Category Archives: Literature

A Philosophical Tale

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Islamic Sciences, Literature, Scholars


While teaching Hofstra’s Honors College Culture and Expression course this term, I suggested the text Hayy ibn Yaqzan by the Andalusian Muslim scholar Ibn Tufayl, who died in 1185 CE, as an antidote to the otherwise “Great Western” bent such courses inevitably take. Ibn Tufayl’s 12th century text is a brilliant fable built on the author’s knowledge of earlier philosophical arguments by Greek (including Plato and Aristotle) Neoplatonist and Muslim (such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina) intellectuals and also on the best science of his day. The plot revolves around a child stranded or spontaneously generated (take your pick) on an island, brought up by a nurturing doe and then growing through basic logic from an empirical youth to an enlightened mystic. In effect the hero, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, comes to the ultimate state of being a Muslim without ever having heard of Muhammad or being introduced to Islamic rituals and law. Ibn Tufayl turns St. Augustine’s “original sin” on its head, although still arriving at belief in one God as a First Cause, Prime Mover or Prime Sustainer.

The book is worth a read, since so many European intellectuals did in fact read it after it was translated into English by Simon Ockley in 1708. If you have ever read Robinson Crusoe or Tarzan, this book is worth checking out for its literary prehistoric value. Ibn Tufayl presents a strikingly modern view on the role of symbolism, no matter what you think of his ultimate theological spin. Here is an example from late in the book, once Hayy has gone as far as reason will take him:

Having attained this total absorption, this complete annihilation, this veritable union, he saw that the highest sphere, beyond which there is no body, had an essence free from matter, which was not the essence of that one, true one, nor the sphere itself, nor yet anything different from them both; but was like the image of the Sun which appears in a well polished looking-glass, which is neither the Sun nor the looking-glass, and yet not distinct from them. And he saw in the essence of that sphere, such perfection, splendour and beauty, as is too great to be expressed by any tongue, and too subtle to be clothed in words; and he perceived that it was in the utmost perfection of delight and joy, exultation and gladness, by reason of its beholding the essence of that true one, whose glory be exalted. Continue reading A Philosophical Tale →

Translating Arabic Literature

Islamic Texts, Literature, Scholars, Teaching Resources, United Arab Emirates


Cambridge Arabic expert made executive editor of five-year project, University of Cambridge, November 29, 2010

James Montgomery, Professor of Classical Arabic at Cambridge University, has been appointed as Executive Editor of a five-year project at the Library of Arabic Literature (LAL).

He will work in conjunction with Professor Philip Kennedy (General Editor and Faculty Director, NYUAD Institute) and Shawkat M. Toorawa, (Executive Editor and Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Cornell University).

The project, funded by a grant from NYUAD’s research centre, the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, will initially publish 35 English translations of the great works of classical Arabic literature. The translations, rendered in parallel-text format with Arabic and English on facing pages, will be undertaken by renowned scholars of Arabic literature and Islamic studies. The translations will include a full range of works, including poetry, poetics, fiction, religion, philosophy, law, science, history and historiography. Continue reading Translating Arabic Literature →

Performing Islam

Anthropology/Sociology, Film and Video, Islam: Introduction, Journalism and Media, Literature, Photography


Performing Islam is the first peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal about Islam and performance and their related aesthetics. It focuses on socio-cultural as well as historical and political contexts of artistic practices in the Muslim world. The journal covers dance, ritual, theatre, performing arts, visual arts and cultures, and popular entertainment in Islam influenced societies and their diasporas. It promotes insightful research of performative expressions of Islam by performers and publics, and encompasses theoretical debates, empirical studies, postgraduate research, interviews with performers, research notes and queries, and reviews of books, events and performances.

