(literatures And Cultures Of The Islamic World) Sarah R. Bin Tyeer (auth.)-the Qur’an And The Aesthetics Of Premodern Arabic Prose-palgrave Macmillan Uk (2016)

Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World

The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose Sarah R. bin Tyeer Foreword by Angelika Neuwirth

Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World Series Editor Hamid Dabashi Columbia University New York, USA

The Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World series will put forward a critical body of first rate scholarship on the literary and cultural production of the Islamic world from the vantage point of contemporary theoretical and hermeneutic perspectives, effectively bringing the study of Islamic literatures and cultures to the wider attention of scholars and students of world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives.

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Sarah R. bin Tyeer

The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose

Foreword by Angelika Neuwirth

Sarah R. bin Tyeer School of Oriental and African Studies University of London London, United Kingdom

Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World ISBN 978-1-137-59988-9 ISBN 978-1-137-59875-2 DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2

(eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941864 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover Illustration © Murat Ceven / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London

For my students: past, present, and future

FOREWORD

This important and beautifully written book is about processes of enchantment and mutations of empirical reality achieved by rhetorical means. Although what is ultimately at stake is the aesthetics of pre-modern Arabic prose, the author, Sarah bin Tyeer, anchors the discourse of aesthetics in the text of the Qur’an. This in itself is a commendable achievement, in view of the fact that the connection between literary discourses and their Qur’anic predecessors is usually bypassed in present scholarly works on profane Arabic literature. There is still a reluctance to involve the Qur’an in literary debates—too remote is the field of Qur’anic Studies from Literary Studies. Or more precisely: the Qur’an is still being considered something apart from literature, be it as a sacred text, or a text whose origins are considered precarious. It is true that this attitude already was challenged years ago (1999) by a comprehensive study of the aesthetical dimensions of the Qur’an: Navid Kermani’s Gott is schön. Das ästhetische Erleben des Koran. Kermani’s path-breaking work has however, only recently (2014) appeared in English translation (God is beautiful: The aesthetic experience of the Qur’an). It is to be hoped that its reception will induce a re-thinking of the relation between the Qur’an and Classical Arabic Literature—an objective that is also pursued in Sarah bin Tyeer’s diligent study. Indeed, the Qur’an is the ‘natural’ point of departure from where to start any reflection about the significance of figurative speech in Arabic literature. Not only is prophetic speech closely related to poetry—a fact whose implications James Kugel has lucidly unfolded and which Navid Kermani has discussed again—it is moreover the discovery of figurative speech as a paramount textual strategy that takes place in the Qur’anic vii

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debates between the Prophet Muhammad and his opponents. The effectiveness of figurative speech is a central point of dispute in the Qur’an. It is striking to see that the hermeneutic impacts of the Qur’anic message about an imaginary, transcendent world believed to be overarching the empirical world were clearly distinguished by the Prophet Muhammad’s opponents. They logically accused him of magically manipulating their word, to be a sorcerer, sāḥir. They diagnosed exactly what they observed as occurring under their eyes: an utterly profound refashioning of the world which was turned from an empirically perceivable reality into a highly ambiguous structure made up by both ‘real’ and imagined elements or ‘signs’. For example, the dispute about the transformations of reality brought about by the Qur’anic message is traditionally connected to the event of the splitting of the moon in sūrat al-Qamar. Q 54 which starts with the exclamation: Iqtarabati l-sā`atu wa-nshaqqa l-qamar, ‘The Hour has drawn near and the moon is split’. This cosmic evidence—which was to receive paramount attention in hadith literature and even in figurative art—seems to affirm a number of earlier pronounced predictions that the Hour, the Day of Judgment, will be heralded by the distortion of the heavenly bodies. In sūrat al-Infiṭār, Q 82 it says: ‘When the heaven is split open and the stars are scattered’, and similarly in surat al-Takwı̄r, Q 81 ‘When the sun shall be darkened, when the stars shall be thrown down’. This is in tune with late antique annunciations of the end of time, thus Matthew 24:29–31 says: ‘Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven… Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven…’ Yet, sūrat al-Qamar goes an important step further than the earlier predictions, asserting the factual occurrence of such a cosmic sign. The Prophet’s audience, empirically minded as they were, had demanded time and again that he should present the apocalyptic signs physically. Many of them were unacquainted with the Bible as a binding reference text through which the world can be read in a messianic sense, as pointing to an imminent apocalypse. They thus remained deaf vis-à-vis the new theology of signs. The phenomenon of the splitting of the moon which appeared significant to the Prophet as a miracle to affirm his eschatological message was rejected. The text goes on: ‘Yet, if they see a sign they turn away and say: “A continuous sorcery!”’ (siḥrun mustamirr) ‘Sorcery’ magic in their response is not to be understood as a miracle that he should have worked to mutilate the moon, but is meant in a more comprehensive sense: The Prophet is charged with the manipulation of

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the world as such—through the magic of speech, siḥr al-bayān, since he reads the empirically perceived phenomenon as something different from what it is, i.e. an eschatological sign. Any shimming of reality with transcendent meanings appears to them as a manipulation, as magic, as a phantasm fabricated with rhetorical means. What we see here is a glimpse of the struggle between the two major lines of interpretation in Late Antiquity: the reading of texts and of the world in the literal sense vis-à-vis their reading in a figurative sense, through typology and allegory. According to sūrat al-Qamar this struggle between the two world views in Mecca left the pagan literal reading victorious. The pagans did not accept the sign character of the split moon. It is amazing that the episode of the splitting of the moon all the same survived as a miraculous incident related to the Prophet. In non-canonical tradition, the splitting of the moon was interpreted not only as theologically relevant but even as a miracle worked by the Prophet himself. His close association with the image of the moon became a topos of prophetical panegyrics. ‘The moon has risen above us’ is a ubiquitously current hymn which according to al-Ghazali had already been chanted by the women of Mecca when Muhammad re-captured the city. It is interesting to note that the reception story of the Qur’anic episode about siḥr al-bayān does not end here. In later Ottoman court art, it is the second part of the Qur’anic argument, the opponents’ perception of his verbal magic, ‘But they say: “a continuous sorcery!”’ (siḥrun mustamirr) that comes to the fore. It is in the end the pagans’ verdict from sūrat alQamar, the verdict of his sihr al-bayān, his transformation of the world into a sign system transcending empirical reality, that is allowed to epitomize the Qur’an’s hermeneutical achievement. When Ottoman art which had conceded to the mundane manifestation of the heavenly writing—the art of calligraphy—a primary rank in artistic representation, conceived of a portrait of the Prophet, this had to be made up of scriptural ‘signs’, which according to the Qur’anic proclamation point to the transcendent writing as the most sublime authority. Through the new purely calligraphic, purely sign-informed portrait of the Prophet, his ḥilya, his earlier figural representation could be ‘rectified’. But not only in popular piety and court art was the defeat in argument from sūrat al-Qamar turned into a spiritual triumph. History itself asserted the triumph. In the end of the Qur’an’s proclamation, the siḥr al-bayān, the enchantment of the world, achieved through speech, communicated

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by the Prophet, his figurative reading of the world—his embedding of the empirical realm into a primordially founded sign system—was to prevail. With the Qur’an a sacred text was canonized that is strongly imbued with figurative thinking. The concept of the ‘Verzauberung der Welt’, the enchantment of the world, has more recently been rediscovered, though it is usually focused from the reverse angle, from Max Weber’s concept of the ‘disenchantment of the world’ through the impact of science. But enchantment precedes disenchantment. What is being taken up in Church historical studies today as a fruitful approach has not been probed for the Qur’an yet: its revolutionary mutation of the inherited world view through siḥr al-bayān has still been introduced into the historical discussion about the emergence of the monotheist religions. It will prove the Qur’an and the earliest Muslim community not only as contemporaries but as active players in the culture of debate of Late Antiquity. It will equally prove the Qur’an’s immense impact on the aesthetics of classical Islamic culture. Sarah R. bin Tyeer’s study is a most challenging new beginning in Arabic studies which clearly demonstrates the fruitfulness of the synopsis of Qur’an and classical literature. Angelika Neuwirth Berlin, Germany

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Parts of this book are based on a thesis submitted to fulfil the requirement of a PhD degree for the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London), defended in November 2010. The process of writing and editing went through many phases, stages, and across many countries. My deepest gratitude goes to Stefan Sperl, my thesis supervisor, for his kind and supportive guidance through some of the gloomiest moments in the course of the thesis and most importantly for his confidence that are the building blocks of this project throughout the research period and beyond: I am forever grateful. I also would like to thank M.A.S.  Abdel Haleem (SOAS) for his encouraging words and Geert Jan van Gelder (Oxford) for his comments on the thesis that contributed to the fine-tuning of some ideas. Omar Alí de-Unzaga at the Institute of Ismaili Studies and Nuha al-Shaʿar invited me to the conference on the Qur’an and Adab and subsequently welcomed a chapter (not included in this book) in the edited volume proceeding from the conference: Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of Classical Literary Tradition—thank you. Thank you Angelika Neuwirth and Devin Stewart for their comments and friendly conversation on the chapter during the conference in 2012 in London. I thank the department of the Near and Middle East studies at the Faculty of Languages and Cultures at SOAS, Hugh Kennedy, Wen-Chin Ouyang, and Stefan Sperl for hosting me as a Research Associate since 2010. I also express gratitude to the Arts and Humanities Initiative at the American University of Beirut for my wonderful time in Beirut as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in 2012–2013 and the stimulating teaching and discussions as well as the academic privileges that come with the xi

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fellowship that facilitated finishing parts of this book. I thank Nadia Maria el-Cheikh for her generous spirit and support, Bilal Orfali for his wit, humour, coffee, and his chivalric muruwwa in helping me with settling in when I first arrived; I shared an office with Karim Sadek during the fellowship—I thank him for his occasional philosophical humour and for his genuine efforts to improve my sense of direction as I got lost in Beirut—I believe it worked in the end. Ahmad Dallal, Maher Jarrar, Nader el Bizri, Rita Bassil, and Rima Iskandarani—thank you. I am grateful for my time at SOAS and AUB. I am fortunate to have spent time at these exceptional institutions learning, teaching, and researching with some unique and wonderful people. My brilliant students in classes I taught in London and Beirut often reminded me of the importance of the work we all do; it is an organic path and it is never over—thank you for showing genuine interest and passion through conversations and questions. The final writing stages of this book including the introduction, conclusion, and the chapter on al-Maʿarrī were written in Cairo. I thank the American University in Cairo library and its staff, especially at the circulation and document delivery for their cordiality and support; it is good to return to my alma mater and be virtually eighteen again. I express deep appreciation to the wonderful people at Palgrave Macmillan behind the scenes in the production process, the copyeditor, and the people at the design team. I want to especially thank Ryan Jenkins, Commissioning Editor at Palgrave Macmillan New York, for his patience and thoughtfulness throughout. Writing is an arduous, demanding, and a very lonely enterprise. None of this would have been possible without the support of my mother; all the ‘thank you’s’ in the cosmos go to you. Thank you for patiently listening to my endless stories on the adventures of fictitious charlatans, my recounting what I think is a funny sukhf couplet while preparing lunch, and for unwearyingly listening about al-Maʿarrī’s poets in Hell and Heaven and his critics—and mostly thank you for your unconditional love and unflinching support.

CONTENTS

1 Introduction

1

‫ﺣﺴﻦ ﻭ ﻗﺒﺢ‬

39

Part I 2

Ḥ usn: The Route to a Conceptual Query

43

3

Qubḥ and the Way to Hell

59

4

Hell and the Aesthetics of Qubḥ

75

5

Language: Beautiful Speech/Ugly Speech

Part II 6

Popular Literature: Thousand and One Nights

The Aesthetics of Reason

109

119 121

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CONTENTS

7

Of Misplacement of Things, People, and Decorum

147

8

The Transgression of Reason

169

Part III

Canonical Literature

191

Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful

193

10

The Litterateurs of Hell and Heaven

229

11

CODA: The Interpretation and Misinterpretation of adab in Modern Scholarship

265

9

Bibliography

281

Index

299

LIST

Bulletin of SOAS EAL EI2 EI3 EQ JAL RAHW StOr

OF

ABBREVIATIONS

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies The Encyclopaedia of Arabic Literature The Encyclopaedia of Islam (second edition) The Encyclopaedia of Islam (third edition) The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an Journal of Arabic Literature Rabelais and His World Studia Orientalia

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Introduction

What role does the Qur’an’s aesthetics play in adab? And accordingly, how does one read pre-modern Arabic adab? What methodologies do we use? Could one read The Thousand and One Nights as a reflection of real societal customs and practices and use it credulously as a ‘literary ethnography’ of the Arab-Islamic world? Or should one use Western literary paradigms and theories, such as Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, for instance, to read sukhf, mujūn, and roguery in light of the carnivalesque? How does one read the technique of the maqāma genre sparked by al-Hamadhānı̄ in the eleventh century and later emulated by al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ in the twelfth century and many others? In what respect are they in dialogue with their milieu and adab as both an institution and a literary system? Is the evocation of the sacred in pre-modern adab always ‘blasphemous’ and an attempt to ‘mock’ the establishment to vent and release or ‘assault Islam’ as some have maintained with respect to the maqāmāt and al-Maʿarrı̄’s Risālat al-Ghufrān [The Epistle of Forgiveness]?1 Or is the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, even the vulgar, in a work such as Ḥ ikāyat Abı̄’l Qāsim al-Baghdādı̄ points to a more nuanced creative process?2 What are the ramifications of this one-way traffic in reading adab? The aforementioned questions are the focus of this book. This introduction will address the building blocks of this book referred to in the title as the Qur’an, adab, aesthetics, as well as the meaning of ugliness between the lexicons and the Qur’an. The problem of reading pre-modern Arab-Islamic adab in light of the binaries of the sacred and the profane, godly and godless and how the two rarely meet, or are in conflict, results in an either/or situation where © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_1

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S.R. BIN TYEER

the literary work is often interpreted as either a positive or a negative response to religion proper. But this conflict has its origins in European history and not in Arab-Islamic history. Since the Enlightenment in Europe, when the arts stopped regarding the sacred as part of the sublime and the beautiful, the definition of the Arts ceased to point to anything outside itself. This explains l’art pour l’art, formalism, and the ‘aesthetic form’ as part of the developments that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century.3 This has eventually led to the Arts’ independence from the sacred in what Van der Leeuw calls ‘the secularization of art.’4 This interpretive framework operates within a dichotomy of conflict between the creative expression seen as profane or secular and the sacred, not harmony. The same could not be held true to Arab-Islamic literary and artistic endeavours where pre-modern, and to some degree modern and contemporary literary expressions, show a continuum of influence with the sacred, in this case the Qur’an, and its influence on the creative process. This should not be understood as ‘religious art’ or ‘sacred art’ or that Arab-Islamic literary expression could only be read as a function of or in religion. Rather, it is an attempt to situate the Qur’an in the history of adab and investigate its influence on the system of adab, its artistic language, vocabulary, and the intricacies of its mechanics. An influence so powerful, that to ignore it and relegate its stature in literary and scholarly discussions to how the author is a ‘good Muslim/ bad Muslim’, ‘Shi’ite or Sunni’, ‘Ismaili or Druze’ or fish for clues to determine the ‘faith-o-meter’ and ‘real’ sect of the author because his word and history are not good enough is tantamount to a deliberate and prejudiced obfuscating of its role in the thriving of adab and the institution of adab at large. This aforementioned approach is also a dehumanising act that reduces all human activity in the Arab-Islamic heritage into religious labels with no history, literary legacy, or human agency. It is a reading that erases all history in favour of a label. Ultimately, this approach clears itself of the obligation to understand or properly read this literature or its people. Carl W. Ernst argues against these dominant attitudes and views with respect to regarding Muslims and their activities as driven solely by religion: To assume that Muslims, and Muslims alone, are driven to act exclusively by religion, apart from any other factors that shape our lives, is more than absurd. It dehumanizes Muslims […] It means that Muslims have no history, and therefore others have no obligation to understand them.5

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With respect to adab, this dehumanising attitude situates the Qur’an in a stark dichotomy to creative expressions in Arab-Islamic culture whereby alternative views and approaches are eclipsed. This fabricated conflict therefore reads all cultural products as an expression against religion and/ or an expression measured against an imagined and essentialised religious model. This could be seen as either a misunderstanding born out of the projection of an Anglo-European dichotomy between the arts and the sacred traced to the Enlightenment—which reads other people and their creative expressions through its own image—or a misunderstanding that treats Arab-Islamic literature and its people as objects with no history or human agency. In both cases, the denying and obliteration of ‘history’ from literary history is practiced. As the title of this book proposes: the Qur’an and pre-modern Arabic prose, as part of adab, is an argument for the consideration of the role of the former in the interpretation of the latter away from clichés and Pavlovian reactions to the presence of the sacred in adab. A look at the components of the title to map out the book’s terminology is due before proceeding further.

THE QUR’AN: PARADIGM SHIFT In 1962, Thomas Kuhn coined the popular term ‘paradigm shift’ in reference to scientific progress. The concept became appropriated in all aspects of life and disciplines as a way of explaining the transformation from one way or model of thinking to another through an agent of change. Besides the Qur’an’s introduction of new moral and metaphysical concepts in seventh century Arabia, it also introduced a new way of thinking and expressing life as it ‘…imaginatively and linguistically… broke away from [Arab] traditions.’6 It possesses an evident demarcating shift between pre-Islamic and Islamic conceptual thought in the Arab-Islamic civilisation; this is eventually translated in language, as the conventional carrier of concepts,7 and as a result cultural creative expressions (belles-lettres, art, and so on) in the creative process itself and ultimately the artistic language. While there ‘[…] is clearly recognizable a certain continuity between the Qur’anic outlook and the old Arab world view, […] there is a wide cleavage between them.’8 The Qur’an itself, since the earliest process of its revelation at the beginning, created a literary paradigm shift, a rupture. It is neither the prose Arabs were used to, nor is it poetry either. It broke traditional and conventional genres known to people.9 The Qur’an calls itself The Book,

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and it became The Book, or what Ebrahim Moosa calls the ‘master-Text’, ‘…the yardstick of literary and rhetorical excellence[.]’10 As Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd summarises Amin al-Khūlı̄’s views (1895–1966) on the inimitability of the Qur’an (i ʿjāz), pointing out that that was chiefly responsible for its positive reception amongst Arabs, al-Khūlı̄ thinks, ‘… the acceptance of Islam by the Arabs, was based on recognizing its absolute supremacy compared to human texts.’11 In a similar vein, Navid Kermani also examined this ‘absolute supremacy’ in his study on the aesthetics of the aural reception of the Qur’an and its role in what Kermani refers to in the parameters of Kunstreligion (a religion of art or Art as Religion).12 The Qur’an’s reception was marked by what Syrian poet ʿAlı̄ Aḥmad Saʿı̄d (Adūnis) calls ‘the linguistic awe’ (dahsha lughawiyya).13 Kamal Abu-Deeb explains this further and argues that ‘[…] some of the Qur’ānic metaphors are truly astonishing: they border on the surreal.’14 An example would be Q. 2:93 ‘wa ushribū fı̄ qulūbihumu l-ʿijla’ (they were made to drink [the love of] the calf deep into their hearts). The metaphor depicts the intensification of love for the calf, in reference to the story of the golden calf and Moses, that it has been drunk deep into the peoples’ hearts, as anything pleasurable and enjoyable sinks into one’s heart, fuses with it, and overwhelms it.15 ‘It is in the face of such wonderful metaphors’, AbuDeeb maintains, ‘whereby a boundless imagination breaks away from all conventions and restrictions, cultural or linguistic, and roams freely in the world, connecting what cannot be connected and inventing linguistic and imaginative structures never before contemplated[.]’16 The Qur’an is its own genre, or a unique genre as pre-modern scholar al-Bāqillānı̄ (d. 404/1013) maintains.17 In like manner, Arab modern writers agree with their predecessors. Taha Hussein (1889–1973) stresses the aesthetic aspect of the Qur’an and its literary supremacy, known as i ʿjāz (inimitability); he maintains that it is neither poetry nor prose: it is Qur’an.18 Hussein stresses that the Qur’an was innovative in its stylistics and aesthetics (jadı̄dan fi uslūbihi).19 This is why, Adūnis maintains, there cannot be a separation between Islam and Arabic language, on any level.20 This is also a view expressed earlier by the philologist Aḥmad b. Fāris (d. 395/1004) who is very likely the first to have used and coined the term ‘fiqh al-lugha’ (lit. the profound understanding of language) in linguistic study as his book al-Ṣāḥibı̄ fı̄ fiqh allugha attests,21 which inspired many an offspring later on. Ibn Fāris stressed the distinctive features of Arabic; this is evident in his adamant belief in the salient role grammar and language play in maintaining Islamic values.22

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As the Qur’an created this paradigm shift on the intellectual, artistic, and religious levels, it also created a paradigm shift on both the literary and cultural levels. To quote Abu Zayd, ‘[…] the Qur’an has become the producer of a new culture.’23 In addition to the ‘the linguistic awe’ and its genre breaking, it created a new type of reader, a new critic, and a new taste.24 ‘The Qur’an’s mode of expression’, Adūnis maintains, ‘cancels all traditional differences between philosophy and adab, between science and politics, between ethics and aesthetics: its style permeates genres, with respect to its form, and methodologically, it permeates conventional epistemic approaches (al-muqārabāt al-ma ʿrifiyya).’25 The Qur’an has been described as a text that does not imitate life (ḥikāyat al-ḥayāt) but instead offers life because of its artistic dynamicity and unique style.26 If art is the imitation (mimesis) of life, it should not be surprising that the Qur’an, as the dynamic text that instead offers life, inspires the Arts and adab, an influence that goes beyond the stylistics of the Qur’an, its formulaic structures, and idioms, as well as an influence on the thematic, conceptual, and categorical levels. It is precisely this quality that explains why adab is literary but also ethical or at other times philosophical. And it is precisely this quality of the Qur’an that has opened what Adūnis calls ‘another horizon of writing’ (khāsṣ ị yya taftaḥu li-l-kitābati ufuqan ākhar).27 The multidisciplinary quality of the Qur’an was also noted in Jacques Berque’s commentary in his French translation of the Qur’an. Berque compares the Qur’an to a surface set out in space, but only this surface is a ‘verbal flux in time’ (un flux verbal dans le temps) where its themes and motifs return and intersect with each other.28 This literary rupture the Qur’an created, an expression that in our modern parlance is often associated with experimentation and the presumption of eradicating what came before it, is a generous rupture. Literary forms that existed before it (poetry and khaṭāba) not only continued but also developed and thrived around it;29 it inspired new literary devices, new forms of writing, and other epistemic repositories. In this respect, the culture that formed around the Qur’an represents what Hans-Georg Gadamer calls the applicatio. The Qur’an does not simply become a passive text awaiting clarification and explanation; it is an active text in its dynamicity and practical application. It is a ‘[…]highly interactive text’, its ‘rhetorical affectivity’, Jane Dammen McAuliffe argues, challenges even the casually acquainted reader from receptive passivity of the text.30 The Qur’an’s role in Arab-Islamic culture and adab was/is not to be understood

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just historically. Rather, it should be understood in terms of how it becomes valid for us. By valid, I do not mean that one either believes in it or one does not, or either observes its guidelines or one does not. This is certainly part of its validity for the believers but it is not all there is to it. As Sheldon Pollock maintains, validity need not always be thought of as ‘authoritative’ all the time, but validity extends itself to ‘usefulness’: applicatio.31 Part of this applicatio in adab is its recognised role in developing the prose style of many belle-lettrists and court scribes, such as ʿAbd al-Ḥ amı̄d al-Kātib (d. 132/750), for instance.32 Far removed from a period often associated with being closer to the Qur’anic event, the validity and meaningfulness in inspiring modern and contemporary Arab writers like Naguib Mahfouz and Ṭ āhir al-Waṭt ̣ār, for instance, to come up with new aesthetics, techniques, and problem-solving methods, ‘new horizons’ as Adūnis would say, for the proposed themes they wish to treat are also noted.33 Or as Ziad elMarsafy argues, were it not for the translations of the Qur’an during the Enlightenment: from Ludovico Marracci’s Latin Qur’an, George Sale’s English Qur’an to Claude Savary’s French Qur’an, and consequently Rousseau, Voltaire, and Napoleon and their diverse reception of it and many uses of it, ‘…Goethe’s—and consequently our –ideas about literature would have taken on a markedly different inflection.’34 The Qur’an as a ‘paradigm shift’ and its ‘validity’, ‘applicatio’ and, ‘worldliness’ are not restricted to the ‘event’ and ‘place’ of revelation. The uses to which the Qur’ān was put during the eighteenth century— describing the legislator, situating Europe in the context of global history, defining world literature—attest to its continuing importance and centrality even before the establishment of Orientalism as an academic discipline with all of the institutional trappings that accrue during the nineteenth century.35

In this regard, Humberto Garcia reminds us of ‘Islamic republicanism’ in early modern Europe and how ‘…the radical Enlightenment was in constant dialectical engagement with Islam.’36 Garcia places Islam at the heart of the works of Edmund Burke, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and Percy and Mary Shelley. For them, according to Garcia, a dialogue with Islam assisted in questioning and redefining British concepts of liberty. Equally, this ‘applicatio’ complements what Edward Said calls the ‘worldly text’: A text in its actually being a text is also a being in the world; it therefore addresses anyone who reads… Texts have ways of existing, both theoretical

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and practical, that even in their most rarefied form are always enmeshed in circumstances, time, place and society—in short they are in the world, and hence worldly.37

Oleg Grabar’s call for ‘the hermeneutics of the Qur’an for the arts’ aptly summarises the argument above as it understands the Qur’an’s role in the culture it inspires as a ‘worldly text’ and its inspiration of the Arts. Grabar’s call is motivated by a need to explain, define, and justify attitudes where the visual arts are concerned to provide ‘[…] a deeper understanding of whatever constitutes the particular genius and the many facets of Islamic Art.’38 By extension, if the Qur’an is recognised at the centre of most Arab-Islamic intellectual and artistic endeavours, as the ‘worldly’ text it is, should not a hermeneutics of the Qur’an for adab be therefore necessary to understand adab and its intricacies beyond trite clichés.

ADAB: HOLISTIC, COSMIC, AND HUMANE A writer under the influence of the Qur’an, writing in the ‘horizon’, Adūnis argues, is one who has a ‘cosmic or holistic and humane’ vision (kawniyya wa insāniyya).39 The holistic and humane vision, as an extension of the influence of the Qur’anic ‘horizon of writing’ in adab, is traceable in the definition of adab which was expectedly derived from its ipso facto influence, role, and aesthetics. In light of this, it appears that some types of scholarship on adab that treat it as ‘literature’ may only warrant criticism. The definition of adab may not be the only issue that modern scholarship sometimes does not see eye for an eye with pre-modern scholars, which may have certainly affected the way in which adab is occasionally treated, rather narrowly, as ‘literature.’ In defence of this distinction, Abdelfattah Kilito criticises the attitude that regards adab as ‘literature.’ ‘Literature’ as such, he maintains, began in the eighteenth century with German Romanticism: Novalis, Schelling, and the brother Schlegel, to mention a few.40 Adab, as known to pre-modernists, was ‘a type of discourse’: one that was concerned with ethics and virtues (al-akhlāq wa l-faḍā ʾil).41 Adab, it could be argued, is a type of discourse that saw to the thriving of decorum, observing civility, erudition and scholarship, and being a well-rounded human being. Kilito asks a telling question, as he plays his own devil’s advocate; he asks, ‘so was the concept of “literature” as such unknown to Europeans prior to German Romanticism?’ 42 And one could extend the question by asking if it was unknown to pre-modern Arabs. He

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indirectly answers the question by saying that every book (kitāb) is either an explicit answer to certain dictated circumstances surrounding its birth or an implicit answer to some issues hanging in the air. Pre-modernists also differentiated between those texts that are born to careful ‘rumination’ (rawiyya) and those born to ‘improvisation and wit’ (al-badı̄ha wa l-irtijāl).43 By treating adab as literature only, what are we foregoing aside from a deeper and sensitive understanding of the text? When pre-modern Arabic literary products are treated as atoms in a void, they become divorced from their (a) Arabic literary history, (b) literary milieu, and (c) linguistic history and significance in favour of ready-made straitjacket interpretations facilitated by restrictive literary theories and techniques. Accordingly, this attitude does not build on the poetics of the field or offer a sensitive language for literary criticism from inside the discipline, which leaves the field methodologically impoverished. Similarly, Hans-Georg Gadamer speaks of the text as an answer to a question, and that the interpreter must seek ‘the horizon of the question’ to understand the text. The ‘horizon of the questions’ of adab does not extend in modern and contemporary literary theory and techniques and paradigms that are sometimes imposed on the works of adab. This is what Hans-Georg Gadamer calls interpretation based on ‘prejudice’ and prejudgment, stemming from one’s own previous hermeneutical position. On prejudices he says, ‘[t]hey constitute, then, the horizon of a particular present, for they represent that which beyond it is impossible to see.’44 Naturally, this comes as a result of hermeneutically operating form a single horizon. This horizon, Gadamer defines, as ‘[…]the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point.’45 Since reading is primarily concerned with understanding, the horizon works as the vantage point from which a text is approached and meaning is made. Understanding happens when the present understanding or horizon is moved to a new understanding or horizon by an encounter (an encounter with the text in this case), which does not necessarily presuppose agreement but only understanding.46 But if while approaching a text, a pre-modern Arabic literary work for instance, a critic is unable to leave their ‘prejudices’, as they should, to see past their own horizons, there are bound to be misunderstandings. To understand a text, it is thus mandatory to negotiate with the text in what Gadamer calls ‘fusion of horizons’ (Horizontverschmelzung), as a measure underlying the process of understanding.47 The fusion between two horizons thus entails leaving the ‘prejudiced’ hermeneutical horizon to that of the text where the

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reader meets the text rather than simply projecting it through the distorting mirror of a ‘prejudiced’ horizon. It is therefore important to note, that considering the ‘horizon of adab’ within adab itself should offer insightful answers to the questions the texts pose. The centrality of the Qur’an to the system of pre-modern adab offers an enhanced understanding of pre-modern literary texts and often dispels some of the interpretative conventional habits that enshroud them. Geert Jan van Gelder argues, ‘[the] Koran, a work sui generis by an Author sui generis may be hors concours but stands at the centre of any canon, religious or literary.’48 The relationship between the centrality of the Qur’an and the literary canon, and adab’s non-equivalency to ‘literature’ should be further clarified in light of Wolfhart Heinrichs’ definition of adab. He maintains, […] when Islamic culture reached maturity in the fourth/tenth century, adab had three major acceptations that were categorically different from each other: (1) ‘good, correct, polite behaviour’, (2) ‘a genre of anecdotal and anthological literature which serves as a quarry of quotable materials (muḥāḍarāt) for the bel-esprit’, and (3) ‘a body of knowledge in the linguistic and literary field which comprises the genre of literature just mentioned, but include further ancillary disciplines like grammar etc.’ 49

Adab, therefore, does not readily translate into ‘literature’ nor should an approach to adab then, i.e. literary criticism, be one that treats it separately from its componential meanings. These meanings are not alternative to the definition of adab. Rather, they are constituents in the institution of adab. In other words, an approach to adab should not be divorced from adab as a moral institution encompassing its inclusion of ‘politesse’ and ‘moral behaviour’ nor should it either be divorced from its meaning as a body of works concerned with the ancillary disciplines such as grammar, rhetoric, and philology, to mention a few. In a 1997 article bearing the title of ʿajā ʾib in The Thousand and One Nights, Roy Mottahedeh discussed the category of ʿajā ʾib (lit. wonders) in The Thousand and One Nights.50 I want to briefly draw attention to two things: the title of the article and the important concluding thoughts of Mottahedeh that also frame his use of the title for reasons that I will explain in due course. Mottahedeh uses the word ʿajaʾib to point to the conceptual category of ʿajā ʾibı̄ literature that is part of a long history in the Arab-Islamic literary tradition.51 One only stresses on something when other options or alternatives are available, in this case, a

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comparative category as ‘fantasy’ or a mode as ‘the fantastic’, or perhaps Jungian mythological archetypes. These modes, genres, and categories are often borrowed to read Arab-Islamic literary works, pre-modern and modern, equally. Alternatively, a title may have been ‘Fantasy’ or ‘The Fantastic in the Arabian Nights’ and so one proceeds to do a reading of the selected tales within the framework and the literary tools provided by Tzvetan Todorov or Carl Jung, for instance. The process of reading the tales, literary criticism, thus rests on literary tools and terminologies that are not only alien to the Arab-Islamic literary history and tradition but also are not part of its cultural experience or literary history. More importantly, it does not contribute to Arab-Islamic poetics or studies as such by providing a meaningful methodology that could be used for subsequent literary criticism, literary tools for subsequent literary analysis, or analytical tools and terms. These one-way-traffic processes simply import modes, genres, and categories across literary, linguistic, cultural, historical, and time contexts as well. The literary text in this case becomes an orphaned literary text bastardised of its history, literary milieu, and linguistic and cultural contexts. Mottahedeh’s concluding thoughts to the aforementioned article are of importance to this discussion. He maintains: [w]hen I argue that a moral vocabulary is used in The Thousand and One Nights to explain its own mechanics and that this vocabulary offers us useful language for literary criticism of the Nights, I do not mean a moralistic or moralizing vocabulary. It is important to remember that Arabic literature has several genres which began as overtly homiletic literature and subsequently became profane. […] the maqāmāt started as a homiletic genre but are not so in Badı̄ʿ al-Zamān or Ḥ arı̄rı̄. In both these genres I think one can argue that a moral though not a moralistic vocabulary is used to describe the dynamics of character and suggest a dynamic between reader and text.52

Mottahedeh’s astute observation on the existence of a moral vocabulary that should offer useful tools in literary criticism offers a key towards not only understanding the literary works’ internal mechanics but also in viewing literary works as part of a collective whole: adab as an institution, a system with internal mechanics. What, one might ask, is the difference between morality and moralism? ‘To grasp morality’, Terry Eagleton asserts, ‘is to see it as an intricately woven texture of nuances, qualities and fine gradation.’53 In other words, ‘[s]ome ways of behaving are so vital to the flourishing of human life, all

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around, or alternatively so injurious to it, that we hedge them around with laws, principles and obligations.’54 Morality is different from moralism in its concern with the idea of human thriving.55 This should not be reduced to the notion that morality is just an imposition or obligation. For ‘[…] it is also imposing in the sense of being sublime, edifying, highminded.’56 Does this not then resemble a succinct definition of adab? It seems accurate then to offer a method of conceptualising tools of literary criticism through a moral vocabulary, with adab as the art of human thriving. Adab’s concern with the moral, with which Qur’an-inspired ethics are concerned, should help in understanding the intricacies of narrative resolution and why it ‘feels right’, plot devices, and literary techniques. In this respect, adab’s concern with the moral is translated in the literary works’ own sense of mizān or balance and equilibrium. Adab, like anything in the world, functions in harmony with certain internal mechanics and order. This is how we, as readers, are able to make sense of it. If adab is a system, then there must be a set of inherent relationships and mechanisms of order and by extension disorder, relating to its activity. The system of adab could then be defined as adab’s or the literary system’s own aesthetic, moral, and linguistic mechanics that contribute to its sense of order and equilibrium, hence meaning.57 Depending on the context, Stefan Sperl argues, i ʿtidāl (equilibrium) ‘…maybe rendered as harmony, symmetry or balance. Generally speaking, it may be said that i ʿtidāl is the manifestation in the physical sphere of ʿadl, or “justice”, in the abstract, spiritual sphere.’58 This concept of ʿadl is also articulated in the Qur’an as mizān (lit. balance, scales). Mustansir Mir maintains that this concept has four meanings in the Qur’an: the balance and symmetry inherent in the universe (Q. 55:7); and ‘the criterion for distinguishing truth from falsehood and telling right from wrong.’ In Q. 42:17, the word is used in this sense for the Qur’an as well as previous scriptures in Q. 57:25, the scales in reference to judging the moral actions in the Hereafter (Q. 7:8–9; 21:47; 23:102–103; 101:6, 8), and finally mizān as giving of full measure in weight, trade, and so on. (Q. 6:152; 7:85; 11:84–85; 55:9).59 Adab and i ʿtidāl (equilibrium) are not strangers. With respect to adab and narrative, how does i ʿtidāl function, being a manifestation of ‘justice’ in the Here and Hereafter? A look at how early Muslim exegetes analyse the reasons behind the story of Joseph’s qualification as the ‘best’ of stories, as Q.12:3 maintains, should assist in understanding this point as well as highlighting the meaning of ‘narrative.’

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A narrative (al-qaṣaṣ), theologian Fakhr al-dı̄n al-Rāzı̄ (d. 606/1209) says, is the succession of events coherently. A story is called a narrative because its events are unravelled bit by bit as they are narrated.60 He explains that the ‘best’ (aḥsan; root: ḥ.s.n, lit. beauty) in this case refers to the stylistics (ḥusn al-bayān) not the story itself. He explains that the main point (al-murād) of this ‘beauty’ is the extreme eloquence of vocabulary to the point of inimitability (kawn hādhi al-alfāẓ faṣıh̄ ̣a bāligha fı̄ l-faṣāḥa ḥadd al-i ʿjāz). He argues for this point by saying that the story is related in history books but none of these stories match this sura in clarity (faṣāḥa) and eloquence (balāgha).61 Al-Rāzı̄ further explains that aḥsan also refers to the lessons, morals, and wonders derived from the story that are not to be found in another.62 He therefore points to the readers’ own sense of pleasure whether it is purely aesthetic on the level of language from the stylistic beauty or an intellectual pleasure derived on the level of meaning, pointing to moral satisfaction from the stories. Al-Baghdādı̄ al-Khāzin (d. 741/1340) adds that a story (ḥikāya) is called narrative (qiṣsạ ) because the narrator relates the story bit by bit (shay ʾan fa shay ʾan).63 Al-Zamakhsharı̄ (d. 538/1144) similarly explains al-qaṣaṣ like al-Rāzı̄ as a succession of events although less eloquently than the latter.64 Sufi mystic and exegete al-Qushayrı̄ (d. 465/1072) explains ‘the best of stories’ (aḥsan al-qaṣaṣ) in Q. 12:3 as the best/most beautiful narrative because it lacks ‘commanding’ and ‘forbidding’ (al-amr wa l-nahı̄) which induces feelings that insinuate shortcomings (yuʿarriḍ li-wuqūʿ al-taqṣır̄ ). Al-Qushayrı̄ tells us that the best story is not explicitly didactic (command/forbid) but at the same time, the story should contain morality and noble, even ideal behaviour that is inspiring and maybe even imitated. A good story also has a mention of ‘the beloved’, in the context of al-Qushayrı̄’s career and explanation, this may be a reference to the divine, prophets, and messengers in the story of Joseph; in a human story, this may refer to ‘likeable’ or ‘noble’ characters. Finally, the title ‘the best of stories’ will remain divine and as al-Qushayrı̄ implies, the rest will have imperfections. Al-Qushayrı̄ has the most insights, especially when it comes to how stories should veer away from the command/forbid as it makes people aware of their shortcomings. The function of stories in the Qur’an, al-Qushayrı̄ maintains, is ‘reflection’ (fa-qṣuṣ al-qaṣaṣ la ʿallahum yatafakkarūn). By extension, the story then should raise questions for thought and reflection as al-Qushayrı̄ intimates. 65

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Al-Thaʿlabı̄ (d. 427/1036) gives multiple reasons for this. He relates that it is ‘the best of stories’ because of the extension of narrated time (imtidād al-awqāt fı̄-ma bayna mubtadāha ilā muntahāha), which he reports according to a consensus as 40 years between Joseph’s dream as a young boy and his reunion with his father and brothers. Al-Thaʿlabı̄ adds that what makes it ‘best’ is Joseph’s noble manners in the face of his brothers’ harm and his forgiving them at the end. He also adds that the plethora and richness of characters in the story is part of what makes it ‘best’, because there is a mention of ‘prophets, good people (ṣal̄ iḥın̄ ), … biography of kings and kingdoms (siyyar al-mulūk wa l-mamālik), merchants, scholars, and fools (juhhāl), men and women and their wiles and guiles.’ Al-Thaʿlabı̄ adds further reasons as monotheism, self-restraint (ʿiffa), dream interpretation, politics and diplomacy (siyāsa), and making a living (tadbı̄r al-maʿı̄sha). It is these reasons, he argues, that make it the best of stories; the abundant meanings (al-maʿānı̄ al-jazı̄la) and great benefits (al-fawā ʾid al-jalı̄la) are applicable in religion as well as life (tuṣliḥ li-l-dı̄n wa l-dunyā). Finally, he relates one of the explanations of ‘best’ (aḥsan) as a ʿjab (lit: inspiring a feeling of wonder and awe).66 So far, exegetes and scholars focus on what makes the story ‘best’ in itself as a structure with little emphasis on the reader or reception explicitly, except for al-Rāzı̄ who emphasises pleasure. It was not until the fourteenth century that we find the jurist and Sufi mystic Ibn ʿAtāʾ al-Iskandarı̄ (d. 709/1309) maintaining that part of being ‘the best of stories’ is that the story of Joseph has a therapeutic effect. He argues that no one distressed (maḥzūn) listens/reads the story of Joseph except that it soothes them (istrāha ̣ ilayha).67 Similarly, 500 years later, we find the same line of thought albeit focused on the internal structure of the story as the Yemeni scholar al-Shawkānı̄ (d. 1834) rephrases al-Iskandarı̄’s conclusion that everyone mentioned in the story (protagonists) had a happy ending (kān maʾālahu al-saʿādata).68 The manifestation of ʿadl on the level of the narrative is evident where everyone is rewarded justly; this is the ‘happy ending’ exegetes spoke about. In the Qur’an, this is divine justice. In literature proper, this is poetic justice. Exegetes accentuated the function, importance, and power of stories as a purely literary enterprise. In doing so, they compared it to human stories; the ‘best of stories’ is a model story, a divine literary prototype. It should be noted that various literary forms and devices in the Qur’an were unheard of and were not in literary circulation previously.69 Exegetes maintain that human-made stories are not able to compete. The aim here

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is not to compete but to understand the value and power of stories from literary models, which raises the question of how the understanding of the ‘best’ in the ‘best of stories’ applied in the institution of pre-modern Arabic literature or adab. In other words, how, if we may ask, did the efforts of exegetes, their insights, and the centrality of the Qur’an at the heart of the literary canon affect the literary institution in terms of definition and function? As the Qur’an created this paradigm shift on the intellectual and religious levels, it also created a paradigm shift on the literary, artistic, and cultural levels. The inexhaustible views exegetes gave to explain why ‘it is the best of stories’ varied and they are all valid despite their differences. However, when we closely examine these opinions, they all point to one factor: equilibrium (i ʿtidāl). Some exegetes spoke about an internal equilibrium pertaining the story itself: eloquence in expression and stylistics matching the events narrated. Some spoke about the richness and diversity of characters and their closeness to the human condition (the balance between the representation of positive and negative forces in the characters, and the balance of these forces and their equivalence in the paradoxical nature of the human psyche as well). Some spoke about equilibrium in the form of divine justice, or literary poetic justice. Others spoke about an external equilibrium (external to the text): the therapeutic effect of a story and its restorative effect pointed out as emotional equilibrium on the reader’s part. Thus, the answer to the aforementioned question of equilibrium in adab was sought in its horizon. But, this remains an answer to the theoretical value of the literary. Is there an applied or a useful value of the literary: the ‘applicatio’ or the ‘validity’ of the literary as well? It could be argued that the institution of adab and adab grew as a type of discourse that saw to the thriving of the human as it emphasised on equilibrium through the practice of what is known as tawifiyat al- ʿadl (granting justice in full measure) which is central to the functioning of any system at all levels.70 The literary institution, adab, promoted this balance by granting equilibrium through its very definition, promoting equilibrium through interpersonal relations by seeing to decorum and observing civility: equilibrium in knowledge through erudition, exposure, and diverse scholarship, equilibrium in knowledge of one’s own culture and other cultures—in short, being a well-rounded individual. The therapeutic effect or external equilibrium that Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Iskandarı̄ spoke about was also recognised and practiced in some of the biggest

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hospitals in the Arab-Islamic pre-modern world: an example would be al-bimāristān al-manṣūrı̄ (al-Manṣūrı̄ Hospital) in medieval Cairo. In addition to medicine, dietary and somatic equilibrium, physicians ensured patients were entertained and soothed by music, storytelling, comic plays, and dance as part of a holistic recuperation process.71 The practical function of the literary and its inherent relationship to the concept of equilibrium is evident in that it is a vital element not only for intellectual well-being, but also for the emotional well-being of individuals or patients at the hospital whether recuperating from physical or mental illnesses. Yet, it is surprising to see Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila flatly voice an opinion on how Arab-Islamic culture is ‘not fond’ of fictitious stories based on ‘religious’ grounds. As we know, Arabic literary culture was not particularly fond of fictitious stories. The main exceptions to this were animal fables and allegories; it seems that these genres were more easily acceptable for the more conservative audience because their fictionality was so obvious. As animals and plants could not speak or act like human beings, stories in which they did speak and act were not in danger of falling into the category of lie (iftirāʾ), against which the Qur’ān takes a rather harsh attitude whereas fictitious stories involving human characters were in danger of being seen as lies because they were potentially true and thus could be taken as true stories.72

In reference to iftirāʾ, Hämeen-Anttila refers to Q. 6:21 (Who does greater wrong than someone who fabricates a lie against God or denies His revelation?). Regardless of the fact that the verse is quoted out of context and is irrelevant to the untenable, even incongruous, claims made about Arabic literary culture in its entirety; what matters is the author’s attempt to support his point by placing the Qur’an as the stick that beats human creative activity and a foil for such strange attitudes towards literature and fiction as a bunch of ‘lies.’ Not only that but the implied message is that the average Arab reader/audience is unable to tell the difference between fiction and reality unless it is a story with talking plants and animals where botanical and zoological anomalies would announce themselves for the reader as fictitious. It is unclear on what basis does this opinion rest nor is it clear who is the ‘we’ that Hämeen-Anttila speaks of and includes at the beginning that should be ‘in the know’ and share the assertion in the introductory pressuring phrase (‘As we know’) that wishes to circulate a fallacious opinion as common knowledge.

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One of the reasons for revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl) in the story of Joseph in the Qur’an is precisely an Arab love for stories as the Qur’an exegetes relate. Al-Samarqandı̄ (d. 373/983) maintains that amongst the reasons for revelation was that the companions of the Prophet wished he would tell them an entertaining story and soothe them with no commanding and forbidding (amr wa nahı̄), legislations and measures (aḥkām wa ḥudūd).73 Naturally, the companions were expecting a fictitious story but Muḥammad is not a storyteller and neither the story of Joseph in the Qur’an, as well as other traditions, to the believers, is fictitious nor should this be read as an implication that it is. Rather, the desire for meaningful entertainment within the Prophet’s circle occasioned the revelation of the story of Joseph which serves two purposes: one sacred and one profane, and the two intertwine. Exegetes discuss the two purposes of the story in light of it being described in the Qur’an as ‘the best of stories’ in Q.12:3. As exegetes compare it to human stories, the ‘best of stories’ is a model story; it is divine. A return to the question of adab and i ʿtidāl (equilibrium) and the manifestation of ‘justice’ in the Here and Hereafter is apposite after the discussion of the ‘best’ of the stories according to the Qur’an. Summarising the exegetes’ analyses, this equilibrium is manifest on three levels. The first level is the textual level in language use and stylistics (bayān) that matches the beauty of the story itself. The language use in the narrative, even in the seduction scene between Potiphar’s wife and Joseph speaks of eloquence that matches the human condition, which the exegetes spoke about. The Qur’an refers to the seduction scene succinctly in one line as a quote said by Potiphar’s wife, [‘Come to me’] and introduces this line from the omniscient narrator point of view, God, as follows: ‘The woman in whose house he was living tried to seduce him: she bolted the doors and said […].’ The Qur’anic expression refrains from naming anyone involved in the situation explicitly but refers to the situation from a spatial perspective: ‘the woman in whose house he was living.’ She has become enamoured with him because of the situation and the circumstances themselves, which in turn refers to a progression of events that act as building blocks towards the situation at hand, not personal traits. The Qur’an thus refrains from morally judging anyone in question or people’s feelings as such. It explains that it is a situation that has risen out of the circumstances at hand (Joseph is at her house, she sees him every day, and they are in close proximity of each other: the situation gradually lead to this

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moment.) The depiction of the seduction scene is understood as a plausible—though not definite or inevitable—progression of events because it is part of being human; feelings are part of being human. In other words, the Qur’an informs us that all people are prone to find themselves in this situation, should circumstances lead to such progression of events. At the same time, the Qur’an tells us that even though certain situations and especially feelings may be overpowering, the exercise of free will is paramount. This is evident in Joseph’s exercising of free will and self-control that separate actions of moral beauty versus moral failure, which he vividly expresses as he turns her down in Q. 12:23, ‘God forbid! My master has been good to me; wrongdoers never prosper.’ The Qur’an emphasises, through Joseph’s story, how morality is part of the thriving of the human as Joseph’s words shows. The second feature that exegetes also spoke about with regards to the story of Joseph is how the narrative achieves i ʿtidāl (equilibrium). Events in the story unfold as Joseph is rewarded after being wronged twice by his brothers and Potiphar’s wife. Also, Jacob’s sorrow is turned into joy and his patience is eventually recompensed by uniting with Joseph again. Exegetes spoke about how the story of Joseph has a therapeutic and soothing effect but did not elaborate on the reasons. It could be agued that part of its therapeutic effect is the pleasure derived from its literary excellence as pointed out by some exegetes as well as its divine and literary poetic justice and the narrative resolution where equilibrium is achieved ( ʿadl and i ʿtidāl). It is seeing characters like Joseph overcome several hardships and become successful at the end, this is why exegetes spoke of it as closer to the ‘human condition.’ Joseph’s example of moral success was also realistic in his balance between spiritual life and worldly success as manifest in his career and status. Finally, the story of Joseph, as al-Tha‘labı̄ mentions, contains a plethora and richness of characters with varying motives and agendas that contribute to the representation of the human condition. This complexity creates a balance in the story whereby the representation of life is not a one-dimensional caricature of moral characters only, nor is life represented as depraved with only morally failed characters. Even the plotting brothers, who are morally questionable characters in the story, develop as they are forgiven and given a second chance at the end. Al-Samarqandı̄ cleverly makes the connection between the beginning of the sura of Joseph as ‘aḥsan’ (best) and the end of it as ‘moral percept’ or ‘lesson’ (ʿibra).74 Similarly, al-Rāzı̄ eloquently defines ‘moral lesson’ (i ʿtibār), in the context of stories, from the etymological root (ʿ.b.r),

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which means to cross from one side to the other. He maintains that it is crossing from the unknown side to the known side (al- ʿubūr min al-ṭaraf al-majhūl ilā al-ṭaraf al-ma ʿlūm) and the purpose of this is contemplation and reflection (wa l-murād minhu al-taʾmmul wa l-tafakkur).75 With respect to stories, one crosses from one mental, emotional, intellectual state to another by deriving meaning and understanding. ‘The Qur’an’, David Damrosch argues, ‘equates understanding with belief, demanding much more than the modern reader’s “willing suspension of disbelief”’.76 And with respect to adab, it is also crossing from one side to the other, through understanding. These constant crossings—in the widest sense of the word—reiterate the crux of the definition of adab: the thriving of the human. It is not strange to find that George Makdisi conceptualises the Arabic ‘adı̄b’ or ‘literati’ as a ‘humanist.’77 An adı̄b or a humanist, has had to do many a crossings before becoming one. Aesthetics In the previous section, I discussed the literary work’s own sense of balance ‘mizān’ and equilibrium ‘i ʿtidāl’ and their relationship to adab. It is only logical that the process towards equilibrium or lack thereof in the literary work is dependent on certain features that contribute to this i ʿtidāl or its absence. These features are the literary work’s aesthetics or what it (the literary work) understands as ‘i ʿtidāl’. In other words, by aesthetics of adab, I mean an approach that ‘[…] has to give an account of literary aesthetic features making it clear in what sense, since they are not to be defined as bundles of textual features, they can be said to be properties of literary works.’78 I therefore seek to emphasise the unique and defining properties of selected works of adab in terms of style, content, and structure; it is rather difficult to see what else literary criticism is about. This calls for an attention to the artistic language of the literary work and its form, which leads to the question: must the representation of disequilibrium utilise similar aesthetic features? In other words, must disequilibria accompany stylistic ugliness to be truly convincing or can it exist independent of corresponding aesthetics? These aesthetic concerns are covered in this book. Equilibrium and i ʿtidāl have been discussed in light of the Qur’an and its boundary intersection of the Here and Hereafter and its physical manifestation as ʿadl. But what is disequilibrium? This books advances what shall be called ‘Qur’anic methodology’ or ‘the hermeneutics of the Qur’an

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for the arts’ to borrow Grabar’s words, to understand the meaning of the lack of equilibrium, understood morally as ‘injustice’ (ẓulm) and aesthetically as ‘ugliness’ (qubḥ). The universal themes of disorder, chaos, or ‘ugliness’ found in adab are often read using the Bakhtinian carnivalesque in an attempt to comparatively read and group World literature thematically together. Despite noble intentions, this, more often than not, produces misguided conclusions that often divorce the literary works under discussion from the literary, linguistic, and cultural systems it belongs to in favour of universal and unanimous conclusions, which may not be always accurate. I elaborate on this by drawing on comparisons between Bakhtin’s carnival and the Qur’anic methodology I develop in this book to show why a Bakhtinian reading of these works is not only doing a disservice to the works and diminishing our literary appreciation of them but also falling into the trap of propagating literary clichés and stereotypes that are counterproductive to the study of adab. Therefore, in this book, in addition to setting to respond to the aforementioned concerns, I will examine the selected literary works to establish qubḥ as a conceptual literary, moral, and aesthetic category informed by the Qur’an as the nucleus of the Arab-Islamic intellectual and literary canon. Comparisons between the methodology put forward in this book and Bakhtin’s carnivalesque shows that the Qur’an is capable of offering us tools, means, and terminology for meaningful literary criticism through sensitive and delicate reading of literary works. In developing the meaning of qubḥ in pre-modern Arabic literary prose, I consider selected tales from The Thousand and One Nights, the maqāmāt of Badı̄ ‘al-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄’s (d. 397/1007), and Risālat al-Ghufrān by Abū’l al-ʿAlā’ al-Maʿarrı̄ (d. 449/1058). These works belong to different categories of the established popular79 versus canonical80 literary works. These two literary strands (popular and canonical) may at first seem challenging to be grouped in the same category under adab. The differentiation between them, thus, is of minor significance as far as the system of adab is concerned and as far as some of these authors viewed adab, as I will show. My methodology draws from the history of reading in Classical ArabIslamic scholarship. Thus, it focuses on the language, words and their usage, and conceptual history and the roles these concepts played in making the ‘spirit’ of the literary work in its entirety come alive. Reading has its roots in Islamic humanism; it is a deliberate practice and a patient act that

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respects the text and its individuality. As Darío Villanueva also expresses this intimate relationship between reading, philology, humanism, and being a non-prejudiced visitor to other horizons of texts, he reminds us of Edward Said’s linking of reading with the history of the Qur’an and subsequently adab. Said reminds us that the word Qur’an means “reading” in Arabic and that the practice of ijtihad—personal and lingering reading, a sort of close reading—in the context of Islamic humanism shares the same goal as an unrenounceable humanist engagement to which comparative literature has much to contribute: teaching how to read well, which in our times means being a member of one’s own literary tradition while remaining an eager visitor to the culture of the Other.81

The history of reading is marked by refinement and sensitivity that lend the adı̄b (literati) their cultured quality that is perhaps dependent not only on wit and intelligence but on the profundity of their understanding as a measurement of these qualities. It is not surprising then to see the recent calls for a return to philology as chiefly emphasised by Sheldon Pollock in his essay ‘Future Philology?’ and the late Edward Said’s essay ‘The Return to Philology.’ It is a practice that is marked by a delicate consideration for the text and its history. It attempts to situate the text within the discipline of humanities by virtue of treating the text as ‘humanely’ as possible. Philology reminds us of both: ‘history’ as part of the world behind the text and ultimately the ‘human’ also. It is perhaps through this aptly termed act of ‘fusion’ that a meaningful relationship with the text takes place. It is a reading that entails intimacy, an intimacy that could never happen without shedding biases and prejudices and walking towards the text with unguarded openness. It presupposes a desire, as all acts of intimacy do, to be closer in order to understand. A text demands a serious and committed relationship. It is through the patient and deliberate reading, the call to return to philology as ‘the art of reading slowly’ as Roman Jakobson rather playfully puts it, that one could achieve an unprejudiced fusion with the text. My approach therefore considers the history of reading in Islam foiled by the recent call to return to philology in relationship to the works I examined. I find Pollock’s definition of the term useful for this enterprise; he defines ‘[…] philology [as], or should be, the discipline of making sense of texts.’82 To use an idiomatic comparison to further explain: ‘[…]

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if mathematics is the language of the book of nature, as Galileo taught, philology is the language of the book of humanity.’83 Why do we read? Is it to force-fit the application of theories and watch them unfold in an interpretive galaxy of fashionable agendas and/or misunderstanding or to find a meaning in the text? I have mentioned the Qur’an’s centrality to the arguments made in this book propelled by its influence on language and literature. I have also mentioned that discussions about the Qur’an’s relationship to adab usually recycle the clichés of a negative ‘authoritative’ relationship to adab to the extent that almost any creative process is interpreted as subversive to the Qur’an, Islam, and all things ‘Islamic’, which I shall show in due course. This is what Hans-Georg Gadamer calls interpretation based on ‘prejudice’ as pre-judgment, stemming from one’s own previous hermeneutical position. Naturally, this comes as a result of viewing the world from a single horizon, which precludes accurate understanding. The central aims of this book are to examine the centrality of the Qur’an and its role in the system of adab and develop tools for literary criticism. The aforementioned literary works will be approached through the theme of ugliness as disorder and chaos. In other words, ugliness, chaos, disorder, and all that stands in opposition to order and equilibrium will be sought in these works. This will allow a greater opportunity to unravel the process of restoring order and equilibrium in that system. This finding not only demonstrates that a stabilised meaning of this concept is traceable in pre-modern Arab-Islamic culture, but also situates the centrality of the Qur’an as a primary source for deriving the meaning of ugliness. The stability, or lack thereof, of the category of qubḥ in the aforementioned works should prove whether the aesthetics of the literary works I examined, inspired by the Qur’an, contribute to the process of meaningmaking. I will seek this process of meaning-making through four highlighted aspects: literary appropriations, narrative equilibrium, artistic language, and reference system. In other words, if an Arab-Islamic category of qubḥ, and naturally ḥusn, truly exist, this by turn proves the existence of an Arabic literary system. The process of meaning-making in language and literature cannot be a universal process. To assert that there are defining Arab-Islamic literary terms and aesthetics features of the works should not be understood as the inability of literature to be read outside its culture or an essentialising practice. Rather, it is an effort to enhance the reading of literature outside its culture and be sensitive to the alterity of this literature for an enhanced

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understanding. Emily Apter calls terms, words, or units that do not travel freely from one language to the other the ‘untranslatables.’ Because these words, Apter argues, are part a network, part of a whole. They form relationships with each other and therefore contain complex layers within themselves. One could add that the layers are not just linguistic but also cultural and temporal.84 In other words, one cannot plant a term from a language/culture into another across time, language, and context and expect it to work unproblematically. Barbara Cassin’s recently edited book A Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon covers about four hundred philosophical, literary, and political terms that resist simple translation between languages and cultures.85 Neither Cassin’s lexicon nor Apter’s argument are against World literature or reading comparatively. On the contrary, they encourage alterity but at the same time they remind us to be mindful of the frequent obliteration of the ‘differences’ at the expense of the Other. This is reminiscent of what Pierre Bourdieu previously defined as symbolic violence. As Terry Eagleton rightly argues, ‘the great majority of literary theories … have strengthened rather than challenged the assumptions of the power-system’.86 In the same manner the term ‘carnivalesque’ is an untranslatable—it has a linguistic singularity in its layers of meaning that not only require knowledge of its linguistic context but also its historical, literary, and cultural contexts—the word qubḥ is another untranslatable. It unearths not only aesthetic ugliness, but also moral and literary ugliness as categories.

