘Abd al-Muḥsin Ṭāha Badr’s 1963 study Taṭawwur al-riwāya al-‘arabiyya al-ḥadītha fī Miṣr (1870–1938) (The Development of the Modern Arabic Novel in Egypt, 1870–1938). It also explores the paradigms of rupture and continuity that can be identified with restrictive and inclusive theories of the novel, respectively. Finally, the chapter critiques what it describes as a flawed historiography and proposes an alternative theory of the Arabic novel.

Modern Arabic Literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuven Snir
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
History Of ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Literary Systems ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Second Category ◽  
Modern Arabic

This book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of the literary history of the diverse production of contemporary Arabic literary texts and the reasons for their canonization. Based on the achievements of historical poetics, the book offers flexible, transparent, and unbiased tools for understanding these texts and their contexts. The aim is to enhance understanding of Arabic literature, throw light on areas of literary production that traditionally have been neglected, and stimulate others to take up the challenge of mapping out and exploring them. Three categories are used: The first is the investigation of the literary dynamics in synchronic cross-section ― potential inventories of canonized and non-canonized texts in both the standard language, fuṣḥā, and the vernacular, ‘āmmiyya, in three subsystems: texts for adults, children’s literature, and translated texts for adults and children. The internal and external interrelations and interactions between the various subsystems need to be studied if we wish to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of Arabic literature. The second category consists of the study of the historical outlines of the literary system’s diachronic development, that is, the interactions with other extra-literary systems that have determined the historical course of Arabic literature since the nineteenth century. The third category is intended to concentrate on the historical diachronic development that each genre underwent and on the relationships between the various genres. Since literary genres do not emerge in a vacuum, the issue of generic development cannot be confined to certain time spans; emphasis must be laid on the relationship between modern literature and classical and postclassical literature.

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