scholarly journals Can Reading Animate Justice?

2022 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 289-312
Author(s):  
Enass Khansa
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Ethical Implication ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Arabian Nights ◽  
Frame Narrative ◽  
Advice Literature ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
1001 Nights

In this study, I make audible a conversation in Alf Layla wa-Layla (The Thousand and One Nights) on the meaning and application of justice. Without assuming that Alf Layla constituted an organized whole, the study identifies, in the frame narrative and the first two chains of stories—all three understood to belong to the earliest bundle—a debate on the coincidence of successful interpretation and just rulership. By the end of these tales, i.e., by the twenty-seventh night, a complete tale is told. In these stories, I propose, Alf Layla adopts an attitude that privileges multiplicity over singular interpretation, in a fashion that affirms thecontingency of ethical questions.  The popularity of Alf Layla and the afterlives it enjoyed up to our present times—in the Arab world and the West—need not eclipse or substitute the Arabo-Islamic character the work came to exhibit, and the ethical questions it set out to address. In what has been read as fate, arbitrary logic, enchantment, magic, irrational thinking, and nocturnal dreamlike narratives, I suggest we can equally speak of a concern for justice. The study looks at Alf Layla’s affinity with advice literature, but stresses the need to read it as a work of (semipopular) literature that pays witness to societal debates on justice.  Alf Layla, I suggest, belongs to Islamic culture in that the act of reading has been construed within hermeneutics that are largely informed by the ethical implication knowledge sharing entails. In how the stories find resolution to the crisis of the king, Alf Layla understands justice as an artificial and communal enterprise. The stories, more urgently, seem to suggest reading gears us towards a concern for the greater good.   Keywords: The Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights, 1001 Nights, Alf Layla wa-Layla), Adab, Justice, Rulership, Readership, Advice Literature, Interpretation, Multiplicity, Legitimacy

Studying Modern Arabic Literature

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
The Face ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Modern Arabic

This book is devoted to the life and academic legacy of Mustafa Badawi who transformed the study of modern Arabic literature in the second half of the twentieth century. Prior to the 1960s the study of Arabic literature, both classical and modern, had barely been emancipated from the academic approaches of orientalism. The appointment of Badawi as Oxford University's first lecturer in modern Arabic literature changed the face of this subject as Badawi showed, through his teaching and research, that Arabic literature was making vibrant contributions to global culture and thought. Part biography, part collection of critical essays, this book celebrates Badawi's immense contribution to the field and explores his role as a public intellectual in the Arab world and the west.

scholarly journals “I Am Not Good at Any of This.” Playing with Homoeroticism in The Arabian Nights

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 480
Author(s):  
Frank G. Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Self ◽  
French Translation ◽  
The West ◽  
Arabian Nights ◽  
Safe Environment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cross Dressing ◽  
And Gender

The story collection known in the West as The Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights, is famous, among other things, for its erotic playfulness. This eroticism was (and is) one of the key reasons for its continuous popularity after Antoine Galland’s French translation in 1704. The Arabian Nights includes, besides traditional, heterosexual acts, play, and desires, examples of homoerotic playfulness—even though we must tread lightly when using such Western concepts with an oriental text body such as this one. The homoerotic playfulness of The Arabian Nights is the subject of this article. By making use of a text-immanent analysis of two of the Nights’ stories—of Qamar and Budûr and of Alî Shâr and Zumurrud—the author of this article focuses on the reversal of common gender roles, acts of cross-dressing, and, of course, homoerotic play. He will argue that these stories provide a narrative safe environment in which the reader is encouraged to “experiment” with non-normative sexual and gender orientations, leaving the dominant status quo effectively and ultimately unchallenged, thus preventing the (self-proclaimed) defenders of that status quo from feeling threatened enough to actively counter-act the experiment.

Language and Art in Senegal: The Crossbreeding of Identities in Music

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Ibrahima Sarr
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
The West ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Classical Form ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Contact Situation

Senegal is a melting pot of several civilizations mainly originated from the West (Europe) and the East (the Arab world). Assuming that language and culture are intrinsically related, the settlement of those people and their status as dominant minority sparked and strengthened the use of their languages in formal domains. In the long ran, as they became domesticated, thus now considered African languages because they have contributed to mold the cultural identity of younger generation, they involve in all linguistic interaction. Arab, in its classical form, remains a symbol of Islam which earns it a certain degree of sacredness. Nevertheless the contact situation with the other languages forced it to crossbreed in special ways like borrowings and interferences. As for the other foreign languages, namely French, English, Spanish, and German at a least extent, they are made to carry the weight of local cultures.