THE MEANING OF UGLINESS BETWEEN THE LEXICONS AND THE QUR’AN Arabic lexicography began in the seventh century as a subsequent intellectual effort influenced by the Qur’an and its exegesis.87 It was also influenced by the need to preserve and collect the Arabic language to further assist in maintaining and appreciating the language of the Qur’an especially amongst non-Arab Muslims.88 Arabic lexicons show a discernible consistency in the meaning of the root q.b.ḥ (ugliness) and also a reliance on the semantics and semiotics of the Qur’an. A chronological examination of the word shall assist in furthering the understanding of this root and demonstrating the established relationship between the aesthetic and the moral. In al-Khalı̄l b. Aḥmad al-Farāhı̄dı̄’s (d. 169/786) Kitāb al-ʿAyn, qubḥ is designated a brief entry explaining that it is the general antithesis of beauty (ḥusn) in everything; it also

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explains the well-known Arabic insult ‘qabbaḥahu Allāh’ to mean may God remove him (naḥḥāh) from all that is good (khayr), referring to the Qur’anic verse 28:42. In addition, it ascribes the term ‘ugly’ (qabı̄ḥ) as the anatomical name of the wrist joint, with the plural qabāʾiḥ.89 Two centuries later, in Mujmal al-Lugha, Ibn Fāris (d. 394/1004) does not bring novel insights to the definition aside from what was mentioned already in al-Khalı̄l b. Aḥmad’s.90 In al-Zamakhsharı̄’s (d. 538/1144) Asās al-Balāgha, three additions appear: qubḥ is assigned as a specific adjective for actions that are not beautiful (ḥasan) and also as a form III verb for the act of insulting (qābaḥahu = shātamahu) and form II for the act of squeezing the pus out of a pustule (qabbaḥtu l-bathra),91 perhaps because of the scar it may leave as a result or because of the sight of pus itself in the act of squeezing. In al-Takmila wa l-Dhayl wa l-Ṣila li-Kitāb Tāj al-Lugha wa Ṣiḥāḥ al-ʿArabiyya, al-Ṣaghānı̄ (d. 649/1252) brings an additional insight to the meaning of the word. While agreeing to all that is mentioned above, he maintains that ‘…kull shayʾ kasarta fa-qadd qabbaḥta’ (anything you have broken you have made qabı̄ḥ).92 This view by al-Ṣaghānı̄, as general as it may seem at first glance, summarises the concepts of symmetry and order as main ingredients of beauty. Ibn Manẓūr’s (d. 710/1311) authoritative Lisān al-ʿArab has an extensive entry on qubḥ divided into sections appealing to various authorities.93 For example, a section depending on previous lexicographers such as al-Azharı̄ (d. 369/980), simply reiterates the aforementioned explanations; another section relying on the Prophetic tradition recounts the Prophet’s view on the topic pertaining to the names of individuals. Aqbaḥ al-asmāʾ (the worst names), according to the Prophet Muḥammad, are harb (war) and murra (bitter) for self-explanatory reasons and also because Abū-Murra is the nickname of Iblı̄s (the devil). Also, according to a ḥadı̄th ascribed to the Prophet, he is reported to have said: ‘lā tuqabbiḥū al-wajh’, i.e. ‘do not say someone is qabı̄ḥ’ (ugly), because God created everyone and everything in the best form. In another interpretation it is reported to mean: ‘lā taqūlū qabbaḥ Allāh wajh fulān’ (do not say ‘may God uglify/ banish the face of somebody’).94 An additional section in Ibn Manẓūr’s lexicon states that in al-Nawādir fı̄ l-Lugha (a lexicographical work by Abū Zayd al-Anṣārı̄, d.215/830) al-muqābaḥa and al-mukābaḥa are recognised as al-mushātama (verbal aggression or verbal assault); another section refers to the Qur’anic verse 28:42 ‘wa yawma l-qiyāmati hum min al-maqbūḥın̄ a,’ which Ibn Manẓūr explains as the mal ʿūnı̄n (the damned) and mub ʿadı̄n (the removed or the banished), which he traces to al-qabḥ,

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meaning al-ib ʿād (rejection). In addition, Ibn Manẓūr sets examples from the Arabic colloquialisms, for instance, the insult ‘qabbaḥahu Allāh wa umman zamaʿat bih’, meaning (May God banish him and his mother!) and also the expression ‘qabbaḥ lah wajha’ (to uglify someone’s face) meaning ‘ankar ʿalayhi ʿamalah’ (condemn a deed by someone). Finally, in human anatomy, he maintains that al-qabı̄ḥ is the name of the wrist joint, relying on al-Azharı̄, and justifies this naming because the wrist is the most fragile of bones and if broken it never heals properly; there is probably an inherent antithetical relationship between naming it al-qabı̄ḥ (the ugly) and naming the shoulder joint al-ḥasan (the beautiful), according to Ibn Manẓūr, because the latter is ‘fleshy.’95 However, there could be an implicit underlying meaning behind naming it al-qabı̄ḥ aside from the aesthetic views of an unpleasant (lean) structure, and that is its location at the end of the arm; which is in keeping with the original meaning of qabaḥ and that is al-ib ʿād (isolating, rejecting). Al-Fı̄rūzābādı̄’s (d. 817/1415) al-Qāmūs al-Muḥıt̄ ̣ contains a brief entry on qubḥ that briefly summarises its antithetical relationship to ḥusn and does not fail to mention the famous ‘qabbaḥahu Allāh’ but does not elaborate on qabḥ as disownment.96 The eighteenth century al-Zabı̄dı̄’s (d. 1205/1791) Tāj al- ʿArūs boasts a lengthy entry to be compared only to Ibn Manẓūr’s; however, it exceeds the latter by adding another alternative interpretation based on Ibn ʿAbbās’s97 commentary to the aforementioned verse (28:42) and that is an explanatory reading of the verse to mean ‘ayy min dhawı̄ ṣuwar qabı̄ḥa’ (i.e. they possess ugly features).98 This is the first time Ibn ʿAbbās’s commentary on the verse appears in the lexicons pertaining to the aforementioned verse. However, this attitude does not seem to be reflected in later lexicons, such as But ̣rus Bustānı̄’s (d. 1300/1883) Muḥıt̄ ̣ al-Muḥıt̄ ,̣ which is in accord with all of the above lexicons; however, it does not mention Ibn ʿAbbās’s explanation.99 It could be inferred that only al-Zabı̄dı̄ demanded comprehensiveness in his approach towards the sources of definitions even if the supporting evidence seems to have been abandoned by earlier lexicographers as shown above. It might seem tempting, but al-Zabı̄dı̄’s inclusion of Ibn ʿAbbās’s interpretation should not be read as a reflection of the sentiment that the word might have started to gradually divorce itself from its meaning of rejection and banishment (al-ib ʿād) and started to restrict its meaning only to the aesthetic—bearing both material and moral connotations—antithetical relationship with ḥusn (beauty), if for no other reason than the fact that Ibn ʿAbbās’s commentary simply pre-dates all the other lexicons. Early Sunni canonical works by exegetes such as al-Ṭ abarı̄

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(d. 310/923) refer to the explanation of the word (maqbūḥın ̄ ) as ‘eternal shame and necessary humiliation’ (al-khizyy al-dā ʾim…wa l-hawān al-lāzim).100 For example, in his al-Kashshāf, al-Zamakhsharı̄ refers to the meaning of the word also as being excluded from God’s mercy, hence being a reject and an outcast (al-mat ̣rūdı̄n al-mub ʿadı̄n).101 Al-Rāzı̄ eloquently maintains that it is a combination of both spiritual qubḥ and physical qubḥ; he says that they (the inhabitants of Hell) will combine between the two scandals (faḍıh̄ ̣atayn).102 Al-Rāzı̄ also emphasises that early commentators understood this as ‘spiritual ugliness’ (al-qubḥ al-rūhı̄) as he explains qubḥ, ugliness as ousting (ib ʿād).103 Al-Qurṭubı̄ (d. 671/1273) reads this as the ‘doomed and despised’ (al-muhlakı̄n al-mamqūtı̄n); he also refers to Ibn ʿAbbās and earlier commentators, and mentions physical qubḥ as well as spiritual qubḥ as ousting (ibʿād).104 Similarly, Shı̄ʿı̄ exegetes like al-Ṭ abarsı̄ (d. 548/1153), for instance, maintains that the meaning refers to the muhlakı̄n as the perishing after the grammarian al-Akhfash or alternatively those who shall be disfigured (al-mushawwahı̄n fı̄ l-khilqa) after al-Kalbı̄ and Ibn ‘Abbās. Al-Ṭ abarsı̄ also relates the meaning as mamqutı̄n (abhorred) and like al-Razı̄, he also mentions it as mafḍūḥın̄ (scandalised).105 It is a possibility that those who did not quote Ibn ʿAbbās might have relied on the fact that his explanation has become canonised, almost reaching the status of general knowledge that does not need referencing. This is an attitude that was possibly shared by the lexicographers that did not mention Ibn ʿAbbās as a source as well. Sufi commentators, such as Ibn ‘Arabı̄ (d. 638/1241) and al-Qushayrı̄, do not comment on this verse. There is a discernible consistency in the meaning of qubḥ as discussed in the main lexicons. Ibn ʿAbbās’s commentary includes both qubḥ as ibʿād by virtue of being excluded from God’s mercy, viz. in Hellfire, and it also refers to aesthetic qubḥ as an aftermath of physical punishment in keeping with the vivid descriptions of the punishment in Hell which focus on the corporeal as a mirror of the moral. Addressing the query of how ‘ugliness’ is turned from a word into a term needs more than a lexicological review since the Qur’an informs a considerable part of this lexical meaning. To endeavour towards an inquiry that aims at delineating and understanding a conceptual category such as qubḥ, which more often than not interconnects the aesthetic with the moral, a referential text that is central in its authority of classifications is paramount. The Qur’an then becomes the primary text for methodologically delineating the conceptual field of qubḥ and understanding this

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conceptual category of thought as it pertains to Arab-Islamic culture and consequently adab as a product of this culture. The Qur’an mentions the root (q.b.ḥ: ugliness) once in surat al-Qaṣaṣ (The Story) in 28:42 in reference to Pharaoh and his cohorts: Pharaoh said, ‘Counsellors, you have no other god that I know of except me. Haman, light me a fire to bake clay bricks, then build me

a tall building so that I may climb up to Moses’ God: I am convinced that he is lying.’ Pharaoh and his armies behaved arrogantly in the land with no right—they thought they would not be brought back to Us—so We seized him and his armies and threw them into the sea. See what became of the wrongdoers! We made them leaders calling [others] only to the Fire: on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped. We made Our rejection pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the despised [maqbūḥın ̄ ].

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In the various English translations, maqbūhı̣ n̄ is rendered differently. For instance, Abdullah Yusuf Ali translates it as ‘despised’; A.J.  Arberry renders it as ‘spurned’; Muhammad Asad as ‘bereft of all good’; George Sale as ‘shamefully rejected’; E.H.  Palmer as ‘abhorred’, John Medows Rodwell as ‘covered shall they be with shame’; N.J. Dawood as ‘damned’; M.M. Pickthal as ‘hateful’; T.B. Irving as ‘they will look hideous’; Laleh Bakhtiar as ‘spurned’; and Aisha Bewley renders it as ‘they will be hideous and spurned’. The word maqbūhı̣ n̄ refers to an acquired state of being: disownment and rejection, because of moral failings on the wrongdoers’ part. The place of the actualisation of this rejection is Hellfire. The Qur’an does not mention physical disfigurement as part of this understanding; it is understood as an outcome of being physically in the locale of Hell as the Qur’an maintains. It then becomes associated with ‘spiritual qubḥ’ as moral rejection as well as aesthetic or physical qubḥ. In Q. 28:42, the Qur’an does not specify only Pharaoh and his army. The verse’s grammatical structure refers to the latter (hum) as being a part of a much wider class who will all share this quality: they (hum) shall be among (min) the (al) maqbūhı̣ n̄ . The defined passive participle (ism al-maf ʿūl) reinforces this idea; had it been only Pharaoh and his army, then the acquired quality of qubḥ need not be defined to restrict itself to them (Pharaoh and his army) as the only maqbūhı̣ n̄ . In addition, the semantic signification of the passive participle points to an obligatory and inevitable acquired state that becomes part of the designated locale: Hell. An inquiry into the reasons behind this state of being as maqbūhı̣ n̄ is tantamount to the understanding of the concept of qubḥ. This naturally leads to an investigation of the association of ‘qubḥ’ with ‘moral failure,’ ‘physical qubḥ,’ and ‘Hell’: a relation which establishes an analytic schema of the Qur’anic depiction of Hell, its inhabitants, and their qualifying characteristics as a logical necessity. To draw out the meaning of ‘ugliness’ (qubḥ)—and by turn ‘beauty’ (ḥusn)—from the Qur’an entails an explanation of what is meant by ‘meaning.’ Does a word, in this case ‘ugliness’ (qubḥ), refer to a concept that is entirely in the mind? Or does it refer to that which exists outside the mind? In other words, when we say ‘the meaning of ugliness,’ is ugliness a description of a conceptual image or a description of an actual form and matter? Or both? In his lexicon, Muʿjam al-Taʿrifāt (The Lexicon of Definitions and Terminologies), al-Shārı̄f al-Jurjānı̄ (d. 816/1413) lists all definitions and terminology pertaining to the terms of the sciences of jurisprudence (fiqh), linguistics (lugha), philosophy (falsafa), logic (mant ̣iq), Sufism

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(taṣawwuf), grammar (naḥw), morphology (ṣarf), prosody (ʿarūḍ), and rhetoric (balāgha). The terms belong to the aforementioned disciplines, and more, as the scholars and people in these fields used them until his time. The book is one of the earliest in its specialisation in defining terms in the Arts and Sciences. Al-Jurjānı̄ even lists the definition of a term as ‘an agreement amongst a group to assign a word in accordance to a meaning.’106 A term is also defined as ‘turning a word from its linguistic meaning to another meaning to explain an issue or because of a correlation.’107 It appears that fields have agreed amongst themselves to use it in this semantic capacity.108 With respect to ‘meaning,’ al-Sharı̄f al-Jurjānı̄ lists the definition as ‘that which is meant by something (mā yuqṣad bi-shay ʾ).’109 Naturally, there are levels of ‘meanings,’ not just one. Al-Jurjānı̄ further lists the definition of ‘meanings’ (al-maʿānı̄), agreed amongst scholars, as follows: if a word evokes a conceptual image (taḥsu ̣ l min al-lafẓ fı̄ l-ʿaql), then it is called a concept (summiyyat mafhūman); if it is included in the response to the question ‘what is?’, then it is a definition, the whatness (māhiyya) so to speak; if it is manifest outside [the mind] (thubūtuh fı̄ l-khārij), i.e. it has material existence, it is a fact (ḥaqı̄qa); and if it is distinct from another (imtiyāz ʿan al-aghyār) then it is an identity (huwiyya).110 In response to the question ‘what is qabı̄ḥ?’ and/or ‘qubḥ,’ qabı̄ḥ features several times in al Sharı̄f al-Jurjānı̄ lexicon, one of them as a terminology in itself. In the definition of ‘khuluq’ (behaviour/morals), it is used to class a certain type of behaviour, thereby implying the acknowledgment of the term as part of these definitions. He describes a class of actions as ‘qabı̄ḥ’ (ugly) in his definition of morals (al-khuluq), which necessitates describing this behaviour as bad (sayyi ʾ).111 And in his definition of forgiveness (maghfira) he describes it as the ability to not reveal (yastur) qabı̄ḥ actions done by one’s juniors and/or subordinates.112 Al-Jurjānı̄ also refers to qubḥ and its antithesis ḥusn in his definition of taqdı̄r (character assessment) as ‘identifying everyone’s existing attributes, with their qabı̄ḥ and ḥasan ones as well as their positive and detrimental ones, and so on. (taḥdı̄d kull makhlūq bi-ḥadihi al-ladhı̄ yūjad bih min ḥusn wa qubḥ wa naf ʿ wa ḍarr wa ghayrihimā).113 Qubḥ is also used in an aesthetic manner proper in al-Jurjānı̄’s lexicon in the definition of ‘al-maskh’ (disfiguring, deforming) when one form is turned aqbaḥ (uglier) than the existing one.114 If the lexicon’s reader is in doubt about what is meant by the al-qabı̄ḥ in those two definitions and why it should be pardoned, al-Jurjānı̄ lists the term’s definition as ‘that which necessitates criticism promptly and punishment subsequently’ (ma yakūn mutaʿliq al-dham fı̄ l-ʿājil wa l- ʿiqāb fı̄ l-ājil).115 But that

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which necessitates criticism promptly is not yet specified, in other words the foundations of the category of qubḥ remain an unknown at this point. The aforementioned locale the maqbūḥın̄ as referred to in Q. 28:42 is spatial (Hellfire), with aesthetic consequences (disfigurement as a result of punishment) because of described moral failure or ‘spiritual qubḥ.’ The verse describes this state of ousting and exclusion in Hellfire but does not explicitly carry within itself the aesthetic dimension of qubḥ; it is inferred as a result of the place of reference: Hell. This inference is also validated in the lexical examination of the word ‘qubḥ’ that shows an inherent relationship between both the aesthetic and the moral in their references to the Qur’an in general. The relationship is also clear in al-Jurjānı̄’s definition of qubḥ as that which necessitates criticism promptly and punishment subsequently. The study is not merely concerned with ‘moral badness’ or ‘sin’ in the Qur’an or adab, though these are central themes to the research. The book approaches these transgressions by examining how the moral intersects with the aesthetic. Transgressions posit an immense repository of explanatory powers in adab as well as outside it. Therefore, building a semantic investigation based only on the linguistic Qur’anic prescriptions of ‘sins’ (pl. sayi ʾāt; sing. sayyi ʾa; root: s.w.’) to trace the occurrences of sūʾ (bad), the moral antonym of ḥasana (good/beautiful deed), would restrict the study to the moralistic, not even moral, and would exclude the all-encompassing qubḥ (ugliness) which groups it under the moral and aesthetic. This is not the aim of this book, as it is needless to mention the problems a root like s.w.’ would create because of its many Qur’anic faces (wujūh) as known in the field of Qur’anic sciences.116 The relationship between the aesthetic and the moral is not circumscribed to the Qur’anic definition of ‘ugliness’ and/or ‘beauty’; this relationship has been extended to the definition/function of adab in the pre-modern period: It may mean ‘good manners or good breeding’, ‘politeness’, ‘erudition’, ‘knowledge needed for a specific purpose or profession’, or ‘repertoire of belletristic texts needed for polite conversation’. On the other hand, it would not normally refer to religious texts such as the Koran or the extensive body of so-called Tradition literature, on the sayings and acts of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), texts that cannot be omitted from discussions on the literary canon.117

Indeed, ‘…no one would doubt the intimate relation of the Qur’an to classical Islamic poetry and prose.’118 Nonetheless the Qur’an is not

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adab or literature but it cannot be omitted from discussions of the literary canon. The Qur’an is used in a literary-theological manner: ‘…poetic imageries, metaphors and similes, stories, anecdotes and parables, moral precepts and religious injunctions […] to present its worldview and philosophy of history.’119 The way this has influenced the production of adab is seen in the very definition of adab itself. Adab is influenced by the literary excellence of the Qur’an but also by a keenness to sometimes use literary mediums to present a moral percept. Adab is not only literary but also aesthetically powerful as well as moral. This should not be misunderstood as a desire to imitate the Qur’an on adab’s part or to challenge it, although there have been self-identified challenges across history.120 Rather, it is absurd to view the only influence of the Qur’an behind the literary text as only ‘theological.’ The Qur’an’s literary-theological rupture opened new horizons of writing, invited original literary connections, and creative literary structures that are worthy of investigation. The three literary works considered in this book are narrative texts, evidently part of the corpus of Arabic adab. If one must follow the generic classifications of ‘popular’ vs. ‘canonical’ literary works, the book combines both strands. The popular by classification and by literary travels and readership: selections from The Thousand and One Nights and the maqāmāt, a ‘canonical’ high-brow literary work, and finally the canonical and controversial Risālat al-Ghufrān [The Epistle of Forgiveness] by Abū’l ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrı̄. These two literary strands (popular and canonical) when viewed in combination enrich the range of qubḥ by offering a wider platform of expression in terms of content, technique, and form. The differentiation between them is of minor significance as far as the nature of qubḥ is concerned. This should not be surprising because the differentiation between the two literary elements (popular versus canonical) rests primarily on language use121, but not the symbolic level of the language (or the semiotics) in the literary work itself. This not only demonstrates that a stabilised meaning of this concept is traceable in pre-modern Arab-Islamic culture but also situates the centrality of the Qur’an as a primary source for deriving this definition. It is therefore important to note, as I will show in this book, that upon close reading of the various aforementioned types of pre-modern Arabic prose and narrative, the modern definition of ‘literature’ cannot be applied. The outcome of applying this definition often results in erroneous readings of the literary works as this book proposes. Many modern

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readings of the selected narratives render them ‘subversive’ in various ways and for various reasons. Some view The Thousand and One Nights some as a degenerate text worthy of censorship,122 while the maqāmāt of Hamadhānı̄ is viewed as a work that ‘celebrates a little naughtiness and sin’.123 This approach is partially inspired by the modernistic readings of these texts that approach them as ‘literature’ or through Mikhail Bakhtin’s eyes or other unsuitable methodologies. These literary works present disorder, chaos and ugliness as they are; in other words, they recognise what beauty is and highlight ugliness to emphasise the meaning of order and beauty. The works conform to the definition and function of adab as the pre-modernists understood it and not as some modernists (mis)understand it sometimes either through reference to Western methodologies or for other reasons. The former practice ensues in obliterating Arabic literary history and applying methodologies that result in theoretical confusions that often put adab and creativity—intentionally or not—in conflict with the tradition by decontextualising literary works from their linguistic, cultural, historical, and literary contexts. Such attitudes, while divorcing literature from its culture and literary milieu where it should not be divorced, also incongruously project on them through the distorting mirror of subjectivity a ‘fabricated clash’ between the sacred and the profane, and between Islam and human creative activity under the pretext of what this practice understands or rather misunderstands as ‘secular criticism.’ Edward Said reminds us that ‘secular criticism’ ‘…is a practice of unbelief; it is directed, however, not simply at the objects of religious piety but at secular “beliefs” as well, and, at its most ambitious, at all those moments at which thought and culture become frozen, congealed, thinglike and self-enclosed…At no point is secular used in Edward Said’s work in simple opposition to the religious per se.’124 The practice of ‘unbelief’ is to shed one’s prejudices before encountering the text or before intellectual encounters at large; it is not an ‘unbelief’ understood—very narrowly—in the religious or spiritual sense. In fact, the Qur’anic methodology advanced in this book corroborates ‘secular criticism’ as Said advanced it and as we understand it. Establishing the Qur’an’s role generates a healthy ‘unbelief’ at the frozen and self-enclosed literary judgments that have become dogmas and a system of belief in themselves. In conclusion, as the book seeks to establish the meaning of qubḥ in the Qur’anic sense as an important conceptual category of thought in both popular and canonical Arabic literary works thereby highlighting the presence of an Arabic literary system with literary

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networks, it will simultaneously respond to some of the theoretical confusions briefly mentioned above. I have thus so far addressed the role of the Qur’an in adab, the definition of adab, its role, and its difference from ‘literature’; the system of adab and its moral vocabulary and aesthetics; and the meaning of qubḥ in the lexicons and its occurrence in the Qur’an. That being said, it is necessary now to move further deeper into the hermeneutics of the Qur’an to map out the conceptual and aesthetic components of qubḥ.

NOTES 1. More on this in Chaps. 9 and 10. 2. I discuss this work elsewhere in ‘The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of adab’ in Qur’an and adab: The Shaping of Classical Literary Tradition, ed. Nuha al-Shaʿar (London: Oxford University Press & The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Forthcoming, 2016). 3. Tawfı̄q Saʿı̄d, ‘al-Jamı̄l wa l-muqaddas fı̄ Khibratayy al-Fann wa l-dīn’, ALIF: Journal of Comparative Poetics 23 (2003): 11. 4. Ibid. 5. Carl W.  Ernst, Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 28–9. 6. Kamal Abu-Deeb, ‘Studies in the Majāz and Metaphorical Language of the Qur’ān’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 344. 7. See Paul Henle ed., Language, Thought and Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958); see also Shukri B. Abed, ‘Language’ in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman (New York: Routledge, 1996), 898–925. 8. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur ʾān (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 74. 9. Adūnis, al-Naṣs ̣ al-Qur ʾāni wa Afāq al-Kitāba (Beirut: Dār al-Adāb, 1993), 21–2. 10. Ebrahim Moosa, ‘Textuality in Muslim Imagination: from authority to metaphoricity’, Acta Academica Supplementum 1 (1995): 57. 11. Nasr Abu Zayd, ‘The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur’an’ ALIF: Journal of Comparative Poetics 23 (2003): 8. 12. See, Navid Kermani, Gott ist schön: das ästhetische Erleben des Koran (München:C.H.  Beck, 2000). See also, the Arabic translation, Navid Kermani, balāghat al-nūr: jamālı̄yāt al-naṣs ̣ al-qurʼānı̄, trans. Muḥammad Aḥmad Mansūr et al. (Freiburg: Al-Kamel Verlag, 2008). 13. Adūnı̄s, al-Naṣs ̣ al-Qur ʾāni, 21–2. 14. Abu-Deeb, ‘Studies in Majāz and Metaphorical Language of the Qur’an’, 345.

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15. Ibid. 340. See, also al-Sharı̄f al-Raḍı,̄ Talkhı̄s al-Bayān fı̄ Majāzāt al-Qur ʾān, ed. ʿAlı̄ Maḥmūd Maqlad (Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥ ayāt, n.d.), 34. 16. Abu-Deeb, ‘Studies in the Majāz and Metaphorical Language of the Qur’ān’, 345. 17. Abu Zayd, ‘The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur’an’, 14. 18. Taha Hussein, fı̄ l Shi ʿr al-Jāhilı̄, 20–6 cited in Abu Zayd, ‘The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur’an’, 21. 19. Taha Hussein, fı̄ l Shi‘r al-Jāhilı̄: al-Kitāb wa l-Qaḍiyya (Cairo: Ruʾya li-lNashr wa l-Tawzīʾ, 2007), 80. 20. Adūnı̄s, al-Naṣs ̣ Qur ʾāni wa Afāq al-Kitāba, 22. 21. Tammām Ḥ assān, al-Usūl: Dirāsa Ebistı̄mūlūjiyya li-l-Fikr al-Lughawı̄ ʿinda al-ʿArab (Cairo: ʿĀ lam al-Kutub, 2000), 241. See, ibid., for classifications under fiqh al-lugha and what it includes. 22. See, ‘Grammar and Grammarians ’ in Encyclopedia of Medieval Islamic Civilization, ed. Josef W. Meri and Jere L. Bacharach (London: Routledge, 2005), 1: 300. 23. Abu Zayd, ‘The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur’an’, 38. 24. Adūnı̄s, al-Naṣs ̣ al-Qur ʾāni wa-Afāq al-Kitāba, 35. 25. Ibid. 26. Sayyid Qutb, al-Taṣwı̄r al-Fannı̄ fi l-Qur ʾān, (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 2002), 36. 27. Adūnı̄s, al-Naṣs ̣ al-Qur ʾāni wa Afāq al-Kitāba, 35. 28. Berque, Relire le Coran, 34 cited in Ziad elMarsafy, The Enlightenment Qur’an (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009), 191. 29. See Jūrjı̄ Zaydān, Tarı̄kh Ā dāb al-Lugha al- ʿArabiyya (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, n.d.), 1: 191. 30. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ‘Text and Textuality: Q. 3:7 as a Point of Intersection’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata, (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 70. 31. Sheldon Pollock, ‘Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World’, Critical Inquiries 35, no. 4 (2009): 957. 32. See, Wadad Kadi, ‘The Impact of the Qurʾān on the Epistolography of ʿAbd al-Ḥ amı̄d,’ in Approaches to the Qur ʾān, ed. G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader Shareef (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 285–313. 33. See, M.A.S. Abdel-Haleem, ‘The Qur’an in the Novels of Naguib Mahfouz,’ Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16:3 (2014): 126–104, see the rest of this special issue ‘The Qur’an in Modern World Literature’ for more on the Qur’an and literature. See also, Hoda El Shakry, ‘Revolutionary Eschatology: Islam & the End of Time in al-Ṭ āhir Waṭtạ ̄r’s al-Zilzāl,’ Journal of Arabic Literature 42 (2011): 120–47. 34. Ziad elMarsafy, The Enlightenment Qur’an (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009), xi. 35. Ibid., 180.

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36. Humberto Garcia, Islam and the English Enlightenment 1670–1849 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 3. 37. Edward Said, ‘The World, the Text and the Critic’, The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association 8, no. 2 (1975): 4. 38. Oleg Grabar, ‘The Qur’an as a Source of Artistic Inspiration’ in Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions, ed. Fahmida Suleman (Oxford: Oxford University Press & The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2007), 38. Grabar’s call has been answered where the visual arts are concerned; See, Ahmad Moustafa and Stefan Sperl, The Cosmic Script: Sacred Geometry and the Science of Arabic Penmanship, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2014). 39. Adūnı̄s, al-Naṣs ̣ al-Qur ʾāni wa Afāq al-Kitāba, 36. 40. Abdelfattah Kilito, al-Adab wa l-Gharāba (Morocco: Toubkal, 2006), 21–2. 3rd edition. 41. Ibid., 21. 42. Ibid., 22. 43. Kilito, al-Adab wa l-Gharāba, 88. 44. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, (New York: Continuum, 2006), 304–5. 45. Truth and Method, 301. 46. Ibid., 302. 47. Ibid., 305. 48. Geert Jan van Gelder, ‘Classical Arabic Literary Canon of Polite (and Impolite) Literature’ in Cultural Repertoires: Structure, Function, and Dynamics, ed. G.  J. Dorleijn, Herman L.  J. Vanstiphou (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2003), 47. 49. Wolfhart Heinrichs, ‘The Classification of the Sciences and the Consolidation of Philology in Classical Islam’ in Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East, ed. J.W.  Drijvers and A.A. MacDonald (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 119–20. 50. Roy P.  Mottahedeh, ‘ʿAjāi ʾb in The Thousand and One Nights,’ in The Thousand and One Nights in Arabic Literature and Society, ed. Richard G.  Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 29–39. 51. See, for instance, al-Qazwı̄nı̄, Zakariyya b. Aḥmad, ‘Ajāʾib al-Makhlūqāt wa Gharā ʾib al-Mawjūdāt (Beirut: Dār al-Afāq al-Jadı̄da, 1977). See, also the illustrated folios of the aforementioned manuscript portraying various curious creatures. Several of these anecdotes and others had been an inspiration to the famous Sindbad travels. Ada Barbaro discusses in her book how modern Arabic Science Fiction rests on a continuum of pre-modern proto-type Arabic ʿaja ʾibı̄ fiction. See, Ada Barbaro, La fantascienza nella letteratura araba (Carroci, 2013). See, also, Arabic Literature (in English), ‘Science Fiction in Arabic: ‘It Was Not Born All of a Sudden”, September 30th 2013.

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52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69.

70.

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Accessed July 7th, 2014. http://arablit.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/ science-fiction-in-arabic-it-was-not-born-all-of-a-sudden/ Mottahedeh, ‘ʿAjā ʾib in The Thousand and One Nights,’ 38. Eagleton, After Theory, (London and New York: Basic Books, 2004), 144. Ibid. Ibid., 145. Ibid., 154. Cf. Claudio Guillén, ‘Poetics as System,’ Comparative Literature 22, no.3 (1970): 193–222. Guillén defines the system’s operation from a literary history perspective when ‘no single element can be comprehended or evaluated correctly in isolation from the historical whole […] of which it is a part.’ Stefan Sperl, ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts’ in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality, ed. Bruce B.  Lawrence and Vincent Cornell. (Forthcoming, 2017). For more on the term i ʿtidāl See, Christopher J. Bürgel, ‘Adab und i ʿtidāl in ar-Ruhāwı̄s Adab aṭ-Ṭ abı̄b: Studie zur Bedeutungsgeschichte zweier Begriffe,’ Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 117 (1967): 90–102. Mustansir Mir, ‘Mizān,’ Dictionary Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, (New York and London: Garland Publications Inc., 1987), 136. Fakhr al-Dı̄n al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000), 18: 68. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 18: 68. Ibid. al-Baghdādı̄ al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-Taʾwı̄l fı̄ Maʿānı̄ al-Tanzı̄l (Beirut: Dār alFikr, 1979), 3:261. al-Zamaskharı̄, al-Kashshāf, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Mahdı̄ (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, n.d.), 2:416. al-Qushayrı̄, Latạ ̄i ʾif al-Ishārāt, ed. ʿAbd al-Laṭıf̄ Ḥ assan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000), 2:65. Cf. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAli al-Jawzı̄, Zād al-Ması̄r fı̄ ʿIlm al-Tafsı̄r (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmı̄, 1404 A.H.), 4:179; cf. Muḥammad b. ʿAlı̄ al-Shawkānı̄, Fatḥ al-Qadı̄r (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.), 3:5. al-Thaʿlabı̄ al-Nisābūrı̄, al-Kashf wa l-Bayān, ed. Abı̄ Muḥammad bin ʿAshūr (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, 2002), 5:197. Cited in al-Baghāwı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Baghawı̄, ed. Khālid ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUkk (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, n.d.), 2:408. al-Shawkānı̄, Fatḥ al-Qadı̄r, 3:5. Muḥammad al-Ṭ āhir bin ʿAshūr, al-Taḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r (Tunis: Dār Ṣaḥnūn, 1997), 1:120. For instance, the narrative style in narrating the conditions of both Paradise and Hell inhabitants and the representation of these conditions, dialogues, etc. See, Sperl, ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts.’

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̄ Tarı̄kh al-Bimāristānāt fı̄ l-Islām (Beirut: Dār al-Rāʾid 71. See, Aḥmad ʿIsa, al-ʿArabı̄, 1981), 102. 2nd edition. 72. Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002), 94. 73. al-Samarqandı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Samarqandı̄ [Baḥr al-ʿUlūm], ed. Maḥmūd Maṭarjı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.), 2: 178–9. 74. al-Samarqandı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Samarqandı̄ [Baḥr al-ʿUlūm], 2:178. 75. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 18:181. 76. David Damrosch, ‘Foreword: Literary Criticism and the Qur’an,’ Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16.3 (2014): 6. 77. See, George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges and Institutions of Learning in Islam; Cf. van Gelder, ‘Classical Arabic Canon of Polite and (Impolite) Literature,’ 54. 78. Stein Haugom Olsen, The End of Literary Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 2. 79. An understanding of the term is best viewed through Mia Gerhardt’s explanation, which maintains that ‘Arabic popular literature of the early ʿAbbasid period drew its inspiration from three main sources: Persia, the Bedouin society of the Arabian Peninsula and the Baghdad of Harūn al-Rashı̄d (170– 93/786–809) and al-Maʾmūn (198–218/813–33).’ Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 121–30 cited in H.T. Norris, ‘Fables and Legends’ in Abbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany et  al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 136. For more on this, see the aforementioned article and see also by the same author, ‘Fables and Legends in Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Times’ in Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A.F.L.  Beeston et  al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 374–86. 80. The term ‘canonical’ is used as a ‘collective term for the totality of the most highly esteemed works in a given culture.’ Trevor Ross, ‘Canon’ in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 514–16. 81. Darío Villanueva, ‘Possibilities and Limits of Comparative Literature Today,’ Comparative Literature and Culture 13, no. 5 (2011): 82. Pollock, ‘Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World,’ 934. 83. Ibid. 84. See, Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (London and New York: Verso, 2013). 85. See, Barbara Cassin, ed. A Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).

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86. Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 170. 4th edition. 87. See Gregor Schoeler, The Genesis of Literature in Islam, trans. Shawkat M. Toorawa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 85. 88. See, John Alfred Haywood, Arabic Lexicography: its history, and its place in the general history of lexicography, (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 13ff. For more on the Qur’an’s influence on literary activity and literary criticism, See, Muḥammad Zaghlūl Sallām, Athar al-Qur ʾān fı̄ Ṭ aṭawwur al-Naqd al-ʿArabı̄ ilā Ā khir al-Qarn al-Rābi ʿ al-Hijrı̄ (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1952). 89. al-Farāhı̄dı̄, Kitāb al- ʿAyn, ed. Mahdı̄ al-Makhzūmı̄ and Ibrāhı̄m al-Sāmarrāʾı̄ (Baghdad: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa l-Iʿlām, 1980), 3:53–4. 90. Ibn Fāris, Mujmal al-Lugha, ed. Hādı̄ Ḥ asan Ḥ ammūdı̄ (Kuwait: Al-Munaẓẓama al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Tarbiya wa l-Thaqāfa wa l- ʿUlūm, 1985), 3:138. 91. al-Zamakhsharı̄, Asās al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1979), 488. 92. al-Ṣaghānı̄, al-Takmila wa l-Dhayl wa l-Ṣila li-Kitāb Tāj al-Lugha wa Ṣiḥāḥ al- ʿArabiyya, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlı̄m al-Ṭ ahāwı̄ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat dār al-Kutub, 1970–1977), 2:80–81. 93. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al- ʿArab (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1997), 5:187. 94. This is a common invective in the Classical Arabic language and this example is attributed to Jarı̄r ‘qabbaḥa al-ilāha wujūha Taghlib kullamā sabbaḥa al-ḥajı̄ju wa kabbarū takbı̄ra’ [May God banish/uglify the faces of the tribe of Taghlib every time the pilgrims praise and glorify God] and is mentioned in Tafsı̄r Fatḥ al-Qadı̄r by al-Shawkānı̄ for sūrat al-Aʿlā (87: 1). See, al-Shawkānı̄, Fatḥ al-Qadı̄r, 5:423. 95. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al- ʿArab, 5:187–88. 96. al-Fı̄rūzābādı̄, al-Qāmūs al-Muḥıt̄ ̣, ed. Naṣr al-Ḥ ūrı̄nı̄ (Būlāq: n.p., 1884– 1885), 1:239. 97. ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-ʿAbbās (d. 68/687–8) a contemporary of the Prophet Muḥammad was known for his extensive knowledge and is considered the founder of Qur’anic exegesis. L. Veccia Vaglieri, ‘Ibn ʿAbbās’ in EI 2. 98. al-Zabı̄dı̄, Tāj al-ʿArūs, ed. ʿAbd al-Sattār Aḥmad Farrāj (Kuwait: al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, 1965–2001), 4: 162–63. 99. Bustānı̄, Muḥıt̄ ̣ al-Muḥıt̄ ̣ (Beirut: n.p., 1867–1870), 2:1652. 100. al-Ṭ abarı̄, Jāmi ʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwı̄l ayy al-Qur ʾān (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1405 A.H.), 20:79. 101. al-Zamakhsharı̄, al-Kashshāf, 3:421. 102. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 24:218. 103. Ibid. 104. al-Qurṭubı̄, al-Jāmi ʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qur ʾān (Cairo: Dār al-Shaʿb, n.d.), 13:290. 105. al-Ṭ abarsı̄, Majmaʿ al-Bayān fı̄ Tafsı̄r al-Qur ʾān, ed. Bāsim al-Rasūlı̄ al-Maḥallātı̄ (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, n.d.), 7: 255.

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106. al-Sharı̄f al-Jurjānı̄, Muʿjam al-Taʿrifāt, ed. Muḥammad Ṣiddı̄q al-Minshāwı̄ (Cairo: Dār al-Faḍıl̄ a, n.d.), 27. 107. Ibid. 108. Ibid. 109. Ibid., 184. 110. Ibid.,184–85. 111. Ibid., 89. 112. Ibid. According to al-Jurjānı̄, the act of a junior forgiving his/her superior does not fall under ‘ghafar lahā/lahu.’ 113. Ibid., 58. 114. Ibid., 178. 115. Ibid.,144. 116. al-wujūh wa l-naẓā ʾir (lit. faces and kindreds) means that a single word may be mentioned several times in the Qur’an but it bears a different meaning according to the context. And so the ‘faces’ refer to the all meanings in a single context. For example, the word ‘aya’ occurs many times but it sometimes mean a ‘verse’ from the Qur’an, sometimes a ‘proof’, sometimes a ‘miracle’, sometimes a ‘sign’, …etc. according to the context. For more, see, Abū-Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄, al-Wujūh wa l-Naẓāʾir; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlı̄ Ibn al-Jawzı̄, Muntakhab Qurrat ʿUyūn al-Nawāẓir fı̄ l-Wujūh wa l-Naẓāir fı̄ l-Qurān al-Karı̄m, to mention a few. 117. van Gelder, ‘Classical Arabic Literary Canon of Polite (and Impolite) Literature,’ 47. 118. Damrosch, ‘Foreword: Literary Criticism and the Qur’an,’ 4. 119. Mahmoud M. Ayoub, ‘Literary Exegesis of the Qur’ān: The Case of al-Sharı̄f al-Raḍı’̄ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata, (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 292. 120. See, for example, the discussions of some these imitations and self-identified challenges in al-Jurjānı̄’s, al-Bāqillānı̄’s as well as al-Rummānı̄’s treatises on the inimitability of the Qur’an and their commentaries on them. Thalāth Rasā ʾil fı̄ I ʿjāz al-Qur ʾān, ed. Muḥammad Khalafallah Aḥmad and Muḥammad Zaghlūl Sallām (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1976). 121. van Gelder, ‘Classical Arabic Canon…,’ 48. 122. Alberto Manguel, ‘One Thousand and One Years of Censorship—The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin.’ Index on Censorship 23, nos. 1–2 (1994): 182–85 Review. 123. Lenn E.  Goodman,‘Hamadhānı̄, Schadenfreude and Salvation Through Sin,’ Journal of Arabic Literature 19, no. 1 (1988): 27–39. 124. Aamir R. Mufti, ‘Critical Secularism: A Reintroduction for Perilous Times,’ boundary 2 31 no. 2 (2004): 2–3.

PART I

‫ﺣﺴﻦ ﻭ ﻗﺒﺢ‬ The Hermeneutics of the Qurʾan: Literary Theory and Key Terms

The following four chapters comprising part 1 venture to delineate the categories of ḥusn (Chap. 2) and qubḥ (Chap. 3) from the Qurʾan, examine the aesthetics of disfigurement in Hell (Chap. 4), and emphasise the categories of ḥusn and qubḥ in language as mapped out in the Qur’an (Chap. 5). This method, in principle, should not rely solely on exegesis. However, I will refer to exegetical works if necessary. In this analysis, I take the Qur’anic verse 28:42 as a point of departure in situating the maqbūḥın ̄ in the geographical space of Hell. It then becomes a logical necessity to construct the study based on situating the maqbūḥın ̄ in Hell, which as the Qurʾan maintains is a site of rejection and banishment from God’s mercy. Hell then becomes not only associated with qubḥ, as the verse affirms. It is also perceived in an antithetical relation to Heaven, the latter being the prototype of ḥusn: beauty. My approach to the Qurʾan in this part is linguistic, literary, aesthetic, and semiotic. The historical questions of reasons for revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl), chronological order, or chapter coherence while necessary in Qurʾanic Studies, are outside the concern of the present query. Similarly, theological discussions pertaining to the ‘nature’ or ‘reality’ versus ‘allegory’ of Hell/Heaven are also valid discussions but outside the scope of this query. That being said, I will address attention to theological matters when necessary and befitting. My concern then is to

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read the aesthetics of Hell and Heaven in relationship to the conceptual networks they form throughout the Qurʾan. This approach is concerned with how the literary and aesthetic aspects of the Qurʾan serve its moral purposes through semantics, stylistics, themes, and narrative. Pre-modern exegetes and rhetoricians have been reading the Qurʾan literarily since the eighth century, whether in exegesis proper or works on rhetoric in what they termed bayān al-qurʾān or iʿjāz al-qurʾān. Later, many a modern Muslim scholar offered literary readings of the Qur’an such as the controversial Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) and ʿAisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (1913–1998). The former offered a solid unitary theory of the literary aspects of the Qurʾan in the modern period.1 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān modernised the term and called it tafsı̄r bayānı̄, or tafsı̄r adabı̄ (literary exegesis). She similarly offered an appreciation of the literary qualities of the Qurʾan but not a theory of its aesthetics as such, which remains a desideratum. The ‘Qurʾan,’ in the title of this book, does not therefore refer to all its content subjects and themes. It refers only to the delineation of the category of ‘ugliness,’ and by extension ‘beauty,’ by way of thematic exegesis (al-tafsı̄r al-mawḍūʿı̄),2 and semantic analysis to trace and establish the meaning of the concept of ugliness as such, and accordingly the influence of these conceptions on adab. Methodologically, thematic exegesis traces the relevant term and theme; it must obey the linguistic rule and search for the concordances of the theme in the Qurʾan. The task at hand recognises that the Qurʾan ‘…is marked by thematic, and also by structural coherence,’3 this coherence ‘is impossible to have…without conceptual coherence’4 in the first place. This is an important prerequisite for delineating a stabilised meaning for the concept under study. ‘The style of the Qur’an being self-referential, the importance of internal relationships in understanding the text of the Qur’an cannot be seriously challenged’.5 For this reason, this study does not rely primarily on works of exegesis (tafsı̄r) since its main focus is identifying the conceptual networks and semantic scope of ugliness. In doing so it works within the framework of the Qurʾan. However, exegeses and theological works are consulted when appropriate and necessary. In doing so, references to Sunni, Shiʿı̄, and Sufi scholars and works are consulted and treated equally. Finally, this study recognises that the language, hence vocabulary of the Qur’an had a register in preIslamic Arabia,6 otherwise it would defeat the very purpose of the Qurʾan. What the Qurʾan did was change the conceptual semantics and capacity of meanings of the pre-existing words themselves. 7 Some words, therefore, may have existed in a certain capacity which then were modified and have become associated with a different or a new semantic field altogether.

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NOTES 1. Issa J. Boullata, ‘Sayyid Quṭb’s Literary Appreciation of the Qur’an’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 357–58. 2. For more on thematic exegesis, see for instance, Muḥammad al-Ghazālı,̄ Naḥw Tafsı̄r Mawḍūʿı̄ li-Suwar al-Qurʾān (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 1968). 3. Mustansir Mir, Coherence in the Qur’ān (Indiana: American Trust Publication, 1986), 4. 4. Ibid., 37. 5. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, ‘The Qur’an Explains Itself’ in Understanding the Qur’an (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999), 161; see also Abdel Haleem, ‘Context and Internal Relationships: Keys to Quranic Exegesis’ in Approaches to the Qur’an, ed. G.R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 71–98; cf. Mir, 26 for the idea on the existence of parallels in the Qur’an and that the Qur’an also explains itself. 6. See ʿAbd Allāh Ibn ʿAbbās, Kitāb al-Lughāt fı̄ l-Qurʾān, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dı̄n al-Munajjid (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadı̄d, 1927) for a tabulation of some of the uncommon (gharı̄b) vocabulary in the Qur’an to their respective tribal dialects between the two main divisions of the Arabian Peninsula, Qaḥt ̣ānı ̄ (South) vs. ʿAdnānı ̄ (North) and their respective tribes. 7. Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in the Koran: Studies of the Koranic Weltanschauung (Tokyo: Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964), 28.

CHAPTER 2

Ḥ usn: The Route to a Conceptual Query

This chapter establishes the concept of ḥusn in the Qur’an and the relationship of the aesthetic to the moral. This form of the root (ḥusn) is commonly defined as virtue, good doing, and beauty. Moral beauty is thus conceptually linked to the universal category of beauty. Both virtue and beauty are linked in this linguistic construct.

Ḥ USN IN THE QURʾAN The root ḥ.s.n occurs 194 times in the Qurʾan with the following variations: the noun ḥusn (beauty); the superlative adjective in the construct state al-ḥusnā (the most beautiful, the most excellent); the feminine adjective ḥasana (good deed); the imperative aḥsinū (do good); the infinitive iḥsān (doing good); and finally the active participle muḥsin (pl. muḥsinūn) (those who do good). This form of the root (ḥusn) is commonly defined as virtue, good doing, and beauty.1 Moral beauty is thus conceptually linked to the universal category of beauty. Both virtue and beauty are linked in this linguistic construct. The Qurʾan uses ḥusn five times to describe Paradise as ḥusn al-maʾāb (beautiful return) 2 and ḥusn al-thawāb (beautiful reward) for the believers (3:148). It is referred to as both the return (material place) and the reward (material object). ‘Beautiful,’ ‘best,’ and ‘excellent’ are all within the same semantic field of superlative positive comparisons. The Qurʾan uses the adjective ḥasan (beautiful/good) to refer to moral beauty in Q. 3:37 with respect to Maryam Q. 3:37, [Her

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_2

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Lord graciously accepted her and made her grow in goodness...]. The aya shows how God has accepted her a ḥasan (good) acceptance and provided a ḥasan (good) upbringing for her. In Q. 4:69, the Qurʾan states that those who obey God and the Prophet will share the company of messengers, the truthful, and those who bear witness to the truth; it describes this company as an excellent one, ‘ḥasuna ulāʾika rafı̄qa ‘[‘what excellent companions these are!’]. This is clearly a reference to moral beauty as a characteristic of this company as well. In the previous examples, ḥasan is used in its capacity as moral beauty. Variations on the root ḥ.s.n meaning aesthetic beauty proper feature in the Qurʾan’s references to the material beauty of paradisiacal objects in Q. 55:76 as well as women’s beauty in Q. 33:52 and Q. 55:70. 3 Similarly, Q. 42:23 (…if anyone does good, We shall increase it for him) expands the value and meaning of moral beauty by enhancing the beauty of the action. Enhancing the beauty of the action could be understood in two ways: either the straightforward moral value in religious terms is increased and therefore the reward is increased, or the perception of the act of doing good becomes gradually enhanced in itself as the individual keeps at it (moral satisfaction and happiness). The beauty of the act is enhanced that it becomes increasingly beautiful to the individual doing it until it is second nature to them. The reference to the ‘beautifying’ of the act refers to a civilising action in progress. It caters to the humanising of the individual and the thriving of others through compassion and looking beyond oneself. The following variation on the root ḥ.s.n materialises in the Qurʾan’s description of the human form as the (most beautiful/symmetrical/perfect) form: in Q. 95:4–6 (We create man in the finest state…); 40:64 (…He shaped you, formed you well, and provided you with good things…); and 32:7 (…who gave everything its perfect form). The references to all forms of life (human and non-human) are classified with beauty and perfection. With regards to humans, earlier exegetes restricted aḥsan taqwı̄m (finest state) in 95:4–6 to mean aḥsan ṣūra (best image/form) with respect to human form indicating that the human form is the best structure for the functions and activities of human beings. Aesthetically, the human form is thus the most suitable one for the needs, nature, and activities of human beings. Given the oath at the beginning of the sura and the context, it is unconvincing to restrict the meaning to the physical human form (physical uprightness) only to become an object of an oath.4 The meaning is also extended to include ‘that’ (ʿaql), which perpetually assists human beings

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intellectually in upholding taqwı̄m (moral uprightness) or fit ̣ra (uncorrupted nature),5 thereby enabling individual flourishing itself.6 Further, the superlative al-ḥusnā (the most beautiful/excellent) is an adjectival attribute to the ninety-nine beautiful names of God (7:180; 17:110; 20:8; 59:24). In Q. 25:33, the Qurʾan also refers to God’s Word,7 viz. the Qurʾan itself as the ‘best explanation’ (aḥsana tafsı̄ra), which is discussed in the context of arguments; they cannot put any argument to you without Our bringing you the truth and the best explanation. The superlative beauty here is a reference to intellectual qualities of reasoning power. Al-ḥusnā also refers to the Qurʾan indirectly and monotheism and Islam directly as well in Q. 92:6 with regards to the belief in God’s Word (monotheism/tawḥıd̄ ) and disbelief in it (92:9) on the people’s part. Al-ḥusnā is also referred to as a defined object promised by God (waʿada Allāhu l-ḥusnā) (4:95; 57:10). In other words, God promises al-ḥusnā (the best and most beautiful), viz. paradise, according to the Qurʾan. The relationship between God’s beautiful names, His Word, and His promise are all interconnected in this context. They form a causal relationship with each other. In the Qurʾan, God describes His names as the most beautiful (al-ḥusnā), in an act of Self-disclosure of His own attributes, thereby affirming the beauty of His Word8 (the Qurʾan itself) to those who act upon it and hence are muḥsinūn. The relationship becomes as follows: God, whose names are attached to the concept of the sublime/beautiful, qualifies both His Word and His promise with beauty. Consequently, the result of all this is a promise that is qualified as superlative in its excellence and beauty, created for the believers in keeping with His Word and His names (Fig. 2.1). Al-ḥusnā, as a superlative of excellence and beauty, refers to the Attributes and Word of God. The ninety-nine beautiful names are described as such. The functionality of the divine names in relation to al-ḥusnā, (as the ninety-nine beautiful names) commands in the nature of His names. The beautiful names—rather than point to the divine as msyterium tremendum et fascinas (the mystery that is both fearful and fascinating),9 in Rudolph Otto’s explanation of the concept of the numinous—exemplify measure that permeates through His names, hence justice. With respect to both punishment and reward, M.A.S. Abdel-Haleem maintains, ‘[p]unishing the sinners has to do with jalāl (majesty), while ikrām shows itself in the bounties[.]’10 Thus, the imperative aḥsinu (do good) becomes concomitant with the affirmative act of iḥsān from God

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Fig. 2.1 The conceptual relationship between iḥsān, muḥsin, and al-ḥusnā in the matrix of ḥusn

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to those who are muḥsinūn. This reward becomes a materialisation of what is referred to as the beautiful/excellent promised object (waʿada Allāhu l-ḥusnā). In this respect, beauty is interconnected with God’s Selfdisclosure of His attributes, His Word, and His promise as being all qualified by al-ḥusnā, the beautiful, and most sublime. On the other hand, the noun ḥasana is ‘the feminine form of the adjective ḥasan.[.]…The feminine form is used as a substantive, and means anything having the quality designated by the adjective.’11 Therefore, this designated name accounts for the name of the religious reward in the afterlife on any good deed done in this life. It qualifies these deeds with moral beauty by virtue of naming as occurs in the Qur’an. In pre-Islamic Arabia, the tenets of moral beauty or Arab virtues that formed an authoritative desert moral code were jūd (generosity), murūwwa (chivalry), wafāʾ (loyalty), ṣidq (veracity), and ḥilm (forbearance and wisdom).12 These were all virtues that were considered beautiful, hence praised. Pre-Islamic Arabia saw the worldly rewards in the possession of these virtues in the form of social status that could be possibly measured and achieved through positive reputation and madı̄ḥ (panegyrics), which were awarded based on the aforementioned categorical virtues. While the lack of these virtues might have invited a deserving—according to the cultural code—and at times unjustified and vengeful hijāʾ (invective poetry), their excess did not constitute a predicament in pre-Islamic Arabia, in fact their excess was even celebrated.13 These virtues constituted the structure of moral life in pre-Islamic Arabia and remained so, with acculturations, after the advent of Islam.14 In other words, both the Qurʾan and the Prophetic tradition emphasise the importance of the aforementioned virtues for all individuals as the path to moral beauty. Nevertheless, the Islamisation of these virtues regulated them and warded off their excesses on the basis of potential self-harm (ẓulm al-nafs). For example, excessive courage (or aggressive courage) to the point of recklessness, folly, and even cruelty, which was practised ostentatiously before Islam to assert one’s bravery, hence partial murūwwa (which is sometimes hastily translated as “manliness” is an all-encompassing word for the highest Arab virtue and should not be restricted to gender; its etymology is traced to mar’ (human) as it encompasses bravery, generosity, hospitality, defending the weak and helpless, and a certain readiness and willingness to assist and serve. One who possesses murūwwa means one who is true to the core of human values), often endangers the individual’s life and invites social

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difficulties for the person in question and their tribe.15 It then becomes a possible threat not only to the individual’s overall wellbeing but also to others. This attitude is exemplified in the Muʿallaqa of the pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr: In the desert where, as the poet Zuhayr says, ‘he who defends not his watering-place with his own weapons will have it devastated, and he who wrongs not others will himself be wronged’, bravery was not simply a defensive weapon; it was something much more positive and aggressive.16

