The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature
Arabic Literature in the Post-classical Period

The sixth and final volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature explores the Arabic literary heritage of the period from the twelfth to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Traditionalists have tended to characterize this period as one of ‘decadence’ and, having done so, to skip over its several centuries in the quest for more immediately interesting material stimulated by the re-encounter with the West from the end of the eighteenth century. Even though it was during this time that one of the most famous Arabic works of all time – A Thousand and One Nights – was created, this has not provoked a wide-ranging investigation of the period’s literature in general, whether elite or popular, and the period in question has continued to be viewed negatively. This volume seeks to rectify the situation. Roger Allen and D. S. Richards bring together some of the most distinguished scholars in the field to record as much as is known about the literary movements and aesthetic trends of this period. The volume is divided into parts with the traditions of poetry and prose covered separately within both their ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ contexts. The last two parts are devoted to drama, its origins and tentative development, and the indigenous tradition of literary criticism. As the only work of its kind in English covering the post-classical period, this book promises to be a unique resource for students and scholars of Arabic literature for many years to come.

Roger Allen is Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is the author of The Arabic Novel (1982, 1995) and The Arabic Literary Heritage (1998). He currently serves in an editorial capacity for the journal Middle Eastern Literatures and the Arabic Literature Series of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

D. S. Richards is Emeritus Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Arabic (retired). His publications include Mamluk Jerusalem (1987) and numerous articles on medieval Islamic history. He is the translator of Ibn Shaddad’s Life of Saladin (2001) and The Annals of the Turks (2002).

ARABIC LITERATURE IN THE POST-CLASSICAL PERIOD

EDITED BY
ROGER ALLEN
University of Pennsylvania
AND
D. S. RICHARDS
University of Oxford

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521771603

© Cambridge University Press 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Arabic literature in the post-classical period / [edited by] Roger Allen, D. S. Richards. -- 1st ed.
p. cm. -- (The Cambridge history of Arabic literature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-77160-9 -- (hardback)
1. Arabic literature – 1258-1800 – History and criticism. I. Allen, Roger M. A.
II. Richards, D. S. (Donald Sidney), 1935-- III. Title. IV. Series.
PJ7558.A73 2006
892.7′09 – dc22 2005020119

ISBN-13 978-0-521-77160-3 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-77160-9 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Kamal Abdel-Malek teaches Arabic literature at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. He has published several books on Egyptian popular literature, Arab attitudes to Americans (America in an Arab Mirror, 2000) and Israelis (Arab–Jewish Encounters in Palestinian Literature and Film, forthcoming).

Roger Allen, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is the author of The Arabic Novel (1982, 1995) and The Arabic Literary Heritage (1998). He currently serves in an editorial capacity for the journal Middle Eastern Literatures and the Arabic Literature Series of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

Rosella Dorigo Ceccato, since 1983 Professore Associato of Arabic Language and Literature and recently Vice-Director of the new doctoral programme in Studi Orientali at the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice and a member of the editorial board of the review Quaderni di Studi Arabi. Her scholarly activity has been mainly devoted to the analysis of Arabic literature, with a particular attention to drama. Her research is directed towards Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and the Sultanate of Oman.

Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Helsinki. His main interests lie in medieval Arabic literature, classical Arabic language, and paganism in Iraq. His main works include: Materials for the Study of Raǧaz I–Ⅲ (1993–6) and Maqama: A History of a Genre (2002).

Peter Heath, Provost of the American University in Beirut. A specialist in Arabic literature, he is the author of Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (1992) and The Thirsty Sword: Sirat ‘Antar and the Arabic Popular Epic (1996).

Th. Emil Homerin, Professor of Religion at the University of Rochester. His publications include From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint (2001), Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verse, Saintly Life (2001) and The Wine of Love and Life (2005).

῾Abdullah Ibrahim has taught at universities in Iraq, Libya and Qatar. He currently serves as Cultural Adviser to the National Council for Culture in Qatar. Among his recent publications are al-Sardiyyat al-῾arabiyya al-ḥadītha (Modern Arabic Narratology, 2003) and al-Muṭābaqa wa’l-ikhtilāf (Identification and Difference, 2004).

Robert Irwin, a Senior Research Associate of the History Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. His most recent books are Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabian Literature (1999) and The Alhambra (2004).

Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Palestinian poet and critic, Director of East–West Nexus and the Project for the Translation of Arabic (PROTA), both of which have published translations and scholarly works concerning Arab and Middle Eastern culture. She is the author, among many other works, of Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry (1977).

Remke Kruk, Professor of Arabic Language and Culture at Leiden University, The Netherlands. She has published on a variety of topics. Her main research field, apart from popular sīra, is the transmission and reception of Greek natural philosophy, in particular biology, in the Arabic tradition.

Margaret Larkin, Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Theology of Meaning: ῾Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s Theory of Discourse (1995), as well as articles on classical and modern Arabic literature in literary and colloquial Arabic.

Muhsin al-Musawi, Professor of Arabic at Columbia University in New York since 2004, after a lengthy teaching career in Iraq, Yemen, Tunis and Sharjah. He is the author of numerous studies of Arabic literature in both Arabic and English, most recently The Postcolonial Arabic Novel (2003).

Dwight F. Reynolds, Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He publishes on folklore, literature and music of the Arab Middle East.

D. S. Richards, Emeritus Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford, and University Lecturer in Arabic (retired). Joint author of Mamluk Jerusalem (1987), translator of Ibn Shaddad’s Life of Saladin (2001) and The Annals of the Turks (2002), and author of numerous articles on medieval Islamic history.

Philip Sadgrove, Head, Middle Eastern Studies, University of Manchester. He is the author of The Egyptian Theatre in the Nineteenth Century (1996), co-author with Professor Shmuel Moreh of Jewish Contributions to Nineteenth-Century Arabic Theatre (1996) and editor of History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East (2005).

William Smyth has a BA in Classics from Stanford University and a PhD in Near Eastern Languages from New York University. He has written and lectured on the development of rhetoric and literary theory in the European and Islamic Middle Ages.

Devin Stewart teaches Arabic and Islamic Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author, among other studies, of Twelver Shi‘i Jurisprudence (1991) and Islamic Legal Orthodoxy (1998).

Michael Winter, Professor Emeritus of the History of the Middle East, Tel Aviv University. He is the author of books and articles on the Arab countries under the Mamluks and Ottomans, social aspects of Sufism and education in the Middle East, including (as co-editor with Amalia Levanoni) The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society (2004).

Muhammad Lutfi al-Yousfi, Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Tunis, Mannouba. He is the author of a major study of the development of Arabic literary genres and the modes of their analysis, Fitnat al-mutakhayyal (2002).

ABBREVIATIONS