A Thousand and One Nights and the Novel

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The West ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Modern Arabic

This chapter examines the influence of Alf layla wa layla (A Thousand and One Nights), the ingenious Arabic cycle of stories, on the development of the novel as a literary genre. It shows that the Nights helped shape the European novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The chapter first explains how the French translation of the Nights and its popularity in Europe led to its incorporation in world literature, creating an enduring taste for “Orientalism” in many forms. It then considers how the Nights became integrated in modern Arabic literature and how Arabic novels inspired by it were used to criticize social conditions, dictatorial authority, and the lack of freedom of expression. It also discusses the Nights as a source of innovation for the trend of magical realism, as well as its role in the interaction between the Arab world and the West.

scholarly journals On the Question of Medieval Artillery in the Muslim Regions of Contemporary Russia

Islamovedenie ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Nabiev Rustam Fanisovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Relationship Of

The article deals with the problem of the spread of artillery weapons from the East to the West through the territory of the Eurasian steppes. Among the regions important for the devel-opment of firearms were countries with Islamic culture, which are currently part of the Russian Federation and the CIS. They were one of the most important links in the movement of new technologies from the East to Europe. Evidence of the development of artillery in the northern Muslim countries is not only written sources, but also finds of genuine medieval weapons. The author shows that the Muslim peoples of northern Eurasia have contributed to the world process of the development and spread of firearms. The article substantiates the view that in the territory of Russia powder technologies, the newest at that time, began to be used much earlier than in Western Europe. The author also identifies a number of areas of research into the history of powder technologies in the medieval Muslim world, such as sources of information, regions, landscapes, the main ways of spreading technologies, as well as terminology from the standpoint of cultural relationship of languages

scholarly journals The AIDOS Project

1970 ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Lebanese American University
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Arab World ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
International Project ◽  
Information Network ◽  
The West ◽  
West Bank And Gaza ◽  
The Mediterranean

The AIDOS Project: The Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, (IWSAW) was selected to take part in an international project aimed at establishing four documentation centers -specialized in women's human, civic, labor and reproductive rights- in fourArab countries: Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The main objective of the project is to create an information network of women's organizations throughout the Mediterranean area.

scholarly journals Teaching to Test or Communicate

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Al Ghafri ◽  
Younes Audeh ◽  
Muhieddin Al-Gadallah
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Traditional Method ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Sultanate Of Oman ◽  
Main Criterion ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Foundation Program

This study addresses the controversial question of which is more effective; teaching to the test, or teaching to communicate. It also highlights the viewpoints of some scholars about tests in different regions of the world; the Middle East and the West. The content of the research embedded in this article shows that there are a number of teachers who still believe in teaching to test following the traditional method, while some others think tests -especially in the elementary phase- cause anxiety, chaos and disappointment, and should be ruled out as a means of assessing students. In the Arab World, tests are still considered the main criterion by which students prove eligible to move to upper classes and get admitted to university programs. To provide the readers with a more concrete grasp of the discussed viewpoints, a questionnaire has been distributed among sixty-five male and female students taking English courses in the Foundation Program at Ibri College of Applied Sciences- the Sultanate of Oman. The results, implications, and applications will be discussed throughout this article while tackling the two major controversial issues: teaching to test or communicate.

scholarly journals THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION OF 2011 AND ITS AFTERMATH IN EDITORIALS HEADLINES: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF EGYPT IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH MEDIA EDITORIALS

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-875
Author(s):  
Ayyad Echine
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The West ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
Modes Of Thought

The Arab world, starting from December 2010 onward, has witnessed unprecedented revolutions during which many long-lasting Arab leaders were unseated. Western media has allotted much coverage to the uprisings especially in nations, such as Egypt, with which the West, namely the U.S, shares mutual political ambitions in the Middle East. This study analyses a sample of 101 editorials headlines that were written, between 2011 and 2018, by the NYT, the WP, the Guardian and the Telegraph and suggests that these papers treatment of the revolutions is reflective of Orientalist conceptualizations that inferiorize Egypt and the Egyptians. The study draws on Edward Saids postcolonial model of Orientalism (1978) to make sense of the selected sample and targets two main areas in critical media studies quantitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA), to uncover whether or not the four newspapers editorials headlines are suggestive of Orientalist modes of thought. The study concludes that the coverage under scrutiny connects the West with the East in a way that is characterized by power relations wherein the West is having the upper hand, and thus producing a rhetoric that is stereotypical and Orientalist.

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