Interestingly, in poetry criticism, the line referred to above by Zuhayr, ‘wa man lā yaẓlimu l-nāsa yuẓlam’ [He who does not wrong people will be wronged] is considered poetically qabı̄ḥ (ugly) by the poet and literary critic Ibn Sharaf (d. 460/1067) because of its meaning. Ibn Sharaf maintains that it is a transgressed custom (khālaf al-ʿāda).17 Ibn Sharaf’s poetic judgment deemed Zuhayr’s line aesthetically distasteful because of the unacceptable morals it advocates: ‘wronging others and transgressing on their rights.’ The Qur’an’s moral universe, through opposing the excesses of some of the pre-Islamic virtues, influenced the aesthetic and poetic judgment of adab as seen in Ibn Sharaf’s literary criticism. Perhaps a similar judgment would have been also passed by Ibn Ṭ abāt ̣abā (d. 322/934) who had a list for the characteristics worthy of madı̄ḥ and hijāʾ, respectively, in his ʿIyār al-Shiʿr.18 Amongst the characteristics worthy of criticism hence hijāʾ is the very general isāʾa (to wrong or transgress on someone). This is a wide spectrum that could range from a sly backhanded microagression, an inappropriate look or glance towards someone, to direct verbal and physical assaults. Zuhayr’s ideas expressed in the aforementioned line would qualify as an isāʾa. Ibn Ṭ abāt ̣abā also lists the term qubḥ proper as a quality worthy of hijāʾ. This is in keeping with the aforementioned al-Sharı̄f al-Jurjānı̄’s definition of qubḥ itself being deserving of criticism. One wonders if the same judgement would be passed in pre-Islamic Arabia, since perhaps even while excess was not condemned because it was not regarded as ugly (qabı̄ḥ), it might have had its own limits where the celebration of bravery being part of murūwwa to the point of tyranny and abuse of power might invite a few uncalled-for wars.19 It may have been regarded as ugly for pragmatic reasons if not moral. The aggressive masculinity concomitant with courage is also visible in the poetry of pre-Islamic ṣuʿlūk (brigand) poet ʿUrwa b. al-Ward relating

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his conversation with a certain Tumāḍir who is consoling him because of his relatives’ abandonment, his heavy heart, and a lack of money. ʿUrwa relates Tumāḍir’s advice as follows: khāt ̣ir bi-nafsika kayy tuṣıb̄ a ghanı̄matan inna al-quʿūda maʿa al-ʿiyyāli qabı̄ḥu al-mālu fı̄hi mahābatun wa tajillatun wa l-faqru fı̄hi madhalatun wa fuḍūḥu 20 Risk yourself so that you possess riches Sitting with the dependents is ugly [qabı̄ḥ] In money, there is power and prominence Poverty is demeaning and scandalous

Tumāḍir, the feminine voice in ʿUrwa’s poem, advises him to dust his depression off and engage in risky affairs to grab riches. The word used (ghanı̄ma) is reserved for the riches of conquests, caravan and travel route raids, and battles—not merely commerce and trade. A ṣuʿlūk poet, ʿUrwa’s means of making is through raiding other tribes and stealing their riches.21 The feminine voice affirms ʿUrwa’s wounded masculinity by his people’s desertion through engaging with the discourse of aggressive masculinity. The use of the word qabı̄ḥ is restricted to his sitting with what she termed as ʿiyāl (people of young age, or even elderly people, the weak and feeble and dependents in general). Sitting with the dependents is a reference to helplessness, moaning one’s luck, and being passive. An attitude short of notions of masculinity as Tumāḍir, the voice of the feminine and a mirror for the poet’s masculine, knows it. After the advent of Islam, attempts to show off excessive courage were not only regarded solely as transgression, but they also invited questions about the reasoning faculties of the person involved thereby moving excess into the realm of deficiency in reason. In Kitāb al-Adhkiyāʾ, Ibn al-Jawzı̄ (d. 587/1201) recounts an anecdote where a snake fell on Ibn al-Muhallab. He did not push it away. His father realised that the son’s move, or lack thereof, was to show off his immeasurable courage. The father gently reproached a courage that exceeded its bounds by jeopardising one’s life as he told his son that he has misplaced (ḍayyaʿt) reason (ʿaql) for courage (shajāʿa).22

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The Qurʾan advocates the possession of the aforementioned virtues as a path to moral beauty, but conceptually filtered them of their destructive excesses. The possession of these virtues is thus attributed to the active participle muḥsin, hence the promised compensation ḥasana. Their absence therefore indicates a certain moral failing and hence is deemed a shortcoming in character that warrants criticism, hence denoting qubḥ. In the Qurʾan, the active participle muḥsin is used in various places to convey moral beauty. It is used to describe those who are sincere in their belief in God (2:112; 4:125, 31:22). The meaning is further re-iterated in the verse communicating to Ibrāhı̄m (Abraham) the arrival of his son Isḥāq (Isaac). In Q. 37: 112-13 the Qurʾan uses muḥsin (good) and ẓālim (wrongdoer) in an antithetical relationship. (We gave Abraham the news of Isaac – a prophet and a righteous man – and blessed him and Isaac too: some of their offspring were good, but some clearly wronged themselves.). This juxtaposition puts forth the antithetical relationship between iḥsān and ẓulm (injustice) against oneself and others. Regarding injustice against the self, George Hourani argues against the possibility of this notion of ‘self-injury’ on the basis that injuring someone (the self in this context) presupposes a non-consenting state from the object of this injury by virtue of injustice.23 Within the Islamic context, this should be explained as a dichotomy between two parties. The self is layered; it is not a uniform monolith. If in conflict, the nafs part of the self, in this case al-nafs al-ammāra, performs acts of excess and transgression (through hawā) against the individual’s spiritual well being succinctly expressed as fiṭrah (Islamic concept of human nature) or simply put, the individual’s humaneness. Injuring oneself becomes clear only when analysed as an act of excess that leads to selfdestruction, which is the foundation of this self-injury. Ẓ ulm then becomes an act of transgression not only against others and the self but also against the divine, hence the Sublime and the Beautiful. It becomes an antonym of the ḥasan: qabı̄ḥ. Perhaps also understood comparatively through terms such as ‘character flaw’ or a ‘tragic flaw’ that are usually motivated by ego, which often leads to self-harm and destruction, ẓulm al-nafs (self-injury) would become clear since tragic flaws often end up harming, if not destroying, the individual more than others around them. The Qurʾan’s discussion of the concept of iḥsān does not only communicate the idea of moral beauty and doing ‘good’ by simply believing in God, abstaining from sins and following the religious measures (2:58; 2:195; 2:236; 5:13; 5:85; 5:93; 6:84; 7:56; 12:36; and 12:78) and therefore being at the receiving end of God’s mercy and reward because

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of being a muḥsin (7:161; 9:91; 9:120; 11:115; 12:22; 12:56; 12:90; 16:128; and 22:37). This is the concern of the realm of faith. It should facilitate the realm of moral beauty but it is distinctly separate from it. The Qurʾan relates that the absence of iḥsān, which is ẓulm (injustice), harms the individual in question before it harms those around them. Faith and moral beauty could be better explained within the context of the story of Yūsuf (Joseph).24 In sura 12, the active participle muḥsin occurs four times to describe Joseph’s moral bearing. In the beginning, God describes him as such, hence Joseph is at the receiving end of God’s rewards, and in this case wisdom is bestowed upon him (12:22). This wisdom becomes manifest in his ability to interpret dreams, which he demonstrated when he was in prison. While in prison, strangers regarded him as a muhsin, thereby qualifying him as worthy by both men in prison to interpret their dreams (12:36). The wisdom of dream interpretation, understood as God’s reward in the context of the sura, becomes the door to more rewards. This is adduced in Q. 12:56 by the promise that his good deeds, like all muḥsinūn, will not go in vain and that he shall be rewarded. He was granted power and authority in Egypt. When Joseph kept his brother Binyāmı̄n (Benjamin) with him, their brothers, not recognising Joseph, used the same word as the two men in prison—‘inna narāka mina l-muḥsinı̄n’ [We can see that you are a very good man]—in their appeal to Joseph to return Benjamin for the sake of their old father (Q. 12:78). In the end, when Joseph confronts his brothers, he re-iterates that very same idea to them: for piety and patience, he was rewarded by God, because the good deeds of the muḥsinı̄n do not go in vain (12:90). The representation of being a muḥsin (morally beautiful) as a visible quality to strangers in the character of Joseph (independent from his physical beauty), depicts moral beauty as an attribute discernible in the character, visible for all to see on equal footing with aesthetic or material beauty. This also echoes the Qurʾan’s qualification of manners as beautiful in reference to Yaʿqūb’s (Jacob’s) patience in the same sura. In Q. 12:83 Jacob is reflecting on Joseph’s absence and the brothers’ plotting (kayd); he is resolved to be patient until things fold out, ‘But it is best to be patient’ or alternatively ‘patience is beautiful’ (fa-ṣabrun jamı̄lun). Patience is also qualified as ‘beautiful’ (jamı̄l) in Q. 70:5 ‘So be patient, [Prophet], as befits you’ fa-ṣbirr ṣabran jamı̄la. Similarly, in Q. 73:10, the Qurʾan relates God’s advice to the Prophet against adversity: ‘patiently endure what they say, ignore them politely (wa-hjurhum hajran jamı̄la).’25 The advice here could be succinctly summarised, as al-Rāzı̄ contends: if one is to socially interact with people and live in a society—as one certainly does

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and must—then one needs patience and tolerance (ṣabrun jamı̄lun) with others to be in a social group. Otherwise, one must politely keep a safe and emotional distance if one wishes not to be emotionally invested in and involved with some people (hajr jamı̄l).26 Moral beauty is again described as a civilising factor that is conducive not only to the individual involved but also to those around. This is one of the many lessons of the story of Joseph where, as Mustansir Mir maintains, there are ‘no losers’; it has a happy ending.27 Similarly, in reference to divorce, Q. 33:49 advises: ‘[…] make provisions for them and release them in an honourable (beautiful) way (sarriḥuhunna sarāḥan jamı̄la)’. The reference here is to the ‘beautiful’ break-up as the polite, civil, and honourable course of action when patience is obviously no longer an option. In this respect, moral beauty becomes as discernible as material beauty and also becomes linked with it categorically in its influence. Joseph’s beauty is described as surpassing human categories by the women as the Sura maintains (mā hādha basharan in hādha illa malakun karı̄m) [He cannot be mortal! He must be a precious angel!]28 The women’s use of the metaphor, as the verse relates, to describe Joseph likened him to an angel. Angels are not usually called-up metaphorically to describe physical beauty only—especially when there is no available prior knowledge of their features—but also moral beauty even more. This also raises the question of language use. The women’s language, as their metaphor use conveys, resorted to the poetics of the unseen, or theological poetics, to express an aesthetic judgment. That Joseph’s beauty is immeasurable in human linguistic parameters that could be easily articulated in the language of this world, so that it must be then articulated in the language of ‘the nonperceptible’ (ghayb) is unquestionable. But likening Joseph to an angel does not only refer to his physical beauty but also to his character that was described as visibly attractive as his face and physique, as the sura explains. Al-Rāzı̄ maintains, no living being is better than an ‘angel’ (aḥsan al-aḥyāʾ huwa al-malak), in the same manner nothing is worse than the devil (aqbaḥ al-ashyāʾ huwa al-shayṭān).29 Al-Rāzı̄ explains that the term also refers to Joseph’s purity of lust (bawāʿith al-shahwa) and anger (jawādhib al-ghaḍab) and mistaken judgements and illusions (nawāziʿ al-wahm wa l-khayāl).30 The Qurʾan does not relate ḥusn as conceptually synonymous to faith and moral beauty only, as previously discussed, but also to intellect. Al-ḥusnā—meaning the most beautiful and sublime in reference to the Qurʾan, hence faith in general—is also conceptually linked to wisdom (al-ḥikma) as Q. 3:164 maintains:

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God has been truly gracious to the believers in sending them a Messenger from among their own, to recite His revelations to them, to make them grow in purity, and to teach them the Scripture and wisdom—before that they were clearly astray.

Wisdom is not an aesthetic category nor is it a moral one; it is an intellectual category. So, by relating ḥusnā referred to as al-kitāb (the Qurʾan) concurrently with wisdom (ḥikma), a category of reason (ʿaql) proper expands the category of ḥusn beauty from the moral and aesthetic restrictions to the intellectual one. Wisdom’s antithesis ḍalāl (lit. lacking direction) presupposes a state where an individual is injudicious or does not have a guiding principle in general. It would not be inaccurate to infer that the antithesis of wisdom in this case, lack of reason, or more specifically folly,31 is categorically classified as anti-ḥusn, viz. qubḥ. The final variation in the discussion on the root ḥ.s.n is on the imperative aḥsinū (do good) in the Qur’an. The imperative acts as an incentive to abide by all that was discussed above in an attempt to achieve the paradigm of moral beauty through being a muḥsin. In Q. 17:23, the Qur’an gives an example of this when it encourages iḥsān as beautiful/good manners with respect to speech with parents, wa bi-l wālidayni iḥsāna [and that you be kind to your parents]. In Arabic, the imperative verb aḥsinū is determined as rhetorically dropped (mahdhūf). This justifies and explains the grammatical construct of the cognate accusative iḥsāna, which only adds emphasis on the absent but imagined imperative. The verse promotes and commands iḥsān through explaining what is not iḥsān, i.e. via negativa. It denounces actions that are considered anti-iḥsān, hence qabı̄ḥ. As an example, the verse relates the non-verbal expression ‘pfft’ or the sound of huffing said in exasperation sometimes as an example of anti-iḥsān, lā taqul lahumā uffin [say no word that shows impatience with them]. It immediately follows this with proscribing explicit harsh verbal opposition, as the verse continues, wa lā tanharhuma (and do not be harsh with them). In this respect, the first non-verbal act (huffing) becomes tantamount to hurtful expressions in moments of irritation in its qubḥ. This is because the emotional effects and the emotional injury of both actions are virtually the same. An antithetical relationship between ḥusn and qubḥ presents itself in the Qurʾanic discourse. It includes both moral and aesthetic beauty in its conceptual semantic structure. An important question unfolds at this juncture, is abstract beauty always linked and correlated to the construct

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of moral beauty and thus Heaven? The Qurʾan refers to the aesthetics of non-human and inanimate objects without semantically describing these objects using ḥusn. The Qurʾanic concept of ḥusn is therefore conceptually exclusive to the construct of ḥusn with faith, moral beauty, and reason and the conception of reward (ḥasana) and Heaven. Where non-human and inanimate objects are concerned, the Qurʾan does not use the noun ḥusn but uses zı̄na (beautification, embellishment, adornment, and so on). The aesthetic value of constellations, planets, and stars is emphasised as adornment and beautification from a purely aesthetic perspective that is outside the conceptual networks of the complex structure of ḥusn. Beauty in these objects, or in the universe, is meant for itself, to satisfy a basic aesthetic need for humanity,32 and also for pragmatic reasons. Q. 16:6 asserts this need when it begins with ‘you find beauty in them’ (lakum fı̄ha jamāl) in reference to livestock.33 The ‘lakum fı̄ha’ [lit. in it for you] addresses this need for beauty.34 Jamāl, like zı̄na, is better understood as ‘ephemeral surface appeal’ or ‘attractiveness.’35 In this respect, they are unlike ḥusn where beauty is ‘impersonal, ideal and lasting.’36 Zı̄na is used to describe the aesthetics of non-human entities such as the sky, stars, planets (Q. 15:16; 37:6; 50:6; 67:5), and the earth’s adornments (Q. 10:24). The Qurʾan describes the effect of this aesthetic value of objects in several places as joy and pleasure. In Q: 2:69, the bright yellow colour of the calf is a source of aesthetic pleasure [pleasing to the eye]. In Q. 27:60, where the cycle of nature is described in relationship to rain and the blossoming of gardens, the latter become a source of delight [Who sends down water from the sky for you—with which We cause gardens of delight to grow]. Arberry captures the relationship between aesthetic beauty and our predisposition to love everything beautiful as he translates this verse as ‘gardens full of loveliness.’ Equally, Q. 22:5 and 50:7 relate creation and nature’s cycle and the earth’s adornment that [produces every kind of ‘joyous growth’ (zawj bahı̄j) in terms of aesthetic sensibilities. This could be understood on two levels. On the one hand, the reception of the aesthetic value of nature’s beauty or objects in themselves is a source of joy and pleasure. On the other hand there is also the practical value of securing food and sustenance and the economic value attached to the beauty of nature in terms of commercially benefiting from growing healthy crops. The Qurʾan’s key terms for the mechanisms of these aesthetics are ‘measure’ (qadar) and ‘balance’ (mizān) concerning everything: cosmic movements, day and night, rain, the universe, and so on.37 This is what

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Ahmad Moustafa and Stefan Sperl call ‘cosmic homogeneity’ (tajānus kawnı̄).38 Cosmic homogeneity is ‘…a religious concept in which art and science are conjoined, for it is equally applicable to natural and to manmade objects.’39 This should be understood ‘…as the fruit of a divine act of perfect measurement and equitable apportionment which mankind, to the extent of its abilities, is called upon to emulate in all its activities.’40 This is not to be understood on the domain of aesthetics only, but ‘…in moral uprightness as much as in artistic manufacture—in ethics as much as in aesthetics.’41 This measure and balance, which is the foundation of cosmic homogeneity, hence ḥusn (beauty) has an explanatory power. It explains why excess, though it may not be considered sinful in most cases or a transgression in the same manner as theft or murder, is in itself a transgression against cosmic homogeneity, measure, and balance, hence deemed qabı̄ḥ. Ḥ usn has thus far been discussed in relation to the Qurʾan’s conception of this category and its nuanced difference from jamāl and/or zı̄na; the latter categories possessing attraction and ephemeral beauty but not pertaining strictly to the moral as such.

NOTES 1. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur’an, 221–26. 2. Rendered also as ‘best return place’ and ‘best reward’ in Abdel Haleem’s translation. (Q. 3:14, 3:195, 13:29, 38:25, 38:49). 3. For more on Paradise, see Abdel Haleem, ‘Paradise in the Qur’an’ in Understanding the Qur’an (London: I.B.Tauris, 1999), 93–106. See also M.A. Draz’s discussion of the material and spiritual nature of paradise and hell in The Moral World of the Qur’an, trans. Danielle Robinson and Rebecca Masterton (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 158–68. 4. bin ʿAshūr, al-Taḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r, 30:424. 5. See Nevad Kahteran, ‘Fitra’ in The Qur’an: an Encyclopedia, 210–13. See, also an alternative definition: ‘…fiṭrah may be defined as a natural innate predisposition for good and for submission to the One God,’ Yasien Mohamed, Fiṭrah: The Islamic Concept of Human Nature (London: Ta-Ha Publishers, 1996), 32. 6. bin ʿAshūr, al-Taḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r, 30:424. 7. ‘God’s Word’ is meant to describe the entirety of the Qur’an itself as a manifestation of the act of revelation as a divine act which the Qur’an refers to as tanzı̄l. For more on the question of ‘who speaks in the Qur’an’ in terms of grammatical shifts or iltifāt, see, Abdel Haleem, ‘Dynamic Style’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 184–210; and also Abdel Haleem,

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8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

‘Grammatical Shifts for Rhetorical Purposes: ‘iltifāt’ and Related Features in the Qur’an,’ Bulletin of SOAS 55, no. 3 (1992): 407–32. This refers to both the aesthetic qualities of the Qur’an itself and its moral principles. See Navid Kermani on the aesthetic qualities of the Qur’an not just in terms of rhetorical devices and its inimitability (Iʿjāz) but also the art it inspires such as calligraphy and recitation. The idea of the ‘holy’ or God as wholly Other because the divine can appear as both wrathful and awe-inspiring. See Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy: an inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational, trans. John W.  Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1928). Abdel Haleem, ‘The Qurʾan Explains Itself,’ 174. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾan, 222. Ibid., 74–104. Ibid. Ibid. An example of this is Zuhayr b. Abı̄ Sulmā’s attitude in his Mu‘allaqa, ibid., 83–86, fn. 12. Ibid., 84. Ibn Sharaf, Masāʾil al-Intiqād, ed. Charles Pellat (Algiers, n.p, 1953), 66 quoted in Iḥsān ʿAbbās, Tārı̄kh al-Naqd al-Adabı̄ ʿInd al-ʿArab (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1986), 467. ʿIyār al-Shiʿr, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAzı̄z bin Nāsị r al-Māniʿ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanjı̄, n.d.), 17–8. The war entitled ‘Ḥ arb al-Basūs’ (The War of Basūs) is a good example. It is known to have started because the camel of al-Basūs, the old woman after whom the war was named, was left to graze on another tribe’s (Bakr) meadow; the tribe killed the camel because it went into their pastures. A man from al-Basūs’s tribe (Taghlib) killed the man who killed the camel, and the vendetta continued for years. For more on this and bibliography, see J.W. Fück, ‘Basūs’ in EI 2, M. Lecker, ‘Taghlib b. Wāʾil’ in EI 2 and G. Levi Della Vida, ‘Kulayb b. Rabı̄ʿa’ in EI 2. ʿUrwa b. al-Ward, Diwān ʿUrwa Ibn al-Ward, ed. Karam al-Bustānı̄ (Beirut: Dār Beirut, 1982), 110. A. Arazi, ʿUrwa b. al-Ward’ in EI2. Kitāb al-Adhkiyāʾ (Beirut: Al-Maktab al-Tijārı̄ li-l-Ṭ ibāʿa wa l-Tawzı̄ʿ wa l-Nashr, n.d.), 151. George Hourani, “Injuring Oneself’ in the Qurʾān in the light of Aristotle’ in Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 49–56 quoted in A. Kevin Reinhart, ‘Ethics and the Qur’ān’ in EQ.

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24. The story as it occurs in the Qur’an has received considerable scholarly attention. See for example, Abdel Haleem, ‘The Story of Joseph in the Qur’an and the Bible’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 138–57; Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, “We will tell you the best of stories’- A Study on Surah XII,’ StOr 67 (1991): 7–32; Mustansir Mir, ‘The Qur’anic Story of Joseph. Plot, Themes and Characters,’ Muslim World 76, no.1 (1986): 1–15; idem., ‘Irony in the Qur’an: A Study of the Stoy of Joseph’ in ed. Issa J.  Boullata, Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 173–87, see S. Goldman, ‘Joseph’ in EQ for further bibliography. 25. ʿAbd al-Rāziq Ḥ ajjāj, al-Jamāl fı̄ l-Qurʾān al-Karı̄m (Cairo: Maktabat al-Ā dāb, 1992), 33ff. 26. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 30:159. 27. Mustansir Mir, ‘Irony in the Qur’an: A Study of the Story of Joseph’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata, (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 177. 28. Yūsuf (12:31). 29. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 18:103. 30. Ibid. 31. There is no accurate Arabic equivalent to the English noun ‘folly’. The specificity of the Arabic language designates under the auspices of ‘antireason’ offshoots such as: ḥumq, raqāʿa, and/or sukhf; they all refer to lack of reason but in certain conditions and contexts. 32. Ḥajjāj, al-Jamāl fı̄ l-Qurʾān al-Karı̄m, 5. 33. Ibid., 16–20. 34. Ibid, 16. 35. Stefan Sperl, ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts.’ 36. Ibid. 37. Q. 6:91; 10:5; 15:21; 23: 95; 25:2; 36:38; 43:11; 54:49; 15:19; 42:17; 55:7. 38. See, Ahmad Moustafa and Stefan Sperl, The Cosmic Script: Sacred Geometry and the Science of Arabic Penmanship, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2014). See also, Stefan Sperl, ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts’, in ed. B.  Lawrence, B. and V.  Cornell, The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality (Forthcoming, 2017). 39. See, Stefan Sperl, ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts.’ 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid.

CHAPTER 3

Qubḥ and the Way to Hell

In this chapter, I will use the Qur’anic verse 28: 42 as a point of departure in situating the maqbūḥı n̄ in the geographical space of Hell. I will construct an analysis based on the situating of the maqbūḥı n ̄ in Hell, which as the Qurʾan maintains is a site of rejection and banishment from God’s mercy. The root q.b.ḥ is mentioned in the aforementioned verse Q. 28:42 in reference to the wrongdoers in general after giving the example of Pharaoh. [Pharaoh and his armies behaved arrogantly in the land with no right—they thought they would not be brought back to Us—so We seized him and his armies and threw them into the sea. See what became of the wrongdoers! We made them leaders calling [others] only to the Fire: on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped. We made our rejection pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the [maqbūḥı n̄ ].1

Abdel-Haleem renders maqbūḥı n̄ as ‘despised’. Similarly, Abdullah Yusuf Ali translates it as ‘loathed and (despised)’; Muhammad Asad as ‘bereft of all good’; A.J. Arberry and Laleh Bakhtiar as ‘spurned’; and Aisha Bewley renders it as ‘they will be hideous and spurned’. N.J. Dawood interprets it as ‘damned,’ while Mohsin Khan leaves the Arabic maqbūḥı n ̄ and adds a bracketed explanation ‘[those who are prevented from receiving Allah’s Mercy or any good; despised or destroyed]’. T.B. Irving renders it as ‘they

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_3

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will look hideous’; E.H. Palmer as ‘abhorred’; M.M. Pickthal as ‘hateful’; M.H. Shakir translates it as ‘made to appear hideous’; Rev. John Medows Rodwell as ‘covered shall they be with shame’; and George Sale as ‘shamefully rejected’. It is obvious that some translations rendered the word ‘literally’ (look hideous) and sometimes in its most extreme as ‘damned’, without taking into consideration its conceptual networks and the full semantic capacity of maqbuḥı n ̄ which is eloquently summed up by Asad as ‘bereft of all good’. Theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Din al-Rāzı̄ contends that the earlier exegetes or the early community (al-awwalūn) understood qubḥ spiritually (ḥammalū l-qubḥ ʿalā al-qubḥ al-rūḥānı )̄ as exclusion from God’s mercy (al-ṭard wa l-ibʿād min raḥmat Allāh taʿālā).2 The rest, al-Raẓı ̄ maintains, understood qubḥ as aesthetic (al-qubḥ fı ̄ l-ṣuwar). He concludes that qubḥ is understood as both aesthetic and moral scandals (wa qı l̄ fı h̄ innahu taʿālā yuqabbiḥ ṣuwarahum wa yuqabbiḥ ʿalayyhim ʿamālihim wa yajmaʿ bayna al-faḍı h̄ ̣atayn).3 Shiʿı̄ scholar al-Ṭ abarsı̄ (d. 548/1153) maintains that ugliness is exclusion (wa l-qubḥ al-ibʿād).4 He also lists the other meaning pertaining to physical ugliness as ‘deformed’.5 Whereas Sufi scholar Ibn ʿArabı̄ explains the arrogance of Pharaoh, he does not comment on qubḥ or this particular verse.6 The verse does not specify Pharaoh and his army only. The verse’s grammatical structure refers to the latter (hum) as being a part of a much wider class who will all share this quality. They (hum) shall be among (min) the (al) maqbūḥı n̄ . The defined passive participle (ism al-mafʿūl) here also reinforces this idea. Had it been only Pharaoh and his army then the acquired quality of qubḥ need not be defined, so that it would only restrict itself to them (Pharaoh and his army) as maqbūḥı n ̄ . An inquiry into the reasons behind this state of being as maqbūḥı n ̄ is tantamount to the understanding of the concept of qubḥ. This naturally leads to an investigation of the association of the ‘the sinners’ with ‘Hell’ and ‘qubḥ’, a relation which establishes an analytic schema of the Qurʾanic depiction of Hell, its inhabitants, and their qualifying characteristics as a logical necessity. Hell is not only the antithesis of Heaven but also the antithesis of beauty. ‘A central feature of Qurʾanic styles is contrast: between this world and the next (each occurring exactly 115 times), between believers and disbelievers, between Paradise and Hell.’7 This preordained antithetical relationship of Heaven and Hell situates itself in the vast universe of Qurʾanic contrasts. Thus, given the accepted premise that qubḥ is the antithesis of ḥusn, with ḥusn exemplified in the Qurʾanic description of Paradise, Hell

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becomes the only possible landscape where the semantic field of qubḥ is explored. My concern at this juncture is to not divide the denizens of Hell into sinner groups or categories, i.e. how thieves, murderers, adulterers, or unbelievers will be punished. Pre-modern works have discussed these queries in details,8 and other scholars have addressed some of these works and questions in recent studies.9 Rather, my aim is to map the conceptual framework that the Qurʾan postulates for the qabı h̄ ̣ as a pathway to sin regardless of the categories of Hell’s inhabitants (thieves, murderers, believers versus nonbelievers and so on). It is important to mention that the Qurʾan differentiates between major sins (pl. kabāʾir) and minor sins.10 Based on these distinctions, different terms for sins, depending on their gravity, have been used throughout the Qurʾan (dhanb, ithm, fāḥisha, maʿṣiyya, khaṭı ʾ̄ a, lamam, ḥaraj, junāḥ, jurm and sayyiʾa).11 Because of the exponential growth of eschatological literature, ‘…the catalogue of major sins expanded almost ad infinitum, despite the more reserved statements in systematic theological treatises and the traditions found in the canonical collections’.12 Lange is correct in criticising the ‘enthusiastic’ eschatological literature and arguing for the reserved statements if only because of the famous Islamic maxim that God’s mercy extends to everything and everyone and that all sins (including the non-ending lists) are forgiven except the disbelief in God. Examined rationally, outside the confines of viewing it merely as a ‘punishment’, it holds the disbeliever (and everyone) accountable for their choices; in this case Mercy or ‘divine forgiveness’ does not extend to one who disbelieves in God because it is not part of their belief to begin with, it reflects their own choice. That being said, my aim is to show how the Qurʾan qualifies the acts it deems qabı h̄ ̣, which by turn constitute a route to Hell as a place of qubḥ. What do they all have in common despite their variety and diversity? What are their uniting categorical features and categories of thought, so that the reader of the Qurʾan is able to conceptually and cognitively trace how arrogance, for instance, fits with lies, theft, murder, and polytheism and/ or disbelief in God—the ultimate end of the sin spectrum in Islam—on the ugliness map and network beyond the label of ‘sin’? As mentioned previously, the root q.b.ḥ in Q. 28:42 refers to Pharaoh and his cohorts as part of a bigger class. 13 The aya is part of the eschatological verses in the Qurʾan where it foreshadows a future event: the punishment of the wrongdoers. Eschatology in the Qurʾan could be divided into phases: cosmological events announcing the Day of Judgment, the

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judgment itself, and finally Hell and Paradise.14 My concern is only with Paradise, Hell, and their aesthetics. Throughout the Qurʾan, there are instances where the foreshadowing of the hereafter’s locus corresponds to the action(s) carried out in this world. In Q. 14:28–9, for example,15 the Qurʾan relates: ‘[Prophet] do you not see those who, in exchange for God’s favour, offer only ingratitude and make their people end up in the home of ruin, Hell, where they burn? What an evil place to stay!’ This foreshadowing occurs throughout the Qurʾan where the spatial reference is not named but referred to through the mentioning of the word ‘punishment’ (ʿadhāb) as concomitant with the actions described. The mentioning of ‘punishment’ is sometimes qualified as ‘great punishment’ (ʿadhāb ʿadhı m ̄ ) such as in Q. 2:7, 47; ‘painful punishment’ (ʿadhāb alı m ̄ ) such as in Q. 7:73; ‘intense punishment’ (ʿadhāb shadı d̄ ) in Q. 3:4; or ‘humiliating punishment’ (ʿadhāb muhı n ̄ ) such as in Q. 2:90. Hell is invoked as a site of intense and humiliating punishment. It is essential at this stage to map out the Qurʾanic description of Pharaoh and trace it prior to this outcome, maqbūḥı n̄ , to chart the components of qubḥ: Pharaoh and his armies behaved arrogantly in the land with no right—they thought they would not be brought back to Us—so We seized him and his armies and threw them into the sea. See what became of the wrongdoers! We made them leaders calling [others] only to the Fire: on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped. We made our rejection pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the despised.16

Pharaoh’s character in the Qurʾan is the principal human archetype for qubḥ,17 no other human rivals him. This is perhaps adduced by the aforementioned verse that affirms making him and his cohorts ‘imāms’ (leaders) calling people for the Fire. In this respect, he is almost a human-like Mālik, the guardian of Hell. His qubḥ is not related to individual transgressions involving only him but chiefly because of his tyranny and brutality over his people. The Qurʾan describes the behaviour of Pharaoh throughout as one that is characterised by excess because of his tyranny over his people and his brutality against those who believed in Moses’ teachings as Q. 10:83, 40:28, and 44:30–31 maintain. In this respect, it is remarkable to see the Qurʾan’s statement on Pharaoh’s qubḥ as one that is focused on the collective more than the personal. In other words, the argument against Pharaoh is not about him as a person as much as it is about how

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his behaviour affected other people drastically (Children of Israel, those who believed in Moses, and his subjects in general) through oppression. The identified person Pharaoh, amongst the class of maqbūḥı n̄ , is depicted essentially as musrif (prone to excess or exceeding all boundaries). Pharaoh’s description as a tyrant ruler whose domineering behaviour is attributed to his intemperate pride and lust for power—since both form a causal relationship with each other—is characterised by excess (isrāf), typically in arrogance, which is manifest in his behaviour. In the context of the story of Pharaoh, his arrogance (excess) is portrayed as a behaviour that led to transgressions in the way it motivated violence against his people. In this case, the Qurʾan’s diagnosis of Pharaoh’s behaviour is shown as a form of excessive pride and arrogance, which in the case of Pharaoh was a pathway to transgressions. Mustansir Mir reads ‘pride’ in the Qurʾan as caused by affluence, a sense of superiority, and/or whims and desire: they all lead to the rejection of truth, he maintains.18 Incidents of Pharaoh’s superiority in the Qur’an are manifest in several occasions. Most prominent, for instance, is his declarative statement indicating indifference to Moses’ ‘signs’ (āyāt) and his teachings. Pharaoh declared himself a deity and in Q. 79:25 said, ‘I am your supreme Lord!’ Equally, his dismay was obvious when his sorcerers believed in Moses and God after they challenged Moses and failed, realising that he is not a sorcerer. Pharaoh said, ‘How dare you believe in Him before I give you permission?’ in Q. 7:123. The Qurʾan illustrates various forms of excess that lead to transgression on other people’s rights as well. In Q. 4:6, the Qurʾan describes those who unlawfully take the inheritance of the orphans as those who ‘eat it in excess’. The emphasis here is on greed as an abstract concept that could not be measured in itself but only through its consequences, in the same manner Pharaoh’s arrogance as an immeasurable concept is depicted through its consequences. Excess is also used in the same capacity to describe those who do not heed to the sent messengers, as was the case with Pharaoh. Q. 40:34 describes the overall behaviour of those who did not heed to the messengers as those who commit excesses. Excess is associated, in this context with the dispensing of the messengers’ teachings, hence divine guidelines. The Qurʾan describes excess in the above examples as concomitant with transgression. The portrayal of excess, in several other places in the Qurʾan, occurs not just in relation to a certain attitude toward the messengers and the divine (belief) or others (transgression on others’ rights), such as the examples above, but also in relation to the self.

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The Qurʾan cautions against this excess when mentioning almsgiving during the harvest. In Q. 6:141, excess is associated with benefiting from the harvest and giving to the poor what is due in terms of almsgiving (zakāt) but not giving too much (wa lā tusrifū innahu lā yuḥibbu l-musrifı n̄ ).19 Giving too much, although a virtuous deed, is categorised as excess; in the same manner arrogance and non-belief are also categorised as excess. The Qurʾan regards this behaviour as a deficiency in reason. The self-destruction and harm involved even if it is a virtuous deed but done in excess is evident. In this case, a charitable action and/or zakāt can become excess in itself through lack of reason in determining what proper charity is. The aforementioned concepts of qadar and mizān (measure and balance) are at work here. In this respect, an action that is ascribed with beauty (ḥasan) may become ugly if reason was absent. Beauty without measure does not remain absolutely beautiful. Note for instance, in poetry criticism, Ibn al-Muʿtazz (d. 296/908) introduces the topic of his book on rhetorical embellishments (badı ʿ̄ ) and enumerates some poets who were famous for their rhetorical embellishments. He criticises poet Abū Tammām Ḥ abı̄b b. Aws al-Ṭ āʾı̄ (d. 231/845 or 232/846) who was particularly enthusiastic about using badı ʿ̄ in his poetry, he specialised in it and went to excessive measures. The results were good in some part and not so good in others. Ibn al-Muʿtazz explains, ‘this is the consequences of extremes’ (ʿuqbā al-ifrāt)̣ ‘and the fruit of excess’ (thamarat al-isrāf).20 Ibn al-Muʿtazz is trying to tell us that even something like rhetorical embellishments cannot remain ‘absolutely beautiful’. Not only is the concept of excess as a spoiler of beauty and a path to qubḥ present in the aesthetic and literary criteria of poetry criticism, but also in the terminology itself. The Qurʾan refers to God’s relationship with those who are depicted as prone to excesses by being described as disliked (lā yuḥibb) because of their behaviour. Similarly, with regards to over-indulgence in eating, drinking, grooming (Q. 7:31), and spending (Q. 25:67), all excesses are described as disliked as well. This sentiment of dislike is expressed when grooming, eating, or spending could be taken to an extreme that is described as extravagant. The act then ceases to be an act of grooming, eating, drinking, or spending and becomes a repulsive act. The caution against isrāf is immeasurable. What is too much spending, for instance? The emphasis here is on an immeasurable guideline that acts as a moral force to discourage excess. However, the measurement of excess itself is ultimately left to human reason. While the concept of excess could be easily perceived in the

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aforementioned examples because of their tangible nature (which maybe measured tangibly and quantitatively, it may also refer to that which is intangible. In Q. 36:13–19, a story relates some people’s attitude towards the messengers who went to advocate monotheism and belief in God. The people accused them of being an ‘evil omen’ and asked them to stop their teachings or they shall be punished severely. The messengers’ reply puts forth the description of these people as ‘musrifūn’ (gone too far! Or prone to excesses), because their attitude is depicted as a form of irrational thinking. They verbalise this faulty logic in their interpretation of this reminder from the messengers as an ‘evil omen’. Their qualification of the event in superstitious parameters makes them eligible for the musrifūn quality because it is devoid of reason. This is clear in the question put forth to the people in the related story with regards to their reasons behind viewing the messengers and their teachings as an evil omen. Irrational thinking, an intangible quality, or behaviour is also qualified as excess in the same manner the previously mentioned tangible qualities are. The gravity of the concept of excess is expressed in Q. 26:151–52: ‘do not obey those who are given to excess and who spread corruption in the land instead of doing what is right’, which reinforces the concept of exclusion (ibʿād) to those who are given to excess as well as transgression. The exclusion (ibʿād) of those who are prone to excess from the privilege of being in a council or authority position to others is indicative of a substantiated evidence of a lack in their reasoning faculties and moral character because of their excess, which presupposes a flaw in their judgement. The Qurʾan does not attribute this flaw to only the perceptible dispensing of divine prescriptions and guidelines as transgression of rules only. It inherently includes an ascribed form of deficiency in reason as well. In other words, there is a distinction between excess as a deficiency in reason, as an intellectual faculty, and transgressions or ‘sins’ proper. The above examples clarify the multifaceted nature of isrāf as both excess in itself, a transgression, and/or irrational behaviour. Pharaoh was described as having given in to excess because of his transgressions and his irrational decisions that were fuelled by his pride. The Qurʾan uses the same semantic field in the context of the story of the People of Lot. Q. 7:81. You lust after men rather than women! You transgress all bounds (musrifūn); Q. 26:165–66. Must you, unlike [other] people, lust after males and abandon the wives that God has created for you? You are exceeding all

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bounds. (ʿādūn); Q. 27:55 How can you lust after men instead of women? What fools you are! (tajhalūn). In reference to one particular context in the story of the People of Lot, three words are used in the same conceptual capacity: ʿādūn, tajhalūn, and musrifūn. Excess (isrāf), lack of reason (jahl), and transgression of boundaries (taʿaddı )̄ share the same conceptual semantic scope. This was clarified in the story of Pharaoh as well, where concepts of excess, transgression, and lack of reason have been depicted as overlapping. In this respect, the three concepts refer directly to an act considered qabı h̄ ̣ either by the Qur’an alone (divine guidelines and messengers’ teachings), by reason alone, or both. These taxonomies of the qabı h̄ ̣ are not synonymous. The three concepts are not infinitely equal in their linguistic capacity or evaluative measures but their conceptual semantics refer to the same thing: qabı h̄ ̣.21 Actions that are characterised by ḥusn and qubḥ are described in the Qurʾan as ‘liked’ and ‘disliked’ by God, respectively. The expression of ‘rejection’ and/or ‘disownment’ expressed in Q. 28:42 presupposes a sentiment of condemnation (dislike). This is morally articulated in the Qurʾan through the taxonomy of qabı h̄ ̣ as excess, transgression, and lack of reason. Actions, behaviour, and traits that are praised and condemned based on their ḥusn and qubḥ are additionally enumerated. The verb ‘to love’ (yuḥibb) occurs nearly forty times in reference to God. He does not love the transgressors (Q. 2:190; 5:87; 7:55); corruption (Q. 2:205) and corrupt people (Q. 5:64; 28:77); the ungrateful sinners (Q. 2:276;); ignoring his commands (Q. 3:32); the unfaithful and ungrateful (Q. 22:38); those who reject the truth (Q. 30:45); the unjust (Q. 3:57; 3:140; 42:40); the proud and arrogant (Q. 4:36; 16:23; 31:18; 57:23); the traitors (Q. 4:107; 8:58; 22:38); the boastful sinners (Q. 4:148); those who give in to excess (Q. 6:141; 7:31); and the gloaters (Q. 28:76). On the other hand, He loves the good doers (Q. 2:195; 3:134; 3:148; 5:13; 5:93); the clean and pure (Q. 2:222; 9:108); the pious (Q. 3:76; 9:4; 9:7); the patient and steadfast (Q. 3:146); the trusting in Him (Q. 3:159); and the just (Q. 5:42; 49:9; 60:8). The Qur’an repeatedly criticises the actions and behaviours associated with the response of ‘dislike’ and ultimately praises those associated with ‘like’. Are ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ meant to be understood on a purely emotional level as sentiments attributed to the divine, or as qualifiers attributed to the value of the acts described? Some scholars have pointed out that emotions, inclinations, and temperaments

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(mayl al-ṭabāʾiʿ) such as love or dislike cannot be ascribed to God as literal.22 Rather, they are understood figuratively as ‘nearness’ or ‘distance’ from the divine, the most Beautiful, or the most Sublime and all what these spaces entail. Qubḥ does not oscillate only between momentary criticism and later punishment; qubḥ is a derivative of ibʿād (rejection, disownment), which owes itself to the lā yuḥibb. It is not only extended to the aforementioned moral categories of excess, transgression, and lack of reason as they operate under the apparatus of moral qubḥ. Intangible qualities such as cleanliness and purity are described as amongst the qualities that fall under the matrix of yuḥibb. By extension, uncleanliness and impurity are to be considered under the lā yuḥibb, ‘[u]ncleanliness is a word which represents that which is avoided and from which people desire to stay away’.23 The intangible concepts of purity (t ̣ahāra) and impurity (najāsa) become in themselves expressions of ḥusn and qubḥ to express the yuḥibb and lā yuḥibb, respectively. Based on their necessary ibʿād, qubḥ finds some aesthetic articulation in some material objects and substances of najāsa such as urine, faeces, or blood, for instance.24 Some of these material signs of najāsa become metonyms of qubḥ by virtue of their necessary exclusion (ibʿād) as objects of najāsa. In other words, the acts described above are not only qualified by ‘like’ and ‘dislike’, hence meriting praise or blame, respectively. The ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ are to be understood as points on the matrices of moral and aesthetic beauty and ugliness in the here as well as the hereafter. ‘Like’ and ‘dislike’ are equivalent to ‘near’ and ‘distant’ in terms of the ‘distance’ from the divine—note the Sufi concept of the union with the divine as the ultimate and final point in the spiritual quest, hence the elimination of distance and accordingly the term ‘friends of God’ (awliyāʾ Allāh). The dislike, therefore, is to be understood in the Qurʾanic parameter of ibʿād. The concept of ibʿād is central to the discourse and locale of Hell. This ibʿād is communicated psychologically in Q. 32:14 through the depiction of the wrongdoers’ state as forgotten/ignored (nası n̄ ākum) because they have ignored (nası t̄ um) or removed themselves from the divine. This ‘spiritual alienation’, as Christian Lange calls it, could be traced in the commentaries of pre-modern scholars as they state that the worst punishment is ‘banishment from God’, which al-Ghazālı̄ eloquently describes as the tormenting ‘fire of regret over being deprived of the vision of God’.25 The deprivation of the Beatific Vision (visio beatifica) or the Face of God is to be understood as the deprivation from God’s mercy.26 It is consid-

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ered the ultimate alienation and punishment—hence the unpardonable sin of disbelief, which entails a non-belief in God, is punishable by being deprived by that which is disbelieved. The psychological delineation of this ibʿād as a forgotten state is also explained materially. The psychological distance is reiterated elsewhere in the Qurʾan to highlight this idea. In Q. 41:41–44, for instance, the Qurʾan describes itself as ‘…guidance and healing for those who have faith, but the ears of the disbelievers are heavy, they are blind to it, it is as if they are being called from a distant place’. The Qurʾan depicts this psychological and spiritual distance, as communicated in the previous verses, in spatial parameters as physical ibʿād that is self-inflicted; it is a self-imposed exile. Also, in the locale of Hell, Hell becomes a material distant place that translates the Qur’anic viewpoint of disbelief in this example and qubḥ in general as psychological and spiritual distances. Ibʿād as an actual state of being is also referred to spatially in the Qurʾanic discourse without an explicit reference to Hell as a locus but simply as ‘an away space’. The Ark settled on Mount Judi, and it was said, ‘Gone [buʿdan] are those evildoing people!’ Hūd (11:44) Yes the ʿAd denied their Lord—so away with [buʿdan] the ʿAd, the people of Hud! Hūd (11:60) Yes the Thamud denied their Lord—so away with [buʿdan] the Thamud! Hūḍ (11:68) Yes, away with [buʿdan] the people of Midian, just like the Thamud! Hūḍ (11:95) The blast justly struck them and We swept them away like scum. Away with [buʿdan] the evildoers! Al-Muʾminūn (23:41) …so We destroyed them one after the other and made them into cautionary tales. Away with [buʿdan] the disbelievers! Al-Muʾminūn (23:44)

In all the aforementioned verses, the word buʿdan (Away with) spatially summarises the punishments as a state of ibʿād of the mentioned perished nations and peoples of ʿĀ d, Thamūd, Midian, and so on. The Qurʾan relates that these people were punished for their unbelief and transgressions and thus became exemplary tales. The ibʿād is therefore understood to be more than the punishments related in the Qurʾan (deluge, storms, and such), which is a literal ibʿād (wiping out), so to speak, through punishment. Another level of ibʿād is a foreshadowed ibʿād on

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the plane of Hell as a distance farther away from the divine, hence the absolute Beautiful and Merciful and also a further literary ibʿād through their memory as ‘cautionary tales’ necessitating an emotional ibʿād as part of their reception being ‘cautionary’ narrative. The Qurʾan ‘…recounts the stories of the ancient communities and their subsequent failures, thus matching the historical emphasis of the Biblical tradition’, Andrew Rippin argues, ‘the stress within the Qur’an falls elsewhere. The alienation of the individual from God appears to be the Qur’anic focal point.’27 The Qur’anic conception of ibʿād as spiritual and psychological distances from the divine, from mercy, and from human progress itself is extended in its delineation of unbelief throughout: God does not forgive the worship of others beside Him—though He does forgive whoever He will for lesser sins—for whoever does this has gone far, far astray. Al-Nisāʾ (4:116) Anyone who does not believe in God, His angels, His Scriptures, His messengers, and the Last Day has gone far, far astray. Al-Nisāʾ (4:136) Those who have disbelieved and barred others from God’s path have gone far astray. Al-Nisāʾ (4:167)

Why does the Qur’an refer to ḍalāl (being far astray) as baʿı d̄ (far away or distant)? Is there a near ḍalāl and a far ḍalāl? The spatial representation of the abstract notion of ḍalāl in terms of its remoteness from the aforementioned concept that is not ḍalāl: rushd presupposes being far away from an identified point, a centre, or a measure: rushd. The baʿı d̄ (far) is therefore understood as an abstract remoteness measured in intellectual parameters for distance that is farther from rushd. In this respect, the notion of ibʿād stands conceptually, at a distance, from beauty. It corresponds conceptually with the qabı h̄ ̣ not only in its referential index that is Hell but also in its inherent distance from reason proper. The notion of ibʿād is measured in rational parameters from sound reasoning (ḍalāl) and against rushd. In other words, the ibʿād becomes a distance from reason itself. Reason here encompasses all that is contrary to excess, transgression, and deficiency in reason. It becomes both moral force (Reason) and reason proper. Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889-10), a contemporary of al-Jāḥız̄ ̣ (d. 255/868-9), relates a ḥadı̄th about a conversation between the archangel Gabriel and Adam. It is reported that he has come to Adam and told him, ‘I come to you with three things. Choose one.’ Adam said, ‘What are they?’ Gabriel said, ‘Reason (al-ʿaql), modesty (al-ḥayāʾ) and religion (al-dı n ̄ ).’

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Adam said, ‘I choose reason (ikhtartu l-ʿaqla).’ Gabriel dismisses modesty and religion, saying that Adam had chosen reason. Modesty and religion tell Gabriel that they have been assigned to accompany reason wherever it is.28 The moral of the story is that the category of reason as an intellectual faculty proper precedes and is independent of religion. It is not to be conflated with religion and construed as synonymous with it. Ibn Qutayba recounts a related maxim that people’s choices expose their rationality (or lack thereof), and that religion is not complete until reason is perfected… (dalla ʿalā ʿaqli l-rajuli ikhtiyāruhu wa mā tamma dı n ̄ u aḥadin ḥattā yatimma ʿaqluhu…).29 Similarly, Muslim theologians and ethicists not only regard sins as symptomatic of a deficiency in reason but view sins as a cause of corrupting sound intellect and reason (ʿaql).30 Perhaps at a quick glance, one could misread their reasoning as equating ʿaql with faith, but their argument on the relationship between diminishing reason and lack of ḥusn, a fortiori, speaks about ʿaql as an intellectual faculty and not a moral force motivated by faith. The categorical intertwinement therefore of wisdom and reason associates wisdom/reason with excellence/beauty.31 The Qurʾan presents its message, Rustomji maintains, ‘[…] for humanity to see what will follow their perception of existence so they will be able to comprehend the meaning of their lives in the fullest cosmological picture’.32 This explains the didactic nature of the Qurʾan. The demand for people to be responsible agents and take full responsibility for their actions is one of the paramount features of the Qurʾan. Behaviour in this world has consequences in both this world and the otherworld. The Qurʾan is even explicit about which action leads to where throughout.33 In this respect, the Qurʾan creates moral deserts or ‘moral consequences’ established on the aforementioned values attached to these acts by which the subject is deserving of both worldly life and afterlife reward and/or punishment. The phenomenological nature of the Day of Judgment is outside the scope of this discussion, i.e. whether it is a judgement based on a ‘trial’, or as some modern commentators maintain, a moment of complete ‘self-awareness’.34 The Qurʾan does acknowledge that complete selfawareness is the theme of the Day of Judgment as it promotes the idea of reward and punishment based on a sense of ‘deservedness’. This ‘deservedness’ is founded upon the idea of justice, hence the term ‘judgment’. As Mustansir Mir argues, ‘the Qurʾān upholds justice as an absolute value’

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even in the most severe and hostile circumstances where human nature may bring out the worst in people, justice should be maintained. In Q. 5:8, the Qur’an maintains, ‘Do not let hatred of others lead you away from justice, but adhere to justice, for that is closer to awareness of God.’ The ‘deservedness’ of either reward or punishment, according to the Qurʾan, is not merited by virtue of subscribing to a certain group, belief, or any other categorisation; it is a ‘deservedness’ based solely on individual work. Work, behaviour, and morality are stressed throughout the Qurʾan as the sole responsibility of the believer, or the moral agent, as being responsible for the orientation of both her/his life and afterlife. Rustomji maintains, the ‘message of the Garden and the Fire is not only to set humanity on the right path, but also warn them of coming trials. Humanity is offered a choice and that choice has eschatological consequences.’35 The deserts the Qurʾan establishes are not just otherworldly, thereby deferring blame or reward relating to the negative and positive deserts, respectively. Every act, positive or negative, carries its own desert as ‘moral consequences’. The Qurʾan provides numerous examples for this. The story of Joseph, as previously discussed, highlights this factor. In the world of maqbūḥı n̄ , it becomes natural that those who are described as disowned and rejected possess one, some, or all of the qualities listed in the Qur’anic discourse as being condemned, hence qualified as ‘maqbūḥı n ̄ ’ and so are their qualities as qabı h̄ ̣ and their acquired qubḥ by virtue of their placement (Hell) and their punishment. Not only is it essential then to examine the qualities of those labelled as ‘maqbūḥı n ̄ ’, but it is also necessary to analyse the geographical space associated with qubḥ: Hell.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

Al-Qaṣaṣ (28:42). al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı h̄ ̣ al-Ghayb, 24: 218. Ibid. al-Ṭ abarsı̄, Majmaʿ al-Bayān fi Tafsı r̄ al-Qurʾān, ed. Hāshim al-Rasūlı̄ and Fadl Allah al-Ṭ abātạ bāʿı̄ al-Yazdı̄ (Tehran: Sharikat al-Maʿārif al-Islāmiyya, 1959–1960), 7: 254. Ibid., 255. Ibn al-ʿArabı̄, Tafsı r̄ al-Qurʾān al-Karı m ̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Yaqaẓa al-ʿArabiyya, 1968), 2: 229–30. Abdel Haleem trans., The Qur’an (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), xix–xx. Primary medieval manuals of eschatology are replete with these details. Studies, especially medieval, concerned with the eschatology of Hell

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9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

abound and boast of tangible enthusiasm on the subject as illustrated in works such as Abū’l-Ḥ asan al-Ashʿarı̄’s (259–323/873–935) Kitāb Shajarat al-Yaqı n ̄ , ed. and trans. Castillo Castillo (Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, 1987), 73–88; Abū Ḥ āmid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ghazālı̄’s (450-504/1058-1111) Kitāb Dhikr al-Mawt wa mā Baʿdah in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dı n̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, 198-), 4: 482– 499; Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Qurṭubı̄’s al-Tadkhira fı ̄ Aḥwāl al-Mawtā, ed. Aḥmad Ḥ ijāzı̄ al-Saqqā (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1980), 2: 408–529; Kitāb al-Nihāya by Ismāʿı̄l b. ʿUmar Ibn Kathı̄r (700– 773/1301–1373) ed. Ṭ aha Muḥammad al-Zaynı̄ (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Ḥ adı̄tha, 1969), 2: 202–267; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad Ibn Rajab’s (736–795/1336–1393) Al-Takhwı f̄ min al-Nār, ed. Muḥammad Jamı̄l Ghāzı̄ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Imān, 1981). The entire book is devoted to the eschatology of Hell and is rich in vivid descriptions of the various chambers and tools of punishment, the transmogrification of Hell’s inhabitants, the diseases, and plagues found in Hell, etc. See Christian Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) Chaps. 3 and 4; some of these concerns have also been discussed in Nerina Rustomji’s The Garden and the Fire (New York: Columbia University Press 2009). Christian Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination (Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 2008), 104. Traditions differ where major sins are (the list just kept on growing according to Lange) but the core major ones in all lists are: polytheism (shirk), disrespect towards one’s parents (ʿuqūq al-wālidayn), fornication (zinā), homicide (qatl), perjury (shahādat al-zūr), slander (qadhf), usury (ribā), usurpation of the inheritance of orphans (akl māl al-yatı m ̄ ), the practice of sorcery (siḥr), apostasy (irtidād), desecration of the Holy Mosque in Mecca (ilḥād fı ̄ masjid al-ḥaram) and flight from the battlefield (tawallā min al-zaḥf), see Lange for more, p. 104ff. See, also, Mustansir Mir, ‘Major Sin and Minor Sin’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, 124–26. See Lange, 104ff. Lange, 111. For the reasons beyond this growth, see ibid. 112ff. See Ibn ʿArabı̄’s controversial stand on Pharaoh as being spiritually saved as he confessed his belief in God at the last moment just before drowning. Ibn ʿArabı̄ casts this view as an aside in his fuṣūs,̣ as Ernst maintains, but his comment took a life of its own in studies and works supporting and refuting the view. See, Carl W. Ernst, ‘Controversies over Ibn ʿArabı̄’s fuṣūs:̣ The Faith of Pharaoh,’ Islamic Culture CIX, no. 3 (1985): 259–66. cf. Neal Robinson, Discovering the Qur’an (London: SCM Press, 2003), 115.

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15. For example, Q. 2:126, 2:206, 3:12, 3:162, 5:10, 8:16; 9:73, 9:113, 11:98, 13:18, 14:29, 22:51, 37:23, 38:56, 38:60. 16. Al-Qaṣaṣ (28:42). 17. Nazı̄h Muḥammad Iʿlawı̄, al-Shakhṣiyyāt al-Qurʾāniyya (Amman: Dār Ṣafāʾ li-l-Nashr wa l-Tawzı̄ʿ, 2006), 254. 18. Mir, ‘Pride’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, 161–62. See, also al-Ghazālı̄, Iḥiyāʾ ʿulūm al-dı n̄ , for a discussion on the diseases of the heart of which pride is one. 19. Al-Rāzı̄ lists various opinions which contend that it is giving of one-tenth of what has been watered by rainfall and half of that for what has been watered by machinery. Other opinions maintain it was the ṣadaqa which included giving a little to the poor or passers-by on the day of the harvest but then the zakāt was prescribed in Medina and this sura is Meccan, so the verse was abrogated to include it as a zakat. al-Rāzı̄ includes this opinion but does not think it is correct because it should remain in force based on linguistic evidence of the word ḥaqq which only applies to what is known and measured that is zakāt, not charity which has no measure but is left to personal ability and discretion. See, Mafātı h̄ ̣ al-Ghayb, 13: 175–76. 20. Ibn al-Muʿtazz, al-Badı ʿ̄ , ed. Ignatius Kratchovsky (Kuwait: Dār al-Ması̄ra, 1983), 1. Third edition. 21. For more on the issue of synonymity (al-tarāduf) in Arabic, see Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄, al-Furūq fı ̄ l-Lugha, where he highlights that no two synonyms are equal and there are nuances between them. Thus, when one uses the word ‘synonymous’, one should not assume equality. 22. al-Sharı̄f al-Raḍı,̄ Talkhı s̄ al-Bayān fı ̄ Majāzāt al-Qur’ān, ed. ʿAlı̄ Maḥmūd Maqlad (Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥ ayāt, n.d.), 57. 23. Yasien Mohamed, Fitrah: The Islamic Concept of Human Nature, 126. 24. For a comprehensive discussion of najāsa and a full list of things that are considered impure, see Z. Maghen, ‘Ablution’ in EI3. See also, Mustansir Mir, ‘Impurity’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, 102. 25. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 138. 26. al-Rāzı̄ contends that God is outside Space (la yajūz ʿalayhi al-makān) and so the ‘face of God’ is read as His way that people worship Him through (qiblatihi al-lati yuʿbad biha) or His mercy, grace, reward, and blessings (raḥmatuhu wa niʿmatuhu wa t ̣arı q̄ thawābuhu wa iltimās marḍātuhu). See, Mafātı h̄ ̣ al-Ghayb, 4: 21. 27. Andrew Rippin, “Desiring the Face of God’: The Qur’anic Symbolism of Personal Responsibilty’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata, (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 118. 28. Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn al-Akhbār: Kitāb al-Suʾdud, (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1996), 281. I am grateful to Bashir Saade for this reference.