Call for contributions for the second issue: Continue reading Performing Islam →

Ibn Tufayl’s Fable

Books You Should Read, Environment, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Islamic History, Islamic Sciences, Literature, Scholars, Sufism


What would happen to a child growing up on an island outside any human society? In real life such a scenario would be absurd. No child could survive from birth on his or her own, despite exotic accounts of feral human babies being reared by animals. But as a thought experiment, it makes an intriguing story. Such is the philosophical fable spun by the Andalusian Muslim scholar Ibn Tufayl over eight centuries ago. I have just finished teaching this text and the lessons in it are fresh in my mind.

If you have never read this classic fable, it can be found online in the original 1708 translation into English by Simon Ockley. A more recent translation by Lenn Evan Goodman is available from Amazon. The author was a distinguished Muslim intellectual who borrowed from the earlier Greek icons Aristotle and Plato, as well as the commentaries by earlier Muslim philosophers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Farabi. His fable combines logical arguments, inductive scientific observation and a form of intuition that leads to a union with the One. Continue reading Ibn Tufayl’s Fable →

A Comic Approach to Tragedy

Indonesia, Literature, Terrorism Issue


A novel, even comic, approach to combating terrorist acts by extremist Muslims in South Asia is currently underway in Indonesia. This is a comic book about Ali Imran, who engineered the 2002 bombing of a hotel in Bali. Through the life story of the bomber, the story urges young Muslims not to be duped by anyone praising suicide bombing as an Islamic duty. For a video account of the book on Al Jazeera, click here.

The Meaning of Democracy

Afghanistan, Development, Gender and Sexuality, Literature

The Meaning of Democracy

by Roya, Afghan Womens’ Writing Project

After the Taliban‘s black regime, when houses were cages for women and only the wild Taliban ideology was law, when the burqa was accepted as a symbol of freedom and the real Islamic hijab disappeared unknown—after all this, Afghan women recognized the word for Democracy.

But Democracy is a very young word for the people of our country, very new in our cultural dictionary, and the question is: Do women understand this word? Do they welcome it, or hide under their burqa?

I think Democracy knocked on the doors of only some women in Kabul, Mazar, Herat, only a few of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. In most areas, Afghans still don’t know this word. Many think it is a word used only by politicians who travel all over the world, live in the tallest buildings and own the latest car models. Democracy, easiest explanation, is government of the people, for the people. But in our country, people think whatever your heart wants, do it, and that is the meaning of democracy. Continue reading The Meaning of Democracy →

Faulkner in Iraq

CyberOrient, Iraq, Literature


Videoconferencing Faulkner in Iraq

By Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle Online, June 24

Thanks to videoconferencing, literary criticism is playing a small part in the rebuilding of Iraq.

At the end of last year, Steve Wilson, a professor of English at Texas State University at San Marcos, got an email from a U.S. official working on provincial reconstruction in Iraq. Through contacts at Iraqi universities, the official had met some professors of English who wanted to find a way to talk to their U.S. counterparts about literature. So he went looking on the Internet for American professors who had experience that might be relevant and found Mr. Wilson, who had taught in a largely Muslim country, Malaysia. Continue reading Faulkner in Iraq →

Kafka, Egyptian Style

Egypt, Judaism, Literature


Atef Botros’s Kafka Study
A Jewish Writer from the Arab Perspective
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

by Julian Tangermann, Qantara, June, 2010

Passionate literary criticism? Is this possible? As an academic discipline it is forbidden from emotion or passion. Nevertheless in Atef Botros’s Kafka, ein jüdischer Schriftsteller aus arabischer Sicht (Kafka, a Jewish writer, from the Arab perspective) this question is posed anew.

His well-founded, comprehensive critical analysis of Kafka’s reception in the Arab world closes with a passionate appeal for freedom in the Middle East. This does not, however, impair the academic rigour of the work in the slightest. In fact, his concerned, incisive view of the Middle East conflict and his excellent literary criticism feed off each other and make this work what it is.

The bulk of the book is concerned with the analysis of Kafka’s reception in the Arab world from 1939 to the present day; with how Kafka’s works have been understood and interpreted over the last seventy years in Arab countries and cultures. It posits three phases of responses to Kafka during this period, which are all examined according to their social, intellectual and literary implications. Continue reading Kafka, Egyptian Style →