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29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

This report is also related in al-Dumairı̄, Ḥ ayāt al-Ḥ aywān al-Kubrā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 2:320. Ibid. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Jawāb al-Kāfı ̄ li-man Saʾal ʿan al-Dawāʾ al-Shāfı ,̄ ed. ʿAbd al-Ghaffār Suleimān al-Bindārı̄ (Cairo and Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Miṣrı̄ and Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānı̄, 1990), 90. [al-maʿāsı̣ ̄ tufsidu l-ʿaqla, fa-inna li-l-ʿaqli nūran, al-maʿṣiyyatu tuṭfiʾu nūra l-ʿaqli wa la-budda, wa idhā ṭufiʾa nūruhu ḍaʿufa wa naquṣa]. A similar reasoning but through targhı b̄ (benefits of spiritual growth) rather than tarhı b̄ (consequences of sins) is found in al-Ghazālı̄’s Mishkāt al-Anwār [The Niche of Lights]. Ibid. Nerina Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, 42. Ibid., 50. M.H. Fadel, ‘Chastisement and Punishment’ in EQ. Online. Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, 50.

CHAPTER 4

Hell and the Aesthetics of Qubḥ

This chapter examines Hell’s descriptive definition as manifest in its portrayal (nature, climate, and so on) and how its methods of punishment define the aesthetic dimension of qubḥ pertaining to corporeal punishment. Hellfire, then, is presented as the essence of abstract qubḥ through its punitive nature. The Qurʾan constructs the space of Hell through defining it as a punitive place. Its punitive function, in other words, the defining essence of Hell, is punishment (ʿadhāb), and it is depicted as such in the entirety of the Qurʾan.1 Antithetically, the essence of Heaven is reward (thawāb). It then becomes necessary to examine this punitive place as functional only within certain prescribed parameters that a particular class should share. The prescriptive definition of Hell as a place for the maqbūḥın ̄ therein rests in identifying the qualifying characteristics of its inhabitants—a recurrent theme in the Qurʾan. Hell’s descriptive definition as manifest in its portrayal (nature, temperature, topography, and such) and its methods of punishment define the aesthetic dimension of qubḥ pertaining to corporeal punishment. Hellfire, then, is presented as the essence of abstract qubḥ through its punitive nature. The Qurʾan describes the inhabitants of hell, i.e. the wrongdoers (the sinners), as maqbūḥın̄ , thereby classifying them as ‘rejected from God’s mercy’ and also acquiring the state of qubḥ by virtue of their place (as being singled out of God’s mercy), their transgressions (qubḥ), and their punishments (acquiring corporeal qubḥ).

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_4

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Hell and its imagery, in all religions that partake in a Hell and an afterlife, are perhaps regarded as an uncomfortable place to tread in any discussion, be that as it may, the infernal journey is mandatory in our discussion. Robert Orsi considered Hell a ‘despised religious idiom’.2 He perhaps expresses the modern interpreters’ distaste for this side of religious tradition, the ‘[…] dark, chaotic, [and] sometimes even repulsive’.3 Theologian Fakhr al-dı̄n al-Rāzı̄’s ‘solution to the problem posed for divine subjectivists by God’s threats of punishment and reward was to acknowledge a subjective rational capacity within man allowing him to understand what causes him pleasure and pain and thus enabling him to perceive where his advantage lies’.4 But even the passages and images that may be regarded as uncomfortable and difficult for Hell’s elaborate and intricate punishments in the Qur’an have an effect akin to what James Joyce and later Joseph Campbell called ‘aesthetic arrest’5 and similarly what Sayyid Quṭb called ‘disarming awe and surrender’ (al-dahsh wa l-istislām)6 and what Adūnis describes as a ‘linguistic awe’ (dahsha lughawiyya). The aesthetics of Hell do not simply just repel and induce fear. Hell is wonderfully rich in its aesthetic treatment of the intellectual unpacking of abstract meanings. As Lange rightly points out, Hell ‘… put[s] at the believers’ disposition an arsenal of categories of thought’.7 On one level, Hell represents a theological finality. On another, it represents a mirror for a whole range of secondary meanings. Even in the world of adab, this holds true. A journey to Hell was necessary, albeit figuratively, in adab for al-Maʿarrı̄ (d. 449/1058) because of the explanatory power and the categories of thought this place offers to articulate certain messages. Hell—although not really needing a definition—is ‘…the abode of the damned after the Day of Judgment. It is an eschatological place of endless punishment, physical torture, mental anguish, and despair.’8 It is often thought of in terms of structural opposition to Paradise (ascent/ descent, beauty/ugliness, and reward/punishment).9 Hell is the abode of the maqbūḥın̄ . Punishment in Hell is not always physical; it is sometimes described as purely spiritual, emotional, and psychological and at other times combining all effects. Works, especially medieval, concerned with eschatology abound and boast of tangible enthusiasm on the subject.10 Examples include: Kaʿb al-Aḥbār’s (d. between 32/652 and 35/655) Kitāb al-Ākhira, al-Muḥāsibı̄’s (d. 857) Kitāb al-Tawahhum, Abū’l-Ḥ asan al-Ashʿarı̄’s (d. 323/935) Kitāb Shajarat al-Yaqı̄n,11 al-Ghazālı̄’s (d. 504/1111) Kitāb

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Dhikr al-Mawt wa mā Baʿdahau12, al-Qurṭubı̄’s (d. 621/1273) alTadkhira fı̄ Aḥwāl al-Mawtā13, Kitāb al-Nihāya by Ismāʿı̄l b. ʿUmar Ibn Kathı̄r (d. 773/1373)14 and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad Ibn Rajab’s (d. 795/1393) al-Takhwı̄f min al-Nār15. These titles are rich in vivid descriptions of the various chambers and tools of punishment, the transmogrification of Hell’s inhabitants, and the diseases and plagues found in Hell. These works are only auxiliary to this discussion. It is not my aim to examine medieval ‘textual scholarship’ on eschatology of which both Christian Lange and Nerina Rustomji provide an excellent scholarly analysis in different ways. These eschatological manuals are mostly based on secondary literature, amongst other sources, not the Qur’an alone. My concern is to bring to the fore the Qur’an’s aesthetic influence as a master-Text away from secondary or even tertiary literature which cannot be called accessible to, retrievable and quotable, by the learned and unlearned alike in Islamic culture, as the Qur’an is. The ugly return of the maqbūḥın̄ , Hell, is qualitatively defined throughout the Qur’an not only as ‘fire’ but it is also described as a spatiotemporal dimension. Hell is described as both a time (date) and place as Q. 15:43 and Q. 7821 maintain. The functionality of Hell, then, operates from the paradigm that it exists for a certain purpose: punishment. Hell is not just fire and blazes. The Qur’an presents Hell as a complex place and being at the same time. It is an elaborate world of punishment.16 It is not only described as a place and time of the greatest punishment a human mind could possibly imagine to the nearest degree,17 or even as an infinite moment in Time, but it is also described as an anthropomorphic being. In Q. 25:12, Hell is described as an infuriated being. Upon seeing the sinners from afar, it breathes heavily and loudly from excessive exasperation. This image is repeated in Q. 50:30 where the anthropomorphocity of Hell is ready to devour its inhabitants.18 Al-Zamkhsharı̄ maintains that Jahannam’s questioning and response in the aya is a form of takhyyı̄l (image-evocation), the purpose of which is to emphasise the image and drive the meaning home (taṣwı̄r al-maʿnā fı̄ l-qalb wa tathbı̄tahu).19 This should not be understood—as sometimes is the case—as an undermining of the reality of these images on the exegetes’ or commentators’ part but rather a literary theorisation of these images. Takhyyı̄l is an exclusive term to Arab-Islamic poetics. It means the creation or evocation of an image in the mind. It has been theorised and used differently across history depending on the discipline. It first appeared in philosophy by al-Farābı̄, the rhetoric of poetry, then the theory of imagery in poetics,

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Qur’anic exegesis by al-Zamakhsharı̄, and finally as a rhetorical figure.20 Where Qur’anic exegesis is concerned, al-Zamakhsharı̄ used the term to express the Qur’an’s representation of abstract notions using visual and anthropomorphic images, like God’s omnipotence, for instance.21 Takhyyı̄l, in this case is defined as a ‘visualisation of an abstract notion…in a comprehensive picture, the parts of which cannot be individually connected back to the notion expressed’.22 It is unclear though why Heinrichs attributes al-Zamakhsharı̄ analysis of the verse through ‘takhyyı̄l’ to what he describes as his Muʿtazilite rationality, when other non-Muʿtazilite exegetes also explain it as figurative (taṣwı̄r) to explain the hidden with the seen (li-tamthı̄l al-khafı̄ bi-l-jalı̄) according to al-Rāzı̄, for instance.23 Similarly, modern exegete bin ʿĀ shūr (d. 1973) not only considers the verse metaphorical but that its metaphorical nature is ‘common sense’ and is considered general knowledge (wa yajūz an yujʿal jamı̄ʿ dhālik istiʿāra tamthı̄liyya kamā lā yakhfā).24 Why would one restrict certain reading as ‘rational’ and therefore belonging only to the Muʿtazilites thereby excluding, by extension, all other readings, schools, and ‘common sense’ from the ‘rational’ umbrella when similar lines of thought and analyses could be found in other schools and exegeses. Like Paradise, Hell is also a locale and a thing.25 Hell’s depiction as an eager beast waiting to devour all its inhabitants is a declaration of certain characteristics that delineate its environment as a punitive locale and also as an organic one where the locale is anthropomorphic to highlight this punitive effectiveness and consequences. The Qur’an uses 22 names of Hell as such. 26 In works of exegesis, only seven of these names are nouns and correlate with what exegetes describe as layers of Hell.27 The other names, not nouns, are iḍāfa constructs (possessive constructions) used to indicate the severity of the place, such as biʾs al-qarār (the worst of all resting abodes), biʾs al-maṣır̄ (the worst of all destinies), and sūʾ al-dār (the worst of all houses). Hell’s names and punishment are qualified by condemnation in their naming with the Arabic verb of ‘blame’: biʾs. Biʾs is linguistically understood to qualify an entity with exclamatory criticism, censure, abomination, or wretchedness. This is emphasised in the Qur’an’s references to Hell as biʾs al-qarār [translated as home of ruin/evil place to stay], in Q. 14:29 and Q. 38:60, respectively. Also, biʾs al-maṣır̄ as a wretched/evil destiny and home as it qualifies the word maṣır̄ (destiny) with wretchedness (Q. 2:126; Q. 3:162; Q. 8:16; Q. 9:73; Q. 22:72; Q. 24:57; Q. 57:15; Q. 58:8; Q.

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64:10; Q. 66:9; Q. 67:6). In biʾs al-mihād, the expression is intensified as biʾs is added to the word mihād (resting place, bed) to heighten the image of an inescapable place where resting is alluded to as part of the quotidian and human daily functions and needs. The mentioning of resting here gives the impression, like previous Hell’s references, that it is a home where all prosaic activities are carried on. It also juxtaposes two incongruous images: one of a resting place/bed and that of Hell. The latter evokes references of pain and punishments, which are by default contrary to the idea of resting be it physical, emotional, or mental. The resting place suggests a harmonising effect that evokes pleasant sensations as it refers to the concept of a ‘home.’ Avicenna (d. 428/1037) defines pleasure as ‘the feeling of harmonizing stimulus’ while pain as ‘an incongruous stimulus’.28 The references to Hell revolutionises any concept left of a harmonising effect as it takes one of the ultimate sources of comfort and pleasure (home) and turns it into a most painful home. This does not only deliver the message of Hell as an abode on the level of the non-perceptible Hereafter, but its aesthetic power is marked by a remarkable incongruity between ‘home’, ‘resting place’ or ‘bed’ and ‘Fire’ that conveys the idea of pain on a textual level as the unconnected words meet linguistically in this particular situation. In the words of al-Jurjānı̄, the more incongruous the images are, the more astonishing their effect become (kānat ilā l-nufūs aʿjab).29 He argues that things that are alike are by default in harmony; they do not need an imagination nor do they need a literary critic to analyse. That the Qur’an qualifies Hell with the Arabic condemnation and blame verb biʾs does not restrict this qualification to Hell as a place only but it is extended to the actions of the inhabitants of Hell. The Qur’an mirrors this qualification associated with the locale of Hell in reference to the inhabitants of Hell in Q. 3:151 as biʾsa mathwā l-ẓālimı̄n (wretched is the home of the wrongdoers/unjust). The reference to the inhabitants of the Fire as ẓālimı̄n because of their actions juxtaposes their position in contrast to that of the muḥsinı̄n in the iḥsān/ẓulm dichotomy. Further to the qualification of the actions of the inhabitants of Hell as concomitant with the wretchedness of Hell as a place, in Q. 16:29, Q. 39:72, and 40:76, the Qur’an qualifies the characteristics of the inhabitants as deserving of blame and condemnation: biʾsa mathwā l-mutakabbirı̄n (‘wretched is the home of the arrogant’). In this respect, the moral actions and characteristics of the inhabitants of Hell are aesthetically mirrored in the cosmology of Hell. Further, the Qur’an refers in general terms to the actions that are related

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to Hell conceptually and semantically as ‘wretched/evil actions’ as la-biʾsa mā kānū yaʿmalūn and la-biʾsa mā kānū yaṣnaʿūn (‘How evil their practices are!’ and ‘How evil their deeds are!’), for example.30

THE ENVIRONMENT OF HELL The description of the methods of punishment is undoubtedly striking in the Qur’an. My purpose here is to briefly highlight the punishments mentioned in the Qur’an where the aesthetic dimension of qubḥ, as a result of being in Hell, is cognised as one that is also sensory. The Qur’an describes the preparation of Hell with different and numerous punishments. It speaks vividly of the moment Hell shall be shown to the disbelievers in this context in what is called an emphatic style in Arabic grammar in Q. 18:100, [ʿaraḍnā Jahannam yawma idhin li-l kāfirı̄n ʿarḍan]. The verb ‘to show’ in Arabic indicates a show or exhibition of some sort. The verse translates, as ‘we shall show the non-believers a showing of Hell.’ This emphatic style in the Qur’an is motivated by the incessant reception of a disbelief in Hell (or Paradise) as a place and the Hereafter as an idea itself. Stylistically, the Qur’an expresses this in its use of demonstrative pronouns (its use is reserved for that which is near and seen and within physical reach) in several places as ‘this is Hell’ in Q. 52:13–16 and Q. 36:61–67, for instance. This tone is in keeping with the ‘showing’ of Hell in its use of the demonstrative pronoun ‘hādhihi’: ‘This is Hell.’ What follows is a series of promises in keeping with the first promise that is Hell. This aesthetic transmogrification ties in with the notion that the wrongdoers are ‘punished with the likeness of their crimes’, as both Lange and el-Saleh, after al-Samarqandı̄, point out.31 This interpretation is understood in light of Q. 41:27, ‘We shall repay them according to their worst deed.’ The verse is juxtaposed in contrast to the paradisiacal reward. The sinners’ repayment is an aesthetic reflection of the worst of what they morally did as reflected also in the blame verb biʾs (the worst). The worst here is compared to the best (aḥsan) in a relational contrast with paradise (al-ḥusnā). Hell then becomes the only possible locus that is spatially synonymous with the described ‘worst deeds’. In other words, it is not understood as a ‘vengeful punishment’ but as a physical reflection or the aesthetic mirroring of moral failures. Hell is further described to contain various preparations of different instruments of punishment. The declaration of the preparation of Hell

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is further augmented by the fact that these punishments are primarily affecting the senses, a fact that is communicated through using the verb ‘taste’ (dhuq) in the imperative in various verses such as Q.22:22; 32:14, and 20, for instance. The Baṣran grammarian al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), maintains that anything (pain or pleasure) that is realised by the senses (jawāriḥ) then they (jawāriḥ) have tasted it in the same manner sweetness and/or bitterness is tasted.32 In the Qur’an, Hell declares itself as a punitive space not only through the explicit references to punishments affecting the senses but also through its topography, climate, and flora.

TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, AND FLORA: THE GEOGRAPHY OF DISFIGUREMENT In Q. 44:43–49, the Qur’an describes further instruments of punishment within the parameters of what is considered to be human biological necessities: eating and drinking. ‘The Tree of Zaqqum will be food for the sinners.’ The verse stipulates that there shall be a continuation of these activities but they also contribute to the aesthetic mirroring of moral failure, i.e. sources of disfiguration and punishment. There is an emphasis not only on the punishment, but the theme that qualifies these types of torments is a state of being that is neither/nor. The inhabitants of Hell are exactly on the slash between these two statuses. There is no death, viz. no relief. This quality of not releasing (physically and psychologically) befits the description of Hell as a prison not only in the physical sense but also on the emotional and mental levels. In Q. 22:19, the Qur’an portrays the attempted ‘escape’ of the denizens of Hell. Since escape is not a plausible reality of the situation at hand, these depiction only amplify the pain through irony.33 The image also reinforces the depiction of Hell as a prison. This has led some to claim that ‘Muhammad thinks of jahannam as a prison’ while the zabāniyya as ‘prison guards’.34 That the prisons, especially large ones, existed or were known in seventhcentury Arabia is highly improbable and unconvincing.35 Pre-Islamic Arabian society’s methods of punishment, as the poetry of brigand-poets (ṣaʿālı̄k) tells us, included banishment (khalʿ).36 Images indicating the characteristics of water as māʾan ḥamı̄man (boiling water) in Q. 47:15, and rusty fetid water in Q. 14:16–17 are to be juxtaposed with the images of the nature of food in Hell as well for their lethal and disfiguring characteristics. In addition to ghislı̄n, which is inter-

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preted to be the pus of the burned flesh,37 and the food of the inhabitants of Hell, or in the words of Ibn ʿArabı̄ the ‘residues of the people of the fire’ (ghusālāt ahl al-nār) who affirms ‘seeing them eating it with his own eyes’ (wa qad shāhadnāhum yaʾkulūnaha ʿiyānan).38 This is to be understood through the parameters of kashf in Sufism. The most powerful image of Hell’s flora is that of Hell is that of the tree of Zaqqūm. The images speak of intense situational irony. The description of the tree of Zaqqūm is not only in keeping with the images of the mundane activities that shall be carried out in Hell but also depicts the topography of Hell as one that resembles earth, albeit inversely, in its flora activities. While the earth’s flora serves aesthetic and economic purposes (pleasure), this tree serves as an instrument of punishment. As a tree, the Zaqqūm conceptually functions as fruitful vegetation on a landscape for possible sustenance. However, the location of the tree, its source of growth (fire instead of water, which is significant), and its intended users transform its normal conceptual and designated meaning from sustenance for nourishment to sustenance of pain and disfigurement through nourishment. The Qur’an mentions the aforementioned tree in Q. 44:43 and 56:52 and fully describes it in Q. 37:64–65: ‘This tree grows in the heart of the blazing Fire, and its fruits are like devils’ heads.’ The remarkable tree of Zaqqūm is depicted as part of Hell’s topography to further reflect the moral failures in transcendent imagery. The food of the denizens of Hell is depicted as the devils’ head fruit, which according to exegetes is an exemplification for extreme ‘ugliness,’ since no one has seen the/a devil but this reference is understood as a model of extreme ugliness and repulsiveness through an image evoked, (mutakhayyal) not a material (maḥsūs) metaphor.39 But what kind of evil and ugliness grows like fruits on trees? The tree of Zaqqūm that grows in and from the Fire aesthetically mirrors what al-Ghazālı̄ calls the moral diseases (amrāḍ al-qulūb) and moral failures, where he describes them fully and in several places in his magnum opus Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dı̄n as ‘fire’: 40 the fire of envy (nār al-ḥasad),41 the fire of lust (nār al-shahwa),42 the fire of anger (nār al-ghaḍab),43 the fire of arrogance (nār al-kibr);44 and the fire of avarice (nār al-ḥirṣ).45 Similarly, Ibn ʿArabı̄ speaks of the tree as the arrogant self that worships desires (al-nafs al-mustaʿliyya ʿalā l-qalb f ı̄ taʿabbud al-shahwa).46 Al-Ghazālı̄’s language is also adduced by the Prophetic ḥadı̄th: ‘Anger is a piece of the Fire’ (al-ghaḍabu qitʿ̣ attan min al-nāri).47 The Zaqqūm tree then has an explanatory power in examining moral failures as Fire and pieces of the Fire. Moral diseases, like the tree, have their sources of growth in the Fire,

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and like the tree, they grow the ugliest fruits imaginable. There is a hunger caused by these diseases, which demands sustenance (anger demands extinguishment, lust demands gratification, pride demands expressions, and so on). The nourishment of these moral diseases is a source of pain and disfigurement, not growth. It becomes only natural that this image aesthetically reflects not only the process of moral failures but also their consequences and their fruits as detrimental to the wellbeing of the individual. As al-Rāzı̄ laconically puts it, the Zaqqūm tree is the only appropriate food in line with the status of the denizens of the Fire. Of course, the crux of the matter is to emphasise one psychological point repeatedly in the Qur’anic discourse of Hell: futility. This is reiterated elsewhere in the Qur’an when Q. 88:7 describes the quality of food ‘that neither nourish nor satisfy hunger’. The futility here lies in the process of eating itself. Eating as an activity is normally designated to sustenance and wellbeing. The image of the tree of Zaqqūm as part of the instruments of Hell transforms the meaning of eating to become instead a means for pain and punishment and a useless cure for hunger. This is not only because hunger seems like the lesser pain in this state but because of the psychological shock as well. The futility and psychological horror of eating, which is reversed from wellbeing to pain, is also observable in the inverted function and image of the tree. As the laws of nature are reversed, (the tree feeds on and grows in fire), the biological laws are also reversed as eating becomes inversely proportional to wellbeing. These images become understandable in light of the extended meaning of the fire which fuels the tree as the moral failures that ostensibly resemble a form of needed sustenance (anger, greed, lust, avarice, and so on), but in reality contribute to further pain and destruction like the qabı̄ḥ fruits of Zaqqūm. The tone the Qur’an uses to convey these images of punishment is sarcastic, which is in keeping with the situational irony that is one of the characteristics of the description of Hell. The use of irony in itself, as part of the rhetorical stylistics of the Qur’an, infuses the message with the emotional charge needed to express the emotional distance of the lā yuḥibb and the conceptual ibʿād, stylistically. Irony in the Qur’an, where eschatological punishments are concerned, expresses the exclusion from God’s Mercy or ibʿād through the performance of language on a stylistic level. In Q. 56:51–56, the Qur’an speaks of the aforementioned punishments as being the ‘welcome’ (nuzul) of the denizens of Hell on the Day of Judgement. The irony and stylistics are outstanding. The usage of the word nuzul in the parlance of pre-Islamic Arabia referred to the lodgings

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where travellers used to go and as the customs entailed, they were always welcome in these houses.48 The usage of this word in the context of Hell’s punishments has only one purpose: sarcasm, to reinforce not only the spatial ibʿād in the geographical space but also the emotional ibʿād. This is also understood with reference to the aforementioned name of Hell as biʾs al-mihād as the most wretched/evil resting place/bed. The imagery of a bed (an object associated with rest and comfort) as well as the welcoming lodges in Hell is rescinded by the image of Fire. Conceptually, this also parallels eating the fruits of Zaqqūm for sustenance. In addition, the usage of the demonstrative pronoun (hādha) ‘this’, intensifies the effectiveness of the image in two ways. On one hand, it refers to that which has been previously mentioned as the ‘welcome’. On the other hand, it animates the image to a visual reality indicating the certainty of Hell itself, since ‘this’ as a demonstrative pronoun is also used to express that which could be seen and also near.49 The itinerary of Hell’s punishment is without a doubt beyond human comprehension. The purpose of this imagery in the Qur’an is to liken it to the closest human references. Burns, wounds, thorny bitter food, and fetid drinking water all have registers in the human imagination as referential sources for disfigurement, disease, contagion, pain, and/or death. These descriptive images would not serve their purpose if they have no reference in the intended audience’s experiential intellect. The Qur’an explains this fact self-referentially in Q. 18:54 as it maintains that it ‘presented every kind of description for people’ (min kulli mathalin). 50 In another place, there is an indirect rhetorical reference to the device of exemplification used throughout the Qur’an. In Q.74:26–30, for instance, this occurs in a rhetorical emphasis (wa mā adrāk meaning ‘What will explain to you what the scorching Fire is?’) to emphasise the magnitude that the subject under discussion, in this case Saqar, as part of an eschatological Hereafter (ghayb), is beyond the intended audience’s imagination. Because it is something that the intended audience has no register to conceptualise in their own language; it is something beyond human experience. Though the Qur’an speaks of giving examples of everything to facilitate the conceptualisation of these topics, some Muslim commentators have cautioned against the geomorphisation of Hell and debating whether certain conditions of the afterlife are of this world too.51 This is perhaps to ward off the sensationalist and speculative excesses noticed in some pre-modern eschatological literature, and also the modern and contemporary rather exploitive recycling of this discourse.

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The Qur’an therefore explains through that which is known to the human mind to the nearest degree to deliver its message. Examples of the climate of Hell are very much in dialogue with the above idea. In addition to the concurrent image of burning Fire, in Q. 56:42–43, the Qur’an speaks of lethal hot winds of samūm52and boiling water (ḥamı̄m) in Hell. While fresh air and water are essential for the survival of humans—and non-human creatures—their corruption and/or absence are detrimental to survival. Al-Rāzı̄ explains how the hot winds or samūm is a cause of death for what it does to the body.53 In Hell, water and air then become an inverted source of life, just like food, since death is not a possibility there. The described climate of Hell itself utilises known meteorological registers: clouds, or layers of shade (ẓill), in Q. 56:42–43, as references known to its audience. However, this cloud is portrayed as a black layer of smoke (yaḥmūm). The conceptual disagreement between Fire and shade extends the aforementioned images of the ‘resting place’, ‘bed’, and ‘food and water’ in Fire. Further to these imposing contrasts is the image of rain in Hellfire. In Q. 18:29, the Qur’an introduces another meteorological element: rain that pours down in Hell as a source of relief, only this rain is made of molten metal. ‘If they call for relief, they will be relieved with water like molten metal, scalding their faces.’ The verb used in the context of introducing this rain is yughāthū (gh.w.th). This not only indicates rain pouring down on the denizens of Hell, but also has the double meaning of being saved. The visual aesthetics of extreme contrasts in Hell are also supported by the compelling rhetoric of the Qur’an. The verse uses the verb in a double sens to indicate relief and salvation (which is the logical function of water in Fire). But the described nature of this rain, as an instrument of punishment, competes with its relieving function as rain. The image of scalding rain is juxtaposed to the images of utmost heat. The irony is heightened and is finally culminated in Q. 77:30–33 at the mention of a shadowy place of black smoke, acting as a relief and a refuge from all this. But even this shadowy place is illustrated in another verse where the shadow is described as a non-shadow. This emphasises the situational irony as obvious from image analysis, which is also confirmed by the use of linguistic irony as seen in the description of the environment of Hell. The verse opens with an imperative inṭaliqū (‘Hurry!’ or ‘Rush to!’) to a shadow that is a non-shadow, as a means of protection from the Fire: ‘Go to a shade of smoke… no shade does it give.’ The irony rests in the providing of all means of comfort, conceptually, which are needed in

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extreme heat: water and shade but in the form of further punishment and sarcasm, viz. pain (physical, emotional, and psychological). The culminating depiction of Hell is summarised in the ‘death comes from everywhere’ axiom as Q. 14:15–17 maintains, ‘…death will encroach on him from every side, but he will not die; more intense suffering will lie ahead of him’. This constitutes a climax in the Qur’anic discourse of Hell to an unprecedented level. The sheer certitude here lies in the impossibility of escaping pain through death in a linear thinking about life and the human body. The ability to fully utilise and experience the senses is a sign of life; death is the cessation of this ability. The Qur’an transcends this linearity in presenting a full life in Hell that continues with the most mundane and prosaic functions, where death is not possible nor is it a relief. Aesthetic ugliness that characterises and surrounds the inhabitants of Hell mirrors moral failure. The topography of both Hell and Heaven, Rustomji argues, is to be understood through the ḥadı̄th that metaphorises earthly behaviour: ‘The Garden is surrounded by hardships and the Fire is surrounded by temptation.’ 54 By temporal extension to the Hereafter, the aesthetics of Fire is to be understood as a mirror of failure. The moral choices are depicted as difficult choices: the ‘[…]future world is represented through an ethical framework of moral judgment.’55 In the description of Hellfire punishments, there is an emphasis on describing the faces and skins of those who are the object of punishment.56 The word face (wajh) is used 72 times throughout the Qur’an where actual and figurative references to the physical face are made. With respect to the Day of Judgement, the Qur’an describes the face as an aesthetic site for the consequences of individual moral responsibility. In Q. 3:106, the Qur’an relates, ‘On the Day when some faces brighten and others darken.’ Similarly, in Q. 10:27–27, ‘[…] as though their faces were covered with veils cut from the darkness of the night. These are the inmates of the Fire.’ In one of the most arresting images of the Qur’an, the verse depicts the embodiment of the abstract concept of moral failure that covers the faces of the wrongdoers as if it ‘were pieces cut from the darkness of the night.’ This is not only because it highlights the element of darkness as it borrows it from the night’s darkness, but also because it portrays the darkness of this face in a non-uniform manner. It describes the face as if it were an assortment covered with pieces and patches, instead of a homogenous face. The image of the ‘darkened face’ is understood in juxtaposition to Q. 75:22–25 and Q. 80:38 that describes the ‘radiant, cheerful faces’ of Paradise versus the ‘sad, despairing faces’ featured in the description of

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Hell. The image is reiterated in various places in the Qur’an.57 The expression of ‘darkened faces’58 in Arab parlance is related to shame. The Qur’an utilises this register in its eschatological as well as its cultural reference when it censures those who view daughters as inferior and as a result committed/still commit (during the time of the Prophet) female infanticide, which was commonly practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia. In Q. 16:58, the Qur’an maintains, ‘When one of them is given news of the birth of a baby girl, his face darkens and he is filled with gloom.’ The contrast noticed in the above verses between the radiant and cheerful faces in Paradise versus the sad, darkened, and grimaced faces is obvious. The faces are described in aesthetic terms. The face becomes a mirror for both the psychological apprehension as their punishment becomes confirmed and their actual punishment as the Qur’an maintains. The emotional expressions on the face also reflect the nature of that punishment. The face becomes qabı̄ḥ ‘ugly’ in its facial expressions and then eventually disfigured in punishment as portrayed throughout the Qur’an.59 The material reference to colour (light and dark) with respect to the faces of the inhabitants of Paradise and Hell respectively corresponds with the Qur’anic depiction of concepts of faith and disbelief, knowledge and ignorance, as light and darkness, respectively. This use has extended to adab. The prolific Sufi polymath ʿAbd al-Ghanı̄ al-Nabulsı̄ (d. 1141/1729) uses the metaphor in his diwān as well: ‘You who have forgotten [God]; your faces are darkened’ (yā man ghafaltum wujūhukum sūd).60 Al-Nabulsı̄ also uses the darkened face metaphor to indicate deficiency in reason (jahl): ‘But the waft of ignorance darkened the face’ (lakinna l-jahla sawwada l-wajha zājuhu).61 The meaning of ugliness as a deficiency in reason and its spatial translation in the concept of ibʿād is stressed by al-Nabulsı̄ as well as he relates ibʿād to deficiency in reason and their concomitant qubḥ: ‘The ignorant will be far away’ (wa l-jahūl mabʿūd).62 The emphasis on the face as a site of ‘darkness’ or ‘radiance’, hence ignorance or reason is explained through its metaphorical use in the Qur’an. The face is an ‘expression of the will of the individual’.63 In the Qur’an, Andrew Rippin maintains the face is a symbol of personal responsibility.64 The aforementioned image of the patchy face made of pieces of the night is a reference to the fractured will. The constant eschatological references to the faces then as ‘darkened’ or ‘punished’ are also a reference to the impaired will of the individual. Even when the metaphor ‘darkened face’ is used outside the religious parameters of usage (i.e. not in reference to a religious or moral obliga-

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tion failure) in idiomatic parlance, it refers to the impaired will as a source of shame and shame generally. Further, in Q. 4:47, the Qur’an speaks of ‘obliterated faces’ or ‘featureless faces’ (naṭmisa wujūhan) that shall be looking backwards as a punishment (naruddaha ʿalā adbāriha). The wiped out face is a wiped out will and sense of direction. The lack of face in a literal sense is a lack of features and identity; it is a void, emptiness. This reinforces the symbolism of the lack of direction and personal free will in the ‘absence’ of a face. Al-Rāzı̄ explains this punishment, the ‘backward obliterated face’ from an aesthetic perspective as a disfigurement (tashwı̄h) and from a moral perspective as a scandal (faḍıh̄ ̣a).65 Al-Ṭ abarsı̄ reads this obliteration as one resulting from an absence of moral guidance (naṭmisuha ʿan al-hudā).66 This image of inversion is also expressed elsewhere in the Qur’an in the reversed status of the faces of Hell’s inhabitants in Q. 17:97, ‘We shall gather them, lying on their faces, blind, dumb and deaf.’ And. in Q. 25:34, ‘It is those driven [falling], on their faces, to Hell…’; in Q. 54:48, ‘…they are dragged on their faces in Hell’; and in Q. 27:90–91, ‘But whoever comes with evil deeds will be cast face downwards into the Fire. Are you rewarded for anything except what you have done?’ The inverted images of the faces equate the aesthetic status of the inhabitants of Hell with their moral failures. This does not only describe both a physical and an aesthetic state that mirrors the moral in this particular image of punishment, but the ‘inverted and/or obliterated face’ also depicts a distinct mental state: an inverted mental state with an absence of reason or chaos and bewilderment. It is clear that mental confusion and chaos are imbedded meanings in the images of obliterated faces as impaired will. In Q. 67:22, the Qur’an completes and decodes these images in a rhetorical question; it asks, ‘Who is better guided: someone who falls on his face, or someone who walks steadily on a straight path?’ In Q. 39:24, the Qur’an uses the face explicitly as a symbol, ‘What about the one who will only have his bare face to protect him from his terrible suffering on the Day of Resurrection?’ (a-fa-man yattaqı̄ bi-wajhihi sūʾa l-ʿadhābi yawma l-qiyyāmati). How does the face (aesthetic) protect anyone from punishment except if it refers to the personal responsibility of the individual as well as moral agency (moral)? Toufic Sabbagh discusses the metonymy of the face in the Qur’an. He maintains, ‘le visage est employé, par métonymie, à la place de l’être tout entier.’67 The ‘submission of one’s face to God’ or the desire for the face of God (wajh Allāh), the Beatific Vision (visio beatifica) completes the relationship

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between the individual and God where the face as a metaphor is concerned. Sufi poet al-Niffarı̄ (d. 354/965) describes the face of God as follows: ‘My Sight (ruʾyatı̄) is like the daylight: brightening (tushriq) and illuminating (tubı̄n), and My Absence (ghaybatı̄) is like the night: alienating (tūḥish) and causes ignorance (tujhil).’68 The reinforcement of night as absence from God, not God’s absence, is paramount here. It reinforces the meaning of ibʿād not only from God’s mercy in the literal sense of the situation (Hellfire) but ibʿād as psychological alienation and an inner wasteland (waḥsha)—a loss inside oneself or an inner hell, so to speak. The Qur’anic moral precepts are articulated as mental and emotional states as well as aesthetic visual dimensions. This applies to the face as an extension of the Qur’an’s use of light and darkness. The Qur’an uses light (nūr) in ten senses (wujūh; pl. awjuh) or referential meanings. Nūr is used to reference Islam in its wider sense as submission and acknowledgment of God by other religions, ergo Monotheism (Q. 4:174; 5:15; 9:32); the Qur’an’s set of guidelines (Q. 64:8); as faith (Q. 2:257); commandments and moral laws in the Torah (Q. 5:44; 6:91) and the Gospels (Q. 5:46); divine guidance for the believers on the Day of Resurrection (Q. 57:13); as justice (Q. 36:69); as daylight (Q. 6:1); and in reference to the moon (71:15–16; 10:5).69 Nūr is also used in the parable of light (Q. 24:35–36) in reference to an extended metaphor for divine light: God is the Light of the heavens and earth. His Light is like this: there is a niche, and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, a glass like a glittering star, fuelled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, whose oil almost gives light even when no fire touches it—light upon light—God guides whoever He will to His Light; God draws such comparisons for people; God has full knowledge of everything—shining out in houses of worship. God has ordained that they be raised high and that His name be remembered in them, with men in them celebrating His glory morning and evening[.]

The Qur’an then presents disbelief in two parables that are related to light: one using the image of a mirage in a desert (sarābin bi-qı̄ʿin) in Q. 24:39 and another as multiple layered darkness (ẓulumāt) in Q. 24:40. In Q. 24:39, the Qur’an likens ‘the deeds of those who disbelieve’ to a mirage in a desert. The image here is also of light, but a refracted and bent light that creates a state of illusion, and a linear one for that matter. It reiterates the previously mentioned ‘fall on their faces’ image. Afnan Fatani maintains, ‘[…] the parable of the mirage in an open desert

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(qı̄ʿin), […] offers a new form, a form that speaks of endless linearity’.70 In the material context of light, the mirage is refracted light forming a false image to the onlooker. The interpretive faculties of the human mind decide on the image formed. The Qur’an’s imagery then likens the refraction of light or bent light to defective reasoning. The parable’s endless linearity, an illusion produced by the intellect, points to a type of reasoning (rigidly linear) that is unable to see past a fantasy: the mirage. In fact, light in the Qur’an is a reference not only to the aforementioned meanings and/or a metaphysical light as the divine, faith, monotheism, and so on, it is also a reference to the human mind, human intellect, and reasoning powers. The conceptions of light and darkness could be seen in the works of the eleventh century scholars al-Ghazālı̄ and al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānı̄ (d. 502/1108), for example. They both view knowledge as associated with light, basing their views on the Qur’anic discourse.71 Al-Ghazālı̄ proposes, in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dı̄n: Kitāb al-ʿIlm, that knowledge is ‘seeing things as they really are, which is one of the attributes of God’.72 The mirage imagery then does not only explain defective reasoning but also the linearity that is concomitant with prejudice. To al-Ghazālı̄, light and darkness are more than metaphors for belief and non-belief. They are metaphors of the intellect and reason as well. They form a directly proportional relationship translated spatially to Light, (the divine) as he explains in Mishkāt al-Anwār [The Niche of Lights].73 Further, in Q. 24:40, the Qur’an then likens ‘those deeds’ to the total absence of light in an elevated gradation of severity depending on the gravity of ‘those deeds’. ‘[T]he imagery is not one of recursiveness, but of a stacked or multi-decked darkness in an abysmal ocean of “waves upon waves.”’74 The shape of darkness takes the form of abysmal layers of bellowing waves. The previous linear mirage of false reasoning that refracts light to produce illusory images becomes now a total darkness. The absence of light in the parable of the darkness of the sea explains both the loss of reasoning powers and the loss of direction as a gradual becoming. In the same manner, the Qur’an’s cosmologies of Hell and Heaven draw from recognisable articles in the natural world, so do the Qur’anic parables ‘to explicate religious concepts’.75 Actions of iḥsān are qualified by the sensory perceptions of light and therefore become associated with beauty and the opposite is true with respect to anti-iḥsān. In Q. 2:257, the Qur’an uses the parables of light in the parameters of emotional space with God, ‘God is the ally of those who believe: He brings them out of the depths of darkness and into the

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light.’ 76 Parables in the Qur’an ‘…form a network of related ideas and syntactic constructions which, when juxtaposed, can decode the meanings of difficult passages’.77 And so the darkness that covers the faces of the inhabitants of Hell is a darkness that is understood on two levels. Morally, it is the darkness associated with the concept of non-belief as well as moral failure and acts of anti-iḥsān. It is also the darkness that is associated with metaphorical loss of sight as prejudice and arrogance, the offspring of ignorance and deficiency in reason (jahl). Aesthetically, it is the darkness associated with the place of reference, Hell and its association with Fire and ‘darkened faces’, whether as a result of punishment, an obvious straightforward interpretation, or shame, or both. In Q. 13:16, the Qur’an connects both the metaphor of the loss of sight, the layers of darkness and light, ‘Say, “Are the blind equal to those who can see? And are the depths of darkness equal to the light?”’ In his work on the metaphors of the Qur’an, the scholar and poet  al-Sharı̄f al-Raḍı ̄ (d. 406/1016) explains the metaphor of the loss of sight as ignorance that prevents the individual from recognising things as they really are (idrāk al-shayʾ ʿalā mā huwa ʿalayh) whether intentional or unintentional.78 Prejudice then is akin to loss of sight and a deficiency in intellect because of impaired judgment. The former informs and feeds the latter. Light and darkness become metaphors for the mind and its intellectual powers as they either enable or disable ‘clarity’ or seeing and understanding things as they really are. Blindness’ metaphorical contiguity with being in the dark is used in the same context of the umbrella of belief versus disbelief as a metaphor of becoming. In other words, it becomes a metaphor of belief versus disbelief in the ‘meaning of meaning’ (maʿnā al-maʿnā). Simply put, al-Jurjānı̄ contends that in figurative language, meaning is not what is understood on the primary or apparent level of the word (ẓāhir al-lafẓ) and which one arrives at readily (taṣil ilayhi bi-ghayr wāsị ta). Rather the ‘meaning of meaning’ is the meaning that is conceptualised from that word (an taʿqil min al-lafẓ maʿnā), which then takes one to another meaning (thumma yufḍı ̄ bika dhalik al-maʿnā ilā maʿnā ākhar).79 Whereas the light versus dark, hence blindness primarily refers to existential quantifiers, they refer to the secondary meanings previously discussed. The conceptual understanding of the metaphor points to obscured understanding. The Qur’an equates metaphorical loss of sight with darkness as a sensory articulation of an abstract concept: the conception of prejudice, ignorance, and lack of reason, where they ultimately

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posit themselves in the qabı̄ḥ matrix. These conceptual relationships and their relationship to the taxonomy of the qabı̄ḥ are traceable in adab. In a poem, the jurist and poet al-Shāfiʿı̄ (d. 204/820) maintains: Idhā mā ẓālimun istaḥsana al-ẓulma madhhaban wa lajja ʿutuwwan fı̄ qabı̄ḥi iktisābihi Fa-kilhu ilā ṣarfi l-layālı̄ fa-innahā sa-tubdı̄ lahu mā lam yakun fı̄ ḥisābihi If injustice (transgression) appealed as a good (beautiful) school of thought (madhhab) to a transgressor, and he ventured vigorously into the ugliness of his own achievements Leave him to [spending] the nights, they will reveal to him that which he did not foresee.80

Al-Shāfiʿı̄ speaks about and qualifies the previously discussed notion of ẓulm as qabı̄ḥ because of its anti-iḥsān nature. He then uses night as a metaphor for the aforementioned concept of ẓulm as transgression, hence qubḥ. Al-Shāfiʿı̄ maintains that this is where the transgressor resides, spending night after night in abysmal darkness. He suggests that this person be left to the nights as they shall reveal that which s/he did not anticipate, especially as he suggests a sense of obscured meaning when he refers to the transgressor as someone who sees transgression as ‘beautiful’ (istaḥsan). The night certainly does not have revelatory powers to assume daylight characteristics of an illuminatory nature. Rather, al-Shāfiʿı̄ refers to the ‘meaning of meaning’ or the moral consequences that has revelatory powers, which the rest of the poem supports.

HELL-BOUND: DEFICIENCY IN REASON AS A QUALIFYING CHARACTERISTIC Hell is described to derive its fuel of burning heat from both people (the inhabitants) and stones.81 In Q. 2:24, 21:98–100, 72:15, and 66:6, the Qur’an pairs idol-worshippers and those who would not heed to the messengers’ teachings with stones. The juxtaposition of the image of this class of the denizens of Hell with stones as the fuel of Hellfire reduces people to inanimate objects on par with stones. The images, of course, reduce them

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and the idols to mere objects thereby stripping the idols of their alleged godlike qualities. It also deprives the idol-worshippers (addressed as amongst the classes of the denizens in Hell) not only of their human qualities and senses, but also mostly of their intellect. This reduction to a quasistone-like status resonates with the Qur’anic discourse that regards most of the denizens of Hell in general as devoid of reason,82 hence stone-like. This also echoes Abraham’s reaction to his people in the context of idol worshipping. As he mocked the idolaters in Q. 37:91–2 and Q. 21:62–72 when he destroyed their idols and was questioned about them; he told the people that their leader-idol had destroyed them in an attempt to mock their practice and also reason with them. In Q. 21:67, Abraham expresses moral indignation at his people’s lack of reason; he communicates this in the sound/word uffin lakum (lit. ‘Pfft on you!’ Rendered as ‘Shame on you!’), to express his disgust with their practices. Uffin is a sound used to convey exasperation (ḍajar) as both al-Rāzı̄ and al-Zamakhsharı̄ maintain.83 It means, al-Bayḍāwı̄ points out, ugliness and fetidness (qubḥan wa natanan),84 and also disgust (taqadhdhur) as al-Biqāʿı̄ explains.85 Al-Ṭ abarı̄ summarises all of this in his explanation of the sound in the verse as ‘ugliness upon you’ (qubḥan lakum).86 Abraham’s disgust is a reaction to their lack of reason (jahl wa qillat al-ʿaql), as the exegete al-Biqāʿı̄ maintains.87 Disgust, a feeling mostly related to the aesthetic and the moral, is equally used to respond to the qubḥ of the intellectual and the absence of reason. The aesthetics of the Qur’anic image of stones as ‘fuel for the Fire’ then mirrors the intellectual failure and likens those who would not see idol worshipping for what it is as ‘stone-like’ in intellect. This also reiterates the aforementioned intangible linearity and rigidity in the parable of the mirage, where the inability to see past a fantasy or a false image is expressed. The figure of speech the Qur’an uses for augmenting the importance of reason becomes axiomatic throughout its entire discourse. Reason stands in a decisive and antithetical relationship to whims, caprices, and destructive desires as Q. 24:43–44 maintains. There is a discernible urgency and significance in the demarcating classification between reason (ʿaql) and caprices (hawā) in the description of those who let their desires guide them. The Qur’an depicts them as devoid of reason. The source of these whims and destructive desires originate in the nafs as Q. 79:40–41 relates that ‘for anyone who feared the meeting with his Lord and restrained himself from base desires, Paradise will be home’. The meaning of the Qur’anic ‘desires’ as hawā and its relation to nafs and accordingly qubḥ

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and ḥusn must be clarified to guide this discussion further. The Qur’an uses nafs mostly to refer to the human self or person.88 In the Qur’an, the nafs has three characteristics that could also be understood as ‘types’ or ‘phases’. There is the nafs ammāra, commanding to satisfying itself, evil, destruction, and/or self-destruction (see, Q.12:18; 12:53; 12:83, for example, in the context of the story of Joseph, the conflict between desires and morality in the case of Joseph, his brothers, and Potiphar’s wife represent the nafs al-ammāra). This nafs is ‘associated with al-hawā’. Some refer to hawā which, in the sense of ‘desire’, as always ‘evil’.89 To say desire is universally evil and to label all desires as evil is a gross and erroneous oversimplification of understanding both desires and hawā. The ‘evil desires’ are those that are known to be so to the person involved (either through reason, religion, common sense, morality, or whatever other means). In other words, it is the desire that would cause selfdestruction or be detrimental to the thriving of the individual (on any/ all level(s): physically, emotionally, intellectually, financially, morally, spiritually, and so on) because of a priori knowledge of it being as such. The Qur’an, of course, stipulates that certain desires are destructive and therefore are hawā (arrogance, prejudice, adultery, envy, greed, theft, and so on). The connection made between hawā and self-destruction is clarified throughout the Qur’an. This hawā ‘[…] must be restrained (Q. 79:40) and made patient (18:28) and its greed must be feared (59:9)’.90 Then there is the al-nafs al-lawwāma or the self-reproaching soul (Q. 75:2), which repents and reprimands itself should it give in to the aforementioned desires. Finally, there is al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna, the soul at peace with itself or the tranquil self/soul (Q. 89:27). This type of nafs is understood to be tranquil because it conquered all inner conflicts between the commanding nafs and the reproaching nafs. Its desires are not a source of self-destruction; it enjoys harmony. Note Avicenna’s aforementioned definition of pleasure and pain as ‘harmonising stimulus’ and ‘incongruent stimulus’, respectively. The tranquil nafs could be said to enjoy a chronotopic relationship with Paradise, whereas the non-tranquil one is in a chronotopic relationship with alienation, pain, and the aesthetics of Hell because of its lack of harmony and peace within itself. Further, these three nafs characteristics may also be understood as types, if thought about in an archetypal manner (Satan as an example of the archetypal commanding nafs, for instance). Though in Islamic ethics, they are more regarded as phases that believers aspire to overcome and achieve if understood from a moral development perspective

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and self-discipline through the ethical concept of tazkiyyat al-nafs (the purification of the self), which has its basis in the Qur’an.91 These three categorisations and ‘terms form the basis of much of the later Muslim ethics and psychology’.92 This axiomatic relationship correlates the following of hawā with the absence or suspension of reason ʿaql, hence a qualifying characteristic for qubḥ. The story of Adam and Eve is a good example to further elaborate on this.

QUBḤ AND THE SECOND INCIDENT OF TRANSGRESSION An engagement with the most famous incident of transgression should further elucidate the relationship between transgression, lack of reason, ibʿād, and qubḥ. Aspects from the history of transgressions are delineated in the Qur’an with various examples: Pharaoh, the people of ʿĀ d, the people of Thamūd, the people of Noah, and the people of Lot, to mention a few. The interrelation of the first and second incidents of transgression is important to guide this discussion further. The first, as stated in the Qur’an, was Iblı̄s’s (Satan’s) refusal to kneel before Adam. Satan was ousted and forever condemned to a life of ibʿād afterwards.93 His dismissal, even in classification, sheds light on his nature. Satan, a non-human character in the Qur’an along with the class of other non-human characters like the Jinn and angels, is represented as the prototype of absolute evil. He is neither human nor an angel nor Jinn. It is inferred that he was a Jinn but then became Satan (neither Jinn nor human). Satan literally means ‘recklessness, headstrong, defiant, [and] violent.’94 The Qur’an maintains that he was a Jinn [Q.18:50] but it is understood that he no longer classified as this type the minute he transgressed. He is also addressed with the angels when he is asked to kneel before Adam, but he is not an angel either. 95 Satan’s lack of classification is telling. It speaks of this character’s prototypical evil as outside known categories. In other words, the Qur’an represents absolute evil in a type or class that does not belong to humanity or any category altogether. Satan is a class of his own. His lack of classification therefore sustains the idea that ‘evil’ itself is against humanity and its progress as Q. 20:117 warns Adam and Eve [Humanity at large] that Satan [evil] is your enemy. The Qur’an adduces this as it maintains that anyone who defies God will become a Satan.96 This nomenclature expulsion from the category of human to the category of evil reinforces the intertwinement of transgression, excess, and lack of reason with qubḥ

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and the latter’s correlation with ibʿād. To become ‘Satan’ means to lose ‘human’ qualities or one’s humanity altogether. It also underpins the idea that ‘evil’ does not reliably have a fixed shape, form, identity, or type. Humans, as much as the prototype of evil, are capable of evil. So, the idea that there is a sole figure responsible for all the evil in the world is rather naïve from both theological and also social perspectives. The Qur’an categorically affirms free will and that everyone is responsible and accountable for their choices and actions. With respect to Adam, Eve, and Satan, the Qur’an portrays the dynamics of the incident of transgression in Q. 7:20 as follows: But Satan whispered to Adam, saying, ‘Adam, shall I show you the tree of immortality and power that never decays?’ And they both ate from it. They became conscious of their nakedness and began to cover themselves with leaves from the garden. Adam disobeyed his Lord and was led astray.

Both Adam and Eve were held responsible and expelled (ibʿād) from Paradise. 97 The Qur’an explains that Adam forgot the rule. But Adam was required to observe one rule only, how do we understand the Qur’an’s relating of ‘forgetfulness’ in this respect? The temptation of Adam and Eve to transgress the rule advanced the idea that the rule ‘is not fair’, because God does not want the couple to be immortal. So, did the couple forget the rule or did they forget the warning against Satan related in Q. 20:117 (‘Adam, this is your enemy, yours and your wife’s: do not let him drive you out of the garden and make you miserable.’), and so they believed him? Hypothetically, perhaps a question Adam should have asked Satan in this respect, while being tempted, is: why don’t you, Satan, eat from the Forbidden Tree yourself? But turning the table would not really be expected on the couple’s part because they suspended their common sense. That which Adam forgot was caused by the suspension of reason; it marks the fall into believing that a Qur’anic character classified as an enemy to Adam should be trusted especially when it comes to unsolicited advice and suggestions as in Adam’s case. It appears that Adam was not being very rational. Adam’s inability to hold onto the one rule he has points to an important aspect of the Qur’an’s characterisation of ‘humanity’ at large or what it is to be human. Adam’s failure or his choice to fail reveals that he is free to either observe or ‘forget’ the rule. In other words, he has free will. It also reveals, to the reader of the story, that Adam contains polarities and contrasts by his very nature. He is neither purely

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good, moral, nor virtuous, nor is he continuously sinful; he is capable of both and is multifaceted. His choice of transgression (al-nafs al-ammāra), according to the Qur’an, has its roots in the suspension of reason, the insecurity created by deception, and the illusory promise to conquer this anxiety through transgression. This is the Qur’anic definition of ‘choosing’ transgression. That Adam is free to choose is granted but he must be held accountable for every choice he makes. It is therefore the moral desert that Adam creates that he must live with. His expulsion from Paradise also reflects the aesthetics of his moral choice. The place no longer mirrors his moral choices as an extension of the unipolar beautiful and good; he must live on another plane that mirrors his dichotomous nature. Adam’s story of course is neither tied to a place nor time; it is archetypal. It also has an explanatory power to further our understanding of the meaning of Hell and Paradise beyond the cursory conventional explanations. In Q. 4:147, the Qur’an asks a categorical question in relation to what is the point of all this punishment in Hell, ‘wa mā yafʿal Allāhu bi-ʿadhābikum in shakartum wa āmantum?’ (lit. ‘What should God do with your punishment if you are thankful and believe in Him?’)98 or in Abdel-Haleem’s rendering, ‘Why should God make you suffer torment if you are thankful and believe in Him?’ As al-Zamakhsharı̄, and most exegetes including al-Rāzı̄ and al-Ṭ abarı̄, rhetorically explains it, ‘would [punishment] put out the wrath of God? Avenge Him? Bring on a benefit to Him? Or ward off some harm?’99 ‘Wrath’ is used not to affirm it as ‘God’s wrath’ but to negate it; the verse annuls the naïve and absurd idea of an angry God wanting to take revenge on people by putting them in Hell. Indeed, al-Zamakhsharı̄, and other scholars and exegetes, implicitly tell us that it is not plausible to believe in an omniscient, all-powerful, self-sufficient God and simultaneously believe that being punished or rewarded has an effect whatsoever on Him. Rather, it has everything to do with accountability or as al-Zamkhsharı̄ puts it ‘istiḥqāq al-ʿadhāb’ in the case of punishment and by extension reward, i.e. it is brought on by the moral desert an individual creates. This is why al-Rāzı̄ contends that the verse, Q. 4:147, encourages one to do what is morally good and avoid the ugly (fiʿl al-aḥsan wa l-iḥtirāz ʿan al-qabı̄ḥ).100 It is about personal responsibility, accountability, and ultimately self-realisation through reward and/ or punishment. As Q. 99:6–8 relates, ‘On that Day, people will come forward in separate groups to be shown their deeds: whoever has done an atom’s-weight of good will see it, but whoever has done an atom’s weight

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of evil will see that.’101 With reference to the Day of Judgment, it is as if the Qur’an animates the concept a of moral desert onto the spatial planes of Hell and Paradise as aesthetic topographies reflecting this sense of individual self-realisation and personal moral deserts. Mustansir Mir argues, ‘The idea of accountability is thus predicated on the principle that privilege entails responsibility.’102 In other words, morality and accountability are not only about observing ‘rules’ but also about protecting the self, the weak and the disadvantaged, and ensuring that the underprivileged are not more vulnerable than they are already. Terry Eagleton observes: People who see truth as dogmatic, and so want no truck with it, are rather like people who call themselves immoralists because they believe that morality just means forbidding people to go to bed with each other. Such people are inverted puritans. Like the puritan, they equate morality with repression [.] 103

In the story of Adam and Eve, Satan the archetypal immoralist, also saw that observing rules is a form of repression. His first incident of transgression was also about conflating morality with repression. He similarly conveyed this idea to Adam and Eve as they ceased observing the rule. The Qur’an relates that as the couple ate from the tree, they became aware of their pudenda (sing. sawʾā; pl. sawʾāt). In this respect, there is a reference to and a semantic correlation between what causes distress and shame to an individual (mā yasūʾu l-marʾ) and moral failure. The Qur’an also correlates the aesthetic expression of their shame with their act of transgression, which was translated as shame and acquired the semantic dimension of sayyiʾa as shame in an inverse relationship to ḥasana (beautiful/good deed). Shame and disgrace become psychological correlatives with qubḥ, which is the highlighted emotion experienced in Hell.104 In this respect, what the Qur’an tells us is that the couple underwent psychological humiliation or ‘moral inner Hell.’ This is also evident in the Qur’an’s portrayal of this psychological correlative in terms of body language, as Q. 32:12 relates, ‘[Prophet], if only you could see the wrongdoers hang their heads (nākisu ruʾūsihim) before their Lord.’ The abstract concept of shame is explained and expressed materially in terms of body language. Similarly, in Q. 68:43, ‘Their eyes will be downcast and they will be overwhelmed with shame.’ This disgrace extends across the axis of qubḥ to actions that invoke Hell or are Hell-bound: transgression, excess, and lack of reason.

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The time-place of shame therefore extends from the hereafter to here; it is not bound to the hereafter nor is it restricted to it. This time continuum is expressed throughout the Qur’an.105 In the story of Adam and Eve, it is understandable that the correlation between the couple’s transgression and the materialisation of the couple’s nakedness—which was a source of shame to them that they had to cover it—is but a material manifestation of their transgression, a demonstrative sign of their moral failure. The act of covering their nakedness did not agree with their surroundings anymore. It is not nakedness as such, which is the aesthetic extension of and the representation of their transgression that deserved their ibʿād. Rather, it is transgression and their moral failure. The aesthetic consequences of their moral failure are only secondary in this respect. Their expulsion (ibʿād) from paradise, as per the moral consequence of their actions, reinforces the meaning of qubḥ. Adam and Eve were aware that their eating from the Forbidden Tree is a transgression because it was prescribed as such. However, ‘transgression’ is not the only category that contains acts considered qabı̄ḥ. In Q. 3:147, the word ‘excess’ is paired with ‘transgression’ as a behaviour that is deemed pardonable, ‘Forgive us our sins and our excesses.’ In other words, it is depicted negatively from the believers’ perspectives. The Qur’anic reply comes intertextually in Q. 39:53 as ‘Say “[God says], My servants who have harmed yourselves by your own excesses, do not despair of God’s mercy.”’ ʿAlı̄ b. Abı̄ Ṭ ālib (d. 40/661) spoke about the aforementioned verse as the most merciful and hope-giving verse (arjāʾ āya) in the Qur’an. Indeed, as Lange maintains, there is ‘…almost limitless Heilsgewissheit (certainty of salvation) [that] could be supported by a number of well-known ḥadı̄ths.’106 This is also supported by the Qur’an as the verse pairs and juxtaposes sins with excesses in an intertextual appeal and response dialogue between the believers and God. The first verse indicates how excess is recognised as such on the believers’ part and is differentiated from their acknowledged transgressions. It is also adduced by the divine promise of forgiving all as indicated in the response to this appeal. The juxtaposition of sins with excesses clearly reinforces the differentiation between them. A conceptual relationship between excess, transgression, and lack of reason is manifest as they are interrelated in the way they overlap and depend on each other sometimes as they all mirror the aesthetic and moral qubḥ of Hell conceptually. It also becomes clear that there is an inherent role for ʿaql as a deterrent from all the manifestations of qubḥ.

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The Qur’an depicts two types of ʿaql, which shall be referred to henceforth as Reason (divine Reason) and reason (human reason), one with capital R and the other with lower case r. The first type of Reason is the divine’s Word as Reason exemplified in the Qur’an itself, which is regarded as pre-ordained Reason from which ḥasan acquires this status because it is in agreement with divine Reason. This type of Reason corresponds to the prescriptions and guidelines of the Qur’an itself that act as guidance and a moral force (hudā). In Q. 2:256 and Q. 72:1–2, the Qur’an describes itself as a guide (hudā) to rushd; it explains, defines, and links hudā and rushd to divine Reason. In Q. 17:9, this idea is explained in its description of divine Reason as the most straight (aqwam) and juxtaposes this Reason to the aforementioned excellent/beautiful promise as the reward (ajr) and the promise itself, hence the Beautiful. It is safe to deduce at this point that one aspect of the Qur’anic semantic field of Reason manifests itself primarily as a moral force. It repeatedly explains this meaning by using the semantic field, conceptually denoting Reason as a guiding principle (rushd, ʿaql, hudā) to explain the moral force of Qur’anic teachings, viz. divine Reason. The other intersecting set of the semantic field of the Qur’anic definition of ʿaql is human reason as an intellectual faculty proper. The Qur’an refers invariably to human reason as a rational ability—recognised as common sense in its pre-Islamic semantic conceptual capacity107—stipulating it as an essential pre-requisite for conceptualising belief itself, the divine signs of the natural world (āyāt), and the Qur’an itself. Chief judge of Baghdad, jurisprudent and diplomat al-Māwardı̄ (d. 450/1055) known in Latin as Alboacen, who is mostly known for his work al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya [The Ordinances of Government], tells us that ‘two things stand at the root of knowing the religion (maʿrifat al-uṣūl al-sharʿiyya): reason (ʿilm al-ḥaqq wa huwa al-ʿaql) because rational reasoning (ḥujaj al-ʿaql) is the origin of knowing the religion; there cannot be any knowledge of religion without reasoning. Reason is the mother of religion (al-ʿaql umm al-uṣūl).’108 Al-Māwardı̄ gives two of the numerous examples from the Qur’an in support of this: Q. 29:43, ‘Such are the comparisons We draw for people, though only the wise can grasp them (wa mā yaʿqiluha illā al-ʿalimūn)].’ The second example he gives is from Q. 20:54, ‘There are truly signs in this for people of understanding (ulı̄ al-nuhā).’ He then concludes that reasoning (ḥujaj al-ʿuqūl) triumphs over reports (ḥujaj al-samaʿ).109 He continues, ‘the second factor in understanding/

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knowing religion (al-uṣūl al-sharʿiyya) is mastering [Classical] Arabic language (lisān al-ʿarab).’110 He then lists other rhetorical and grammatical devices—the ignorance of which should be detrimental to the understanding not only of the Qur’an but other texts.111 Similarly, al-Ghazālı̄ axiomatically uses the ‘light metaphors’ to elaborate on the relationship between reason, religion, and the Qur’an. He argues that ‘one who dispenses of reason satisfied with the light of the Qur’an (muʿriḍ ʿan al-ʿaql muktafiyan bi-nūr al-qurʾān) is like (mithāluhu) one who is facing the light of the sun (muʿtariḍ li-nūr al-shams) with closed eyes (mughmiḍan li-l-ajfān); there is no difference between him and the blind.112 He maintains that to dispense with either one is to be considered officially stupid (fı̄ ghimār al-aghbiyāʾ).113 In both cases, the differentiation between reason and faith is observed. The Qur’an did not treat them as synonymous to each other nor does it present one as the other. The primacy of reason, asserted by the Qur’an is evident in the text itself. It is also evident in the applicatio of maqāsị d al-sharı̄ʿa [The Objectives of Islamic Laws] where the philosophy of the purposive nature of Islamic law stipulates its five main objectives as the protection of intellect and reason (ḥifẓ al-ʿaql) alongside life, religion, money/possessions, and progeny as the purposes of the law.114 Reason proper, independent of faith, must precede faith. In addition, the Qur’an addresses human reasoning proper as the sole faculty responsible for measuring what is referred to in the Qur’an as isrāf (excess), especially when there are no pre-ordained guidelines in the same manner transgressions are detailed. Some actions are classified only as transgressions or excesses while some overlap as excess, transgression, and/or lack of reason. In this respect then, human reason is recognised as a separate intellectual faculty from Reason as a moral force, but at the same time it is also linked to it; the two form distinct categories in their essences but become inseparable semantically. A rather witty anecdote tells of a Bedouin who was walking one night and saw a beautiful woman; he sexually propositioned her (aradtahā ʿan nafsihā). The woman told him: ‘Shame on you! Don’t you possess some reason to stop you! (waylak! amā kān lak zājir min ʿaql) if you have no restraint from religion?’ (idhā lam yakun laka nāhin min dı̄n) The man replied: ‘By God! No one sees us except the planets!’ (innahu wa Allāhi mā yarānā illā al-kawākib). The woman replied: ‘And where is the planetiser (Creator) of the planets?’ (fa-ayna mukawkibuhā).115 Regardless, whether the khabar is true or not the sequence and empha-

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sis on reason as a human faculty, which must precede religion as an essential faculty in conceptualising what is and what is not appropriate is evident. The wording of the man’s reply, ironically enough, provides the moral of the anecdote that he is evidently wanting in reason, which was delivered in the punch line of the story by the woman. Similarly, Abbasid poet Abū’l ʿAtāhiyya (d. 211/826) constructs the category of ugliness in an oppositional relationship to reason. sammayta nafsaka bi-l-kalāmi ḥakı̄man wa laqad arāka ʿalā l-qabı̄ḥi muqı̄man wa laqad arāka min al-ghūwāyati muthriyan wa laqad arāka min al-rashādi ʿadı̄man You have, in words, called yourself wise And I see you established in ugliness And I see you rich in temptation and lacking in reason (rashād) 116

The Qur’an, regularly, emphasises the primacy of ʿaql as both a moral force that derives its legitimacy from divine Reason and also a human reasoning faculty in the sense that they both act as deterrents from falling into the categories of qubḥ and contribute to the thriving of the individual throughout its discourse. In reference to its own message, the Qur’an, rhetorically asks in 24 different places, 117 ‘Won’t you reason?’ (afalā taʿqilūn?)—rather than ‘Won’t you believe?’—in a rhetorical appeal to human reasoning faculties that simultaneously and intrinsically evoke the semantic field of divine Reason. In the same capacity, the Qur’an appeals to the intellect in its statement that it has signs (āyāt) for those who reflect (yatafakkarūn) in various places.118 Human reason, which presupposes honest doubt as well, is communicated as a pre-requisite to belief in the language of the rhetorical appeals used in the Qur’an. In this respect, reason in itself forms a relationship to the Beautiful and it is also linked to divine Reason and the paradisiacal matrix of order and beauty. By extension, anti-reason or lack of reason (inclusive of excess and transgression as potential consequences) form an antithetical relationship to both Reason and reason and therefore beauty. The only correlative of qubḥ becomes Hell and all the categories of qubḥ associated with it. These sets of conjoined categories show the inter-

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relationship of aesthetic (Paradise/Hell), moral (Reason as a moral force), and intellectual (reason as an intellectual faculty) categories. The same rules governing behaviour are also extended to speech.

NOTES 1. See, Stefan Wild, ‘Hell’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, 259–63. 2. Robert Orsi, ‘Jesus Held Him So Close in His Love for Him that He Left the Marks of His Passion on His Body,’ in Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 7 quoted in Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 15. 3. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 15. 4. John Cooper, ‘al-Rāzı̄, Fakhr al-din (1149–1209)’ in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Craig (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 8:114. 10 vols. 5. Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays 1959–1987 (California, New World Library 2007), 187. 6. Sayyid Quṭb, al-Taṣwı̄r al-Fannı̄ fı̄ l-Qurʾān, 27. 7. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 151. Lange though refers to the imaginaire of Hell found in eschatological literature not the Qur’anic Hell alone. 8. Stefan Wild, ‘Hell’, The Qur’an: an encylopedia, ed. Oliver Leaman, 259. 9. See, Angelika Neuwirth, ‘Form and Structure,’ EQ. 10. See, Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination. 11. ed. and trans. Castillo Castillo (Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, 1987), 73–88. 12. al-Ghazālı̄, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dı̄n (Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, 198-), 4:482–99. 13. ed. Aḥmad Ḥ ijāzı̄ al-Saqqā (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1980), 2:408–529. 14. ed. Ṭ aha Muḥammad al-Zaynı̄ (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Ḥ adı̄tha, 1969), 2:202–67. 15. ed. Muḥammad Jamı̄l Ghāzı̄ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Imān, 1981). The entire book is devoted to the eschatology of Hell. 16. cf. Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, 63. 17. The Qur’an speaks of ‘giving examples of everything’ (18:54). 18. For Ibn ʿArabı̄ description of the anthropomorphic nature of Hell, See, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥya (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀ mma li-l-Kitāb, 1972–1988), 4:370. 19. al-Zamaksharı̄, al-Kashshāf, 4:392.

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20. Wolfhart Heinrichs, ‘Takhyı̄l: Make-Believe and Image Creation in Arabic Literary Theory,’ in Takhyil: The Imaginary in Classical Arabic Poetics ed. Geert Jan van Gelder and Marlé Hammond, (Cambridge: Gibb Memorial Trust, 2008), 2. 21. See, al-Zamakhsharı̄, al-Kashshāf, 1:328 in reference to Q. 39:67 […the whole earth will be in His grip…]. 22. Heinrichs, ‘Takhyı̄l: Make-Believe and Image Creation in Arabic Literary Theory,’ 13. 23. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 5:184. 24. bin ʿĀ shūr, al-Taḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r, 20:125. 25. Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, xviii. 26. The 22 names in the Qur’an: al-ākhira (39:9); biʾs al-qarār (14:29; 38:60); biʾs al-maṣır̄ (2:126; 3:162; 8:16; 9:73); biʾs al-mihād (2:206; 3:12; 13:18; 38:56); biʾs al-wird al-mawrūd (11:98); al-jaḥım ̄ (2:119; 5:10; 9:113; 22:51; 37:23); Jahhanam (2:206); al-ḥāfira (79:10); al-ḥutm ̣ ā (104:4–5); dār al-bawār (14:28); dār al-khuld (41:28); dār al-fāsiqı̄n (7:145); al-sāhira (79:14); al-saʿı̄r (14:10; 14:55; 22:4; 25:11); Saqar (54:48; 74:28); al-samūm (52:26); sūʾ al-dār (13:25; 40:52); al-sūwāʿı̄ (30:10); Laẓā (70:15); al-nār (2:24); al-hāwiya (101:90); al-ḥarı̄q (22:22). For more on this, See, Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, xviii; See also, Thomas O’Shaughnessy, ‘The Seven Name for Hell in the Qur’an,’ Bulletin of SOAS 24, no. 3 (1961): 444–69. 27. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 123. 28. Osama A.  Tashani and Mark I.  Johnson, ‘Avicenna’s concept of pain,’ Libyan Journal of Medicine (2010) 5:5253—DOI: 10.3402/ljm.v5i0.5253 29. al-Jurjānı̄, Asrār al-Balāgha, ed. Mahmud Muhammad Shakir (Jeddah: Dār al-Madanı̄, n.d.), 130. 30. See, Q. 2:90; 2:93–94; 2:102; 3:187; 5:79; 5:80. 31. al-Samarqandı̄, Abū’l Layth Naṣr b. Muḥammad b. Ahmad, Qurrat al-ʿUyūn wa Mufriḥ al-Qalb al-Maḥzūn (Damascus: Dār al-Kitāb alʿArabı̄, n.d.), 70 cited in Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 144, cf. Soubhi el-Saleh, La vie future sélon le Coran (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971), 50. 32. Cited in al-Qurṭubı̄, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 15:251. 33. Abd al-Ḥ alim Ḥ ifnı̄, Uslūb al-Sukhriyya fı̄ l-Qurʾān al-Karı̄m (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀ mma li-l-Kitāb, 1978), 439. 34. Paul Arno Richler, Die Dschinn, Teufel und Engel im Koran (Leipzig: Klein, 1928), 110 quoted in Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 133. 35. See J.E. Brockopp, ‘Prisoners’, EQ; see also, Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 133.

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36. See A.  Arazi, ‘Ṣuʿlūk’, EI2, See Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 133, fn. 209. 37. al-Rāzı̄ maintains that ghislı̄n is the pus (ṣadı̄d) of the burned flesh and also maintains that it is to be understood as the only appropriate food in line with the sinners’ status. Ibn ʿArabı̄ affirms that ghislı̄n is the pus of the sinners in Hell. See Ibn ʿArabı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Qur’ān al-Karı̄m (Beirut: Dār al-Yaqaẓa al-ʿArabiyya, 1968), 2:495. 38. Ibn ʿArabı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Qurʾān al-Karı̄m, 2:495. 39. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 26:124. 40. Note al-Ghazālı̄ also speaks about another fire as the fire of atonement and the fire of love for God as the ‘fire’ that polishes the heart. Perhaps because it alludes to the many trials and tests the friends of God, in Sufi terminology, are put through in the path of love. 41. al-Ghazālı̄, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dı̄n (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, n.d.) 1:45ff; 3:198. 42. Ibid., 2:283ff. 43. Ibid., 3:164–176. 44. Ibid., 3:343. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibn ʿArabı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Qur’ān al-Karı̄m, 2:468. 47. Cited in al-Ghazālı̄, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dı̄n, 4:25. 48. Ḥ ifnı̄, Uslūb al-Sukhriyya fı̄ l-Qurʾān al-Karı̄m, 432. 49. Ibid., 433. 50. cf. Q. 17:89, Q. 30:58, Q. 39:27. 51. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 132. 52. cf. Q. 15:27 for the description of Jinn being created from the Fire of samūm and Q. 52:27 for a reference to Hellfire as samūm. 53. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 27:129. 54. Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, 64. 55. Ibid. 56. For more on the face, see, Abdel Haleem, ‘The Face, Divine and Human’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 119–22, Andrew Rippin, ‘Desiring the Face of God: The Qur’anic Symbolism of Personal Responsibilty’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata, (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 117–24. 57. See, Q. 3:106–107, 39:60, for instance. 58. Abdel Haleem maintains that there is a misunderstanding and inconsistency in understanding and translating this word as just ‘black’ when it also refers to ‘dark’ and/or ‘brown’. For more on this see ‘The Face, Divine and Human,’ 121, fn. 30, fn. 31, fn. 32 and fn. 33. 59. Abdel Haleem, ‘The Face, Divine and Human’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 120.

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60. ʿAbd al-Ghanı̄ al-Nabulsı̄, Diwān ʿAbd al-Ghanı̄ al-Nabulsı̄, ed. Aḥmad Mat ̣lūb (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmı̄, 2006), 605. 61. Ibid., 359. 62. Ibid., 605. 63. Andrew Rippin, ‘Desiring the Face of God: The Qur’anic Symbolism of Personal Responsibilty’ in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boullata, (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 120. 64. Andrew Rippin, ‘Desiring the Face of God: The Qur’ānic Symbolism of Personal Responsibilty,’ 117–24. 65. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 10:97. 66. al-Ṭ abarsı̄, Majmaʿ al-Bayān fi Tafsı̄r al-Qurʾān, 3:55ff. 67. See, Toufic Sabbagh, La Métaphore dans le Coran (Paris: AdrienMaissonneuve, 1943), 115ff. 68. al-Niffarı̄, al-Mawāqif wa l-Mukhātạ bāt, ed. A.J. Arberry (Cairo: Al-Hayʾa al-Maṣriyya al-ʿĀ mma li-l-Kitāb, 1985), 246. 69. Cf. Afnan H. Fatani, ‘Nur’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, 467–8. 70. Afnan H. Fatani, ‘Parables’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, 484. 71. Yasien Mohamed, ‘Knowledge’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, 351. 72. al-Ghazālı̄, The Book of Knowledge, trans. Nabih Amin Faris (American University in Beirut, Beirut: Lebanon, 1962), 73. The search for ‘Truth’ was a life-quest for al-Ghazālı̄; he equated certitude (al-yaqı̄n) with knowledge, any knowledge that falls below the level of certitude is disqualified from becoming knowledge. He approached the concept of knowledge and knowledge acquisition with a requisite that it should have the certitude of mathematical fundamentals. See, al-Imām al-Ghazālı̄ wa ʿAlāqat al-Yaqı̄n bi-l-ʿAql, Muḥammad Ibrāhı̄m al-Fayyūmı̄, (Cairo: Maktabat al-Anglo al-Miṣriyya, 1976), 103. 73. See, al-Ghazālı̄, The Niche of Lights: Mishkāt al-Anwār, trans. David Buchman (Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1998). 74. Afnan H. Fatani, ‘Parables’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, 484. 75. Ibid., 482. 76. Al-Baqara (2:257). 77. Fatani, ‘Parables’, 483. 78. al-Sharı̄f al-Raḍı,̄ Talkhı̄s al-Bayān fı̄ Majāzāt al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAlı̄ Maḥmūd Maqlad (Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥ ayāt, n.d.), 220, see also page 37 for his explanation of Q. 2:257. 79. ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānı̄, Dalāʾil al-Iʿjāz, ed. al-Tunjı̄ (Beirut: Dār alNashr al-ʿArabı̄, 1995), 203–4. For more on al-Jurjānı̄’s work, See, for instance, Kamal Abu-Dib, Al-Jurjānı̄’s Theory of Poetic Imagery (Warminster: Aris and Phillips,1979); Margaret Larkin, The Theology of Meaning: ʻAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānı̄’s theory of discourse (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1995).

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80. al-Shāfiʿı̄, Diwān al-Imām al-Shāfiʿı̄, ed. ʿUmar Farūq al-Ṭ abbāʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Arqam,1995), 12 [My translation]. 81. The exegetical explanation of these verses refers to the stones as the idols that the idolaters worshipped. See, Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwı̄f min al-Nār, 102. 82. cf. Q. 2:264 for the image of those who remind others of their ṣadaqa as those who spend their money in riyāʾ (hypocrisy and social prestige); the image likens them to a stone (ṣafwān) as well. 83. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 22:162; al-Zamaksharı̄, al-Kashshāf, 3:126. 84. al-Bayḍāwı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Bayḍāwı̄, (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.), 4:100. 85. al-Biqāʿı̄, Ibrāhı̄m b. ʿUmar, Naẓm al-Durar fı̄ Tanāsub al-Ayāt wa l-Ṣuwar, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq Ghālib al-Mahdı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1995), 5:93–4. 86. al-Ṭ abarı̄, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 17:43 87. al-Biqāʿı̄, Naẓm al-Durar fı̄ Tanāsub al-Ayāt wa l-Ṣuwar, 5:93–4. 88. E.E. Calverley, ‘nafs’, EI2; cf. E.E. Calverley ‘nafs’, EI 1. 89. E.E. Calverley, ‘nafs’, EI2. 90. Ibid. 91. See, Q. 91:7–9 (by the soul and how He formed it and inspired it [to know] its rebellion and piety! The one who purifies his soul succeeds and the one who corrupts fails.) 92. E.E. Calverley, ‘nafs’, EI 2. 93. See 2:34; 7:11; 15:31–32; 17:61; 18:50; 20:116; 38:74. 94. Mustansir Mir, ‘Satan’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, 191. 95. For a discussion on Iblı̄s and angels, See, al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 2:194ff. 96. Mustansir Mir, ‘Satan’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, 191. 97. For a discussion on the equal moral responsibility between the couple with regards to the Forbidden Tree in Islam, see, Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 23–5. For the same argument on the equal moral responsibility between the couple and also a comparative reading of the story as it features in both the Qur’an and the Bible, see, M.A.S. Abdel Haleem ‘Adam and Eve in the Qur’an and the Bible’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 123–37. 98. My translation 99. al-Zamkhsharı̄, al-Kashshāf, 1:615. Lest it be mistaken that al-Zamakhsharı̄’s explanation is a Muʿtazilite anomaly, the same reasoning is found in several non-Muʿtazilite exegeses: al-Shawkānı̄, Fatḥ al-Qadı̄r, 1:530; al-Bayḍawı̄, Tafsı̄r al-Bayḍaw ̄ ı̄, 2:272; Ibn ʿAṭiyya al-Andalusı̄, al-Muḥarrir al-Wajı̄z fı̄ Tafsı̄r al-Kitāb al-ʿAzı̄z, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām ʿAbd ̄ al-Shāfı̄ Muḥammad (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1993), 2:128; al-Qurṭubı̄, al-Jāmiʿ lı̄ Aḥkām al-Qurʿān, 5:426; al-Ṭ abarı̄, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān

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100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115.

116. 117.

118.

ʿan Taʾwı̄l āyy al-Qurʾān, 5:339; al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 11:71–2; bin ʿAshūr, al-Ṭ aḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r, 5:245. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 11:71–2. Al-Zalzala, Q. 99:6–8. Mustansir Mir, ‘Accountability’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and Concepts, 6. Eagleton, After Theory, 104. Q. 20:134; 3:192, 194; 9:2, 63; 11:39, 93; 16:27; 39:40; 41:16; 59:5. Q. 2:114; 5:33, 41; 22:9; 41:16. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 103. Izutsu, God and Man in the Koran, 65–7. al-Māwardı̄, al-Ḥ āwı̄ al-Kabı̄r, ed. ʿAlı̄ Muḥammad Muawwad and ʿAdil Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawjūd, (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1999), 16:54. Ibid. al-Māwardı̄, al-Ḥ āwı̄ al-Kabı̄r, 16:54. Ibid. al-Ghazālı̄, al-Iqtiṣād fı̄ l-Iʿtiqād (Beirut: Dār al-Hilāl, 1993), 28–9. Ibid., 28. This was first developed by al-Ghazālı̄ in the 12th century, then Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Shāt ̣ibı̄ in the 14th century. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Rawḍat al-Muḥibbı̄n wa Nuzhat al-Mushtāqı̄n (Beirut: Al-Muʾassasa al-Jāmiʿiyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa l-Nashr wa l-Tawzı̄ʾ, 1982), 312. Abū’l ʿAtāhiya, Diwān Abū’l-ʿAtāhiyya, ed. Karam al-Bustānı̄ (Beirut: Dār Beirut, 1986), 164. 2:44, 2:73, 2:76, 2:242, 3:65, 3:118, 6:32, 6:152, 7:169, 10:16, 11:51, 12:2, 12:109, 21:10; 21:67, 23:80, 24:61, 26:28, 28:60, 36:62, 37:138, 40:67, 43:3, 57:17. 11 places exactly: 3:191, 7:176, 10:24, 13:3, 16:11, 16:44, 16:69, 30:21, 39:42, 45:13, 59:21.

CHAPTER 5

Language: Beautiful Speech/Ugly Speech

In this chapter, the conception of qubḥ as it pertains to conceptual semantic groupings in the Qur’an categorised by isrāf (excess), taʿaddiı̄ (transgression), and jahl (lack of reason), are extended to speech. The Qur’an treats language as any other behaviour; the categories of qubḥ are relevant to speech as well but they are manifest differently. It has thus been argued so far that the conception of qubḥ as it pertains to conceptual semantic groupings in the Qur’an is categorised by isrāf (excess), taʿaddı̄ (transgression), and jahl (lack of reason). In like manner, the Qur’an treats language as any other behaviour; the categories of qubḥ are relevant to speech as well but they are manifest differently. The paradisiacal construct of space, quality of life, and speech as well is marked by excellence and beauty (ḥusn). The Qur’an describes the character of speech amongst paradise inhabitants as follows: There they will here only peaceful talk, nothing bad [laghwan] (Q. 19:62) They pass around a cup which does not lead to any idle talk [laghwun] or sin [taʾthı̄mun] (Q. 52:23) They will hear no idle [laghwan] or sinful [taʾthı̄man] talk there, only clean and wholesome speech [qı̄la salāman salāman] (Q. 56:25–26) There they will hear no vain [laghwan] or lying talk [kidhdhābā] (Q. 78:35)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_5

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These forms and structures of speech, kadhib and laghw, and also actions, taʾthı̄m, are therefore considered inherently qabı̄ḥ because of their exclusion (ibʿād) from the paradisiacal space. The grammatical structure of these verses situates the inhabitants as people who would not hear any form of linguistic ugliness (qubḥ). This not only indicates a certain form of vulnerability toward these forms of aural qubḥ, but also the inevitability of escaping these structures of speech and their universality. The ‘lā yasmaʿūn’ (they will not hear) is indicative of a singular shielding from these categories of qubḥ pertaining to speech through the total absence of all their forms as part of the construct of paradise.1 The common denominator of the excluded forms of speech from paradise is laghw. According to Egyptian grammarian al-Naḥḥās (d. 338/950) in Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, laghw could be summarised from his various explanations as follows: mā yaṣuddu ʿan al-khayri wa yadʿū ilā alsharr,2 as far as actions are concerned, laghw is what is obstructing good and inviting to evil. Verbally, al-Naḥḥās maintains that laghw in speech is (mā lā yufı̄d maʿna),3 in other words, what is not plausible, or nonsense. In Q. 78:35 and Q. 56:25, he relates laghw as untrue or useless talk, (al-bāt ̣il wa mā tuʾtham fı̄hi wa mā lā maʿna lahu);4 in Q. 25:72 and Q. 23:3 he maintains that it is (mā yanbaghı̄ an yulghā) or what ought to be cancelled.5 Laghw is also that which reality is obscured and is meaningless (mā lā yuʿraf lahu ḥaqı̄qa wa lā yuḥaṣsa ̣ l maʿnāhu).6 It is also what is not in keeping with decorum or good taste (mā lā yajmul) in speech (qawl) or behaviour (fiʿl).7 It is telling that the word used for decorum and good taste contains the ‘beautiful’ as ‘yajmul’ and is considered a ‘broken decorum’ and corrupted if it contained an aspect of the ugly as laghw. Laghw in fact encompasses kadhib (lies), the other speech category that is also juxtaposed to it in the aforementioned verses because of its untrue nature (bāt ̣il) and also because of the many categories that kadhib may encompass such as hyperbolic nonsense and defying decorum, for instance. Laghw, as a wider category, encompasses kadhib as a subcategory within it. Lies are discussed giving various examples throughout the Qur’an. The most famous is the ḥadı̄th al-ifk 8 also known as ḥādithat al-ifk [lit. The talk of lies, the incident of the lies, respectively] against ʿĀ isha, the Prophet’s wife.9 More often than not, the function of the lie is moral transgression (defamation, slander, deception, and so on):

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It was a group from among you that concocted the lie—do not consider it a bad thing for you [people]; it was a good thing—and every one of them will be charged with the sin he has earned. He who took the greatest part in it will have a painful punishment. When you heard the lie, why did believing men and women not think well of their own people and declare, ‘This is obviously a lie’? And why did the accusers not bring four witnesses to it? If they cannot produce such witnesses, they are the liars in God’s eyes. If it were not for God’s bounty and mercy towards you in this world and the next, terrible suffering for indulging in such talk would already have afflicted you. When you took it up with your tongues, and spoke with your mouths things you did not know [to be true], you thought it was trivial but to God it was very serious. When you heard the lie, why did you not say, ‘We should not repeat this—God forbid!—It is a monstrous slander’?

The verses naturally condemn those who fabricated the lie but they also equally reproach those who believed it as well as an act that goes against reason. In this respect, it does not excuse those who believed it, because they were led (by their desire/hawā) to believe it. The verse clarifies to them in what ways their thinking process failed because a) the lie does not fit the character of the person in question (ʿĀ isha) whom the addressees are well-acquainted with, and b) if it were indeed true, what proof is there to substantiate it? In other words, the verse clarifies that it is illogical to believe something and disseminate it on the basis of rumour or an ‘opinion’ with no substantiated evidence. If it were indeed true, substantial proof needs to be presented (in this case, four witnesses, as the verse maintains). The Qur’an describes the absence of reason in the following manner: ‘taqūlūn bi-afwāhikum mā laysa lakum bihi ʿilm’ in reference to the circulation of the lie. The mention of ‘afwāh’ (mouths) to portray speech in this case points to it as an act that is divorced from reason especially that ʿilm is referred to as something that is lacking in this situation. It is limited only to the perfunctory movement of the tongue as the verse maintains. The incident of the ifk thus explains how kadhib in this event is an act of moral transgression on the reputation of someone engages with transgression on the perpetrators’ parts and jahl (lack of reason) on the recipients’ parts as a result of believing in it. In Q. 6:112, the Qur’an discusses another type of lies, zukhruf al-qawl (lit. embellished speech), alluring speech with the intention to deceive. Here, alluring words and speech are delineated as another category of lies in the Qur’an, the purpose of which is described as ghurūran (deception).

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The word zukhruf occurs in three other places in the Qur’an. In Q. 17:93, it refers to ‘gold’; in Q. 43:35, it refers to either ‘gold’ or ‘ornaments’; and in Q. 10:24, it refers to the flora of the earth as the earth’s own ornament. Thus, zukhruf al-qawl refers to a quality of speech that is attractive, alluring, ornate, and embellished. The focus on the intention of the lie here (deception) makes it compulsory that the speech’s level of attraction becomes directly proportional to its deceptive intent. The previous categories and forms of speech acts are deemed qabı̄ḥ by virtue of their dialogue with laghw. They create chaos and disorder not only on a moral level but also on both intellectual and aesthetic levels because of their signification disagreement. Ninth century polymath al-Jāḥiẓ’s semiotic insights referencing the Qur’an might be helpful in this regard. Al-Jāḥiẓ quotes Q. 2:31, ‘He taught Adam all the names of things.’ Adam, here, refers to humanity at large: For, He created him [Adam] and…elevated his rank above all creatures and taught him all the names with their meanings. It is inconceivable that He would teach him a name without meaning and teach him the signifier (al-dalāla) and not put the signified (al-madlūl ʿalayhi). A name without a meaning is nonsense (laghw)…and if God were to give Adam names without meaning it is as if He gave him a rigid (jāmid), motionless thing (lā ḥarakata lahu); a thing without a soul (lā ḥiss fı̄hi) and without a benefit (lā manfaʿta ʿindahu). 10

The verbal chaos created by all acts of laghw, which al-Jāḥiẓ also refers to in this inclusive term, summarises the linguistic disorder that occurs as a result. This could be better understood when juxtaposed to the nature of beautiful speech. Beautiful speech is described as ‘salāman salāman’ in Q. 56:25–26, which literally means ‘peace peace.’ The verse is sometimes translated as ‘clean and wholesome speech’, as M.A.S. Abdel Haleem renders it. It is not given a definite term but it is described essentially as a language that is characterised by an overall harmony; it is devoid of chaos, disorder, and/or verbal violence. The harmony also extends to the intellectual level. Speech should not prompt intellectual chaos or intellectual discord. In other words, speech should be respectful of human reason (i.e. does not present nonsense or unsubstantiated does not present nonsense or unsubstantiated opinions as facts or present information that contradicts human reason and/or objective reality altogether) in the same manner it should be respectful of human dignity and feelings. In this respect, ‘peace peace’ is extended to the intellect as well.

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The Qur’an also defines beautiful speech self-referentially. On the direct level, the Qur’an refers to its divine origin in Q. 2:2, ‘This is the Scripture in which there is no doubt,’ in a reference to its origin and content (there is nothing dubious in it and/or about it). In another place, it refers to itself in terms of content and style as ‘aḥsan al-ḥadı̄th’, as Q. 39:23 maintains, ‘God has sent down the most beautiful of all teachings: a Scripture that is consistent and draws comparisons; that causes the skins of those in awe of their Lord to shiver…’11 The Qur’an is described here as superlative in beauty in itself and in its teachings. The effect of this beauty is equally described by the Qur’an as an ‘aesthetic awe’ that precedes the ‘moral awe’ which the verse points to. Further, the Qur’an does not rely on its stylistic beauty only to validate the qualities that make it superlative in beauty: aḥsan and al-ḥusnā; it qualifies and validates its self-description through two important factors: truth and clarity as constituents of beauty.

TRUTH The Scripture We have revealed to you [Prophet] is the Truth and confirms the scriptures that preceded it. Q. 35:31 Step by Step, He has sent the Scripture down to you [Prophet] with the Truth, confirming what went before. Q. 3:3 We sent down the Qur’an with the truth, and with the truth it has come down. Q. 17:105 It is We who sent down the Scripture to you [Prophet] with the Truth. Q. 39:2

CLARITY We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an so that you [people] may understand Q. 12:2 We have made it an Arabic Qur’an so that you [people] may understand. Q. 43:3 We have sent the Qur’an down in the Arabic tongue and given all kinds of warnings in it, so that they may beware or take heed Q. 20:113

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An Arabic Qur’an, free from any distortion—so that people may be mindful. Q. 39:28 A Scripture whose verses are made distinct as a Qur’an in Arabic for people who understand Q. 41:3

It becomes crucial then to emphasise that the medium of linguistic exchange (Arabic) is one that would be understood by the intended people. In this respect, the Qur’an refers to itself as bayān. Bayān has the semantic capacity of being ‘clear’ as well as ‘clarifying’. Legal theorist and jurist al-Shāfiʿı̄ explains the meaning of the Qur’an as bayān in his Risāla. He maintains that it is a comprehensive noun (ism jāmiʿ) for meanings that have common principles with broad branches (li-maʿānı̄ mujtamiʿat al-uṣūl mutashaʿʿibat al-furūʿ).12 Al-Shāfiʿı̄ then elaborates that one of the common principles with broad branches is the fact the Qur’an is a bayān for its audience who speak its language (li-man khūt ̣iba bi-lisānihi) and it is different (mukhtalifa) for those who do not speak Arabic (yajhal lisān al-ʿArab).13 He then elaborates on the nature of bayān itslef. He says it could be textual (naṣsa ̣ n) like the Qur’an and what is explicit in it, or non-textual, like the tradition of the Prophet, or that which scholarship (ijtihād) is required for its bayān.14 Al-Shāfiʿı̄ then uses examples from the Qur’an where instruments of bayān from nature are given. He calls these signs or signposts (ʿalāmāt) based on Q. 16:16, ‘and landmarks and stars to guide people’, mountains, night, day, winds and their names/season/ places of origin, sun and moon ascent and descent, constellations, and astronomy.15 An instrument of clarification then is considered bayān be it linguistic (oral and textual) or non-linguistic such as mountains and stars, for instance. Al-Shāfiʿı̄ also refers to the clarifying factor in nature as signposts inspired by the Qur’an’s epistemological use of them in its truthvalidating argument. The Qur’an’s establishment of the semiotics of truth through the concept of āyāt as signs is its own truth-clarity validation. In Q. 3:138, the clarity of the Qur’an as an attribute precedes all its other self-identified functional characteristics: ‘This is a clear lesson to people, and guidance and teaching for those who are mindful of God.’ Naturally, it must be comprehensible in order for its meaning as both guidance and henceforth teaching, as illustrated in the verse, to become effective. Without being intelligible, both these functions are annulled. Clarity (bayān) as a quality of the language of the Qur’an is described as an essential requirement of the Messenger’s communication style ‘balāgh

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mubı̄n’ (5:92, 16:85, 24:54, 29:18, and 64:12) and refers to the Qur’an itself as balāgh (message) in 14:52. While it never refers to its own eloquence (balāgha),16 the Qur’an describes that effective communication, the purpose of which is tablı̄gh, must be clear. The Qur’an establishes beauty as well as linguistic beauty in the same manner it establishes ugliness as literary, aesthetic, and moral categories. Ebrahim Moosa maintains: The Qur’an became the master-Text of religious thought and soon became the yardstick of literary and rhetorical excellence, expertise and mastery. Literature was constantly infused with allegories, stylistic prose or imitations of the Qur’an. The emphasis was on the aesthetic-ethical aspects of the master-Text, or simply, Text.17

The conclusion derived from the analysis of the Qur’an’s definition of beautiful speech is a canonical criterion that promulgated as the pillars of beautiful speech:18 eloquence (balāgha), clarity (bayān), and truth (ḥaqq). It should be also clear according to the above discussion that speech as truthful does not only lend itself to the content but also to the reliability of the speaker. Historically, this was clear in the practice of isnād (chain of transmission). In like manner, the Qur’an’s clarity does not restrict itself to the fact that it has a common linguistic denominator with the audience, hence it becomes instantly bayān, but that it is also logical and meaningful. It is evident then that the Qur’an’s view of its own language as a vehicle for communicating knowledge in itself extends to its views on language use, or the behaviour of language in general. There is both an explicit (through discouraging qabı̄ḥ forms of speech and describing the excluded language in the paradisiacal construct of ḥusn) and implicit (by virtue of setting an example) emphasis on these qualities. It is understandable then that speech typified as qabı̄ḥ (laghw and its components) is in dialogue with excess, transgression, and lack of reason in their inversion of eloquence, truth, and clarity. Speech that engages in debasement and humiliation for instance then constitutes a transgression as an act in itself and also a transgression on all three aspects of beauty because it practically communicates hyperbolic statements that in reality communicate nothing because these statements defy both the truth of meaning itself and the reality of the entity described. They toy with clarity and truth as an aspect of beauty. In a similar manner, kadhib is engaged with transgression and/or lack of reason as well. Laghw, with all

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its categories, constitutes an aspect of deformed speech (and behaviour) that is also in dialogue with the meaning of the concept of qubḥ itself. The essence of qubḥ manifest in Hell as an antithesis of Heaven defines itself through a semantic scope partaking the aesthetic and the moral. The taxonomy of qubḥ: excess (isrāf), transgression (taʿaddı̄), and lack of reason (jahl) is defined in the Qur’an through examples (description) and regulations (prescriptions). It is important to consider then that while they define the concept of qubḥ, they are in themselves an evaluation for qabı̄ḥ actions in the manner that activities that derive their very nature from this evaluative criteria (arrogance, lying, verbal aggression, theft, murder, and so on) are described. Qubḥ then takes on a mirror definition with excess, transgression, and lack of reason as morally qabı̄ḥ actions that are also aesthetically reflected in the conceptual field of Hell. The previous three chapters delineated the categories of ḥusn and qubḥ from the Qurʾan, examined the aesthetics of disfigurement in Hell, and emphasised the categories of ḥusn and qubḥ in language as represented in the Qur’an. At this juncture, it is instructive to assess the stability of these concepts in the works of adab. Cultural products, canonical and popular alike, are not created in an intellectual vacuum or an insulated void, floating ahistorically across culture, language, and context. It has been referred to earlier that the Qur’an has a considerable influence on adab. This influence has been only so far discussed stylistically, in other words where literary infusions from the Qur’an are concerned. I have shown from the beginning that my purpose is to establish the conceptual categories of ḥuṣn and qubḥ and to show how the Qur’an’s conceptual networks establish this taxonomy, which in turn are to be seen in pre-modern prose works of adab, thus, providing meaningful language and tools for literary criticism and reading literary works. Adab provides ample room for examining these concepts outside the Qur’an both through reading the literary meaning and function of qubḥ and analysing its literary treatment. In examining pre-modern works of adab, this book seeks to answer the following questions: Is there a discernible stabilisation of the meaning of qubḥ and its utilisation as a literary category in these works? Is the presence of the literary category qubḥ indeed in dialogue with and informed by the aesthetic and moral categories of qubḥ in the Qur’an? Is qubḥ always repulsive in order to express both its aesthetic and moral dimensions or could it in fact produce an entertainment value alongside its aesthetic and moral dimensions, most conspicuously discerned as humour; if so, why is qubḥ sometimes

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humorous? And finally, is the centrality of the Qur’an mandatory for the appreciation and reading of these literary texts? What happens when qubḥ is read outside its cultural, linguistic, and literary contexts? The following chapters seek to answer the aforementioned questions within the framework of the delineated methodology.

NOTES 1. Protection in paradise extends itself to the physical (from Hell and punishment) and the emotional (grief, fear, and so on), see Abdel Haleem, ‘Paradise in the Qur’an’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 95–6. 2. al-Naḥḥās, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿı̄l, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, ed. Zuhayr Ghāzı̄ Zayed (Beirut: ʿAlām al-Kutub, 1988), 4:59. 3. Ibid. 4. al-Naḥḥās, Maʿānı̄ al-Qurʾān, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlı̄ al-Ṣabūnı̄ (Mecca: Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurā, 1409 A.H.), 4:342. 5. Ibid., 4:442. 6. Ibid., 6:263. 7. al-Baghdādı̄ al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-Taʾwı̄l fı̄ Maʿānı̄ al-Tanzı̄l, 5:32. 8. Ifk means kadhib in the Quraysh dialect, See, Ibn ʿAbbās, Kitāb al-Lughāt fı̄ l-Qurʾān, 44. 9. The ‘rumors that swirled around the Prophet’s wife when she was accidentally left behind in the desert during the return from a military engagement and was rescued by a young man. The attacks on her virtue were finally squelched only by a revelation (Q. 24:11–20) condemning the scandalmongers and admonishing the believers to recognize a lie (ifk) a slander (buhtān) as such and to refrain from passing on that of which they have no knowledge.’ Everett K. Rowson, ‘Gossip’ in EQ. 10. al-Jāḥiẓ, ‘Risāla fı̄ l-Jidd wa l-Hazl’ in Majmūʿ Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Muḥammad Ṭ āha al-Ḥ ājirı̄, (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya, 1983), 100. 11. For more on the language of the Qur’an, see, Afnan H. Fatani, ‘Language and the Qur’an’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, ed. Oliver Leaman, 356– 72. See also Kermani, Balāghat al-Nūr, 29ff. 12. al-Shāfiʿı̄, al-Risāla, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, n.d.), p. 21. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., 21–4. 15. Ibid., 24. 16. In addition to the appeal of the Qur’an’s moral message, Kermani also discusses its concomitant aesthetic appeal that comprised part of its very

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early reception, which became later canonised in the discipline of Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān (The Inimitability of the Qur’an). See Kermani’s discussion on the reception of the Qur’an, 63ff. 17. Ebrahim Moosa, ‘Textuality in Muslim Imagination: from authority to metaphoricity,’ Acta Academia Supplementum, (1995): 1:57. 18. The argument proposes that these qualities became canonised and not simply features that belong to the cultural products of a certain era, hence part of a heritage; it created a continuum. The Qur’an canonised these qualities, which were also present to some level in pre-Islamic culture.

PART II

Popular Literature: Thousand and One Nights

CHAPTER 6

The Aesthetics of Reason

In this chapter, three manifestations of the qabı̄ḥ interplay in the thematics of the tale of ‘The Hunchback Cycle.’1 First, there is an emphasis on the interchange between isrāf (excess) caused by jahl (lack of reason) and ultimately transgression as moral qubḥ and its consequences as physical qubḥ. This is manifest in the stories told by the four characters in the tale (the tailor, the physician, the steward, and the broker, in order of appearance). The stories highlight certain actions that are followed by bodily mutilations of several characters: the underlying theme of the cycle. Second, the story presents the physically deformed hunchback character that is considered an amusement for the court, in the role of the jester or al-muḍḥik.2 The hunchback’s deformity is received in the tale as a type of amusing aesthetic qubḥ. Although his qubḥ is not in dialogue with excess, transgression, or lack of reason, he is considered to possess what may constitute a ‘lack’ perceived by some characters in the story. This deformity is employed by the storyteller to reflect the characters’ own moral failure. His role as a symbol of visible lack acts as a mirror to uncover a multitude of other hidden aspects of qubḥ. Finally, there is an emphasis on the interplay between aspects of qubḥ that could render speech qabı̄ḥ,3 this idea being exemplified in the characters of both the hunchback and the barber. Ultimately, the catalyst of the tale, manifest as qubḥ, owes itself to one factor: isrāf caused by lack of reason.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_6

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RE-IMAGINING HISTORY AND THE TALE TOLD BY THE STEWARD TO THE KING Muhsin Mahdi pointed out the presence of a historical report in al-Tanūkhı̄’s4 (d. 384/994) al-Faraj baʻd al-Shidda [Deliverance after Hardship] ‘about events said to have occurred early in tenth century Baghdad and written down during the second half of the tenth century not as fiction but as history’.5 The events are similar to the tale told by the steward to the king in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’. The differences mainly lie in the framing of the report between four chains of transmission in al-Tanūkhı̄, validating the historical nature of the report, versus two chains in the tale (the steward and the unnamed merchant).6 The man in al-Tanūkhı̄’s historical report, also a cloth merchant, is reported to have been seen at a banquet where the zı̄rbāja 7 was served, washing his hands 40 times after eating and not 120 times as related in the tale.8 This excessive comical punishment in the historical report serves the purpose of deterring from eating the zı̄rbāja altogether because of its nuisance while in the tale in The Thousand and One Nights, the punishment is made hyperbolically elaborate to induce curiosity and act as a reason for storytelling. In the historical report, like in the tale, the young man is visited by a beautiful and refined young woman; he becomes instantly captivated with her to the point of allowing her to take merchandise worth 5000 pieces of silver without payment.9 In the historical report, the man recovers his senses immediately and begins to worry about his business and possible bankruptcy; he reproaches himself for his momentary lapse in reason.10 In The Thousand and One Nights, the tale portrays him as ‘intoxicated with her love, unable to eat or drink or sleep for a whole week and, after returning to the shop, asks his creditors for more time. His worry about impending bankruptcy is postponed until after the second visit.’11 This exaggeration on the storyteller’s part continues throughout the adoption of the tale from the historical report especially where the wedding night is concerned. On that night, in the report, the man is in the palace of Lady Zubayda, to be wed to the young woman, who is the former’s stewardess. He goes to the kitchen and asks the cook for something to eat. The cook, not recognising him, gives him a bowl of zı̄rbāja. The young man eats it and washes his hands with potash.12 In the report, the bride is offended by the smell of his hands and rebukes him for his ‘lowly’ and ‘common’ ways of thinking that are incompatible with her social class. He apologises and promises her that he will wash his hands 40

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times after eating the zı̄rbāja. She smiles and forgives him.13 Forgiving the young man in this case affirms the reality of the love between the couple and seems quite realistic. In The Thousand and One Nights, the bride’s reaction is histrionic to say the least. It also contradicts the very nature of her supposed love for her husband. She demands that his two thumbs and two toes be maimed as a punishment. In addition, of course, to washing his hands 120 times after eating the zı̄rbāja, to which he agrees. Washing his hands 120 times becomes as distressing as the arduous task of ever eating the zı̄rbāja again with four fingers only, with food slipping between his fingers, as Mahdi rightly observes.14 This deliberate and calculated adaptation on the storyteller’s part to what may seem15 like a realistic report of a love story magnifies the main focus of the story: reason. Al-Tanūkhı̄’s aforementioned story’s thesis is succinctly summarised in Julia Bray’s words ‘be honest and faithful and work hard,… and the powers that be will reward you’.16 It appears then that the storyteller’s adaptation in The Thousand and One Nights capitalises on moments where the young man has shown a lapse in reason—immediately recognised as such in al-Tanūkhı̄’s version on the man’s part—to dramatise the latter’s report. It is imperative to note that the report: …formed part of high literature, contained accurate and detailed references to historical personages and places, and presented linguistic and dialectal peculiarities unfamiliar to [the storyteller] and to his audience. He was no doubt adept at adapting and transforming fictional material when composing his stories, altering, transposing, and inventing incidents to suit his purpose and design.17

Not only did the storyteller exaggerate al-Tanūkhı̄’s version then but he reversed the latter’s thesis. The tale in The Thousand and One Nights is not focused on reward and model behaviour as al-Tanūkhı̄’s, but is focused on the bizarre anomalies and punishment. In other words, it presents al-Tanūkhı̄’s thesis but in reverse: ‘This is what happens when one is being unreasonable.’ Naturally, the latter creates more appeal and curiosity on the storytelling level and is more memorable than ‘model behaviour’—it is not surprising that The Thousand and One Nights’ exaggerated anomalies and unusual punishments are more popular than al-Tanūkhı̄’s ‘model men and women’ rewards, although both works carry the same moral precepts. However, al-Tanūkhı̄’s formula offers a linear progression of events towards the recognition of ‘reason’ or iʻtidāl (equilibrium) whereas the

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Nights in its progression towards iʻtidāl and ‘reason’ offers a limitless horizon for the unfolding of unreason, folly, and exaggerated punishments; all offer dramatic entertainment beside the moral lesson.

THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMAN REASON The man in the story of the steward forgets to wash his hands after eating on his wedding night. This here is a moment of isrāf in underestimating the importance of basic personal hygienic practices and thereby is considered a transgression on decorum (mā lā yajmul min fiʻl) whereby not only did he offend his bride on their wedding night, but also diminished his own self-respect. This carelessness removed the man in question to the domain of qubḥ by rejection (ibʻād) because of transgressing decorum and uncleanliness.18 This isrāf does not translate directly as transgression, because of this negligence. It translates itself primarily as folly because it transgresses an unwritten, albeit basic, social and also religious codes. This is communicated in the horrified wife’s reaction when she detects the smelly hands of her husband on their wedding night: When she smelled the odour, she let out a loud scream. The girls rushed to her from everywhere. I was shaking and did not know what was happening. The girls said, ‘What is wrong sister?’ She said, ‘Get this madman (majnūn) out of here! I thought he was of sound intellect, a rational man! (ʻāqil).’ I asked her, ‘What have I done that you deem madness?’ She said, ‘You madman! For what reason you ate from the zı̄rbāja and not wash your hands! By God, I cannot accept to marry you for your lack of reason (ʻadam ʻaqlik) and foolish behaviour! (sūʼ fiʻlik).’ 19

The appalled bride attributes her husband’s behaviour instantly to a deficiency in reason. This is translated in her language; the wife accuses her husband of lack in reason and calls him ‘ya aswad al-wajh’20 (You with the darkened face!) to signify the magnitude of his offence.21 The face is held as the most important part in the human body, as al-Zamkhsharı̄ argues.22 The idiom of darkening/blackening the face, al-Rāzı̄ contends, refers to the grief (ghamm) and sorrow (ḥazan) of being faced with one’s ugly actions (aʻmālahu al-qabı̄ḥa).23 The wife uses the vocabulary of Hell to describe the consequences of his actions. Does it evoke the meaning intended? ‘A word’s meaning’, Todorov tells us, ‘is the sum of its possible relations with other words.’24

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An incident of qubḥ in this respect immediately evokes the narrative of Hell. The storyteller injects this abstraction of a socially indecorous behaviour, conscious of its unseemly nature, regardless of social status or class, and he is conducting a dialogue with a grander model of qubḥ. It is preposterous to believe that smelly hands deserve a punishment of this scale or a punishment altogether. Mahdi also cautions against the alacrity that wants to see reflections of ‘cultural or societal practices’ in the tales at such instances. He maintains that a tenth century Baghdadi audience would have ‘laughed out the fictional version out of court’ but it does not seem to be the case with ‘…learned Orientalists who have used the 1001 Nights as a source for the study of the customs and manners of Oriental societies.’25 The wife’s punishment in the tale is neither ‘Islamic’ nor ‘cultural’ or even realistic to begin with. If one must keep pointing the obvious for myopic readers, mutilation is religiously and legally forbidden.26 Rather, the highly ridiculous punishment becomes an aesthetic mirror of the man’s behaviour as foolish and lacking in reason. This deficiency in reason gives the storyteller a license to dramatise punishment to Hellish proportions as the vocabulary suggests. The literary punishment, therefore, becomes a ‘meaning of meaning’, a symbol of physical ugliness that is reflective of moral failure, namely foolishness. Whereas Hell is a place of finality, the story redeems the man for his follies. He still ‘gets the girl’ and they live happily ever after. The literary representation of ugliness and its dependence on the Qur’anic narrative of Hell is therefore not focused on a theological finality but rather on the concept of ugliness and its aesthetic and moral articulations. The man’s compliance with his wife’s wishes and submission to her will—much to the shock of the reader—attests to the fact that he recognises his behaviour as foolish, unseemly, and indecorous and deserving of the punishment. It also points to his accountability as he acknowledges his own qubḥ that was met by a punishment that deformed his body forever, reducing it from the perfect ‘aḥsan taqwı̄m’ to being permanently qabı̄ḥ. This acknowledgment is proved by the oath he made to his wife (washing his hands 120 times every time he eats zı̄rbāja), which he keeps, even in her absence. It is the only way the husband could prove to his wife that he is not devoid of reason and is worthy of being married to her, as this is precisely the accusation that she had put forth to him. This engagement with aesthetic ugliness as a consequence of a lack in reason is the theme that runs throughout the whole of ‘The Hunchback Cycle’.

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In the broker’s tale, a rich and handsome merchant falls in love with a woman. They meet every night and he leaves her money at the end of their meetings. This continues until the man runs out of money. The merchant then attempts to steal money from an officer in the market but is caught and ends up losing his hand because he is charged with theft. The instantaneous presentation of law and order and the application of maximum penalty on the young man are comical. It is as if the trial, witnesses, and judge were all set up and ready to go in the span of minutes in the market. The storyteller’s execution of justice is prompt albeit simple in its literary execution and also telling of his audience. It is almost a deus ex machina (lit. god from the machine, to solve an unsolvable problem in the plot in the manner of Greek tragedies), but in this case it is a legem ex machina (the law solves the problem). Legally, to prove that the young man, or anyone, is a ‘thief’ in legal terms, s/he has to fulfil more than ten conditions. By way of reading and understanding the events in the tale, four conditions remain highly ambiguous: the offender must not be in ‘dire need’, the victim must file a case against the offender, then the incident must have two legal witnesses who confirm the incident in identical details (i.e. their testimonies must match to the minutiae) or have the detailed voluntary confession of the offender twice after the accusation has been made, and the incident must be reported to the highest authority figure in the state or their deputy.27 Of course, the storyteller by-passed all legal and administrative paperwork as they have no place in the temporal structure of the narrative or his audience because they do not involve action. It must be mentioned that the young man had not actually ‘stolen’ the money; he attempted it but was caught by the officer before or as he reached for the officer’s pocket. So in this case, no ‘actual’ object was stolen; there is no ‘real’ theft. According to the legal jurists, the condition of theft itself—that is to be a thief—the person must steal (yasriq) from a protected/safeguarded/hidden place or thing (ḥirz) and take the stolen object away from that place.28 Even then, the punishment of the crime varies between minimum and maximum penalties: returning the objects, paying a fine, imprisonment, and then the maximum penalty depending on each case. So why does the storyteller give the young man a maximum penalty? Al-Musawi offers some solutions by locating the ‘type of Islam’ practiced as a background for certain practices or lack thereof in The Thousand and One Nights as the tales travelled through time across Arab lands. So he argues that Iraqi stories are more liberal than others, for instance, therefore he suggests that one reads these practices against

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the type of Islam practiced. A reading against the ‘cool’ Islam versus the ‘uncool’ Islam does not seem to be a convincing solution because it falls into the trap of measuring the tale against an orthopraxy measurement and taking the tales as a mirror of society as Orientalists did and do. One recalls Suhair al-Qalamāwı̄’s attention to some tales that she calls ‘prejudiced’ (mutʻaṣsị ba) where the ‘religious other’, i.e. non-Muslim is often demonised in those tales against the historical backdrop of the Crusades.29 In this case, a reading against the historical and geographical backdrops would highlight the Crusades on-setting at the eleventh century, explaining the prejudice and xenophobia in some tales. But since the Nights is an organic text that took shape and form and grew from the ninth to the fifteenth century, does this mean one could only read the Nights from the ninth to the eleventh century free of the Crusades background and xenophobia and from the eleventh century onwards loaded with the ‘Crusades effect’? This is untenable. What if there were prejudiced tales dated prior to the Crusades and non-prejudiced ones during the Crusades? It would eliminate the ‘individual’ factor, the diverse storytellers’ backgrounds and experiences, movement between cities, possible displaced storytellers from sacked towns and their personal predisposition, and most importantly the symbol storage of the Nights. Neither al-Musawi’s nor al-Qalamāwı̄’s historical explanations fully and convincingly explain to the storyteller’s audience and similarly to us why the storyteller punishes the young man for theft anyway despite the legal ambiguity or what is called “ḥudūd maxim”, which directs judges to “avoid (imposing) fixed criminal sanctions (ḥudūd) in cases of doubt or ambiguity (idraʼū ‘l-ḥudūd bi’l shubahāt).”30 Comparatively, in other legal systems, such as modern American law, for instance, this is called “the rule of lenity.”31 This is because these historical readings regard the tales as a ‘mirror for reality or real events,’ which in turn eclipses the role of symbolic use of concepts and ideas dramatised for a popular street audience for specific purposes: entertainment is one but instruction is another. ‘…[H]earers pick the contextual assumption whose processing costs them the least possible time and effort. That is, recipients are not willing to put too much effort into processing utterances which do not interact with their cognitive environment.’32 And so the hyperbolic dramatisation of the incident of an almost-theft had to capitalise on the incident for two reasons: the storyteller’s poetic justice admonishes the young man for his lapse in reason which led to the attempted theft not because of the almost-theft per se. The storyteller’s equation of the lapse in reason complicated the tale to achieve the effect of the young man’s loss of

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his hand: aesthetic qubḥ. This aesthetic aftermath ensures a literary aftermath that also completes the instructional power of the narrative. It would compel the young man to retell his story forever. That everyone is telling stories in The Thousand and One Nights is not only for entertainment or a life-saving device but also part of the Nights’ grand belief in the transformative power and role of adab that ultimately humanised Shahriyar in the end. The aesthetic manipulation of the maximum penalty of theft drives a point home for the street audience, with minimum effort on both sides, as an extremely repulsive deterrent not from theft only, because it had not actually occurred but almost occurred as an outcome of something else: the young man’s lapse in reason; it is deployed as a metanarrative. The storyteller also uses it as an infinite narrative device in the tale every time the young man is asked about his hand, which is how we know about it in the tale. He thus produced an authorial persona, another storyteller. Egyptian author and intellectual Taha Hussein (1889–1973) understood and expressed this very well in his novella Aḥlām Shahrāzād [The Dreams of Scheherazade] as he depicts Shahryar after the 1000th night filled with anxiety instead of lust and rage. He is now filled with a thirst for knowledge that would enable him to decode the symbols and complexities of the stories and their narrator Scheherazade. Hussein imagines an anxious Shahryar traversing into the dream world of Scheherazade to extract the necessary symbols that would enable him to understand these stories from the symbol storage of her dreams. A more complex Shahryar has stopped taking people and stories on the superficial and literal levels—as he did women—and has departed from oscillating between the only emotional ranges he knew (lust and anger). Hussein expresses the transformation of Shahryar through his adab-induced depth that is not satisfied with ‘literal’ meanings but is now looking for a deeper understanding and reading of stories, people, and life altogether. Hussein articulates this desire for depth through Shahryar’s attempt to demystify the world of Scheherazade, the master storyteller. Perhaps she holds the same message for us. The loss of fortune that led to theft costing the man his hand is depicted in the tale as a result of the man’s illicit affair with the woman. The most curious factor in the tale is that people attack the officer instead, thinking the latter is bullying the man in question. They are reluctant to believe that he could be a thief because of his demeanour. This is communicated to him directly by the officer himself, who supports his belief in the man’s inherent innocence and ends up giving him the very money that

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was almost stolen. 33 The officer, like everyone else, thinks the merchant’s demeanour is not that of a thief and takes pity on him afterwards.34 Conversely, one finds that the opposite occurs when the steward encounters the hunchback in his kitchen thinking him a thief. The former is quite astonished that the hunchback could be a thief and rhetorically asks him ‘Isn’t it enough that you are a hunchback; you are also a thief stealing the meat and fat!’ (amā yakfı̄ innak aḥdab ḥattā takūn ḥarāmı̄ wa tasriq al-laḥm wa l-duhn). This is the crux of the cycle: physical beauty as emphasised and glossed in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ and its articulation of reason and moral beauty. A similar theme runs in the story of ‘The Lover Who Pretended to be a Thief’.35 A young man who is described as ‘ʻāqil, adı̄b, fat ̣in, ẓarı̄f, labı̄b’ (rational, sophisticated, intelligent, charming, and discerning) is accused of theft because he was found in the house of his lover. Neither the prince of Basra, Khālid, nor the people want to convict him, to the extent that the prince is finding excuses to exonerate the young man who is adamant to admit to a theft he did not commit to protect the reputation of the woman he loves by justifying his presence at her house. The man’s moral beauty, articulated as physical beauty, exemplified in the qualities attributed to ‘reason’ stand as repudiation for the acceptance of qubḥ. In the end, he is acquitted because of his lover’s intervention and as a reward motif because of his noble intentions. Again, because the affair is a secret one, it led to severe moral complications. The narrative presents these complications as a test for the sincerity of the lovers’ feelings and eventually their triumph over these obstacles, which were all rectified with the lovers’ marriage. In like manner, because the affair of the man in the tale of the broker is outside moral decorum, it is framed by qubḥ and was expressed as such in the tale. The man’s excess is articulated in spending all his fortune, oblivious to all potential consequences of impoverishment. The narrative materialises the loss of reason in the excessive loss of money. This becomes obvious when at the end of the tale the man’s lover takes pity on him and is moved by his sacrifice. She shows him that she had saved all his money, which they enjoy after they married. The recovery of fortune is synonymous with the recovery of reason; his luck is reversed and Reason/ reason are affirmed: iʻtidāl is restored. Money should not be understood as glorified by being equal to reason in the tale. Rather, reason is glorified as synonymous to a ‘treasure’ status of money and personal assets. The man’s striking physical beauty, which was emphasised in the tale, is irrevocably diminished because of an affair that cost him his money and

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put his morals into question (Reason as a moral force and reason as an intellectual faculty). His reason has become debatable and he ceased to be as handsome as he was described at the beginning. Not only that, but he is forever sentenced to telling his story, as the law of The Thousand and One Nights entails, every time he uses his left hand. In this respect, he, like most characters, ‘is a potential story that is the story of his life.’36 Similar to the merchant who lost his thumbs and toes to a zı̄rbāja aftermath; the prompt for an explanation shall act as the ‘lesson’ the man refers to in the tale not only for himself but for the intended listeners of the story as well. This mechanism also operates in the physician’s tale where the first incidence of qubḥ appears when he asks a certain man to show him his hand to examine and so the man gives him his left hand instead of the right as custom entails, to which the physician expresses much dismay and disgust. It was only later when he saw the man’s body in the bath that he discovered the scars of beating and the man’s disfigured right hand, which then explained the man’s behaviour. The man is then prompted to tell his story, which involves an encounter with a woman, who, after spending the night with the man, refuses to take his money and instead gives him the same amount of money he had initially offered. This transaction repeats itself three times. The woman, after rhetorically asking the man if she is ‘pretty’ (malı̄ḥa) then suggests bringing along a second woman who, in her words, is ‘prettier and younger than herself,’ to join them so that they could all have a ‘good time’. The man obliges and does not object. The rather bizarre behaviour on the woman’s part culminates when the three are gathered and the first woman notices that the man is expressing a sexual interest in the second woman. After asking the man if he finds the second woman, who is also her younger sister, prettier and more pleasant than herself, he concurs, whereupon she asks him to sleep with the second woman. These unusual questions that were concluded with her demand that he sleep with the second woman clearly prompt an explanation. Was the first woman expecting that the man would refuse to play along with her perverse game and pay no attention to the second woman, in order to prove something to herself? Especially since she had repeatedly asked if he finds her beautiful, both directly and indirectly? It certainly appears that this is the case. However, the man’s inability to discern the reality of the situation even after all the red flags speaks of a major error in judgement on the man’s part. The woman clearly is depicted as severely unstable. The man’s accord from the very beginning to what constitutes a plain absurdity at first is in itself a momentary lapse of reason. In this respect,

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his compliance with the woman’s wishes displays how isrāf functions in the anticipation of a potential promise towards maximising pleasures to their utmost extremes. This excess is translated in the story by turning the man from a ‘pursuer’ of pleasure into a ‘recipient’ of pleasure. The tale’s conscious structure of portraying the maximisation of pleasures is manifest in the details of the man’s encounter with the woman: giving money was turned into receiving money and an affair with one woman turned into an affair with two women at the same time. These narrative manipulations of abstractions of excess all point to the man’s frame of mind that precluded his sound judgement in what seems like a potentially dangerous situation, initially because of the disposition of the woman and then because of her unusual requests. This meeting of the three persons involved eventually resulted in the first woman becoming jealous of her sister and decapitating her, much to the shock of the man who woke up next to the second woman’s beheaded body. The loss of a ‘head’ perhaps points to the loss of reason displayed by all characters. This is established when the tale reaffirms the man’s folly and lack of common sense, seemingly as his own choice, by revealing the woman’s deranged personality as it materialises itself, rather literally, in the headless corpse laying beside the man. What follows afterwards is an intricate tale of misunderstanding about the man’s accusation of theft, which leads to the cutting of his hand and brutal beating all over his body; a direct consequence of his involvement with the woman he met. The tailor, like the steward, the broker, and the physician before him, also tells a story to satisfy the king’s insatiable appetite for storytelling. Perhaps it is because the tailor who was the prime catalyst of all the events37 that it becomes his responsibility to dazzle the king with an unsurpassed story that supersedes all the aforementioned stories in its strangeness. The tailor speaks of how earlier during the day he was at a banquet for men of various crafts where he met a barber and a certain man who is described as very handsome but with a lame leg. The man seemed quite distressed with the barber’s presence, which demands an explanation, of course, for the tailor and the rest of the men. The man speaks of how he had fallen deeply in love with the judge’s daughter to the extent of becoming very ill. An elderly woman then starts to act as the love-messenger between the man and his object of affection. After initially questioning the man’s sentiments and his sincerity, the young lady in question takes pity on him and is surprised that he is in fact suffering because of his love for her. She then decides to secretly meet him at her father’s house before the Friday

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prayers. The man recovers from his lovesickness, expectedly, and decides to groom for his meeting with the lady. The barber’s introduction, to cut the man’s hair, acts as a plot deferral factor through his relentless interference in the man’s business. The barber is depicted as an elderly, sensible, and honest man. He refuses to take money without offering his services to the man and insists that the man listens to his advice. The latter does not seem to be willing to take the former’s advice. The barber’s repeated accusations to the man of being a fool (ḍaʻı̄f al-ʻaql) because of the latter’s behaviour are proved valid later on. The constant appeals to the culture’s ethos, in terms of Qur’anic quotations, poetry, and sage sayings as commentaries on the man’s edgy and impatient behaviour emphasise the noticeable dichotomy between Reason/reason and their absences. These appeals are portrayed as the only instruments to voice out reason with regards to the man’s pending secret meeting with the judge’s daughter and are in keeping with the barber’s role as an interruptive agent. The barber’s role is introduced to stage the thinking process for the man—perhaps the character of the barber is introduced deliberately as well to indicate his preoccupation with the head. The man is aware of the barber’s insinuations and even admits this to himself as the barber keeps delaying him until the call for the Friday prayers was heard and the man says (in an aside to himself) ‘adrakanā waqt al-ṣalāt wa jāʼ waqt al-khaṭı̄ʼa’38 (The call for prayers has come and so the time for sin has arrived). The juxtaposition of these two pursuits that share only their timing prepares for the climax of the story. The contrast between (a) the public and communal nature of prayers versus the potential lovers’ tryst; (b) the function of prayers versus the purpose of the lovers’ meeting; and (c) the situating of those two actions on the Reason/reason versus deficiency in reason axis is in dialogue with jahl as a deficiency in reason and ultimately the discourse of qubḥ. The phrasing of the man’s thinking process serves to capitalise and confirm his deficiency in reason—which was presented only as an accusation on the barber’s side until that moment—because of the incongruous nature of his words that belong to opposite conceptual matrices (qubḥ vs. ḥusn) and the juxtaposition and substitution of ‘prayers’ with ‘sin’. The man’s words also point to his insincere feelings towards the lady in question as he views their meeting with a completely different parameter than she does. What she considers a prelude to love, he regards as an opportunity for ‘sin’. The man’s misplaced wordings therefore uncover his intentions and also supply humour

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and an entertainment value of the tale because of the incongruous associations made by him. The result of the man’s heedless actions, as described by the barber, and as vividly portrayed as such in the story was that the man’s leg was broken in his attempt to escape from the lady’s house and as a result he became forever disabled. The man, however, conceives of the unfortunate fate of his leg as a consequence of the barber’s prying, while the latter believes that were it not for his interference the man in question would have probably faced a darker end. These differences in perception noticed here act as evidence of the contrastive patterns of thinking between the man and the barber. It was also highlighted between the man’s expectations of the potential meeting versus the woman’s perception of it. The man’s own mental paradigm holds the barber responsible and does not take responsibility for his own actions that eventually led to this misfortune, while the barber’s own outlook on life and experience does not acknowledge the man’s accusations and even pardons him because of his folly, ‘mā naʼkhudhak ʻalā jahlik li-anak qalı̄l al-ʻaql ʻajūl’39 (I overlook your folly because you are foolish and reckless). The barber’s accusations appear to be of a tenable nature; the man—who became ill because of his love for the judge’s daughter—seems to have quickly forgotten all about her as soon as this misfortune befell him. The man’s emotional immaturity and impulsive behaviour that was criticised on the barber’s side and initially suspected and foreshadowed on the lady’s part as well proved to be true in the course of events when the man’s feelings were validated as insincere. The barber’s ‘elder brother’ attitude does not limit itself to perfect strangers but extends in an objective manner towards his brothers as well despite the fact that he is the youngest. He holds his brothers fully responsible for their misfortunes that led to their severe bodily deformities. This is because as far ‘…as the barber relates, his brothers suffer from wrong ways of thinking that only highlight his own unique position within the family as the most educated and experienced.’40 The link drawn by the barber between his brothers’ acquired disfigurements and their ways of thinking re-instates the thesis of ‘The Hunchback Cycle’. The barber seems wise enough to discern this reality. This is the reason why the barber’s portrayal as meddlesome (fuḍūlı̄) and loquacious (tharthār) by the tailor did not find reception with the king after the former finished his story, it propelled the king to bring in the barber in order to see for himself and put closure to the matter.

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ALL THE KING’S JESTERS AND FOOLS The barber’s appearance before the king elicited the latter’s laughter before the barber even spoke. The king’s inquiry about the four men’s stories (the broker, the steward, the physician, and the tailor) eventually led the barber to resuscitate the hunchback and put closure to the story and save everyone as the king had previously intuited. The four main characters of the story contributed to the obvious irony in the story, which is their false belief that they were the reason for the hunchback’s apparent demise, when they are not. The underlying irony in this position is that whatever their choice is, in regards to the situation at hand—the hunchback’s corpse—the outcome will be ironic. If they choose to act morally and report the incident, it will be ironic because the hunchback is not dead. If they turn a blind eye as they all have, it is still ironic because they are running away from something that does not exist, a dead body that is not dead. Irony is then complicated when at the end the barber—physician of the lower classes—is the one who discovers that the hunchback is still alive instead of the physician. To further complicate things, as is in the nature of The Thousand and One Nights, they were all brought before the king—the highest symbolic representative of law and order—because of the hunchback, who is the king’s jester. These four characters have all replaced the hunchback in his entertaining role for the king. The role of the character of the hunchback as a muḍḥik in the court of the king is emphasised throughout the tale in the identification of the hunchback as such. This interplay between the fascination with qubḥ and its power of seduction is manifest particularly in this situation in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’. In the tale, the king seemingly derives pleasure from the hunchback’s deformity and keeps him as his jester, and so did the tailor and his wife who were the catalyst for the series of misfortunate events that befell the hunchback’s ‘corpse’. In this case, it is not beauty but rather unexplained ugliness or ugliness through deformity that arouses a form of pleasure: curiosity. The hunchback’s deformity does not cease to amuse neither the king nor the tailor and his wife. One should ask, does not this particular misshapenness become tiresome and familiar with time? Not for the king. Wonders of nature, anomalies, and monsters create what is known as an insatiable circuit of desire in their appeal.41 In this respect, their attraction continues to seduce as long as they remain dehumanised as an object, i.e. without an essence for their existence other than their own deformity. The very function of the hunchback in the tale categorises

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him as such, because of his lack of speech in the tale. Not only that, but the hunchback’s deformity qualifies him to act as a tool for human measurement.42 It is worth noting at this juncture that the four stipulating conditions that governed the requirements of a ruler in the Arab-Islamic world, as stated in Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima, are ‘knowledge, probity, competence, and freedom of the senses and limbs from any defect that might affect judgement and action’.43 The list of disabilities that automatically disqualify anyone from ruling are: Insanity, blindness, muteness, deafness, and…any loss of limbs affecting (the imam’s) ability to act, such as missing hands, feet, or testicles, is a prerequisite of the imamate, because all such defects affect his ability to act and to fulfil his duties. Even in the case of a defect that merely disfigures the appearance, as for instance, loss of one limb, the condition of freedom from defects (remains in force as a condition in the sense that it) aims at his perfection.44

The storyteller, of course, narrates a story set in China, with a hypothetically Chinese monarch, but the king, characters, and context ‘all operate in an Islamic context’.45 One could argue that the king’s presumed ‘perfection’, ex officio, is juxtaposed to the hunchback’s deformity and that in itself is amusing for the king and a constant reminder of his own ‘perfection’. However, the king, as the story unfolds, does not need the hunchback to be reminded of his own presumed perfection or his subjects’ deformities, since everybody in the presence of the king is deformed in one way or another and has replaced the hunchback. All the subjects who are brought before the king because of the assumed death of the hunchback are somehow imperfect. Not only this, the stories they tell the king about other people who have severed limbs and hands speak of imperfections, as each story exposes variations on the themes of deficiency in reason, ill-judgement, human weaknesses, and moral failures. In this case, the only one who could assume ‘completeness’ is the king. This fact is even augmented by the stories told to the king. Seemingly, these characters were all held to be temporary court jesters before the king. However, the four narrators of the stories do not amuse the king, and have thus failed in becoming his jesters, because they are distorting mirrors; they are narrators of other people’s qubḥ. While what they describe is bound to inherently contain a moral commentary, they all shared moral failure when they shirked responsibility for the hunchback. They do not

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realise their own qubḥ and that is why they are narrating other people’s qubḥ while ignoring their own. This all becomes part of the irony that enshrouds the ‘The Hunchback Cycle’. These ironic situations under discussion do not automatically translate into mockery ‘sukhriyya,’ but rather irony, in Roy Mottahedeh’s rendering ‘tawriyya taʻajjubiyya, ‘containing astonishing concealments’.46 These ‘astonishing concealments’ are precisely what the king, and ultimately the intended listener are after. Each story told by the four characters directly refers to their own qubḥ. The tailor who was the cause of all this tells the story of the barber which fits well with the tailor’s position. Like the tailor, the barber also interferes in other people’s lives which is exactly what the tailor did when he abandoned the hunchback at the physician’s who in turn left the former at the steward’s and finally the hunchback reached the broker. He indirectly interfered in all these people’s lives because of his choices. The physician, shirking professional responsibility towards the hunchback, could be very well accused of poor judgement in his medical profession; this is reflected in the tale he recounts about the young man who is having an affair with a seemingly unstable woman and agrees to bring another woman in the affair he is having through the first woman. Due to his ill judgement, he involved himself in murder and was accused of theft and lost his hand. Equally, the steward who is a cook recounts a story about a man who neglects a simple hygienic practice (hand-washing) on his wedding night when the steward’s rodent-infested kitchen itself is an exemplification of unsanitary practices where cats usually invite themselves to his house to ravish both food and rats. The trivialising of basic principles of hygiene in both the steward’s and the groom’s situations speak of isrāf in the pattern of thinking, in jeopardising people’s lives through undermining the importance of cleanliness in the steward’s case and trespassing social decorum in the groom’s. The broker’s drunkenness involved him in the hunchback dilemma because he was too drunk to discern the difference between an unmoving man and a man attacking him. His situation is reflected in the tale he tells about a man who becomes intoxicated by love to the point of legitimising theft in his moral lexicon in an attempt to recover some of his lost fortune; he ends up losing his hand. The consequences of ignoring Reason/reason as portrayed in the tale are manifest in the loss of control. In the case of the broker, he was almost accused of murder, and in the case of the young man in his tale, he lost his hand and nearly lost his fortune. ‘In medieval literatures’, James Monroe maintains, ‘the relationship between frame and enframed tale is often one of contrast. The purpose

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of this form of presentation is to provide an ironic perspective on what is affirmed by the characters.’47 These moral parallelisms observed between the stories told by the four men who are accused of the hunchback’s murder equally reflect their own folly. Each one of them tells a story that speaks directly to an aspect of the moral shortcoming exhibited towards the hunchback (tailor, physician) or in their lifestyle and choices in general (steward, broker) but they fail to recognise it. Not only then have all four characters shown moral deformities (in place of physical deformity) on their parts when they failed to recognise their qubḥ, but the artistic utilisation of the physical deformity of the hunchback also brought to the fore their moral deformities. On the other hand, the most odd feature is the king’s involvement in such a matter, which is justified in the story by his special attachment to the hunchback (i.e. it is personal). Should this be what a king spends his time on as head of kingdom? Is it as important as the affairs of the kingdom? The four aforementioned qualities a head of state should meet, as stated in Ibn Khaldūn, are in fact operating in the tale. As Ibn Khaldūn upholds, the sovereign must be a prototype of mental and physical excellence.48 The king’s need for a hunchback as a jester supports his paradigmatic freedom from any physical defect. However, his competence, probity, and knowledge all become effective as the tale unfolds. The king’s apparent dissatisfaction with the four stories of the tailor, physician, steward, and broker conveys his moral commentary and validates his competence and probity. Their moral failures before the king are astutely understood on the king’s part because of his knowledge.49

REJECTED HUNCHBACK AND WORD SURPLUS ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, like the rest of The Thousand and One Nights’ tales, works on several layers of meanings albeit through the use of qubḥ. The series of events invoked by the mistaken death of the hunchback—the most obviously deformed character in the literal sense—uncover a multitude of warped events in their own right. The four characters standing before the king to justify the mysterious death of the hunchback represent the first direct circle of qubḥ in their attitude towards the hunchback. The conundrum of the hunchback’s apparent death is explained in detail to the king whose only comment to his attendants—and intended listeners/readers, of course—afterwards was ‘have you heard a similar tale to that of the hunchback?’ And alternatively ‘have you heard of a stranger

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tale?’50 The very questions asked by the king propel the narrative engine that is the gear of The Thousand and One Nights because ultimately an answer would only entail more tales as shown in the cycle. This, of course, requires that each of the four characters, who are all accused of allegedly killing the hunchback, tell ‘a stranger tale’. This in itself is a self-referential qualifying definition of the themes found in The Thousand and One Nights in general and ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ in particular. As Roy Mottahedeh maintains, the fact that the former ‘…inspires ʻajab and gharāba cannot be doubted’.51 However, even this theme must be justified in the narrative. What does the king mean by stranger or ‘aghrab’? Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānı̄ explains that ‘one says of anything separated away, that it is gharı̄b, and of anything which is not similar to its species [jins] that it is strange ‘gharı̄b’’.52 All stories told to the king despite their common denominators of love and/or lust take strange turn of events and severe physical disfigurements and disabilities. The four characters have unknowingly become the king’s jesters and have momentarily replaced the hunchback but they have failed at becoming jesters because of their lack of self-understanding and folly. This is manifest in the tailor’s benevolent interference and unsolicited advice to others and the hunchback’s silent wisdom that exposed everyone’s folly and qubḥ which had transformed them into temporary fools before the king twice: while they were narrating the stories and exhibiting an inability of self-understanding and then when the hunchback was resuscitated and rendered the whole situation ridiculous because of their inability to discern the reality behind his false death. The second reason is but a manifestation of their blindness to their own faults. Their confessions about their imagined crimes are indeed ‘could-have-been crimes’ because they all have proven that they can find it in themselves to commit murder either directly or indirectly. Their moral failures do not become amusing deformities before the king. Rather, it is ‘strange’ that their blindness to their own moral deformity made them perceive the hunchback’s deformity as amusingly strange when it is quite the opposite as the tale affirms. Order exemplified in the persona of the king then represents all that is rational, beautiful, and logical and it exists and functions because of its stark contrast with the very nature of events sprung by the hunchback. The persona of the ruler, al-Musawi argues, ‘…is endowed with a religious function the storyteller does not dispute… everything is given shape and meaning, and the tale moves toward a settlement that, in narrative terms, stands for equilibrium’.53 The plot’s unravelling of disequilibrium

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because of the hunchback’s apparent death expresses itself vividly when the hunchback was removed away from the king (order) to act as an unearthing tool for all sorts of disorder and chaos. The plot starts with an attempt at achieving order by explaining disorder (manifest materially in the hunchback’s corpse) and only achieves equilibrium after all qubḥ has been exposed at the king’s court.

AS BEAUTIFUL AS YOUR WORDS ARE Speech as an aspect of either ḥusn or qubḥ is emphasised in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ as well. Speech is directly linked with ʻaql. The same rules that govern behaviour with respect to excess, transgression, and lack of reason are in operation for speech. The character of the hunchback does not speak in the tale. His two incidents of speech were while he was drunk and reciting a poetry couplet where the tailor and his wife found him and invited him to dinner, and the second when he was resuscitated at the hands of the barber where he uttered the proclamation of faith in Islam or shahāda.54 In both cases, his speech is not directed towards his surroundings. In the first incident, he was speaking to himself in a moment of elation induced by drunkenness, and in the second incident, his speech was directed towards God. This lack of verbal contribution from the hunchback’s part is even noticeable when the tailor’s wife ‘stuffed’ his mouth with fish and the hunchback never protested verbally or even non-verbally. The act of ‘stuffing’ his mouth with food is an act of excess in itself, which ultimately prohibits him from speech and it is what eventually drove him to his comatose existence for the duration of events in the tale. This act of inverted and twisted hospitality speaks of excess. ‘Whether accidental or not’, Bonnie Irwin argues, ‘killing through serving food is a perversion of one of the basic values of the Thousand and One Nights[.]’55 This behavioural excess on her part, which not only transgressed the cultural codes of hospitality, but also transgressed the personal boundaries of the hunchback, was the instigating factor behind the hunchback’s choking and eventual mistaken death that involved everyone. It seems that the wife and by association her husband had no intention of enjoying the company of the hunchback as an individual, or an equal who is capable of speech in the same manner they all are, but rather as an object of wonder. In other words, it becomes clear that the hunchback is forbidden from speech throughout the tale in an attempt to capitalise on the idea of qubḥ as a deficiency in reason whether by action as the characters in the tale exemplified or by inaction

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exemplified in lack of speech as indicative of ʻaql, in the case of the hunchback. It is as if all events are conducive to the hunchback’s minimal speech and in this sense contribute in emphasising his ugliness as a dysmorphic form devoid of content that may be beautiful. The extreme opposite of this is the character of the barber who is portrayed as a loquacious person. But the barber’s incessant talk is also indicative of his ʻaql that is manifest in the cycle in various ways. The barber’s understanding of astrology and measurement of planetary hours, horoscope reading, knowledge of the Qur’an, poetry, and most importantly his perception and insight—which are all displayed in his interaction with the man—adduce his claim that he is the most learned of his six severely deformed brothers. His wisdom and reason are portrayed as the only factors that could deter the young man from following through with his plan. This excessive talk, as portrayed by the man with the lame leg, is the rationality of the barber, which does not agree with the man. This becomes evident at the end of the tale when the king makes both the hunchback and the barber his own boon-companions. The booncompanion or al-nadı̄m, as an entertainer, was considered a littéerateur as well, who should be well-versed in belles-lettres and etiquette. In the words of Josef Sadan, he was considered al-adı̄b al-ẓarı̄f (the pleasant littéerateur).56 In a book devoted solely to the characteristics of the ẓurafāʼ, Abū’lṬ ayyib al-Washshā’ (d. 325/937) delineates the four main elements of ẓarf: al-faṣāḥa (articulateness), al-balāgha (eloquence), al-ʻiffa (virtue), and al-nazāha (integrity).57 The barber does not appear to be exhibiting a deficiency in any of these qualities. It appears that he does earn the ẓarf qualities and his job as a nadı̄m. This all becomes clear when the king seeks to listen to the four characters’ stories (his new jesters), but he only expresses his amusement with the barber. The barber has been the witness to many follies but had always acted as the voice of reason. He could be deemed as a caricature of the ẓarı̄f qualities; an exaggeration in eloquence and rhetoric, in keeping with the cycle thematic of excess, with the exception of his virtue and integrity as has been referred to. The barber and the hunchback complement each other, while the hunchback is treated as a visual display of ‘freakery’ for other people’s amusement; the barber’s garrulousness is perceived as aural freakery and qubḥ in itself and also amusement at the same time. It is a reminder of his constant commentary on other people’s folly. This is perhaps the reason why it is the barber, and not the physician, who discovers that the hunchback is not dead. Like the

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hunchback, the barber is also perceived as a grotesque aural phenomenon; they do recognise each other in how they act as mirrors for other people’s qubḥ. This symbolic representation of abstract concepts of reason, virtue, irrationality, foolishness, beauty, and ugliness in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ is in dialogue with the register of qubḥ exemplified in excess, transgression, and lack of reason. ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ utilises these concepts through their depiction as forces of both narrative iʻtidāl and its lack, which is supported by an inherent concept of narrative order that is derived from the Qur’anic concepts of qubḥ and ḥusn, as evident in the narrative’s artistic language. The intricate and complicated structure of the ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ could only attest to a deliberate creative process in the composition of the tales. That one should read the events as reflective of reality and a measurement against orthopraxy Islam, or read the punishments in the tales as indicative of actual practices in the society in question would be absurd.58 Rather, as this chapter, and the entire book, avail to show, one should look at how the meanings of certain concepts such as reason, excess, transgression, ugliness, and beauty are interplayed in the creative process itself aesthetically and morally. ‘Storytelling’, Hannah Arendt tells us, ‘reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.’ The configuration of actions that are contrary to reason are conducting a discourse with qubḥ by evoking various themes on punishment in keeping with the mirror definition of qubḥ as a reflection of the plane of Hell. In ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, every event was motivated by a certain desire (which need not be foolish or ugly in itself, quite the opposite actually, since most events are motivated by love, or what appears to be love in some cases), but often metamorphoses and/or expresses itself foolishly—this is where excess is observed. While all the representations of moral failures in the stories translate themselves as transgressions, transgression becomes only a secondary feature in the narrative, which chooses to highlight the significance of reason in the course of ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ through the artistic language and the aesthetics of the tale itself. Lack of reason manifests itself primarily in the narrative as one of the faces of isrāf, hence qubḥ. In this respect, a certain stabilisation of the meaning of qubḥ is observed. The artistic use of qubḥ as the ultimate catalyst of the progression of the plot does not only define qubḥ but also defines beauty and order by association. This explains the tale’s own focus on highlighting the importance of reason in a rather straightforward and an uncomplicated manner through

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the vocabulary and language used and also through the graphic disfigurement of the characters. Physical imperfections through punishment need not always be the symbol storage for the representation of momentary or permanent lack of reason and transgressions. Since excess, transgression, and lack of reason form a causal and interconnected relationship with each other, lack of reason in itself could be regarded as a sufficient moral commentary and disfigurement for characters as detected in both the tales of ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’ and ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, the focuses of the next chapter.

NOTES 1. Nights 25th–32nd. 2. While the story does not take place in an Abbasid court, it is inspired by Abbasid entertainment. Joseph Sadan maintains that the Abbasid courts were heavily inspired by the Sassanids not only in terms of armaments and artillery but also in means of entertainment and court conduct. It could be argued that the need for entertainment in the Caliphal court is a means of escape from the imposed decorum the position infers on its holder. See, Joseph Sadan, al-Adab al-ʻArabı̄ al-Hāzil wa Nawādir al-Thuqalāʼ: al-ʻĀ hāt wa l-Masāwiʼ al-Insāniyya wa Makānatuhā fı̄ al-Adab al-Rāqı̄ (Köln: Manshūrāt al-Jamal, 2007), 66. The court’s jester (al-muḍhị k) and the boon-companion, familier du roi (al-nadı̄m) as Charles Pellat translates it, were jobs that were created as a result of this need in the Caliphal court. Al-muḍhị k, as the title implies, need not possess a literary gift or sharp wit, although it would certainly be of assistance if he happened to have these traits. Al-muḍhị k may have relied on what is now called ‘toilet humour.’ They had their name-action associations; anecdotes mention al-ṣafāʻina (the slappers) and al-ḍarrāt ̣ı̄n (professional farters or fart-makers). For the former, see Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Tı̄fāshı̄ (580–651/1184–1253), Nuzhat al-Albāb fı̄ mā lā Yūjad fı̄ Kitāb, (London: Riyāḍ al-Rayyis, 1992) [The Promenade of the Hearts in What is not to be Found in a Book] which has an entire chapter on slapping. For more on this topic, see Sadan, al-Adab al-ʻArabı̄ al-Hāzil wa Nawādir al-Thuqalāʼ; see also Riyāḍ Quzayḥa, al-Fukāha wa l-Ḍaḥik fı̄ l-Turāth al-ʻArabı̄ al-Mashriqı̄ min al-ʻAṣr al-Jāhilı̄ ilā Nihāyat al-ʻAṣr al-ʻAbbāsı̄ (Sidon: Al-Maktaba al-‘Aṣriyya, 1998). 3. More on this in Chap. 9. See also, Sarah R. bin Tyeer, ‘The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of adab’ in Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of Classical Literary Tradition, ed. Nuha al-Shaʻar (Oxford University Press and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Forthcoming 2016).

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4. al-Tanūkhı̄ was a famous figure of the second half of the tenth century, and worked as judge in Baghdad as well as other cities during the Būyid’s reign of ʻAḍud al-Dawla (367–372/978–983). See, Muhsin Mahdi, ‘From History to Fiction: The Tale Told by the King’s Steward,’ in The Arabian Nights Reader, ed. Ulrich Marzolph (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), 302. 5. Mahdi, ‘From History to Fiction: The Tale Told by the King’s Steward,’ 300. 6. Ibid., 303. 7. Alternatively, this dish is also known as zı̄rbā and/or zı̄rbāj and relies heavily on vinegar, and in some recipes both vinegar and cumin which explains the smell. See, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥ asan b. al-Karı̄m al-Baghdādı̄, A Baghdad Cookery Book, trans. Arthur J. Arberry (Hyderabad: Islamic Culture, 1939), 16; cf. van Gelder, Of Dishes and Discourse: Classical Arabic Literary Representations of Food (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000), 72–3. 8. Mahdi, ‘From History to Fiction: the Tale Told by the King’s Steward,’ 304. 9. Ibid., 306–307. 10. Ibid., 307. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., 312. 13. Ibid., 314. 14. Ibid., 305. 15. Julia Bray expresses scepticism in the historicity of the story. See ‘A Caliph and His Public Relations’ in New Perspectives on Arabian Nights: Ideological Variations and Narrative Horizons, ed. Geert Jan van Gelder and WenChin Ouyang (New York: Routledge, 2005), 30. 16. Bray is critical though, on socio-political grounds, of al-Tanūkhı̄’s ‘more wishful than realistic’ thesis because, according to her, reward is not always the case. 17. Mahdi, ‘From History to Fiction: The Tale Told by the King’s Steward,’ 301. 18. For more on the importance and significance of cleanliness in the ArabIslamic culture, see Abdel Haleem, ‘Water in the Qur’an’ in Understanding the Qur’an, 32–3. 19. Night 27th. 20. Ibid. 21. See Chap. 3 for the discussion on the meaning of ‘black’ and ‘darkened’ faces. 22. al-Zamakhsharı̄, al-Kashshāf, 2:531 in reference to Q. 14:50, 39:24, 54:48. 23. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 8:148–9 in reference to the Qur’an’s mentioning of radiant faces vs. darkened faces.

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24. Todorov, ‘Language and Literature’ in The Poetics of Prose, trans. Richard Howard (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977), 24. 25. Mahdi, ‘From History to Fiction: The Tale Told by the King’s Steward’, 317. 26. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 231. 27. Ibn Qudāma al-Maqdisı̄, al-Mughnı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1405 A.H., 1985?), 9:111ff. 28. Ibid. 29. See, Suhair al-Qalamāwı̄, Alf Layla wa Layla (Cairo: Dār al-Maʻārif, 1976). 30. Intisar A.  Rabb, ‘Islamic Legal Maxims as Substantive Canons of Construction: Ḥ udūd-Avoidance in Cases of Doubt’ Islamic Law and Society 17 (2010):66. 31. Ibid., 65. 32. Sperber and Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition (Oxford: Blackwell 1986/1995) cited in Salwa M.S. El-Awa, Textual Relations in the Qur’an (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), 30. 33. Night 26th. 34. It is imperative to note here the correlation between morals and aesthetics in a literal sense in what is called ʻIlm al-Firāsa (physiognomy). In his book, al-Firāsa, Fakhr al-Dı̄n al-Rāzı̄ dissects and analyses facial and bodily characteristics and relates them to human temperament and behaviour. In Chap. 7, which concerns itself with faces, he says the following: ‘The ugly of face is seldom of good morals, this is because the mood necessitating to the outward appearance is the same for inward behaviour. Hence, if this mood is virtuous, perfection is observed outwardly and inwardly and if it is imperfect, it also manifests itself outwardly as inwardly.’ al-Firāsa, ed. ʻAbd al-Amı̄r ʻAlı̄ Muhannā (Beirut: Dār al-Maḥajja al-Bayḍā’, 2005), 188. It should be noted that physiognomy is not strictly an Arabic field; it was widely known and practised in ancient Greece, India, and China as well. 35. Night 25th. 36. Nights 297th–299th. 37. Todorov, ‘Narrative—Men’ in The Poetics of Prose, 70. 38. Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 413. 39. Night 29th. 40. Night 30th. 41. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 199. 42. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen maintains that ‘narrative of marvels (especially ‘wonder books’ as Campbell calls them) satisfy the very need they have created and, through the permanent absence of their subjects, ensure that the circuit of desire will never be completely fulfilled.’ See, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ‘The Order of Monsters: Monster Lore and Medieval Narrative Traditions’

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44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50.

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in Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition, ed. Francesca Canadé Sautman et al. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 38–9. Cohen also maintains that the monstrous races act as a measure of man, see ibid., 45. While the hunchback does not belong to the monstrous races, he definitely evokes measurement in other characters through his deformity. Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, trans. Franz Rosenthal, ed. N.J. Dawood (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989), 158–159; cf. Fareed Haj, Disability in Antiquity (New York: Philosophical Library, 1970), 109. Ibid. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 152. The English translation is Roy P. Mottahedeh’s. See, Roy P. Mottahedeh, ‘ʻAjāʼib in The Thousand and One Nights,’ 37. See also James Monroe’s discussion of tawriyya in reference to the maqāmāt and his reference to Seeger A.  Bonebakker’s book on tawriyya, The Art of Badı̄ʻ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ as Picaresque Narrative (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1983), 96–7. Monroe maintains ‘…in the Thousand and One Nights, Shahrazād tells king Shahriyār, who is convinced that all women are evil, many tales involving the theme of men who have been married first to a wicked wife, in whose clutches they have suffered, and then to a good wife who ultimately saved them[.]’, 146. Ibn Khaldūn, 158–9. Ibn Khaldūn refers to this as the ‘knowledge of law’ that enables the monarch to carry independent thought. The term used in the story is ‘aghrab’. The terms ʻajı̄b and gharı̄b in adab are a recognised genre about aberrations of nature as God’s creation. Al-Qazwı̄nı̄’s (599–682/1203–1283) ʻAjāʼib al-Makhlūqāt wa Gharāʼib al-Mawjūdāt (Wonders of Creation) is the most famous work in this genre. The book categorised these wonders in their genera (plants, animals, and so on) and identified their abnormalities and their geographical locations. For this reason, ʻajāʼib and gharāʼib as a genre remains categorically linked to travel. The phraseology of ʻajı̄b and/or gharı̄b relates to that which defies ‘normal’ categories of its kind. However, it should not arbitrarily lend itself to the category of the Todorovian ‘fantastic’ as a genre. For this argument, see Kamal Abu Deeb, The Imagination Unbound (London: Saqi, 2007), 8ff. Also, examples pertaining to Qur’anic references of this term manifest in the Qur’an’s own reference to itself as ‘Qurʼānan ʻajaban’ in sūrat alJinn (72:1) as a quality of the Qur’anic language itself that transcends the categories of normal speech. Another usage of the term is ascribed to the quality of events that defy normal categories of causality in sūrat al-Kahf with respect to defying the normal categories of time and human mortality in the story of the people of the cave (the people of Ephesus).

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51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57.

58.

Quoted in Mottahedeh, ‘ʻAjāʼib in The Thousand and One Nights,’ 30–1. Ibid., 31. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 203. The Muslim profession of faith, ‘lā ilāha illā Allāh, Muḥammad rasūlu Allāh’ (‘there is no God but Allāh, and Muāammad is the Messenger of Allāh’). Bonnie D. Irwin, ‘Framed (for) Murder: The Corpse Killed Five Times in the Thousand and One Nights’ in Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition, ed. Francesca Canadé Sautman et  al. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 160. Sadan, al-Adab al-ʻArabı̄ al-Hāzil, 68–9. Muḥammad b. Isḥaq ̄ Al-Washshāʼ, Al-Ẓarf wa l-Ẓurafāʼ (Cairo: n.p, 1907), 32. Al-Washshāʼ also speaks about appearance-related attributes as part of the definition such as cleanliness, neat and stylish clothes, and use of perfumes. cf. Mahdi, ‘From History to Fiction: The Tale Told by the Steward to the King’, who also criticises the Orientalist use of tales as ‘mirror’ to practices in Arab-Islamic society.

CHAPTER 7

Of Misplacement of Things, People, and Decorum

The literary representation of qubḥ observed in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ owes itself to lack of reason; this was discernible in the language used in the tale. In this chapter, the literary design of chaos and disorder is also in dialogue with the absence of reason. However, the presence of qubḥ makes itself felt through various forms that bespeak of literary complexity. This does not mean that ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ is a simple tale. Rather its narrative structure is straightforward in applying the aforementioned apparatus of qubḥ and restoring iʻtidāl. In other words, ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ applied the mirror definition of the concept of qubḥ where the interaction of the three symptoms (excess, transgression, and lack of reason) are mirrored on the plane of Hell as physical qubḥ. In this chapter, however, the mirroring of the definition is not applied but instead the interaction of the apparatus of qubḥ itself becomes both the source of disequilibrium and equilibrium at the same time. The difference between the two literary applications of qubḥ shall become clear in the course of the chapter. In ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’1 and ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’,2 the main theme that runs through both stories is adultery proper. This chapter investigates the utilisation of qubḥ through the theme of adultery in both tales whereby it (the theme) unearths other categories of qubḥ through the sophisticated literary portrayal of lack of reason. The chapter also looks at the common themes in world literature such as profanity and scatology, and their role in the carnivalesque. However, it points out their different meanings in Arab-Islamic culture.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_7

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ADULTERY: AN ACTION OR A REACTION? In the tale of ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, the form does not deviate from the induced story-telling machine that operates at the heart of The Thousand and One Nights. It starts with a sober anecdote about the Ḥ ajj season, where the person narrating the story recounts the tale of a man standing by the Kaʻba in Mecca praying that a certain man in question would cheat on his wife, in order that the wife would eventually fulfil her promise by cheating on the husband in question with him. Evidently, people heard him and decided to take him to the prince of the Ḥ ajj who saw into the matter and melodramatically decided that the man should be hanged. This unjustified and uncalled for death sentence of course is The Thousand and One Nights’ praxis to induce the literary life-saving act: storytelling. The ḥashshāsh pleaded that the prince should listen to his story first and then decide afterwards—decisions before the stories do not count in the world of The Thousand and One Nights. The man presents himself to the prince of the Ḥ ajj as a ‘ḥashshāsh’ (sweeper at the sheep slaughterhouse) and graphically describes that he carries the dirt, blood, and remains of animals to certain places as his job entails. He further tells the prince that while he was walking with his load of ‘blood and dirt’ on his donkey, he saw people running and hiding because the wife of one the city higher-ups was in the market. The ḥashshāsh hid in a narrow alley until the crowd subsided then stood by to watch the lady and her entourage. The lady ordered her servants to bring him; they tied him up and dragged him behind them. Surprisingly, the ḥashshāsh was not astonished that he was treated in this manner despite the on-lookers’ appeals on his behalf. He immediately assumed that his reeking of disgusting and appalling odours might have offended the lady’s delicate nature or that the lady was perhaps pregnant and the stench had caused her discomfort; hence, he is being reprimanded. The ḥashshāsh’s preliminary hypotheses, although dramatic and exaggerated to the nth degree, acknowledge his own repulsiveness induced by the nature of his job in contrast to the lady’s social status and demeanour. However, what follows afterwards suspends all logic. The lady orders her servants to give the ḥashshāsh a bath and offer him a meal. Afterwards, the lady engages in a sensual feast of drinking and eating with the ḥashshāsh while listening to the intoxicating tunes of instrument-playing girls—it is interesting to note here that as the ḥashshāsh recounts his story to the prince of the Ḥ ajj, he acknowledges that he does not know the names of the things he ate nor did he know how to dress

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himself in the clothes the servants prompted him to wear. Naturally, the atmosphere is all leading to one expected thing. The lady and the unassuming ḥashshāsh remain like this for eight days. Every time the lady sleeps with the ḥashshāsh, she gives him fifty pieces of gold and sends him away in the morning until they meet again at night. On the eighth day, the lady’s husband comes to apologise for sleeping with one of the kitchen’s maids. The lady forgives him and expectedly tells the ḥashshāsh that the only reason she was sleeping with him is because she caught her husband cheating on her with one of the kitchen’s maids and so she made an oath to cheat on him with the filthiest and most disgusting of all people—the punch line, or rather punch, to the fantasy-induced world that lasted for a week for the ḥashshāsh has been delivered. It could be argued that the lady is upset, even offended, because not only the husband was cheating on her, but also, he was cheating on her with someone who is socially beneath her. Evidently, all these factors might have contributed to her fury. Her oath adduces this. She made an oath to cheat (aznı̄) on her husband with the ‘filthiest, most disgusting of all people’ in town (ḥalift yamı̄n ʻaẓım ̄ innanı̄ lā budd ann aznı̄ maʻa awsakh al-nās wa aqdharihim).3 She referred to the potential candidate as the ‘filthiest, most disgusting of all people’ a creature that falls beneath human and gender categories through filth. In this respect, the lady does not regard the potential ‘filthy’ candidate as a ‘human being’ or ‘male’ but only as an ‘object of filth’. It is easy to superficially read the lady’s association of the kitchen girl with filth because of her social class. This utilisation of class hierarchies is employed on two levels. On a superficial level, it could be interpreted as a discriminatory look on the lady’s part associating lower classes with ‘filth’, but at the same time, it becomes a literary tool on the storyteller’s part to associate both the actions of the husband and the impending actions of the lady with actual filth (kitchen’s refuse and the blood and dirt of the slaughterhouse) as a metonym for spiritual filth: najāsa (impurity) by choosing the locale for their sexual encounters. In other words, elitism is used as a literary tool. It is worth noting how the tale injects and focuses on the consequences of qubḥ as it emphasises how the husband’s adultery begot the wife’s, which eventually lead to the ḥashshāsh being accused of impiety and irreverence during Ḥ ajj. The interconnectedness of the circle of qubḥ is perceived in the manner qubḥ is transferable: adultery of the husband, adultery of the wife, and irreverence of the ḥashshāsh.

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The same interconnectedness is perceivable in the tale of ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’. However, the thematic of adultery is manifest differently. The story revolves around a wife whose husband is constantly absent because he is a frequent traveller. The woman takes on a younger lover who gets involved in a legal dispute and becomes imprisoned as per the governor’s (wālı̄) edict. The woman, in an impassioned fury, goes to the governor’s house to submit a written petition to appeal for the release of her lover whom she understandably refers to as her brother. The wālı̄ urges her to enter his house under the pretext that while she waits, he will send for her lover. The woman, observing social decorum, refuses to enter his house while understanding that the invitation is devoid of innocent intentions. She is proved right when the wāl ı̄ bluntly puts forth his condition that he will not release her lover unless she yields to his sexual proposition. The woman coyly complies but puts forth her condition as well that the wālı ̄ should be a guest at her house. She then goes to the judge, vizier, and finally the king, leaving no stone unturned to release her lover; they all demand the same thing in return for the release of her lover. She complies as she did with the wāl ı̄ and invites them all to her house. The woman then goes to a carpenter to have a cupboard of four large drawers made; the carpenter obliges and he does not even want her money. He has joined the aforementioned men in their demands. The woman complies and invites him as well to her house but she adds that she wants the cupboard to be made with five drawers instead and not four. In a very calculating episode, she cleverly leads the five men to her house. Yet, it is quite intriguing for the reader to find that every man the woman encounters in the tale, despite his position or social class, is adamant on propositioning her. In addition, all five men are represented to have propositioned the woman in exactly the same manner. Why is the narrative repeating this detail? It certainly is not a coincidence. There is objectivity and even detachment in the description of the character of the woman. Every time each one of the men looks at her, he is described as being ‘filled with passion’ for her (ʻashiqahā). The story’s own definition4 of the verb portrays it as a fascination that requires immediate gratification in the depiction of the manner these men proposition the woman; it also portrays the offensive presumption—on the men’s part—that the woman would comply. The narrative’s portrayal of the men’s view of the woman is translated in their blunt demands. In both tales, the creative engagement with qubḥ occurs within the interaction of its parts without the recourse to aesthetic mirroring of qubḥ

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or an engagement with the plane of Hell, as seen in the previous chapter. This is obvious in ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’. The narrative instead mirrors the woman’s initial transgression back to her by making the woman vulnerable to a transgressive behaviour qualified as qabı̄ḥ because of her secret affair. This is also evident in the tale of ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’. In the aforementioned tale, although the husband never learns of his wife’s adultery, the narrative is conscious to mirror it as a reflection of his own adultery through the wife’s. Equally, the wife’s adultery is reflected in turn by her association with what she describes and is also portrayed in the tale as ‘filth’. It is clear from these literary processes that there is a reflective engagement with the definition of qubḥ.

THE OFFSPRING OF TRANSGRESSION That qubḥ is utilised to engender more qubḥ is perceptible in both tales. The lady in the tale of ‘The Lady and Ḥ ashshāsh’ comments on her entire episode with the ḥashshāsh telling him, in what seems like a moral footnote to their nocturnal sessions, that she was compelled to fulfil the oath that she had made by sleeping with him. She carries out a religious act that typically involves the invocation and usage of God’s name for the purpose of committing an ethico-religious violation (adultery). The lady is fulfilling a religious duty with an ethico-religious transgression. Here, the creative introduction of the oath to become the false excuse of the lady’s transgression becomes a precursor for the introduction of qubḥ as an evident lack of reason. The narrative clarifies this by presenting, comically, the limits of human reason or folly for that matter. Not only is the lady’s oath motivated by a purpose that transgresses against Reason but it also challenges reason as an intellectual faculty in its very reliance on (a) the religious register to carry out transgression, and (b) in its preoccupation with finding an ‘object of filth’. The interplay of transgression and folly, naturally, are evident in the lady’s act. This, however, is an intricate use of qubḥ exemplified in the lady’s moral stance that deserves further investigation. Al-Musawi reads the dichotomy of the Reason/desire axis in The Thousand and One Nights as a concession between the authorities of both political and religious dogma on the one hand and human nature on the other: The tension and polarization between faith, obligation, and temptation is so strong that it triggers action, travesty and humor, all of which enable the

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urban mind to go beyond the structures of authority and religious laws and reach for an appropriation of these in a new order, which is urban Islam.5

It is unclear what al-Musawi means by ‘urban Islam’ or ‘non-urban Islam’. But it is more helpful to read these tensions within the creative structure of the narrative itself, conceptually. In other words, it is the utilisation of the symbols of what is viewed as a tension between ‘order’ and ‘temptation’ to advance the narrative and capitalise on certain themes of importance that would ultimately assist us in understanding the tales within the literary parameters of adab. Also, it would assist us to develop tools and key terms for literary criticism by reading the convergence of the literary, aesthetic, and the moral rather than reading the tales as a ‘reflecting mirror’ of society and religious practices for a certain brand of Islam. The close examination of the tale’s structure clarifies the lady’s position as she uses the very system she is transgressing against to validate her own actions. Had she not engaged in fulfilling her oath because of the moral gravity of adultery in comparison to the oath, she would still be considered respectful of the system because the dexterity of the tale’s structure grants her this position in the reciprocal interchange between not observing a religious duty out of abandoning an ethico-religious transgression. The cleverness of the tale’s structure becomes clear in the very fact of the lady’s observation of a religious act (oath) to carry out a self-acknowledged transgression (adultery) on her part; this affirms her respect for this law even if the act she commits contradicts this reverence. As James Bellamy contends, ‘[i]f people violate a moral code but still respect it, it will remain in force; if they violate it out of principle, that is, because they really are following a different moral code, the old one will not long endure.’6 It thus becomes not only counterproductive to read this as instances of the ‘carnivalesque’ or as an irreverent ‘mockery’ of Islam but also invalid. It is clear that the artistic use of the oath as a false excuse to carry out adultery is re-affirming, rather humorously, that the lady is not committing adultery out of disrespect for the religious and social codes but rather as a justified fulfilment of a religious duty. Naturally, the narrative does not present this seriously nor expects the intended readers to take the lady’s actions seriously as well but it presents it as an action that is still engaged in a discourse with the system that she is still respecting; she is not violating it out of principle. This is also designed towards injecting more qubḥ in the tale using the conceptual categories of qubḥ itself to restate why her actions are actually qabı̄ḥ.

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The paradox of the alleged reason (oath) functions on three levels: (a) while it engages with a discourse in observing religious duties, it demarcates the limits of human reason in rationalising these duties. The lady’s portrayal of excessive and contrived observing of religious laws had turned into a transgression; she is depicted as irrational; (b) this, in turn, partially suspends moral judgement on the intended readers’ part because not only are her actions portrayed as a reaction from the beginning, but they are also motivated by an illogical justification; and (c) this illogical observation of religious duties on the lady’s part ultimately supplies the humour in the tale. If one believes the lady was truly observing her oath or merely deluding herself to take revenge on her husband, it makes little if no difference because the design of the plot grants her this position. She fully acknowledges her actions as qabı̄ḥ. This is adduced by the tale’s portrayal of her search for ‘filth’ to match the multifaceted levels of transgression (ethico-religious, matrimonial, social, logical, and so on). The tale is engaging with these conscious affirmations that are comically distorted only to be concurrently affirmed; the lady brought qubḥ—materialised in the ḥashshāsh—upon herself. Her punishment is her own folly, as suggested by the use of the oath. It is quite important to read the lady’s behaviour comparatively with the ḥashshāsh’s actions during the Ḥ ajj to further understand the aforementioned point. Following the lady’s promise to the ḥashshāsh that instigated the whole incident at the Ḥ ajj—that if her husband ever cheats on her with that particular maidservant again, she will call upon him—the devastated ḥashshāsh leaves 400 pieces of gold richer, which enables him to go to the Ḥ ajj. But he only prays that the husband would cheat on her again so that he (the ḥashshāsh) may go back to her. This behaviour is similar to the lady’s own not only in its usage of a religious means of expression (prayer in the ḥashshāsh’s case and an oath in the lady’s) to carry out a transgression, but also in its utter absurdity. It is perceived as such by the prince of the Ḥ ajj, who after listening to the ḥashshāsh, lets him go and asks the attendants to pray for him because he has his excuses (fā innahū maʻdhūr). How exactly is the ḥashshāsh excused then when, as Hafsi Bedhioufi maintains, ‘[l]a violation de l’espace sacré est une impiété[.]’ (the violation of sacred space is an impiety).7 It appears then that the narrative does not treat the lady nor the ḥashshāsh’s transgressions against the religious and moral codes as violations that are carried out of principle but rather out of extreme folly ‘ḥumq’. Lisān al-ʻArab defines ḥumq as a quality that is contrary to reason (ḍidd al-ʻaql) and denotes a deficiency in reason (qillat al-ʻaql). Ibn Manẓūr

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further explains ḥumq and state that, at its best, it is irresoluteness—clearly, he did not mention the worst state of ḥumq as there can never be a finitude of its consequential fallouts. In addition, he asserts that the actual essence of ḥumq is ‘waḍʻ al-shayʼ fı̄ ghayr mawḍiʻihi maʻa al-ʻilm bi-qubḥihi’, which basically translates into ‘putting something in an inappropriate place notwithstanding knowledge of such ugliness/unseemliness’.8 A behavioural translation of ḥumq, therefore, translates into saying and/or doing the improper, even unacceptable thing, despite knowledge of it being unacceptable. Edward William Lane defines ḥumq as ‘[f]oolishness, or stupidity; i.e. unsoundness in the intellect or understanding…and stagnancy, or dullness, therein…or paucity, or want, thereof.’9 He further adds that it is ‘[said to be] putting a thing in a wrong place, with knowledge of its being bad [to do so]’.10 On the other hand, al-Ghazālı̄ defines ẓulm (injustice) as ‘waḍ ʻ al-shayʼ fı̄ ghayr mawḍiʻihi.’11 By way of analogy, ‘the meaning of justice (ʻadl) is to put all things in their right place.’12 The inverted reciprocity of behaviour in both definitions of ḥumq and ʻadl express their meaning through the illogical/logical, respectively, placement of things in their relevant places. This, semantically leads to the conclusion that ḥumq is a manifestation of injustice (ẓulm) and/or self-injustice (ẓulm al-nafs) as a transgression on the logical order of things. Ḥ umq could only be another face of qubḥ that naturally lends itself to deficiency in reason and it constitutes, on the level of the narrative, a reprimand in itself because of the actions of the person. In other words, it acts as a category of qubḥ, a consequence of qubḥ, and also a punishment for qubḥ in the way it is creatively used to highlight the self-destructive potential of ḥumq. The interplay between transgression and ḥumq then is evident in the two tales. While the meaning of qubḥ is stabilised in both tales as well as in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, the manner in which it is introduced and treated in these narratives is quite different. In the previous chapter, jahl articulated itself as lack of reason, or anti-reason specified in the lack of selfknowledge expressed by the four characters. This is reflected in the stories they narrated respectively as: interfering in other people’s lives (tailor), a disregard for hygienic practices (steward), ill judgement with regards to an affair (physician), and becoming blinded by love (amour fou) to the extent of breaking the law (broker). These actions are all portrayed as momentary lapses in reason. Nonetheless, these characters, in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, have acknowledged their own folly at the end—except the man in the tale of the barber—which reinforces the plot’s literary devising of ʻaql (reason)

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as a deterrent from qubḥ, as repeatedly shown throughout the tale. In the two tales under discussion, ḥumq is utilised as both a plot advancing technique and also a humorous explanation for transgressions. Nonetheless, it still acts as a simultaneous branding of qubḥ, through the narrative’s interchange of implicit and explicit moral commentaries as well. The displays of ḥumq, which both the lady and the ḥashshāsh have excelled in showing, are fundamental for the comic relief of the tale. Otherwise, the tale would simply be dealing with archetypal transgressions that have a moral undertone but lack any entertainment value. In both tales, it becomes obvious that through complex structure, transgression coated in ḥumq provides humour through content misplacement manifest in being at the wrong place and saying and/or doing the wrong things, yet without upsetting the stability of the definition of qubḥ.

PHYSICAL MISPLACEMENT Doing the wrong (or right) thing at an inappropriate time is sometimes linked to being at an unsuitable place for this action. The structure of both tales further reinforces transgression as a symptom of ḥumq in the physical misplacement of the characters. The ḥashshāsh’s ḥumq is validated by the lady’s promise. The fact that the ḥashshāsh is now 400 pieces of gold richer did not seem to induce a paradigm shift in his worldview. Considerably richer now, he did not conceptualise ways in which he would ameliorate his social conditions, for instance. In his own mind, he is still the foul-smelling sweeper at the slaughterhouse. This might very well be because he does not think that any woman would ever take an interest in him except the lady in question under the previously mentioned condition—which in itself (the promise) adduces the lady’s ḥumq manifest in her behaviour, as a reprimand that she brings upon herself. The ḥashshāsh’s state of mind does not match his new financial status. The lady knowingly deduced that even with 400 pieces of gold, he could not be anything except a sweeper because of his ḥumq. Yet, this still does not justify the manner in which the lady gives the money to the ḥashshāsh. However, if one assumes that as the lady in question justifies her adultery, at least to the ḥashshāsh, because of the oath she made, one assumes that the string of misplacements through ḥumq is still at play. The money she pays him then may constitute a ṣadaqa (charity) or a zakāt (almsgiving) as a means of purification, as Bedhioufi maintains,

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zakāt acts as a psychic purification of the soul.13 However, if indeed this is the case, then the circumstances of this money-giving ritual adduces the misplacement of its context. Alternatively, the instalments, paid to the ḥashshāsh every time the lady and the ḥashshāsh sleep together, highlight the commodification of the relationship itself, which begs for an analysis of the place of their first meeting: the marketplace. The marketplace itself is a profane place, a place of impurities, but also information.14 These characteristics precisely evoke the politics of the first meeting of the lady and the ḥashshāsh. The lady went to the marketplace to ‘look for’ the filthiest person in town. She went shopping for a commodity. Clearly, there is an exchange system at work here. To her, he would still be the filthiest and most disgusting man in town, which explains why she had promised him to repeat their exchange of services should her husband cheat on her again. The ḥashshāsh’s prayer then, to be a tool in the hands of the lady in question, precisely clarifies, through ḥumq, why the prince of the Ḥ ajj pardons him while explaining to his attendants that the ḥashshāsh is excused. The former excuses the ḥashshāsh because the latter has shown, throughout his story, that his reasoning faculties are detectably flawed, which would ultimately render his incapacity of observing decorum in sacred places (or otherwise) quite expected, even a plot necessity. The only instance where the ḥashshāsh expresses logical thought is at the marketplace. The ḥashshāsh is deemed a fool ‘aḥmaq’ when he is taken outside his natural habitat. The opposite is true for the lady, whose actions of using the ḥashshāsh defy logic. The tale’s misplacement, therefore, of the spaces of both persons through ḥumq creates further ḥumq through the action-oriented manifestations that articulate the unsuitability of these new places both persons involved themselves in. This place incongruity in itself is portrayed as a catalyst for transgression, hence qubḥ. The tale’s embedded justification of this misplacement is in keeping with the reason/desire axis. The reason that drove the lady outside her habitat to the marketplace where she does not belong is a desire for revenge. This is where the desire for revenge acts in an antithetical relationship to ʻaql and eventually arrests her ability of rational thought. In the same manner, the ḥashshāsh has lost his reasoning ability the moment he was taken outside the marketplace. The expression of qubḥ employed both geographical settings and speech acts through themes of ḥumq as misplacement. The dissolving of boundaries between the misplacement of the lady’s world and ḥashshāsh’s world and also the worlds of the sacred and the profane during the Ḥ ajj through ḥumq is also perceptible in the tale of ‘The

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Woman with Five Suitors’. In ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, ḥumq is evident through physical misplacement, which supplies much of the story’s engagement with the comic. The pressing question in the course of this analysis is to answer for the particularity of the comic in regards to men in authority, dressed in cheap colourful rags,15 locked up in a cupboard, and urinating on each other. There is no unexpected punch-line effect in the tale. It is anticipated that the woman is planning to lock the four men in the cupboard and this likely probability is confirmed when she asks the carpenter to add a fifth compartment when he similarly propositions her. Ultimately, there is a perceptible comic build-up throughout the narrative because of the tawriyya taʻajjubiyya (irony), which the tale skilfully structures. The contrast between what the characters believe should happen (fulfilment of a sexual desire) and what actually happens (they are locked in a cupboard and urinate on each other) is the supplier of humour in the tale. However, the comical climax does not lie in the fact that the woman locks them up. Indeed, it is what happens afterwards that supplies the comic factor in the story. In ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, the cycle of qubḥ is manifest fully in this scene as an ensuing culmination of ḥumq. This is initially discernible in the characters’ transgression of the moral codes of their professional universe when they compromise the woman in return for what has already been granted to her through legal rights. The men compromise her rights by placing demands on her through an imagined exchange system for that right whereby they misplace their public duties with private wishes; this misplacement of desires (hawā) onto their professional world creates transgression. Accordingly, this has produced a resultant sentiment of injustice (ẓulm) in their transgression through misplacing things (professional duties with private wishes) by way of ḥumq through their knowledge of the inappropriateness of this misplacement. It becomes clear then that the woman’s plan to lock the five men in the cupboard, where they do not belong, features as a direct response to the men’s transgressive demands, that also do not belong in their professional world nor do they find reception in the woman’s private world—these demands also put her in the same position as her lover. He is in a literal prison; she is in a metaphorical one. In this context, the protagonist of the story succeeds in stripping the four men of their power, symbolically shown in the story when she demands that they wear cheap rags instead of their expensive clothes; the episode where this takes place with the king is emphasised and

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embellished with details in the narrative. There is an emphasis on pretence as a significant aspect in this matter: She told him, ‘Make yourself comfortable my lord and take your clothes and turban off.’ His clothes were worth a thousand dinars at that time. When he took them off, she put on him a ten-dinar rag. 16

It is imperative to note that the only man who is not subjected to this is the carpenter; he remained in his clothes. Also, by stripping them of their clothes, which in more than one way are indicative of their social classes and office positions, this act on the woman’s part also functions as a moral commentary with respect to the men. They do not belong or rather do not deserve to be in these office positions (king, vizier, judge, governor) because of their ḥumq. The story’s usage of the drawers where she then locks them depicts her stripping them of choices as they did her. The men’s highlighted pretence in the tale becomes evident when it emphasises their corruption in the stark contrast between their actions and both their legal and ethical professional obligations. A definition of ethics within the domain of the Arab-Islamic worldview is due to guide this statement further. Fazlur Rahman defines ethics ‘as a theory of moral right and wrong. This is exactly what the Qur’ān claims to do for this is what guidance (hudā) means.’17 Comparably, George Makdisi asserts that it is ‘a science that seeks to know which actions should be done and which avoided. It is a practical science; it seeks knowledge not for the sake of knowledge, it seeks it in order to apply it.’18 If ethics as a ‘theory’ and ‘science’ requires exegesis, analysis, deliberation, and more importantly sufficient reason for application in society in the personae of the judge, governor, vizier, and king, they all become official representatives of ethics itself and administrators of the ethical codes. It is precisely as such that their failure is depicted and they are portrayed as no better than the carpenter. The presupposed differentiation between them and the carpenter is enunciated as part of the narrative. The judge, who is placed at the lower cabinet in the cupboard, is the one that is represented as frowned upon the most. The nature of his position, learning, and persona invited a severe moral commentary. This distinction becomes clear when the carpenter is placed at the top, because the tale represents him as one who is likely to behave like this (commoner or al-ʻāmma or al-dahmāʼ) but not the king, the vizier, the governor, and most of all not the judge because they are

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the men of learning (intelligentsia or al-khāsṣ ạ ).19 ‘A hierarchy based in difference exists in the Qur’ān’, as Sachiko Murata maintains, ‘it is not sexual, racial, or economic, but moral’.20 This ideology is omnipresent in the thematic of the tale as is evident in the explicit literary employment of the hierarchy in the cupboard. The carpenter’s position exonerates him from being part of the reprimand of the four officials because he is not amongst ahl al-ʻilm; he is just a regular person. The artistic punishment that befell the five men is of their own making. The men do not belong in the cupboard; it defies and transgresses the natural order of decorum and their office positions and professions. The tale supplies this as a humour-coated narrative equilibrium. The implausibility of the men’s physical location is only matched by the very reason that led them to this situation. This explains all events that follow. The judge at the bottom becomes at the receiving end of them all, a pit for human waste. The image of the men urinating on each other functions as a comic cathartic punishment but also as a moral branding for their transgressions; it affirms the definition of qubḥ and also acts as a consequence of qubḥ: As for the people, they stayed in the cupboard for three days without food. They felt the urge to urinate because they have not done so for three days. The carpenter urinated on the Sultan’s head, the Sultan on the vizier’s head, the vizier on the governor’s head, and the governor on the judge’s head. The judge shouted, ‘what is this impurity (najāsa)? Isn’t it enough that we are locked so that you urinate on us?’ 21

The tale then moves towards equilibrium by defining the very actions of these men as qabı̄ḥ through their physical misplacement and the metonymy of filth, as previously seen in the tale of ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’. The above scene is in dialogue with anti-reason. Not only does it use the vocabulary of qubḥ through the usage and the evocation of najāsa, but it also points to the heads of the men as the place being urinated on. The usage of the word immediately places the men in the sphere of impurities either through transgressions or by being touched with impure things; the scene intentionally evokes disgust in an unequivocal manner. The displacement of the four officials from their esteemed houses and administrative offices to a cupboard, in addition to the shocking displacement of the act of urination itself, which does not logically comply with the setting (cupboard), nor is it acceptable to urinate on others, naturally, create the stark ‘frame-breaking’, using Umberto Eco’s term, as it

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operates in the tale.22 Indeed, how does one explain an image of five men locked in a cupboard urinating on each other? It transgresses all categories of decorum, order, and what should be. How, then, does one describe this scene? What language does one use for this? Often, a normal reaction to qubḥ is disbelief, because of the illogical juxtaposition of things—this is precisely the initial reaction of the neighbours who unlocked the men. At first, the neighbours thought the men were non-human, Jinn in fact, and hardly believed them when they (the men) spelled out their official positions; this only adduces the inherent misplacement and ḥumq of their situation. Their transgressions and irrationality moved them away (ibʻād) from the category of human to that of non-human. The category of Jinn is introduced as a non-human category to further comment on the men’s behaviour as devoid of humanity. These four characters are perceived to be the opposite of what they are in reality, and what they are hypothetically expected to be in accordance with their office positions. The tale injects humour by making them laughable because of the aforementioned incongruities. In fact, the tale furthers these incongruities through its depiction of them as disgusting (as emphasised through the act of urination). They become laughable and that is precisely how the frame-breaking works. Another factor contributing to laughter is the representation of an ethico-religious transgression from the people who represent the ethico-religious universe. The creative use of disgust through najāsa works on both moral and also religious levels. The presence of najāsa in the tale serves to compensate for the shame the four men did not show as entailed by their office positions and the social mores. The relationship between disgust and shame could be explained as: ‘[d]isgust works first and if it fails shame will be the consequence unless the offender is shameless.’23 The moral branding, therefore, of the four officials with physical shame within the context of the Arab-Islamic meaning of najāsa substitutes for the psychological and intellectual shame they did not show which is proved through their laughter afterwards. Disgust and shame here operate as factors of repulsion to avert sympathy for these men, because of the immediate linking of their action with their state. The men’s condition therefore acquires qubḥ through their own making, initially behaviourally and later biologically, through ḥumq. The utilisation of ḥumq does not restrict itself to physical misplacement but it extends itself also to linguistic misplacement.

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LINGUISTIC MISPLACEMENT In ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, the flawed mental paradigm, ḥumq, is evident on the ḥashshāsh’s part from the start. The contrasting atmospheres between the place where the narration takes place and the actual place where the events take place constitute the initial foundation of this transgression. However, this should not be hastily read within the parameters of the Bakhtinian ‘carnivalesque’. The role of the Kaʻba as a site in adab, Franz Rosenthal observes, is ‘often the fictional setting for emphatic statements on morality’ through various anecdotes in adab. 24 It is worth noting also the famous romance of Majnūn Laylā when Majnūn was accompanied by his father to Mecca during Ramaḍān, ‘Qays rushed to the door of the Kaʻba, hammered on it, and instead of praying for the return of his senses as expected, he asked God to increase and sustain his love for Laylā.’25 Majnūn’s incident in the romance does not represent his behaviour as a sacrilege nor does it represent it to emphasise morality as much as it emphasises and ‘quantifies’ his love for Laylā in the parameters of madness as the absence of reason as Majnūn’s lines from qāfiyat al-yāʼ attest: arānı̄ idhā ṣallaytu yammamtu naḥwahā/bi-wajhı̄ wa in kān al-muṣallā warāʼiyā wa mā biya ishrākun wa lakinna ḥubbahā/wa ʻuẓma al-jawā aʻyā al-tạ bı̄ba al-mudāwiyā 26 I see that if I prayed, I turn towards her/with my face even if the prayers are behind me I am not a polytheist but her love/and the passion I feel wearied the curing physician

The sober and rather solemn religious overtones of the Ḥ ajj with its selfdiscipline requirements clearly contrast with the lavish and sensual setting of the ḥashshāsh’s and the lady’s encounters in his narrative, as recounted to the prince of the Ḥ ajj. This incompatibility between the sacredness of the place and the contrasting frame of mind of the ḥashshāsh is translated in the content of his prayer. The ḥashshāsh has not departed this setting neither mentally nor emotionally; he is praying for the fulfilment of a sexual desire in what supposedly is a spiritual journey proper. The tale introduces the ḥashshāsh’s prayer, though fulfilling a religious duty, as a transgression on the sacrosanctity of prayer; in the same manner the lady’s fulfilment

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of her oath was a vehicle for transgression. The narrative then reinforces the transference of qubḥ in the manner it portrays the ḥashshāsh, having been indirectly mentored in misplacing ethico-religious rules at the hands of the lady,27 using a religious ritual (pilgrimage) to pray for something that ultimately transgresses these rules. It was the lady who first taught him, indirectly, the art of misplacement that is manifest in his behaviour during the Ḥ ajj. It is not clear then if the ḥashshāsh could be described as a quick learner in ḥumq or if he simply did not need initiation in ḥumq; his response after the lady’s explanation at their last meeting clarifies this point further. He weeps and composes two couplets of poetry for her. The content of the couplets is of immense interest to the present discussion: makkinı̄nı̄ min bawsi yusrākı̄ ʻashran/wa ʻrifı̄ faḍlahā ʻalā yumnāki inna yusrāki lahı̄ aqrabu ʻahdan/waqta ghasl al-kharā bi-mustanjāki 28 Allow me to kiss your left hand, ten times And know its advantage over your right one For your left had a recent history with excrement As you washed yourself clean!

The illogic of the situation at hand requires further investigation with respect to the function of the poem. One could argue that poetry sometimes functions as an aside for characters in The Thousand and One Nights or an obiter dictum, with respect to the storyteller who would like to share his opinion with the intended listeners/readers.29 The response of the ḥashshāsh is indeed laughable at first, but then it puts forth an invitation to be sceptical about it as to whether the ḥashshāsh’s poem might even be implicitly insulting to the lady, and it finally creates a puzzling effect, as is the case with all expressions of qubḥ. The little love poem, in the ḥashshāsh’s lexicon, attempts to convey an expression of profound love, or what appears to be love, for the lady through sukhf.30 It would have been preposterous to respond to her explanation (which carries several embedded insults in it) in any other manner; the cycle of qubḥ invites more qubḥ. At best, one could argue that his love for her is so immense that he is not appalled by any aspect of her. The remoteness of these two images (washing and excrement) creates a powerful picture, through their disagreement, to communicate the intensity of his desire. The choice of register, however, not only makes them remote but renders them automatically

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oppositional. This is an expression of love that is informed by a scatological register; it does not shy away from acknowledging the ugliness of bodily functions. Nonetheless, it certainly seems like an unseemly expression of love,31 which is in keeping with the paradigm of ‘misplacing things’ notwithstanding their ugliness as an expression of ḥumq that stands in an antithetical relationship to reason, hence qubḥ. The ḥashshāsh’s little love poem is purposefully utilising graphic images of hygienic practices, which are unquestionably among the topics that are out of bound in conversations let alone expressions of love. The calculated use of this register, in a deliberate verbal expression (poetry) of love, requires a careful pause. The tale’s staging of the final scene of their meeting, much to the unexpressed shock of the lady in the story, completes the cycle of qubḥ as it moves towards equilibrium. This is because it brings it back to the lady (who went looking for it in the marketplace) as a reminder of what she has brought onto herself. The story brings back to the lady filth exemplified in the metaphor register as a metonym of qubḥ. In this respect, the worst possible meaning of the poem could be the ḥashshāsh’s reminding the lady of her own ‘filth’, albeit sentimentally, which could be very well read as a rejoinder to her insult of him, and a very clever one for that matter. Both the lady’s and the ḥashshāsh’s behaviours are presented as justified in the narrative: the former in keeping with the oath she made and the latter is described as ‘excused’. The narrative acknowledges their behaviour as transgressive but does not name it; this is part of the creative process in engaging the intended listeners/readers in the story. It is also clear that ḥumq becomes poetic justice in itself; it is a punishment for the lady and the ḥashshāsh through their own actions and also an expression or a medium of their actions in the same manner it is utilised in the tale of ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’. In like manner, the theme of linguistic misplacement is obvious in the ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’. This is noticed when the five men are found by the neighbours, who express much disbelief about the men’s situation. 32 The only action that saves their lives is the judge’s recitation of the Qur’an to the neighbours, which accordingly assures the neighbours that the men locked in the drawers are indeed humans. It also inherently signifies that these men are trustworthy by virtue of the judge’s recitation of the Qur’an; an act which essentially eliminates suspicion of them—or at least the judge—being less than honourable people. It is also the only act that redeemed their questionable humanity (not Jinn) as a category. This act is Thousand and One Nights praxis proper. The ransom motif that

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features throughout the Nights demands stories for life because words have the power to save people’s lives and alter the course of events.33 Yet, narrative in this case takes the form of sacred words and not ordinary, or as commonly referred to, profane words. The apogee of their ḥumq, in keeping with themes of misplacements, is highlighted in the tale and realised when the judge recites the Qur’an wearing the cheap rags that were befitting the sexual exploit, while drenched not only in his own urine but that of the rest of the four men. This chaotic misplacement of content between the sacred and profane in such a context intrinsically annuls the judge’s attempt to commend himself. The spacetime of the Qur’an’s recitation and its contrast with events prior to it and the reason prompting it all contrast with the sacredness and decorum of the act of recitation of the Qur’an on the judge’s part and only emphasises the tale’s structure in highlighting, through stark contrast, the judge’s— most of all—and the remaining three officials’ ḥumq through this scene. The judge and the other officials show no remorse even after they are reminded of their qubḥ, through the Qur’an (as a metonymy of Reason by virtue of the judge being prompted to recite). Their laughter afterwards proves this. The reaction of the men after their release is characterised by laughter, which is a misplaced reaction for their situation. This laughter is also in keeping with the tale’s branding the men with disgust because they have not shown shame. The men told their story to the neighbours while inside the cupboard, but the moment they were all released, they burst into laughter. Laughter here functions as a non-speech action on the men’s part in response to their perceptible transgression. The question that begs for an answer at this juncture: would there have been any other response to their qubḥ? Within the grand narrative of qubḥ, this is an act of misplacement of emotional reactions that is characterised by ḥumq. Although laughter seems like an incongruous action on the men’s part, it becomes, from the perspective of the narrative, the only plausible sequential event. Laughter completes the cycle of qubḥ. Had the men expressed remorse or self-reproach then it would have defied the narrative’s representation of the men’s incorrigible ḥumq, which had led them to the very situation they are in. The men’s reaction after their release is precisely what characterises their ḥumq. In addition, they were adamant on finding the woman to have her punished for their humiliation. Not only this but the king calls the woman al-ʻāhira, al fājira (‘the tramp! the whore!’). Mia Gerhardt comments on the moral atmosphere of the story as follows: ‘It is the men who are dissolute and abuse their power;

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the woman merely takes advantage of their illicit pursuits to further her own, relatively legitimate aim—freeing her lover from prison—and shames them quite deservedly.’34 The king’s ḥumq is translated directly into transgression in this context through his verbal aggression against the woman. The irony here is the fact that he calls her ʻāhira and fājira because she tricked him to escape his transgressive proposition. How did she turn into a hypothetical ʻāhira when she escaped a morally compromising situation through trickery? In this scene, not only does the king transgress against the woman through his behaviour but also on his office position, class, and finally ethico-religious universe. Neither the representation of his persona as a king nor the situation befits the utterance of these words. But the narrative capitalises on his hypocrisy and utilises these verbal assaults and transgressions against the woman to move her outside the town with her lover and outside the narrative altogether as she escapes from them. This is a positive solution that supports the woman’s choice but it also contains a moral commentary as ibʻād. The woman’s momentary success in punishing the men for their transgressions fits within the meaning of qubḥ and also supplies laughter, if only because of the personae of the men involved. Laughter here then functions as a continuation of ḥumq in the manner the intended readers/ listeners are expecting a sign of self-reproach but instead the tale injects laughter as a reaction. The theme of misplacement functions as both the supplier of humour and also the symptom of qubḥ in the tale. Ḥ umq/qubḥ also operate as a moral repellent from feeling sympathy for the men in the same manner disgust (urine) works. In this respect, the two tales have shown a noticeable sophistication in their intricate utilisation of qubḥ as a force of disequilibrium in the narrative. They do not boast of lengthy or embedded narratives or the introduction of additional characters to further advance the plot, unlike ‘The Hunchback Cycle’. The tales’ engagement with the apparatus of qubḥ itself possesses a complex synthesis of various elements of the matrix of qubḥ. They refrain from explicitly stating that the actions of certain characters fall outside the domain of Reason, compared with the explicit punishments and poetic interjections in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’. This is perceptible in both tales in fact, as they avoid explicit moral judgements or moralising altogether. Their implicit judgements or moral footnotes, so to speak, appear in the form of a trick that utilises the very definition of qubḥ as lack of reason to make ‘fools’ of these tales’ characters (hence, supply humour) or alternatively to move characters outside the narrative

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altogether. In this manner, through highlighting the reasons behind the tales’ representations of the characters in question as ‘fools’, the tales affirm and stabilise the meaning of qubḥ and at the same time capitalise on the entertainment factor for the intended listeners/readers. A more advanced literary utilisation of qubḥ is also a feature of ‘The Tale of Crafty Dalı̄lah’, the focus of the following chapter.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

Nights 282nd–285th. Nights 593rd–596th. Night 285th. This is not to indicate that ʻishq normally implies ‘lust’ as the story depicts it, but this is how the tale defines its own terms. For a survey of the various Arabic terms and verbs associated with love, see Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Rawḍat al-Muḥibbı̄n wa Nuzhat al-Mushtāqı̄n, 26–53; see also ‘Désir’ and ‘Ichq’ in Malek Chebel, Encylopédie de l’Amour en Islam: erotisme, beauté et sexualité dans le monde arabe, en Pers et en Turquie (Paris: Payot, 1995), 194–7, 334. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 6. Bellamy, ‘Sex and Society in Islamic Popular Literature,’ 42. Corps et Traditions Islamiques, (Tunis: Noir sur Blanc, 2000), 75. Lisān al-ʻArab, 2:157. Lane, ḥ-m-q. Ibid. al-Ghazālı̄, Kitāb al-Arbaʻı̄n fı̄ Uṣul̄ al-Dı̄n (Beirut: Dār al-Ā fāq, 1979), 57. al-Ghazālı̄, Kitāb al-Arbaʻı̄n fı̄ Uṣūl al-Dı̄n (Cairo: Maktabat al-Jundı̄, 1970), 104–5, quoted in Massimo Campanini, ‘adl’ in The Qur’an: an encyclopedia, 14. Bedhioufi, 124. Ibid., 83–5. Richard Burton explains this as part of the customs in drinking parties, where guests ‘put off dresses of dull colours and robe themselves in clothes supplied by the host, of the brightest he may have, especially yellow, green and red of different shades.’ This naturally alleviates any suspicion of the woman’s motives in the story. Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand and One Nights (Massachusetts: The Burton Club, n.d.), 6:175, fn.1. Night 595th. Fazlur Rahman, ‘Law and Ethics’ in Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (California: Undena, 1983), 13.

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18. George Makdisi, ‘Ethics in Islamic Traditionalist Doctrine’ in Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (California: Undena, 1983), 47. 19. This distinction is noticed in the vocabulary of most aspects of pre-modern Arabic writing, for example, the chroniclers use al-nās and al-ʻāmma to refer to society and class divisions. Elizabeth Greene Heilman, ‘Popular Protests in Medieval Baghdad, 295–334 A.H./908–946 A.D’ (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1978), 153. It is also worth mentioning, according to al-Jāḥiẓ, that if someone behaves foolishly from al-ʻāmma, this person is classified as an aḥmaq, however if this person is from the upper-middle or upper classes, s/he is referred to as raqı̄ʻ, Abū Hilāl al-ʻAskarı̄, al-Furūq al-Lughawiyya (Cairo: n.p., 1934), 81. 20. Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 44 quoted in Barlas, ‘Believing Women’ in Islam, 146. 21. Night 595th. 22. Umberto Eco, ‘The Frames of Comic ‘Freedom” in Carnival!, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Berlin, New York and Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers, 1984), 5. 23. William Ian Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998), 34. 24. Naturally, as Rosenthal asserts ‘[d]ecorum was demanded in holy places.’ See, Franz Rosenthal, ‘Fiction and Reality: Sources for the Role of Sex in Medieval Muslim Society’ in Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1979), 3–22. 25. See, Michael W. Dols, Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, ed. Diana E. Immisch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 325. 26. See, Qays Ibn al-Mulawwaḥ, Dı̄wān Majnūn Laylā, ed. ʻAdnān Zakı̄ Darwı̄sh. (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1994), 228. 27. The motif of women as mentors of men runs in various other stories in The Thousand and One Nights; for a detailed discussion of this theme, especially pertaining to ‘The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies’, see Sandra Naddaff, Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the Aesthetics of Repetition in 1001 Nights (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 13–38. See also Ferial Ghazoul, ‘The Visual Sign as a Semiotic Signifier in the Arabian Nights,’ The Medieval History Journal 9, no. 1 (2006):167–184 for analysing this theme as it figures in ‘The Story of Azı̄z and Azı̄za’. For a discussion on the theme of women’s knowledge, especially that of Shahrazād and Azı̄za, see Martine Medejel, ‘Savoir des Femmes dans les Nuits: De Schéhérazade à Aziza’ in Les Mille et Une Nuits: Du Texte au Mythe, ed. Jean-Luc Joly and Abdelfattah Kilito (Rabat: Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, 2005), 167–171. While not engaging in the theme of mentoring men, ‘The Story of Tawaddud’ is also an excellent example of

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28. 29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

34.

the learnedness of women as a means to resist subjugation of all kinds exemplified in the story as male scholarly hubris. Night 285th. For a discussion on poetry in The Thousand and One Nights, see van Gelder, ‘Poetry and the Arabian Nights’ in The Arabian Nights Encyclopaedia, ed. Ulrich Marzolph et al. (California: ABCCLIO, 2004), 1:13–17. For more on sukhf, see Sarah R. bin Tyeer ‘The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of adab’ in ed. Nuha al-Sha’ar, Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of a Classical Literary Tradition (Forthcoming 2016). This is not an uncommon portrayal of love as a subject matter in medieval Arabic adab. In his Epistle on the Crafts of the Masters, al-Jāḥiẓ requests members of various trades and crafts to describe a battle scene and also compose a love poem describing the pain of love in their own language. According to Sadan, ‘[f]resh worm-ridden excrement for a sweeper, diarrhoea for a doctor, depilatory paste for a bath-attendant, are some of the cruder examples of the materials employed to symbolize metaphorically the highest of human emotions—that of love and the pain of separation from the beloved.’ The Jāḥiẓian exercise, of course, had a higher purpose other than humour, a by-product for the elite and literati who read these poems. Its ‘aim is to teach these youngsters how to compose poetry like real poets and not like rude craftsmen—and the second (latent) aim is to prove to these young aristocrats that nothing must be excluded a priori from knowledge (i.e. ʻilm), and that everything may be interesting and important, even the most prosaic and tiny facts of life.’ See, Joseph Sadan, ‘Kings and Craftsmen, a Pattern of Contrasts. On the History of a Medieval Arabic Humoristic Form (Part I),’ Studia Islamica 56 (1982):12, 20, fn. 52. Nights 595th–596th. Todorov maintains, ‘[t]he speech-act receives, in the Arabian Nights, an interpretation which leaves no further doubt as to its importance. If all the characters incessantly tell stories, it is because this action has received a supreme consecration: narrating equals living.’ See ‘Narrative-Men,’ 73. Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 401.

CHAPTER 8

The Transgression of Reason

The creative expression of qubḥ has thus far been discussed in the previous two chapters as a discernible lack in reason, owing itself to jahl and consequently isrāf and taʿaddı̄. It would be deemed facile to examine lack of reason as an attribute of qubḥ without examining an instrument of qubḥ, isrāf, on human reasoning as an intellectual faculty proper. This chapter shall offer an overview of the history of shuṭt ̣ār in the pre-modern ArabIslamic culture and then structure the discussion of the story of Dalı̄lah al-Muḥtāla1 (Crafty Dalı̄lah) within the established category of the thief as an intelligent type, according to Ibn al-Jawzı̄. Besides ‘The Tale of Crafty Dalı̄lah’, there are two other stories in The Thousand and One Nights that feature real-life historical shut ̣ṭār: the tale of ‘ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq’, and the the tale of ‘ʿAlā’ al-Dı̄n Abū’l-Shāmāt’. It would be extremely rewarding to examine all three tales, but the limited space of the chapter does not grant this opportunity. I refer to the other two tales of the shut ̣ṭār in due place in this chapter but the main focus in this chapter is the story of Dalı̄lah for two reasons: (1) she is one of the earliest known and recorded historical shut ̣t ̣ār (ninth century) as mentioned by al-Masʿūdı̄ (d. 345/956), in other words she predates the other shut ̣ṭār protagonists; and (2) as a woman, Dalı̄lah becomes an exception in both the historical and literary narrative of shut ̣t ̣ār that deserves examining. In this chapter, I will offer a reading of the tale based on the recognition of theft as a metaphor for cerebral excess, which in the story appears and translates as ‘lawlessness’. I will then draw connections between storytelling and theft by delineat-

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_8

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ing the connection between the storyteller and the thief in utilising qubḥ. I will also continue to show why the Bakhtinian category of the ‘rogue’ is not applicable. Dalı̄lah cannot be deemed a ‘rogue’ in the Bakhtinian sense where a Bakhtinian reading implies the rogue’s function to attack the official culture and its ideologies (through the author or storyteller, typically). This could only emphasise on the importance of recognising the tools and key terms from within adab to enhance our reading of the tale and by extension adab.

HISTORY OF ROGUES: THE FACTS BEHIND THE FICTION Several scholars have commented on the convergence observed in The Thousand and One Nights between the anecdotes (akhbār) and history of the real shuṭt ̣ār on one hand and the stories of the shuṭṭār in The Thousand and One Nights on the other.2 In addition to Mia Gerhardt and Robert Irwin, who commented on the historical context of real-life thieves as a source for the shuṭt ̣ār stories, al-Musawi also discusses aspects of their history.3 Some other scholars read these tales as a popular expression of criticism towards authority.4 These scholarly works approach the tales of the shuṭt ̣ār as a direct response to decaying political authority and corruption, thereby considering only the socio-political factor in literary criticism at the expense of the literary, which leads, more often than not, to a rather inaccurate reading of the tales and the neglect of several literary and historical aspects that may contradict such readings. This reading sees in the figure of the shāt ̣ir, as depicted in The Thousand and One Nights, a romantic, even quixotic socio-political opposition force when there is not an indication of this neither in the tales nor in history. It also conflates the concepts of ʿayyārı̄sm, futuwwa, and shat ̣āra altogether. The ʿayyārı̄n were often regarded, by historical accounts, at best as a paramilitary or an auxiliary aspect of the Caliph’s armed forces and were called upon at times of foreign invasions, civil strife, and/or sectarian violence. At worst, they were viewed as lawless groups who capitalised on any social or political event for their own interests.5 The fatā, hence futuwwa, is a Sufi chivalric code discussed by al-Qushayrı̄. It is concerned with ethical ideals and the self.6 This Sufi definition of futuwwa is traceable in the Egyptian Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz’s (1911–2006) novel al-Ḥ arāfı̄sh (1977), which drew on the Sufi ideals of futuwwa and one of the most famous of rogues’ designations, al-ḥarāfı̄sh7 (pl.) which means ‘those who are both ugly of face and ugly of manners’; it also means a ‘fighter’, a ‘wrestler’, and

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a ‘thief’.8 The Sufi ideals of futuwwa are portrayed as a desire for enlightenment and the effort for peace and justice for humanity as exemplified in the microcosm of the ḥāra (alley) and the repeated moral and spiritual failures of the individual in the face of worldly temptations represented in money, moral dilemmas, power, and/or sexual desires at the expense of enlightenment and justice which often translate into a collective failure for the futuwwa and the residents of the ḥāra. In his book, Ḥ ikāyāt al-Shut ̣ṭār wa l-ʿAyyārı̄n fı̄ l-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, Muḥammad Rajab al-Najjār offers a catalogue of the definitions of the different types of rogues known throughout Arab history including the aforementioned ʿayyārı̄n and ḥarāfı̄sh. Al-shuṭt ̣ār (pl.) linguistically means ‘people who exhaust their family through their perpetual misbehaviour’. The term usually indicates an element of discord and separation. Al-shaṭāra lends itself to the meaning of separation and detachment, from the Arabic root sh.t ̣.r (split).9 With this demarcation in perspective, an approach to theft as it features in the tales assists in a better understanding of this motif within the category of qubḥ. The representation of the shut ̣ṭār in The Thousand and One Nights (with the exception of ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq) acknowledges them as thieves, hence figures of qubḥ, in the narrative itself. Their acts of theft, as a means to achieve their aims in the tales, should not then be interpreted literally, since these actions are recognised as qabı̄ḥ in the tale itself, nor should it be interpreted heroically since history does not support the romantic views bestowed upon them by some literary critics who might be reading the rogues through a Bakhtinian lens. A subtle implication as such (the tale’s recognition of theft as qabı̄ḥ) is an invitation to look for other possible meanings of theft that are more in accord with both the narrative itself and also the historical reality of these figures. An engagement with the historical discourse of Arab roguery pertaining to the tale under study specifically and the tales of the shuṭṭār in general should guide this discussion further. The three tales (‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’, ‘ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq’,10 and ‘ʿAlāʾ al-Dı̄n Abū’l-Shāmāt’11), featuring the shuṭṭār in The Thousand and One Nights, introduce three famous thieves who were known and documented in various historical anecdotes. However, they were not as contemporaneous to each other as The Thousand and One Nights figures them. The evident geographical and chronological disparities between the factual and fictional characters are worthy of examination to answer for the literary need for resurrecting these prototypes of shut ̣ṭār. By virtue of their activities (transgressions), these shut ̣t ̣ār are exemplars of qubḥ but in an apparently successful enterprise of

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capturing the collective imagination through storytelling. Thus, an understanding of the history that gave birth to the unofficial yet acknowledged institutions that espoused the shut ̣tār shall enhance the understanding of the stories and also act as a frame while reading them. This, in turn, shall assist in understanding the figurative meaning of theft as it features in the tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’ through juxtaposing these literary types as exemplars of intelligence against the cerebral activity of the storyteller that weaves these historical facts and incorporates them into the corpus of cultural products including popular literature. The Arab-Islamic history of rogues is quite contentious and vast. The usage of the English word ‘rogue’ in this study, so far, might not do justice to the rich history of this enterprise and the various eponyms attributed to it: ʿayyār, fatā, and shāt ̣ir, to mention a few. In addition, it would be seminally inaccurate to linguistically attribute the term ‘roguery’ to this homologous Arabic phenomenon, if only for the various guild institutions, geographical locations, religious branch affiliations, and different activities of Arab roguery that cannot be treated as a monolith, therefore the term shall be used sensu lato. The vast and multifaceted aspects of Arab-Islamic roguery as far as some of their functions and etymological concerns are indicated by the existence of several names for various institutions of roguery. This could only show the difference in how these groups distinctly vary in their practices; a fact that al-Najjār explains in his book, despite the romanticised view of them.12 It is worth mentioning that some of these rogues acquired their names not only from their activities but also simply from belonging to artisan guilds like blacksmiths or carpenters, for instance.13 I should also mention that some of the anecdotes cited use the terms ʿayyār and shāt ̣ir synonymously to refer to the futuwwa; this study differentiates between these terms. Futuwwa is a behaviour (ethical ideals) that is concerned with the self; shat ̣āra is a mental paradigm that uses intelligence to serve its own interests and is associated with theft only; and ʿayyardom is more often than not a socio-political activity that is engaged with the communal to serve either its own interests or the interests of those who would benefit the ʿayyārı̄n. The previous examples are but a small sample of the various types of rogues that existed in the Arab-Islamic world and are by no means inclusive. Class divisions in medieval Arab-Islamic society, according to chroniclers, should assist in enhancing the understanding of how these rogues fit, or do not fit, in their respective societies. Eponymic classifications used by

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some medieval chroniclers to describe fractions of society shed some light on the fabric of medieval social classes: …the vocabulary used by these chroniclers as well as by 4th century A.H./10th A.D. lexicographers indicates that both chroniclers and lexicographers viewed society as divisible into classes. Characterizing from the sources the roles which the people filled during disorders as well as in relative calm, makes it possible to understand why they would riot, under what circumstances they would do so, and how they did so.14

Heilman maintains that when the chroniclers refer to either al-ʿāmma (commoners) or al-nās (people) to describe certain events, especially political and/or social, they designate these terms to people who are either in accord with the government’s policies or are not.15 The rogues are classified as members of the lower classes, if not the lowest class. They are amongst the vulgar or marginalised because of their activities: theft in the case of the shuṭt ̣ār and violence in the case of ʿayyārı̄n. Both of these activities constitute a considerable threat to society at varying degrees. The analysis of the social components of the ʿāmma, according to Heilman, should guide this point further: We know that the terms nâs and ʿâmma were interchangeable at times and that the ʿâmma were composed of lowly sorts of people such as the ʿayyârûn, safila, dhuʿâra, shudhâdh, and mallâḥûn who might be called upon to swell the government’s ranks in the face of political danger.16

In addition, the shut ̣ṭār were treated as a separate entity by the chroniclers and not conflated with the often politically engaged ʿayyārı̄n. The shuṭt ̣ār were recognised as thieves, which reinforces their inseparability from al-ʿāmma: In different periods we read of other elements in the population called shut ̣ṭâr. This name also comes from a root which implies intelligence and cleverness. At times the shuṭtậ r were known to take advantage of opportunities to plunder.17

There is a noticeable distinction between the lexical shāt ̣ir as someone who is ‘separated or detached’ and the cultural and social shāt ̣ir as a ‘clever and cunning one’. This could only indicate the widespread notoriety of their activities that have attached intelligence to their tricks.

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This is adduced by the fact that in an early eighth century lexicon such as al-Farāhı̄dı̄’s Kitāb al-ʿAyn, for instance, ‘shāt ̣ir’ means ‘someone who has exhausted his family or tutor because of his deviousness (khubth)’.18 A later lexicon like the fourteenth century Ibn Manẓūr’s for instance, still does not include intelligence as an aspect of shaṭāra but acknowledges the figure of the shāt ̣ir and maintains the above definition that characterises al-shuṭt ̣ār’s deviousness (khubth).19 It is quite probable that shaṭāra as intelligence became a later societal interpretation of the activities of the shut ̣ṭār, possibly after their disappearance from Arab-Islamic society. This is evident even outside the sphere of The Thousand and One Nights. The noun shaṭāra is mentioned in al-maqāma al-khamriyya by al-Hamadhānı̄ ̄ b. Hishām and his companions ran out of drinks but still needed when ʿIsa more. The situation is described as ‘shaṭāra’, made/inspired us go to the tavern, to get more drinks, ‘wa lammā massatnā ḥālunā tilk daʿatnā dawāʿı̄ al-shaṭāra ilā ḥān al-khammāra.’20 It is understood here as ‘because we are shut ̣t ̣ār we had to go to the tavern.’21 Prendergast translates it as ‘mischievous inclinations led us to the inn of the female vintner.’22 The term’s usage in the context of the maqāma implies neither intelligence nor theft; it implies a negative behaviour. It could be argued then that the literary usage of the term is imposed by a certain representation. This representation remains true in its spirit to the idea of the shāt ̣ir as someone who is a transgressor. However, the two literary works (The Thousand and One Nights and the maqāmāt) portray this type of transgression (shaṭāra) in the manner they deem appropriate for their fictional devising. This point should be further elucidated through highlighting the functions of the shuṭtār in the tales that feature them.

THE SHUṬṬA R̄ IN THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS The three stories concerned with the shut ̣t ̣ār in The Thousand and One Nights feature an array of historical characters that were known outlaws in both Baghdad and Cairo as the prototypes of the fictitious characters bearing their names (Dalı̄lah al-Muḥtāla, ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq, and Aḥmad al-Danaf). Al-Masʿūdı̄ refers to Dalı̄lah not only as a female trickster who lived in ninth century Abbasid Baghdad in his Murūj al-Dhahab, but implicitly as a measuring yardstick of shat ̣āra as he situates another rogue’s skills in comparison to hers.23 In addition, ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq is mentioned by Ibn al-Athı̄r (d. 630/1233) in his chronicles, where he gives an account of alZaybaq’s growth in power in Baghdad during the civil tensions between

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Sunnis and Shı̄ʿites in 444/989 during the reign of Caliph al-Ṭ āʾı̄.24 Finally, Aḥmad al-Danaf’s death sentence as decreed by the Mamluk Sultan alAshraf Qāʾit Bay in Egypt is mentioned by Ibn Iyās (d. 930/1524) in the chronicles of the year 891/1486.25 Thus, the fictional representation observed in The Thousand and One Nights of a ninth century Baghdadi Dalı̄lah al-Muḥtāla, a tenth century Baghdadi ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq who is always referred to as ʿAlı̄ al-Maṣrı̄ (ʿAlı̄ the Egyptian) in the tales, and a fifteenthcentury Cairene Aḥmad al-Danaf speaks of a literary need to disregard their historical disagreement and amalgamate these figures to achieve the best possible entertainment value. However, it also appeals to our critical attention to investigate the disparity between the fictitious portrayal of shuṭt ̣ār as ‘potentially moral thieves’ and their documented historical reality as outlaws and criminals. Al-Musawi’s analysis on the psychological disposition of the storyteller himself as ‘an outcast and marginalized intellectual’ assists in understanding the storyteller’s sympathy shown to them through both parties’ intellectual rapport.26 Like the shāt ̣ir, the storyteller is also regarded as a potential troublemaker. 27 But the storyteller shares more than marginalisation with the shāt ̣ir, he/she shares intelligence, wit, and creativity. The shared space, or rather non-space, of marginalisation between the storyteller and the shāt ̣ir might have propelled the storyteller to find a common ground for identification. The storyteller’s romanticisation of the shut ̣ṭār to elevate them to author status endowed them with cerebral powers and made them moral thieves. This is perhaps a unique devising on the storyteller’s part of the shāt ̣ir in The Thousand and One Nights. Outside The Thousand and One Nights, other works of adab have not dealt with the shāt ̣ir as an idealised figure with meta-narrative connections to the storyteller but rather through a realistic and objective depiction. Nonetheless, like The Thousand and One Nights, these literary works acknowledged the established category of the shāt ̣ir as a literary type.

THE SHA T̄ ̣IR AS A LITERARY TYPE The popular imagination capitalised on the rich history of shuṭṭār and created its own literary representations of them and their institutions. Thieves are not strangers to either popular literature or adab. In addition to the historical sources on Arab rogues and roguery, there are other non-historical works on their activities in adab. According to al-Najjār, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb (d. 182/798) preceded al-Jāḥiẓ in his discussion and cataloguing

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of rogues in Kitāb al-Kharāj. This is an inaccurate observation because he only speaks briefly (two pages) about them in his chapter on ‘ahl al-daʿāra wa l-talaṣsu ̣ ṣ wa l-jināyāt’ (extremely devious people, infiltrators, and criminals) namely those who trick people using anaesthetics and other methods, from a legal perspective.28 Al-Jāḥiẓ’s novelty however lies in devoting an entire work to the practices of shat ̣āra as such in his monograph on thieves and roguery entitled Kitāb al-Ḥ iyal [The Book of Tricks] or alternatively Kitāb al-Luṣūs ̣ [The Book of Thieves].29 Unfortunately, the book did not survive.30 Al-Jāḥiẓ was not alone in taking an interest in the world of rogues and thieves. Ibn al-Jawzı̄’s Kitāb al-Adhkiyāʾ [The Book of the Intelligent] devotes an entire chapter to anecdotes of some famous and some other anonymous thieves whereby he categorises thievery tricks in themselves as a mark of intelligence. Ibn al-Jawzı̄ delineates that his central intent for composing a book assembling anecdotes on intelligent people—in 33 chapters beginning with the definition of ʿaql, followed by intelligence as a manifestation of ʿaql, and the uses of intelligence amongst different types of people for different purposes (getting out of trouble, as an attempt to gain something, amongst women, ṭufaylı̄s [uninvited guests or spongers], thieves, and so on), — is to demonstrate and learn from the power of intellect in human beings thereby providing various examples on the importance of ʿaql, as an intellectual faculty, in the form of entertaining and learning material for his readers. Ibn al-Jawzı̄’s chapter on the intelligence of thieves illustrates several amusing stories of trickeries employed by thieves and categorises their ruses as a form of intelligence. Their tricks rely on improvisation, using artificial settings and/or props (costumes, feigning blindness and/or other disabilities, burning incense, Qur’an recitation, and so on) to swindle their victims. One example tells of a thief who ventures to rob a moneylender (ṣayrafı̄) that lives with his mother; the mother is a very pious woman who spends her time praying and fasting. The son spends his days working, at night he gambles and drinks. He hides his money with his mother, who in turn puts it in a particular room in the house. The thief then goes into the house at night, when the son is absent. He burns some incense, covers himself in cloth, changes the pitch of his voice and tells the mother that he is the archangel Gabriel, sent by God to take her son’s money as a punishment for his irresponsible behaviour. The mother locks him up oblivious to his pleas to get out—telling him to use his wings or pass through the walls instead—and turns him to the police in the morning.31

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The tricks thieves perform, which are, more often than not, characterised by intelligence and sometimes humour, earned them a classification as an intelligent type in adab and Arabic literature. Fedwa Malti-Douglas maintains that ‘[t]hieves in classical Arabic literature form an autonomous and self-conscious literary category which displays important similarities with other adab anecdotal categories, such as those of uninvited guests (ṭufaylı̄s), or clever madmen (ʿuqalāʾ al-majānı̄n).’32 However, intelligence and humour are not all there is to thieves. By virtue of their activities, they are implicitly reduced to social outcasts (mubʿadı̄n) because of their qubḥ. That some real life thieves were an inspiration for the tales in The Thousand and One Nights is irrefutable. However, the synthesis of the real and the fictional begs for a treatment that regards them as literary types conjured by the storyteller as part of a literary process and not a representation of reality: Novelists might be dealing only with imaginary events whereas historians are dealing with real ones, but the process of fusing events, whether imaginary or real, into a comprehensible totality capable of serving as the object of a representation is a poetic process.33

This fusion of the imaginary and the historical in the creative process is suggestive of two propositions that could be inferred from the literary utilisation of the historical outcast group of shuṭt ̣ār as literary intelligent types in The Thousand and One Nights: (a) the affinity between the sometimes marginalised storyteller and the shut ̣ṭār through intelligence; and (b) the historical background and reality of these thieves that allow more narrative licence to incorporate highly improbable tricks and situations, which would be unconvincing if performed by fictitious thieves, thereby giving them credibility by attributing them to the real apparatus of the shut ̣ṭār. This in turn capitalises on the entertainment factor and popularity of these tales by virtue of the incorporation of intelligence and humour together, which are, equally, the main features of the tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’. The tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’ orbits around Dalı̄lah, a widow whose husband used to be responsible for the Caliph’s carrier pigeons and had a salary of a thousand dinars.34 Dalı̄lah learns that the two famous shut ̣ṭār, Aḥmad al-Danaf and Ḥasan Shūmān have been made Baghdad’s main police chiefs because of their talents in trickery and con art. She is advised by her daughter to start imitating them to attract the attention of the Caliph, perhaps her talent will then impress him, as was the case with

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al-Danaf and Shūmān and consequently the Caliph will be encouraged to employ her. 35 The tale focuses on the absence of emotional and financial support in the lives of both Dalı̄lah and her unmarried daughter Zaynab al-naṣsạ ̄ba (the coney-catcher) and the need to find a source of income. These emotional and mental states are represented as hamm (anxiety). What follows then is a series of well-crafted and most intricate tricks orchestrated by Dalı̄lah to establish her notorious reputation until the whole town, including its governor (wālı̄), is rendered helpless in the process of catching her so they resort to the Caliph who appoints al-Danaf and Shūmān to catch her. When Dalı̄lah was caught, the Caliph initially had sentenced her to death, if it were not for the intervention of al-Danaf and Shumān to pardon her as she willingly returned all the stolen objects to their rightful owners. Dalı̄lah succeeds in the end to be the keeper of the khān and manage its business as per her original plan. This ending, despite Dalı̄lah’s honourable and moral intentions, does not, as the tale itself shows, destabilise the definition of qubḥ. This is obvious on the storyteller’s part when the tale introduces Dalı̄lah as someone whose heart wanders in the field of ugliness (al-lisān nāt ̣iq bi-l-tasbı̄ḥ wa l-qalb rākiḍ fı̄ maydān al-qabı̄ḥ)36 and is adduced by the Caliph’s initial reaction towards Dalı̄lah when she was caught but then was pardoned through the intervention of the two aforementioned shuṭt ̣ār. This ultimately puts forth the question of the function of theft in the plot itself and whether the narrative treats theft as a literal or a figurative act.

ANXIETY: CREATE. PLAY. REPEAT An analysis of theft itself as it features in the tale should guide this discussion further. The protagonist Dalı̄lah is the creator of events as propelled by an urgency of action-taking to ward off anxiety (hamm). Whether it be playing with words or simply playing people as she does. In his Kitāb al-Akhlāq wa l-Siyar, Ibn Ḥ azm (d. 456/1064), explains ‘anxiety’ (al-hamm) as part of the human condition, a feeling that everyone wishes to eradicate.37 Ibn Ḥ azm goes further to analyse how ‘anxiety’ is the force that motivates all humans to action, the seat of desire, so to speak: I searched for that which all people seek and agree on its good value (istiḥsānihi), I did not find except one: the elimination of anxiety (ṭard alhamm). When I scrutinised it more, I understood that not only do people

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agree on its value and work to eliminate it but I saw that despite people’s diverse desires and needs and the disparities in their abilities and willpower, they do not move except in their wish to eliminate anxiety, and they do not speak a word except in their effort to ward it off themselves. 38

This idea is also expressed by al-Hamadhānı̄ in al-maqāma al-Baṣriyya in the protagonist’s Abū’l-Fatḥ’s statement ‘al-marʾu min ḍirsihi fı̄ shughlin wa min nafsihi fı̄ kall’ (People are occupied with work to support themselves and are in perpetual anxiety).39 Ibn Ḥ azm’s pre-modern psychology and study of emotions seem to agree that anxiety comprises a sense of lack, unlike fear (which is usually associated with anxiety). In the case of fear, the threat is usually known. However, in the case of anxiety, one could safely concur that the source of ‘anxiety’ is unknown.40 It could be regarded as a general feeling of insecurity, which Ibn Ḥ azm refers to eloquently in Arabic as al-hamm, with the intention of describing this compelling sense of foreboding. Anxiety then could be considered as the seat of desire because it precedes desire. It needs to identify the object through which it will be vanquished. This all-encompassing feeling of discontent, the lack that must identify a desire through which it shall operate in the case of Dalı̄lah stems from financial insecurity. The element of agency is a fundamental rubric in this story because it speaks of a desire for action, which was originally inspired by anxiety. This anxiety is translated into a motivation initiated by the daughter Zaynab. A sense of wellbeing and social integration in the form of steady and secure legal income was what Dalı̄lah actually desired. In this respect, Dalı̄lah’s representation in the tale becomes atypical compared to most of The Thousand and One Nights characters in their desire to tell stories as a cure for fear on their part and anxiety and on the part of those who listen to their stories, hers become a desire for action. The path of eradicating this anxiety took the form of theft via tricks. It must be noted that the tricks performed by Dalı̄lah are all improvisatory tricks and do not boast of any sense of pre-planning. Dalı̄lah’s only plan in this venture is to play tricks (manāsị f). The very essence of improvisation then is creation and performance, which ultimately translates into play. Laʿib (play), Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄ (d. ca. 395/1005) maintains, is at the heart of lahw (distraction) but the opposite is not necessarily true, viz. laʿib is not always lahw.41 According to al-ʿAskarı̄, some actions acquire this status because they distract from what is considered meaningful in general. Laʿib (play) and lahw (distraction) are both mentioned in the Qur’an

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in different contexts. In sura 6 (al-Anʿām), the chapter of ‘Livestock’, ‘The life of this world is nothing but a game and a distraction’ (6:32). Similarly, in sura 43 (al-Zukhruf), the chapter of ‘Ornaments of Gold’, ‘Leave them to wade in deeper and play about, until they face the Day they have been promised’ (43:82). It is also mentioned in sura 12 (Yūsuf), the chapter of ‘Joseph’, ‘Send him with us tomorrow and he will enjoy himself and play—we will take good care of him’ (12:12). It could be argued then that the notion of play (laʿib) in these contexts encompasses states of affairs that may be a distraction, therefore it is juxtaposed with and almost acquiring the lahw status. In the three different contexts, laʿib and lahw refer to different activities but to generally one meaning: distraction. Bin ʿAshūr defines play as ‘action or speech done not for the purposes they are normally done for (lā yurād minhu mā shaʾnahu an yurād bi-mithlihi)’, rather for recreation (istijmām) and the elimination of weariness or boredom (dafʿ al-saʾāma).42 Laʿib is traceable in the tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’ on two levels: (a) in the performative aspect of Dalı̄lah’s tricks, which distracts people (her victims), not through amusement (direct result of play), but through appealing to their anxieties; and (b) on the narrative level, her tricks act in place of the stories told by the characters in The Thousand and One Nights, which eventually function as amusement (distraction) for the intended listeners/readers, in the same manner other tales in The Thousand and One Nights function. The tale introduces Dalı̄lah as one who not only adopts role-play and disguise, but also as someone with an infinitely scheming nature in keeping with the historical sources, yet deploying it for adab purposes. In this respect, one could argue that her character differs from the aforementioned characters in the three previously discussed tales, where events seem to be thrown in the characters’ paths (love, theft, murder, being caught while stealing, and discovering a cheating husband) to highlight the characters’ transgression and/or lack of reason as per their choice of the course of action and its consequences, as the previous two chapters have shown. In this tale, the character creates events instead. This becomes obvious in the tricks she plays. Dalı̄lah ventures into a contest with Aḥmad al-Danaf and Ḥasan Shūmān as she takes it upon herself to enter a battle of wits with the whole town and most importantly with al-Danaf and Shūmān. This in itself forms an informal contract of play. Her shaṭāra is manifest in the tale’s introduction to her character. She disguised herself as a female dervish (faqı̄ra), ‘and went out saying “Allah

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Allah.” The tongue praises God while the heart runs in the path of ugliness.’ [wa t ̣alaʿat taqūl Allāh Allāh wa l-lisān nāt ̣iq bi-l-tasbı̄ḥ wa l-qalb rākiḍ fı̄ maydān al-qabı̄ḥ.] 43 She disguises herself to trick a merchant’s wife, a young merchant, a dyer, and a donkey-driver. She intuitively plays on their desires (anxieties) to accomplish her tricks. She first uses the young wife’s desire for children and talks her into accompanying her to ‘one blessed sheikh’ who will cure her. While on the way with the woman, she notices that a young man (merchant) is attracted to the woman in question and eyeing her with desire. She uses his feelings to trick him into accompanying them where she will steal everyone’s money and jewellery eventually. She convinces the young man that the young woman is her daughter, and she wishes to marry her off to him. Dalı̄lah evidently played on the man’s lust. This is obvious when she convincingly tells him that he could see the potential bride semi-naked when they go to her house—but how naïve of him to believe that a mother would allow this? She then appeals to a bisexual dyer, to have the young man and woman, at his house as temporary tenants until she gets back, pretending to be their mother. By playing on the dyer’s prospective and probable desires, Dalı̄lah succeeds in luring the man into offering his house; he obliges and shows Dalı̄lah the way where she finishes her trick and locks the two victims in the dyer’s house leaving them half-naked. Her improvisatory technique, which focuses on role-play and disguise, communicates a certain message. Play here becomes equivalent to fiction. She distracts and also temporarily deceives her victims through a promise to ward off their anxieties and engages them in her own play by playing their game and speaking to their own desires. Dalı̄lah creates her tricks by creating an illusion, by making herself the missing piece in their stories through a simulation of a reality or rather a parallel reality in the minds of these victims. These tricks then become the equivalent of the stories-forlife narrated in The Thousand and One Nights for both the characters in these tales and the intended listeners/readers. If, as Peter Brooks maintains, ‘Desire must be considered the very motor of narrative, its dynamic principle,’44 then it makes narrative, by default, a post-action process; desire becomes a post-anxiety feeling, because in this regard, desire operates as a clarification of anxiety. Most characters in The Thousand and One Nights tell stories (fiction) to save their lives. Dalı̄lah performs fiction to both improve and also save her life. Thus, the entertainment factor evident in the tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’ is notable in its action-oriented nature. This accordingly plays a role in

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emphasising the feeling of anxiety experienced by the protagonists in these tales, which in turn lays the foundation for the type of tale expected by the intended listeners/readers on a narrative level. On another level, it communicates a message befitting the prototypes of the characters literarily resurrected in these tales. These were famous real-life shuṭṭār. The very idea of them getting into trouble could very likely be part of their quotidian and they most definitely will not exchange stories in return for their lives, and that would be acting out of character, so to speak. Dalı̄lah’s self-realisation through a moral vocation ultimately translates into the plot’s movement towards equilibrium, which is in keeping with the established definition of order and beauty (ḥusn). The idea of moral beauty then becomes the focus of her quest. In this case, anxiety yields a positive result. Dalı̄lah is recognised as an equal to the male shut ̣ṭār police chiefs, al-Danaf and Shūmān, and is appointed as the keeper of the khān built by the Caliph for travelling merchants, which is what she initially desired. Dalı̄lah commits a series of acts that are considered unlawful because they transgress and endanger other people’s rights of property, however she does not profit from these tricks. Despite her motivation to secure an income for her daughter and herself, she returns everything she had previously stolen. The tale portrays the disorder Dalı̄lah creates in the town as an attempt to establish a dialogue with the system as per her daughter’s advice and as Shūmān had surmised and explained to the Caliph. The rhetoric used in this particular dialogue is based solely on action that takes on a humorous nature. This ultimately exonerates all Dalı̄lah’s actions of malice, hence reducing the situation to becoming comical. This is the central principle of ‘game theory’ and ‘strategic thinking’: when choosing an action, one considers and thinks about how other people will react. Dalı̄lah solicited a certain reaction to advance her aims. Game theory and strategic thinking depend and are built on rational choices that yield the highest payoffs (it is not and should not be confused with selfishness).45 The rational choices made by Dalı̄lah implicitly denounced ‘theft’ as qabı̄ḥ through giving it a lesser weight/payoff by not choosing it, hence, it is the less rational choice (non-rational choice) compared to managing the khān which has a ‘better’ outcome or better ‘payoffs’, both morally and financially speaking. The act of repetition in the tricks performed points to the concept of isrāf in the tricks’ nature. Their repetitiveness in the tale’s structure reaffirms the concept of isrāf in itself with respect to human reason. This repetition

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serves to highlight the protagonist’s boundless creativity and intelligence that is received as part of the comic. On the narrative level, it heightens anticipation on the listeners’/readers’ part and creates a platform for the next trick to exceed the previous one in its ingenuity thereby escalating humour gradually. This repetition serves the story on two levels. On the one hand, it obviously caters for the entertainment value, through creating tension, adding more details, and elongating the narrative. On another level, it cunningly shows the mastery of tricks on Dalı̄lah’s part adduced by her historicity. This method does not seem to be a foreign element to The Thousand and One Nights.46 In ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, repetition is a major source of humour in the narrative. People who all seem to mistakenly think they are responsible for the hunchback’s apparent demise repeatedly abandon his quasi-dead corpse only to be found by others. Similarly, in the tale of ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, repetition is perceptible in the manner every other man the woman encounters sexually compromises her; this situation is in turn reflected in the woman’s punishment of the men, which in itself is characterised by repetition. Also, in the tale of ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, repetition is observed in the money the lady gives to the ḥashshāsh every time they spend the night together. In this respect, repetition is seen as an aesthetic articulation or a narrative consequence of isrāf, a symptom of isrāf. Dalı̄lah’s relentless tricks, which act as fiction, constitute the building blocks of the tale. Interestingly, these units are characterised by chaos. This chaos is informed by the improvisatory nature of the tricks played by Dalı̄lah, which do not seem to be pre-planned nor do they seem to follow a particular order that would lead the plot in a certain direction. The main aim is to cause chaos. Chaos does not seem to require a particular order of events to transpire. In other words, had Dalı̄lah tricked the Jewish jeweller before the young merchant or the young woman before the donkey-driver, for instance, it would still lead to the same result. The order of tricks does not affect Dalı̄lah’s plan, which fits perfectly well with her improvisatory technique, because the nature of improvisation does not follow a certain order, or any order for that matter. The tale follows this structure and does not seem to resist it. Had the structural order shown a sign of dependence on any trick towards the realisation of the next series of tricks; then there would have been a discrepancy in the content/structure correlation. This chaos in turn translates in the aesthetics of the narrative into disorder and lawlessness. By definition, Dalı̄lah does not follow any rules except her own; her actions are not informed by any law, and

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therefore are not subject to reason. Instead of folly—as anti-reason and a comforting explanation as the previously mentioned tales—the tale utilises acute intelligence that is out of order, which explains the transgressive quality of the tricks Dalı̄lah played on her victims. It has been established that Dalı̄lah’s identity as a shāt ̣ira, which immediately conjures law-breaking activities, are self-acknowledged as unlawful for an honourable purpose. The formula here then is as follows: a lawbreaker breaks the law to secure a moral living. In all the tricks Dalı̄lah played on her victims, she transgressed the law by stealing, kidnapping, or jeopardising people’s lives. Is it enough that the tricks she plays act as stories to amuse the intended listeners/readers for the narrative to allow her to be pardoned? Or is qubḥ being used as a tool for amusement and also to identify ḥusn?

SHAṬA RA ̄ AND NARRATIVE: THE THIEVERY CONNECTION The tales of the shuṭt ̣ār have all been classified as part of the crime stories, according to Gerhardt’s classification because of the theft motif.47 The literary utilisation of theft serves different purposes in the stories of the shuṭt ̣ār. In the tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’, for instance, it is a vital tool towards a moral life, which manifests in proving her worthiness as a shāt ̣ira and becoming an equal to al-Danaf and Shūmān, thereby earning her the job of managing the khān. In other tales of the shut ̣ṭār, such as the tale of ‘ʿAlı̄ al-Zaybaq’, theft acts as the only means possible for him to acquire the objects necessary for the accomplishment of his quest to marry the woman he loves (moral purpose). In ‘The Tale of ʿAlā’ al-Dı̄n Abū’l-Shāmāt,’ Baghdad’s police chiefs, the two shut ̣ṭār al-Danaf and Shūmān, save an innocent man’s life as a result of a malevolent conspiracy (moral purpose). Theft features in the kidnapping of the guilty person to place him in prison instead of ʿAlāʾ, the innocent one, to save the latter’s life. It is instructive to ask at this point why does qubḥ in the tale of ‘Crafty Dalı̄lah’ become the only means through which a meaningful life for her is possible hence the restoring of equilibrium? Isrāf in the use of intelligence has instilled chaos and ultimately qubḥ as is perceptible from the unfolding of events in the narrative. However, the narrative’s support for Dalı̄lah and rewarding her with what she had initially desired seemingly contradicts itself in its introduction of her as a qabı̄ḥ character from the beginning. Is the storyteller contradicting himself? At this juncture, there are two options to treat theft. On the one hand, one could maintain that theft is indeed

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literal, and in this respect, the outcast character commits crimes that go unpunished. In this case, punishment turns into a recompense and the thief becomes rewarded whereby insinuating that the narrative created a state of unresolved disorder through the success of theft, viz. qubh—a nod to the carnivalesque so to speak. The narrative, however, does not support this because it does achieve order in the end, which only leaves one more possible and plausible reading. Theft that veritably causes disequilibrium in the narrative is pardoned on the shut ̣ṭār’s part because its process (tricks) is not only amusing and repeatedly presented as something that never happened in the first place, but also moves towards ḥusn. It never challenged or replaced the system or the general order of things, which any crime proper does, as does the carnivalesque in its upside-down reshuffling of order. Dalı̄lah did not upturn the system, she joined it. She returned all the stolen goods to their rightful owners and most importantly was motivated by an honourable intention: to secure a moral living. A carnivalesque reading where Dalı̄lah is regarded as a Bakhtinian rogue would necessitate that she is critical of the system and is against it, but she is not. Therefore, one could argue that the narrative is indeed conscious to utilise and treat theft in the tales of the shuṭt ̣ār as an act that never happened at the end, a fictitious activity as is evident in all the tales of the shut ̣t ̣ār. Its focus, then, is not on theft as a literal act but as an aesthetic act that on the narrative level offers intrigue, thrill, and amusement for the intended listeners/readers and self-referentially, or on the meta-narrative level, it acts as a reference to storytelling itself in its mechanism that allows itself plenty of cerebral excesses as well. The connection between narrative and theft as homologous acts was alluded to by al-Jāḥiẓ. Later adab heirs, al-Huṣrı̄ al-Qayrawānı̄ (d. 412/1022) and al-Tanūkhı̄ (d. 384/994), for instance, who were influenced by al-Jāḥiẓ, also used unrestricted material where class and race inhibitions disappeared, and entertainment with benefit in mind was also considered.48 Al-Jāḥiẓ ‘…set the stage for the development of narrative art. [where there is]…reliance on both the acceptable and questionable, the canonized and the deviant.’49 The theoretical application of al-Jāḥiẓ’s statement could be seen, as al-Musawi fittingly maintains, not only in the storyteller’s marginalisation as mentioned previously but also in the ‘free use of source material’.50 Like the shāt ̣ir, the storyteller enjoys the freedom to create from various sources and improvise the vast array of his material, and make conscious decisions about their appropriation and assimilation as befitting his literary

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designs—note the aforementioned rendering of al-Tanūkhı̄’s story into ‘The Hunchback Cycle’ and the historical appropriations of the shut ̣ṭār in the tales, for instance. One then could regard theft not as a literal act but as a trope that signifies al-ḥiyal (tricks) of storytelling and the creative process in general, through which both disequilibrium and equilibrium are simultaneously introduced and achieved, as is the narrative enterprise. Theft in the tale is regarded as a metaphor of storytelling itself. This affirms that storytelling is for the most part dependent on introducing disequilibrium (qubḥ) as part of its creative process. It was neutralised from the beginning to achieve equilibrium through itself, in the same manner the storyteller moves towards equilibrium to affirm order and beauty despite all the qubḥ introduced. This is very much the essence of ḥıl̄ a, according to Abū Hilāl-al-ʿAskarı̄, which is either to bring a benefit to the person performing it or to ward off harm.51 Is this not then a nightly business of Scheherazade, the muse of all storytellers, practising theft (trickery) and stealing (buying) time through narrative by introducing qubḥ in her stories only to highlight the sublime and edify Shahryār, to instill order again in the stories and ultimately in her life, to begin yet again the following night to distract, enchant, enlighten, and also amuse?

THE CREATIVE PROCESS Theft as qubḥ in this respect is the literary licence of the storyteller who by virtue of exercising intellectual excess borrows from history, life, conflates the real with the imaginary, and invents stories that sometimes transgress the boundaries of time, reality, and/or social decorum through the option of utilising qubḥ as a literary trope. The Thousand and One Nights, admittedly a work of fiction, is engaging with the artistic process. It appeals to a shared worldview by the intended listeners/readers about concepts of order versus disorder to structure its stories. The ultimate order that is Reason/reason inspires beauty, social status, rewards, riches, and gains while its opposite evokes deformity, punishment, excess, and transgression, as in keeping with the matrices of ḥusn and qubḥ. This dichotomous dialogue occurs within the parameters of the aesthetics of Paradise/ Hell. The discussed tales from The Thousand and One Nights represent this dichotomy as two parallels that never meet as is evident in the artistic language. The only time when there seemed to be an intersecting tension,

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though not real, between qubḥ and ḥusn was when trickery is involved, as in the case of Dalı̄lah. Trickery as a means of deception, albeit linguistic, is not an uncommon enterprise in pre-modern adab. The utilisation of qubḥ as a literary technique is also traceable in the art of the maqāmāt as well.

NOTES 1. Nights 698th–708th. 2. See for example, Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: a Companion, 140– 158; Muhsin J. al-Musawi, Mujtamaʿ Alf Layla wa Layla (Tunis: Markaz al-Nashr al-Jāmiʿı̄, 2000), 428–36. 3. al-Musawi uses the title ʿayyārı̄n for these thieves, and not shuṭt ̣ār. This chapter differentiates between the two terms. 4. See for instance, Aḥmad Muḥammad al-Shaḥhạ d ̄ h, al-Malāmiḥ al-Siyāsiyya fı̄ Ḥ ikāyāt Alf Layla wa Layla (Baghdad, n.p., 1977) Chap. 4; Iḥsān Sarkı̄s, al-Thunāʾiyya fı̄ Alf Layla wa Layla (Beirut: Dār al-Ṭ alı̄ʿa lil-Ṭ ibāʿa wa l-Nashr, 1979) Chap. 7; Muḥammad Rajab al-Najjār, Ḥ ikāyāt al-Shuṭṭār wa l-ʿAyyārı̄n fı̄ l-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄ (Kuwait: al-Majlis al-Waṭanı̄ li-l-Thaqāfa wa l-Funūn wa l-Ā dāb, 1981). 5. See Mohsen Zakeri, Sāsānid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995), who traces their origins to the Persian army and discusses their loyalty and affinity with the Shı̄ʿite cause as an equally marginalised group. See also D.G. Tor, Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ʿAyyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag in Kommission, 2007) for a completely different argument that contends the Sunni affiliation of the ʿayyārı̄n and also a discussion that shows how the term was used synonymously with futuwwa (Sufi chivalric code) and shuṭtạ ̄r (thieves). 6. A definition of this as it pertains to the Sufi code of chivalry, a purely ethical and spiritual enterprise, is to be found in ʿAbd al-Karı̄m b. Hawāzin al-Qushayrı̄, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fı̄ ʿIlm al-Taṣawwuf, ed. Maʿrūf Muṣt ̣afā Zurayq (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 2001), 226–231. 7. The term is no longer in circulation as the ḥarāfı̄sh have disappeared from Egyptian society. Before their disappearance, some pretended to belong to Sufi circles and lived off mendicancy in mosques, some were thieves, some were engaged in political conflicts, and some joined the army to fight against foreign invasions at the time, Muḥammad Rajab al-Najjār, Ḥ ikāyāt al-Shut ̣t ̣ār wa l-ʿAyyārı̄n fı̄ l-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, 223. 8. Ibid., 9, fn. 1. 9. Ibid., 7–9, fn. 1. 10. Nights 708th–719th.

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11. Nights 250th–269th. 12. It is worth mentioning that these terms have evolved over time and some of them have lost their original roguery-charged significance, such as al-shātị r, which today simply means ‘clever’. 13. See al-Najjār, Ḥ ikāyāt al-Shuṭṭār wa l-ʿAyyārı̄n for more on this, though the book engages in a quixotic portrayal of the rogues, it is useful for historical resources and bibliography. 14. Elizabeth Greene Heilman, ‘Popular Protests in Medieval Baghdad, 295– 334 A.H./908–946 A.D.’ (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1978), 153. 15. Ibid., 156–8. 16. Ibid., 158–9. 17. Lapidus, 272, 290 quoted in Elizabeth Greene Heilman, ‘Popular Protests in Medieval Baghdad, 295–334 A.H./908–946 A.D.’, 221, fn. 17. 18. al-Farāhı̄dı̄, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, 6:234. 19. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3:436. 20. al-Hamadhānı̄, Maqāmāt Abı̄’l-Faḍl Badı̄ʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbduh (Beirut: al-Matḅ aʿa al-Kāthūlı̄kiyya li-l-Ā bāʾ al-Yasūʿiyyı̄n, 1908), 245. 21. ʿAbduh explains shaṭāra as ‘shiddat al-khubth’ (extreme deviousness) and daʿāra (shamelessness), ibid. 22. al-Hamadhānı̄, The Maqāmāt of Badı̄ʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄, trans. W.J. Prendergast (London: Luzac, 1915), 179. 23. al-Masʿūdı̄, Murūj al-Dhahab wa Maʿādin al-Jawhar (Beirut: Dār alAndalus, 1966), 4:168 cited in al-Najjār, 64; cf. Irwin, 145. 24. Ibn al-Athı̄r, al-Kāmil fı̄ l-Tārı̄kh (Beirut: Dār Ṣad ̄ ir, 1966), 9:591–92 cited in al-Najjār, 65. 25. Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-Zuhūr fı̄ Waqāʾiʿ al-Duhūr (Cairo: Dār al-Shaʿb, n.d.), 537 cited in al-Najjār, 65. 26. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 209. 27. Ibid., 85. 28. Kitāb al-Kharāj (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Mı̄rı̄yya, 1886), 112–13. 29. al-Najjār mentions ʿAbd al-Qāhir b. Ṭ āhir al-Tamı̄mı̄ al-Baghdādı̄’s (d. 429/1037) accusation to al-Jāḥiẓ in al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, whose book in the former’s opinion taught people the art of thievery. Al-Najjār reads al-Khatı̄b al-Baghdādı̄’s accusation as an indication of the popularity of the book amongst thieves themselves. According to al-Najjār, the book has become an ‘ideological doctrine’ to thieves and al-Jāḥiẓ himself was a supporter of this ideology. This is highly untenable and unconvincing. Al-Baghdādı̄ engages in a vehement polemic against al-Jāḥiẓ and most of his books and not just this one because of his Muʿtazilite views; he believes that al-Jāḥiẓ’s books are worthless and even likens him and all Muʿtazilites to ‘pigs’ in ugliness. See, al-Baghdādı̄, al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, ed.

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30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

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Muḥammad Badr (Cairo: Mat ̣baʿat al-Maʿārif, 1910), 162–3. Given al-Jāḥiẓ’s wide interests and encyclopaedic knowledge, the above reading seems untenable. One could safely situate al-Jāḥiẓ’s book through contextualising it within al-Jāḥiẓ’s methodology as manifest in his scholarly keenness on knowing and being exposed to all aspects of life no matter how unusual, low, or vulgar they may seem to most people. In addition, since al-Jāḥiẓ’s manuscript is not extant, it is difficult to know how he approached the subject, let alone presume that he supported al-shut ̣tạ ̄r based only on others’ criticism or praise that is hardly objective as noted above. For an example of al-Jāḥiẓ’s methodology pertaining to poetry, see Chap. 7, fn. 31. See Fedwa Malti-Douglas, ‘The Classical Arab Detective,’ Arabica 35, no. 1 (1988):63, fn. 4. Ibn al-Jawzı̄, Kitāb al-Adhkiyāʾ, 196. Fedwa Malti-Douglas, ‘Classical Arabic Crime Narratives: Thieves and Thievery in Adab Literature,’ JAL 19, no. 1(1988): 108. Hayden White, ‘The Fictions of Factual Representation’ in Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 125. It is mentioned in the story that this is a monthly income; however, it is indeed a large sum of money at that time, an exaggeration, and narrative isrāf on the storyteller’s part, which is understandable. For an overview of the value of money in some tales in The Thousand and One Nights, See Irmeli Perho, ‘The Arabian Nights as a source for Daily Life in the Mamluk Period,’ Studia Orientalia 85 (1999): 139–62. Night 698th. Night 699th. Ibn Ḥ azm, Kitāb al-Akhlāq wa l-Siyar, ed. Evā Riyāḍ (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥ azm, 2000), 76. Ibid. Muḥammad ʿAbduh rightly explains this as ‘al-marʾu fı̄ taʿabin min ḥājāti nafsih’ (Humans are weary from the needs of the self), See, Maqāmāt, 69–70. In the English translation, Prendergast renders it also into ‘anxiety’, ‘Man is occupied in getting something for his teeth and is in anxiety concerning himself,’ See, Prendergast, 66. Michael Lewis and Jeannette M.  Haviland ed., Handbook of Emotions (New York: Guilford Press, 1993), 512. al-Furūq al-Lughawiyya, 210. bin ʿAshūr, al-Taḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r, 12:229. Night 699th. Peter Brooks, ‘Freud’s Master Plot,’ Yale French Studies 55–56 (1977): 281 quoted in Sandra Naddaff, Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the

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45.

46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Aesthetics of Repetition in the 1001 Nights (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 45. For more on the application of game theory in the humanities, See Michael Suk-Young Chwe, Jane Austen, Game Theorist (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013). For more on repetition in The Thousand and One Nights, see Sandra Naddaff, Arabesque: Narrative Structure and the Aesthetics of Repetition in 1001 Nights. Gerhardt, The Art of Storytelling, 169–90. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 241. Ibid. Ibid., 242. al-Furūq al-Lughawiyya, 212–15.

PART III

Canonical Literature

CHAPTER 9

Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful

This chapter continues to examine the category of qubḥ and its relationship to the aesthetics and creative process in pre-modern Arabic prose with a focus on the maqāmāt of Badı̄ʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ in particular. The maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄ are considered a prototype in this genre, which makes it a valid justification for the choice of this work. This chapter orbits around discussing the established aspects of qubḥ in the maqāma al-Dı̄nāriyya, which adopts hijāʾ as its vehicle of expression. It is imperative to note that the Dı̄nāriyya in the standard edition of Muḥammad ʿAbduh (c. 1849–1905) is expurgated. I consulted the full version of the Dı̄nāriyya in another edition,1, 2 only to identify which parts have been taken out. 3 However, this discussion commits itself only to the version in the ʿAbduh edition because it is the most available and standardised. In this chapter, two views open themselves up for discussion: (a) The overall technique of al-Hamadhānı̄ which took as its content a qabı̄ḥ subject matter and presented it in what is considered to be amongst the most canonical works of Arabic prose using a literary technique that is dependent on qubḥ. The maqāmāt themselves are the carrier of al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique,

Parts of this chapter appear in ‘The Literary Geography of Meaning in the maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄ and al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄’ in The City in Pre-modern and Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Gretchen Head and Nizar Hermes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_9

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which is the ne plus ultra of taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan as an assessment of eloquence—‘eloquence’ shall be used broadly in the course of this chapter until further examination through the course of this discussion. (b) The chapter proposes reading the Dı̄nāriyya within the context of the Hamadhānian maqāmāt as a criticism of the value of language. In this respect, the situating of al-Hamadhānı̄’s representation of hijāʾ in the Dı̄nāriyya shall shed light on al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique of turning a hijāʾ,4 as a mode devoted solely to linguistic qubḥ, into embellished expressions that are a source of amusement.

COMPOSING IN QUBḤ: QUBḤ AS A TECHNIQUE Al-Hamadhānı̄ engages with multifaceted aspects of qubḥ in constructing the maqāmāt. There is initially the choice of content itself where the world of rogues and mendicants reign supreme. Then, there is the characterisation of Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarı̄, the protagonist, as a self-confessed fraud who despite his indulgence in all sorts of transgressions is depicted as ̄ because of his eloa charming character to al-Hamadhānī’s narrator, ʿIsa quence. Finally, there is ultimately Abū’l-Fatḥ’s depiction as a liar (qubḥ) manifest primarily in his deception and supported rhetorically in his motto throughout the envoi scene in maqāmāt that ʿaql (Reason/reason) is junūn (madness/folly), which evokes the aforementioned definition of al-Jāḥiẓ about semiotic disagreements as laghw. Kadhib is a category of laghw. These all outline the schemata of al-Hamadhānı̄’s complex technique that creatively utilises various forms of qabı̄ḥ for satirical purposes, to question the value of eloquence in language as the medium of adab, in contrast to meaning, and to verify his own thesis in turning qubḥ into literary pleasure through language. The depiction of the world of mukaddı̄n, who are by definition engaging in fraud through various methods that aim at deceiving people, conjures a world of qubḥ. The means through which these mukaddı̄n perform their tricks employ various forms of qubḥ not only through their lies on unassuming victims but most notably through simulating physical deformity.5 The use of various techniques and chemical substances to appear without limbs, tongues, eyes, or feigning leprosy, for instance, to gain people’s sympathy—expressed in monetary terms—aesthetically conjures an anti-paradisiacal image. The perceptible reason for begging (poverty and hunger) also constitutes a stark contrast to the paradisiacal image of comfort and beauty.6 In sūrat Ṭ ā Hā, the Qur’an maintains, ‘In the gar-

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den you will never go hungry, feel naked, be thirsty, or suffer the heat of the sun’ (20:118–119).7 However, the ugliness of the world of the real mukaddı̄n is not portrayed as such in the maqāmāt. Abū’l-Fatḥ is far from repulsive. He is depicted as a shape-shifting charming charlatan who typically uses zukhruf al-qawl (embellished but deceptive speech), a category of kadhib, amongst other disguises, to deceive people. The embellished rhetoric is part of the deception because al-Iskandrı̄ demands that his words do an extra work, as the character of Humpty Dumpty said to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, ‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that’, said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’ Words can do anything for Abū’l Fatḥ. In this respect, there is a referential indication of using qubḥ, alluring qubḥ though, as a strategy. He, nonetheless, does not lie about lying; he constantly refers to his methods as a trick. Abū’l-Fatḥ’s accounts, as reported in the maqāmāt, therefore ̄ b. stand as neither true nor false because they are paradoxical. Both ʿIsa Hishām and the reader equally, therefore, are presented with a liar paradox.8 If a liar like Abū’l Fatḥ says he is lying, is he then telling the truth about lying, or is he lying about lying? ̄ ’s reporting on these events that This becomes tantamount to ʿIsā are controversial in their semiotic significance because of the nature of ̄ is Abū’l-Fatḥ’s upsetting of registers and his character as a fraud. ʿIsa giving an account about lies, which is alluded to in the truncated chain of transmission. In addition, even when Abū’l-Fatḥ does not refer to ̄ uncovers his own deception, it is inferred that he is lying because ʿIsa ̄ his guise. However, ʿIsa does seem adamant on recounting his episodes ̄ ’s eagerness to give an account on an unreliwith Abū’l-Fatḥ; it is ʿIsā ̄ b. Hishām’s able character that raises questions. The very fact that ʿIsa 9 reliability is questionable adds to the conundrum of one unreliable ̄ b. Hishām’s narrator reporting about another unreliable character. ʿIsa accounts are therefore neither true nor false. With regards to the unrē , a liable chain of transmission ethics, manifest in the character of ʿIsā text ‘[…] derive[s] its authenticity and authority mainly from both the reporter’s individual integrity and the ideological community which he ̄ is belonged to’.10 A narrative that lacks authenticity, like the one ʿIsa transmitting is void of meaning. If ‘[…] the authenticity of narratives gave them an epistemological quality as knowledge’,11 by reverse analogy, lack of authenticity devalues the narrative of knowledge, hence meaning. The notion of knowledge rested ‘…on an assumption that there is an authentic or correct and original meaning to every coined

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word. There is an authentic or correct way to use a word, when it conforms to the meaning assigned to it, and an incorrect way, when it is not employed in that fashion.’12 Any discerning reader could see that the lack of a chain of transmission is a clue to the unreliable narrator and a further insight into the empty content of the narrative where al-Iskandarı̄ upsets all registers and delivers nothing. It is therefore neither clear nor convincing why James Monroe reads it as a mockery of the ḥadı̄th genre.13 In the maqāmāt, Abū’l-Fatḥ’s lies are lies because they do not correspond with established notions of truth. In this vein, the maqāmāt could be viewed as a work that presents an assessment of the subsidisation of the role of truth and meaning in comparison to literary pleasure and eloquence. This is exemplified in the compelling act of ‘telling’ the stories by ̄ to the unnamed narrator who transmits them as well, because they are ʿIsa appealing despite their own value or truth. ̄ knows that these stories and events with Abū’lDespite the fact that ʿIsa Fatḥ are all lies and indicative of deception, he has reported them because it is obvious that he admires Abū’l-Fatḥ. This is not the only paradox in the maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄. Three main paradoxes crystallise as follows: 1. Content: The representation of low registers of life and action in a sophisticated linguistic register and style.14 2. Character: The protagonist, a mendicant and a trickster, who stereotypically could be or perhaps is an undesirable character in society, is nonetheless characterised as an admirable and charming character, as ̄ b. Hishām’s reactions. affirmed through ʿIsa 3. Structure: Abū’l-Fatḥ is repeatedly criticising ʿaql as the epitome of junūn and ḥumq. This is the framing thesis of the maqāmāt, which subtly describes its technique of taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan, or in van Gelder’s rendering, ‘beautifying the ugly and uglifying the beautiful’.15 Abū’l-Fatḥ’s criticism of ʿaql is self-referential not only to his techniques as a liar but also to ʿaql as a moral force. ʿAql as a moral force (Reason) is indeed the ultimate madness for Abū’l-Fatḥ because it means the end of his character and career as a charlatan. The only ̄ as a popular and admirareason Abū’l-Fatḥ is presented, through ʿIsa, ble man is because of his eloquence. The repudiation of ʿaql on Abū’lFatḥ’s part adopts antithetical values that go against Reason, as seen ̄ throughout the maqāmāt, and presents them quite persuasively to ʿIsa. It is precisely for this reason, the only technique that becomes possible

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as a carrier of the ideologies of Abū’l-Fatḥ is an engagement with taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan, which exemplifies his eloquence. If paradox is ‘…going against received opinion (paradoxos),’16 in this case the maqāmāt should be, by definition, against all exemplary notions of literary appeal. This is not the case. The maqāmāt stand at the pinnacle in their status of literary achievements to the extent of creating a distinctive genre of their own, which were copied and reproduced afterwards.17 While the maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄ distinguish themselves from established contemporaneous literary genres (poetry, poetry criticism, debates, sermons, and so on), they are in dialogue with them at the same time.18 The uniqueness of the maqāmāt’s content, character representation, and language combinations, are all factors that distinguish this work.

CONTENT: THE FASCINATION WITH AND REPRESENTATION OF LOW LIFE IN A SOPHISTICATED REGISTER The maqāma genre was partially inspired by the life of the mendicants or al-mukaddı̄n and their anecdotes.19 Al-Hamadhānı̄’s ‘interest in low life is very probably an inheritance from Ibn ʿAbbād who collected around him both scholars interested in low life (and obscenity, for that matter) as well as globe-trotters and witty beggars like Abū Dulaf’.20 Wit, eloquence, and trickery are all aspects of the maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄ which maintained representing and depicting these qualities as the main components of kudya, as evident in the character of Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarı̄. 21 However, the low life of the mukaddı̄n and their anecdotes cannot be compared to the elaborate and constructed metaphors, taḍmı̄n,22 topics, and the virtuoso of Abū’l-Fatḥ in the maqāmāt, neither should one attribute the usage of sajʿ in the maqāmāt to an imitation of the Bedouin mendicants either.23 As of the tenth century, sajʿ was ‘increasingly used for official correspondence and then for historiography and other forms of prose composition’.24 Al-Hamadhānı̄ used sajʿ in his personal letters as well.25 That all mendicants were as eloquent as these Bedouins is untenable; those who were not as eloquent as the exemplar Bedouins in adab anecdotes did not rely on the tricks of the word but those of the body.26 That the maqāmāt mirrored the lives of these mendicants and therefore could be read as a social document would be inaccurate. Al-Hamadhānı̄’s character type is surely inspired by the mukaddı̄n but the topics of the

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maqāmāt pride themselves on being a satire on some issues and nothing less than erudite and could be even considered as artistic literary criticism.27 This should not be surprising since al-Hamadhānı̄ utilised all the sources around him; he engaged with literary criticism questions as well as Kalam subjects.28 The proper literary use of the mukaddı̄ figure and his kudya is what Frederic Jameson calls the proper use of a ‘cultural artifact’, whether in its manifestation as al-Iskandarı̄ or al-Sarūjī, al-Hārīrī’s protagonist.29 It becomes one of the essential features of the maqāma genre. Jameson maintains, ‘Genres are essentially literary institutions, or social contracts between a writer and a specific public, whose function is to specify the proper use of a cultural artefact.’30 The first paradox, therefore, is the representation of the world of mendicants and the choice of a character such as Abū’l-Fatḥ to become a vehicle of commentary on literary themes and scholarly topics as such. This is highlighted in Abū’l-Fatḥ’s characterisation as the anti-scholar type; he is well-travelled, well-read, articulate, persuasive, and charismatic, but he avoids committing himself to any views (because his views are there to serve deceptive purposes). He intellectually assimilates himself to win all prospective audiences (victims) according to their moral views as Abū’lFatḥ expresses in al-Azādhiyya, ‘fa-qḍı ̄ al-ʿumra tashbı̄hā ʿalā al-nāsi wa tamwı̄hā,’31 (Spend your life deceiving people and misleading them).

CHARACTER: CHARMING WORDS OUT OF THEIR MEANING Abū’l-Fatḥ’s elaborate speech finds reception from everyone, in particular ̄ b. Hishām, the logofrom someone as well-travelled and learned as ʿIsa ̄ phile. ʿIsā’s learnedness is repeatedly exemplified by him saying that the utmost of his desires is to come across novel ideas (muhrat fikr aqūdahā) and capture less common words (aw shurūd min al-kalim aṣıd̄ uhā).32 He reiterates this equally in al-Makfūfiyya, saying, ‘Quṣārāy lafẓa sharūd aṣıd̄ uhā wa kalima balı̄gha astazı̄duhā,’33 (My utmost wish is to capture a stray word or add to my eloquent expressions). In this respect, it appears ̄ share a common attribute and that is their fascinathat Abū’l-Fatḥ and ʿIsa ̄ seems to be always charmed tion with eloquence. This explains why ʿIsa by Abū’l-Fatḥ’s articulateness and forgiving of all his tricks, even fascinated by them as his reaction to Abū’l-Fatḥ’s trick in al-Iṣfahāniyya, ‘faṣāḥatuhū fı̄ waqāḥatihı̄ wa malāḥatuhū fı̄ istimāḥatihı̄,’34 (contemplated his eloquence with his impudence, his amiability with his mendacity).

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̄ b. Hishām relates his journey from In al-maqāma al-Iṣfahāniyya, ʿIsa Iṣfahān on the way to Rayy. While waiting for the caravan, he goes to ̄ shows irresoluteness between observing a answer the call for prayers. ʿIsa religious obligation and abandoning it because of the possibility of missing the caravan lest it arrives during prayers; he goes to perform the prayers in ̄ the hope its blessings may alleviate the travel fatigue. While in prayers, ʿIsa cannot concentrate and is thinking about the caravan constantly; in addition, he is put off by the Imam’s choice of one of the long sūras protracted by slow recitation. His description of the status quo is of interest to this discussion to highlight the reasons of his fascination with Abū’l-Fatḥ and also their similarity: So I slipped away from my companions, taking advantage of the opportunity of joining in public prayers, and dreading, at the same time, the loss of the caravan I was leaving. But I sought aid against the difficulty of the desert through the blessing of prayer, and, therefore, I went to the front row and stood up. The Imam went up to the niche and recited the opening chapter of the Qur’án according to the intonation of Ḥ amza, in regard to using ‘madda’ and ‘hamza,’ while I experienced disquieting grief at the thought of missing the caravan, and of separation from the mount. Then he followed up the Súratal-Fátiḥa with Súrat al-Wáqi‘a while I suffered the fire of patience and tasked myself severely. I was roasting and grilling on the live coal.35

̄ is invoking the vocabulary The description of the emotional state of ʿIsa of Hell: ‘ataṣallā nār al-ṣabr wa ataṣallab; ataqallā ʿalā jamr al-ghayẓ wa ataqallab.’ This perceptible construction of incompatible words (alfāẓ) and meanings (maʿānı̄) to describe the situation results in the most salient feature of the maqāmāt: humour. The linguistic register used in describ̄ ’s state of mind conjoined two axes that never meet: Heaven and ing ʿIsā Hell, through a semantic paradox. The registers of Heaven (prayer) and ̄ Hell (punishments) are exchanged in an act of taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan by ʿIsa. Prayer—because of the Imam’s elongation of recitation and choosing longer suras—which belongs to the matrix of ḥusn proper in its invocation of Reason is likened to a Hellfire punishment (qubḥ proper). The purpose of prayer and its semiotic significance is in a direct antithetical relationship ̄ ’s mental state, which he metaphorically expresses as physical senwith ʿIsā sations reminiscent of the description of Hellfire punishments. The creation of an interchange between Heaven and Hell through language, that

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is impossible to create otherwise, supplies intense humour in the maqāma ̄ and Abū’l-Fatḥ in their habit of and emphasises the affinity between ʿIsa ̄ is creating semiotic disharmony. The object of this comic situation, ʿIsa, automatically reduced to one whose reason is questionable because of his dissolving of the boundaries of Heaven and Hell. His words are not befitting to describe the situation of answering the call for prayers; they defy the purpose of prayer altogether. This is exemplified in his attitude as he waits to escape at every possible chance and fails and in the end, he only stays because of shame. There is an emphasis here on deceptive appear̄ ’s introduction serves as a prelude to Abū’l-Fatḥ’s later pretence ances. ʿIsā in the maqāma as the imposter Imam. Pretending to be the Imam of the mosque, Abū’l-Fatḥ deceives everyone after leading the prayers by claiming to have a prayer form, which the Prophet passed on to him in a dream. He has reproduced it in papers for those who wish to have it in return for ̄ a small donation, naturally, as in keeping with Abū’l-Fatḥ’s methods. ʿIsa and Abū’l-Fatḥ both lead false prayers that are characterised by deception; ̄ recognises Abū’l-Fatḥ at the end and this is adduced by the fact that ʿIsa admiringly asks him about the ingenuity of his trick. Abū’l-Fatḥ is only ̄ ’s own pretence; one reflects the other. ʿIsā ̄ ’s fascination with mirroring ʿIsā Abū’l-Fatḥ because of the inventiveness of his trick is but a confession that only proposes their similarity; their resemblance does not restrict itself to this maqāma only. Yet, it is rather strange to see a literal reading of the maqāmāt that conflates the ‘protagonist’ with the author. Lenn E. Goodman maintains that al-Hamadhānı̄’s thesis was ‘a little naughtiness does not hurt’.36 This argument is untenable as could be easily seen in the maqāmāt as a whole and the letters of al-Hamadhānı̄. It reduces a complex work of art that is in dialogue with sophisticated literary techniques of its time and the system of adab in general to a work of a religiously repressed literati, who envisaged Abū’l-Fatḥ as his only tongue-in-cheek vehicle of venting. As Abdullah al-Dabbagh rightly argues: A narrowly moralistic reading of the Maqâmât, and of the picaresque generally surely misses the point. The work adopts the mock-heroic stance for satiric purposes, and the author’s viewpoint must not be confounded with that of his ‘hero’. The targets of the satire—greed, the trading ethos, false piety, etc.—are so accurately achieved that no discerning reader can fail to see that it is precisely on this ground that the work has built its deeper, moral foundations.37

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Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄, al-Hamadhānı̄’s successor and reader, though famous for his baroque style is not in the habit of sugarcoating words when it comes to misreading literary works. In the preface to his maqāmāt, al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ anticipates some literalist readings and views during his time. He says: ʿalā annı̄ wa in aghmaḍ liya l-faṭinu l-mutaghābı̄ wa naḍaḥ ʿannı̄ l-muḥibbu l-muḥābı̄ lā akādu akhlaṣu min ghumrin jāhilin aw dhı̄ ghimrin mutajāhilin yaḍaʿu minnı̄ li-hādha l-waḍʿi wa yunaddid bi-annahu min manāhı̄ l-sharʿi wa man naqad al-ashyāʾ bi-ʿayni al-maʿqūl wa amʿan l-naẓar fı̄ mabānı̄ l-uṣūl naẓam hādhihi l-maqāmāti fı̄ silki l-ifādāti...fa-ayyu ḥarajinn ʿalā man anshaʾa mulaḥan li-l-tanbı̄hi lā li-l-tamwı̄hi wa naḥa bihā manḥā l-tahdhı̄bi lā l-akādhı̄bi As if the intelligent one feigning ignorance blinding his eyes to me as well as the revering admirers departing are not enough. I am met with the ignorant simpleton or the envious one feigning ignorance criticising this literary work and claiming it is against religion. Though those who apply reason in their critique and deliberate over the structural foundations compose these maqāmāt in the way of benefits…what wrongdoing is there in someone composing an entertaining work for caution and not deception and adopting the route of edification not deceit?38

Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ attributes the inspiration behind his work not only to his predecessor al-Hamadhānı̄ as the author and founder of the maqāma genre but also to the two fictional protagonists. He discusses both Abū’l Fatḥ ̄ b. Hishām in a telling manner. He discusses the foral-Iskandarı̄ and ʿIsa mer as the protagonist who established the genre and the latter as the one who was responsible for narrating it.39 Both characters are referred to as anonymous and unidentified (majhūl lā yuʿraf wa nakira lā tataʿrraf), i.e. fictional characters.40 He continues in his preface that it is those characters that helped shape the maqāma genre. Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ does not stop at praising the extraordinary talent of al-Hamadhānı̄ as an author—which he fully acknowledges to the extent of admitting to feeling al-Hamadhānı̄ towering over him—but he extends the success of the maqāmāt to the fictional characters. Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ describes al-Iskandarı̄ in what Umberto Eco calls ‘a fluctuating character’; he ‘exhibits a core of properties that seem to be identified by everybody’.41 Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ therefore acknowledges the ‘core properties’ of the admired charlatan in what would become a literary reincarnation of an ontological object known as Abū Zayd al-Surūjı̄, the protagonist of al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄’s maqāmāt. The way pre-modern litterateurs read and understood each other and treated the corpus of adab as a continuum and

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as the creative output of their culture should be a foundation for literary criticism in general and our approach to their work, exactly in the way al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ intended. ̄ ’s fascination with Abū’l-Fatḥ is also noticeable in al-maḍır̄ iyya ʿIsā ̄ describes Abū’l-Fatḥ as ‘rajul al-faṣāḥa yadʿūhā fa-tujı̄buh wa as ʿIsa l-balāgha yaʾmuruhā fa-tut ̣ı̄ʿuh’,42 in al-Sāriyya as ‘amı̄r al-kalām’,43 and in al-Iblı̄siyya, Abū’l-Fatḥ receives the highest accolade because of his ability to trick Iblı̄s himself (the devil) into giving him his turban.44 Yet, it is ̄ b. Hishām is always drawing attention to Abū’lsurprising to find that ʿIsa Fatḥ’s fraud as if the former’s function, as identified by Ṣammūd, is one resembling an act of al-bayān wa l-tabyı̄n,45 or ‘clarity and clarification’. In ̄ b. Hishām might be searching for a potenother words, it appears that ʿIsa tial truth behind Abū’l-Fatḥ’s appearance, however, he is more than content with the empty meaning Abū’l-Fatḥ presents because of the latter’s talent and originality. This could only explain the function of language ̄ b. Hishām’s relationship with for both men. As Ṣammūd maintains, ʿIsa al-Iskandarı̄ is a semantic one. It is analogous to the relationship between utterance (al-lafẓ) and meaning (al-maʿnā) and ultimately the interplay of this dichotomy amongst people.46 Abū’l-Fatḥ is constantly challenging the function of language and is upsetting its normal accepted register of the correspondence of lafẓ to maʿnā through kadhib, hence laghw. In this manner, it is evident how Abū’l-Fatḥ designates names to things that upset the normal accepted register of their function and meaning (ʿaql = junūn, for instance) or refrains from identifying things altogether. This becomes ̄ b. Hishām uncovers the guise of al-Iskandarı̄; highlighted every time ʿIsa this is precisely the defining action that precludes a meaning from being ̄ ’s acts of tabyı̄n to Abū’l-Fatḥ’s ascribed to an utterance. However, ʿIsā universe of anti-bayān are ambiguous, because his only tool for analysis and measurement is the artistry of Abū’l-Fatḥ’s words, viz. his eloquence. This is most evident in al-Fazāriyya. When Abū’l-Fatḥ is asked about his identity, his answer refers to his intellectual and linguistic abilities: Tell me, who art thou?’ He replied: ‘Peace hast thou found.’ I said: ‘Thou hast answered well, but who art thou?’ He answered: ‘A counsellor, if thou seekest counsel, an orator if thou desirest converse, but before my name is a veil which the mentioning of no proper name can remove.’47

Abū’l-Fatḥ’s speech has the power to cause a suspension of reason.48 ̄ b. Hishām’s response in al-Jurjāniyya as This is most exemplified in ʿIsa

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̄ Abū’l-Fatḥ practises his mendicant ways through embellished speech; ʿIsa ̄ describes the reaction to the former’s words: ‘Said ʿIsa ibn Hishám: By Heavens! then did hearts feel compassion for him and eyes streamed with tears at the beauty of his speech.’49 ̄ ’s disposition before the recognition scene articulates the emoʿIsā tional impact of the words of al-Iskandarı̄ but this emotional impact does ̄ realises not progress beyond the moment of recognition itself when ʿIsa the value of Abū’l-Fatḥ’s words. Hämeen-Anttila speaks of the moment of ‘recognition’ as characteristic of the structure of the maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄.50 In an Arab-Islamic context, recognition or anagnorisis, Philip F. Kennedy maintains, is ‘…commensurate with the emergence of ̄ follows the mendicant who certain truth’.51 In the above situation, ʿIsa charmed him with his words; he then discovers that the mendicant is ̄ refrains from giving an opinion or a judgement about Abū’l-Fatḥ. ʿIsa this fact; it becomes the last thing he reports as a narrator on his acts ̄ is not concerned with meaning. This attitude of ambiguous tabyı̄n. ʿIsa becomes obvious in his reaction in al-Adharbayjāniyya upon overhearing the speech of a stranger for the first time in the marketplace. The stranger ̄ ’s reaction is an instant measurement turns out later to be Abū’l-Fatḥ. ʿIsā of the stranger’s words against his yardstick of eloquence: ‘This man is more eloquent than our Alexandrian Abū’l-Fatḥ.’52 ̄ is only The only quality Abū’l-Fatḥ is admired for is his eloquence. ʿIsa focused on the appearances of words despite Abū’l-Fatḥ’s subtle hints ̄ and the reader to discern their meaning. He proposes that ʿIsa ̄ to ʿIsa and the reader equally taste this mendicancy (eloquence) as if it were a delicacy. This is iterated in several places across the maqāmāt where Abū’lFatḥ postulates this thesis, most notably in the same maqāma referred to above, al-Adharbayjāniyya. ‘Blame me not—mayest thou receive right guidance! For my mendicity, but taste it.’53 Kudya here, which is the essence of the ruse itself, also a reference to taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan, is presented as a delicacy that must be savoured. The incompatibility of Abū’l-Fatḥ’s request with its intrinsic reality not only reveals the complex structure of the maqāmāt but also heightens its comic tension. Abū’l-Fatḥ presents his overall deception and lies (qubḥ) as a dish that should be tasted. Thus, to consume Abū’l-Fatḥ’s platter of kudya would render one devoid of reason, as he is feeding everyone lies, while to pos̄ indicates, would expose his kudya sess rashād, as the well-wish for ʿIsa dish as empty. The paradox is clear. An assessment of his ruse through rashād ultimately proves their emptiness but also his talents. In the above

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example, the concept of ʿaql/rashād is in operation as both a moral force (Reason) and an intellectual reasoning power (reason). This process is also resonant in al-makfūfiyya where Abū’l-Fatḥ pretends to be a blind ̄ who disorator dazzling people with his elaborate speech, including ʿIsa ̄ covers his trick as soon as the former recognises the dı̄nār ʿIsa gives him, ̄ is more intrigued thereby annulling his guise as a blind man. As usual, ʿIsa by the workings of Abū’l-Fath and wishes to know how he pulls off this disguise; Abū’l-Fatḥ shows him and concludes with these lines. I am Abú Qalamún, In every hue do I appear, Choose a base calling, For base is thy age, Repel time with folly, For verily time is a kicking camel. Never be deceived by reason, Madness is the only reason.54

ʿAql here is referred to strictly as the restraining moral force that should deter from ḥumq and other forms of qubḥ and make one question them as the fourth line maintains. According to Abū’l-Fatḥ however, the possession of ʿaql is junūn (madness/folly) and one should not question acts that are anti-Reason. The choice of register is worthy of investigation. Junūn presupposes a state where the observing of any obligation or decorum is suspended because of the absence of reason as an intellectual faculty. In other words, junūn, as the unconscious lack of boundaries and unrestrained behaviour prescribed by madness, is proposed to be the definition of ʿaql. But does this not evoke excess, transgression, and lack of reason also in their unrestraint? Junūn encompasses all of the above but unlike the aforementioned categories, which more often than not are conscious of themselves (i.e. conscious of their qubḥ as in keeping with the definition of ḥumq), junūn is not. This is because judgement is prevented in the case of junūn because it is involuntary ̄ ’s and the reader’s and is also a form of affliction. This is precisely ʿIsā reaction towards Abū’l-Fatḥ’s tricks. Judgement is suspended as if he ̄ were a madman because of the empty meaning he feeds us as well as ʿIsa. He is not only forgiven for everything he does but he is even admired, ̄ ’s part. Al-Hamadhānı̄ presents Abū’l-Fatḥ as one who at least on ʿIsā elicits judgement on an artistic level. Morally, he ‘…like all the heroes of the picaresque genre, is clearly not meant to be emulated’.55 As a channel of satire, his inverted moral universe is mandatory. The repudi-

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ation of ʿaql as junūn by Abū’l-Fatḥ is the technique that al-Hamadhānı̄ relies on in presenting Abū’l-Fatḥ’s inverted universe with its values as valid through rhetoric alone but at the same time invites the reader to question this universe.56

STRUCTURE: ʿAQL IS JUNŪN Al-Hamadhānı̄’s deliberate choice of content as low and vulgar, and mode of delivery as deceptive and alluring language (zukhruf al-qawl) through the character of Abū’l-Fatḥ creates a technique out of established concepts of qubḥ by going against accepted opinions of beauty not only in belles-lettres but also in the Arab-Islamic culture. In his taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan,57 al-Thaʿālibı̄ (d. 430/1039) does not present a detailed discussion of this technique as much as he introduces numerous selfexplanatory examples from poetry and prose attributed to well-known figures and literati on established concepts of qubḥ and ḥusn. Al-Thaʿālibı̄ gives several examples of poetry praising concepts of qubḥ like al-kadhib (lying) or undesirable conditions such as al-waḥda (solitude), for instance, while condemning recognised concepts of ḥusn such as al-ʿaql (reason), or al-ḥayā’ (modesty), for example. Examples from poetry are not only restricted to abstract concepts as such. There are other entertaining poems such as Ibn al-Rūmı̄’s hijāʾ al-ward (invective of roses) and Ibn al-Ḥ ājib’s hijāʾ al-banafsaj (invective of sweet violets). This technique, according to al-Thaʿālibı̄, who was rightly ‘fascinated by al-Hamadhānı̄’s talents,’58 is the height of excellence and eloquence: ‘taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan idhā huma ghāyatā al-barāʿa wa l-qudra ʿalā jazl al-kalām fı̄ sirr al-balāgha wa siḥr al-ṣināʿa.’ (beautifying the ugly and uglifying the beautiful are the ultimate skills and the ability to cut words in the secrets of rhetoric and the charm of the craft.)59 Perhaps the charm of the craft is personified in Abū’l Fatḥ himself. Al-Thaʿālibı̄ immediately realises the anticipated criticism against this technique from the literalists as he quotes Ibn al-Tawʾam who maintains that ‘lying where it is appropriate to lie is like telling the truth when truth should be told’.60 In addition, al-Thaʿālibı̄ then concludes his defence by the famous dictum ‘aḥsan al-shiʿr akdhabuh’ and that ‘writing is not beautified (lā taḥsun) without lying’.61 But is it really lying if there is an implicit contract between poet/author and reader agreeing that it is not true from the beginning? Surely, the very title of the technique presupposes a contract on agreed values that are beautiful and others that

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are ugly. The poet’s shuffling of these values aims at soliciting wonder not upsetting these values. The technique goes beyond truth and falsehood as the only criteria of evaluation to aesthetics and wonder—the very reaction to the maqāmāt. As Lara Harb argues, after the tenth and eleventh centuries, poetry evaluation was focused primarily on the aesthetic experience and evoking wonder.62 In al-ʿIqd al-Farı̄d, Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi (d. 328/940) attempts to define eloquence (al-balāgha) and exemplifies definitions from various known and unknown sources. Most definitions agree that the essence of eloquence is to deliver the intended meaning, as it should, in this respect it evokes the aforementioned concept of balāgh mubı̄n (clear message).63 The same delineation of this concept is also observed in Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄’s Kitāb al-Ṣināʿatayn64 and also in his Kitāb al-Talkhı̄s ̣ fı̄ Maʿrifat Asmāʾ al-Ashyāʾ.65 Ibn Rashı̄q (d. 463/1071) maintains the same definition in his al-ʿUmda as well.66 This explanation reinforces the concept of clarity as an aspect of the paradigm of beautiful speech. However, the aforementioned pre-modern literary critics do not all agree that this technique itself is the utmost assessment of talent. Taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan is mentioned as being only a part of eloquence for Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi.67 while Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄ deems it the height of eloquence.68 Ibn Rashı̄q, however, considers the technique as a type of eloquence that manages to describe (waṣf) the positive side of something (maḥāsin shayʾ) and its negative side (masāwi’ shayʾ),69 at the same time, which for Ibn Rashı̄q should not be classified as hypocrisy (nifāq) but simply an ability to see both sides of something.70 Ibn Rashı̄q’s supplementary addition to the definition of the technique describes a slightly different methodology than what al-Hamadhānı̄ had in mind and what is considered taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan. Ibn Rashı̄q’s later understanding of the definition could be seen in practice in al-maqāma al-dīnāriyya by al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄, who is relatively closer to Ibn Rashı̄q’s time, where the maqāma is constructed on the basis of earning a dı̄nār if the disguised al-Surūjı̄ succeeds in praising it and another one if he convincingly condemns it. Thus, there is both madı̄ḥ and hijāʾ for the dı̄nār. Similarly, al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ repeats this rhetorical technique as a basis for his al-maqāma al-bikriyya, where there is both praise and criticism for virgin wives at one time and the same for non-virgin wives. In this respect, al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ is in dialogue with the technique and employs it as part of the raison d’être of the maqāmāt as envisioned by al-Hamadhānı̄ but does it in a direct manner in these two maqāmas at least, unlike al-Hamadhānı̄ who arranged his whole work (content, character, struc-

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ture) to be in dialogue with the technique but with less self-revelation. This permeating quality of al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique adds more finesse to his work. His understanding and application of the technique is reflected in the writings of his contemporary al-ʿAskarı̄ and the younger contemporary al-Thaʿālibı̄. It should be mentioned that this technique was known earlier. In a poem, Abbasid poet Ibn al-Rūmı̄ (d. 283/896) said that any adı̄b (literati) should be able to possess such skills, ‘law arāda al-adı̄bu an yahjū l-badra ramāhu bi-l-khuṭati al-shanʿāiʾ’71 (If a literati wishes to write invective poetry against the full moon, s/he would accuse it of the most heinous plotting scheme). Ibn al-Rūmı̄ then ventures to accuse the moon of some shocking scheming, naturally. It appears that al-Hamadhānı̄’s method is engaged with a far more sophisticated technique than describing both the positive and negative sides of something equally. He does not rely only on one technique as shown in the examples presented by al-Thaʿālibı̄; he relies on both. In other words, his approach does not rely on either taḥsı̄n al qabı̄ḥ or taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan and presenting them separately; it does both at the same time, even simultaneously. In the maqāmāt, reason is perpetually condemned and presented as unnecessary while deception, lies, and madness are praised. This is clearly more than presenting the positive and/or negative side of something; this is creating a semiotic tension between established meanings altogether for the purpose of satire. Al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique is captured by Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄’s definition and understanding of this method. Al-ʿAskarı̄ maintains that ‘In order to beautify whatever is not itself beautiful (taḥsı̄n mā laysa bi-ḥasan), or render as sound what is not sound (taṣḥıh̄ ̣ mā laysa bi-ṣaḥıh̄ ̣), one must employ a sort of ruse (ḍarb min al-iḥtiyāl…).’72 In the maqāmāt, this is not done through poetry or pieces of prose as in the examples of al-Thaʿālibı̄ and others.73 Rather, it is established through the structure of the narrative pieces with a representative of a fixed figure of qubḥ (deception through lying), as the beautifier of all ugly things or the uglifier of all beautiful things. The compulsive liar,74 Abū’l-Fatḥ, who features in all of the maqāmāt is the ‘ruse’ itself, personified. His attitude, speech, and eloquence are the manifestation of this technique. The world he creates ultimately invokes this technique, with ̄ b. Hishām, for instance, to the contribution of other characters such as ʿIsa this semiotic tension by virtue of being in the world of Abū’l-Fatḥ, as shall be shown in due time. In this respect, al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique, while in dialogue with taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan, shows complexity in the intricacy of its structure through utilising various sources and registers

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of qubḥ and challenging various established concepts of qubḥ to achieve maximum appeal and entertainment value in the totality of his own work. Following this argument then, al-Dı̄nāriyya is apposite to this discussion for investigating al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique within the paradoxical sphere of qubḥ typified in content and character and the representation of this qubḥ in eloquent language.

THE PURPOSE IS

TO HUMILIATE:

MAQĀMA DI N ̄ ĀRIYYA

This maqāma boasts of being nothing but a torrent of expletives, a match of invectives between Abū’l-Fatḥ and another mendicant identified only as being another fellow of Banū Sāsān. The maqāma is in dialogue with the established mode of hijāʾ. It begins on a note of noble feelings of ̄ b. Hishām who wishes to give a dı̄nār charity (ṣadaqa) expressed by ʿIsa to the best, not the neediest, beggar in Baghdad; he was told that it is Abū’l-Fatḥ. The criterion of choice (excellence versus neediness) raises the aforementioned question of the metaphor of mendicancy (al-kudya) in the maqāmāt. Upon reaching the place where Banū Sāsān are to be found; ̄ puts forward his wish to all beggars, including Abū’l-Fatḥ who prides ʿIsa ̄ previously knows himself in being the best mendicant in Baghdad, as ʿIsa through third-party communication. Therefore, the question of knowing ̄ it who the best mendicant in Baghdad is now rendered obsolete for ʿIsa, becomes a matter of seeing this earned status performed before him. The function of language as a carrier of knowledge versus its capacity for also being a vehicle of displaying artistic virtuosity and a means for pleasure is evident. This is evident when the two beggars begin to have a side quar̄ chooses the method of rel over the title of the ‘best’ mendicant and ʿIsa adjudication to be verbal assault (mushātama). Both parties fired a diverse series of invectives in terms of quantity and quality, which ranges from animal and insect similes to the more sophisticated constructed metaphysical and astronomical insulting metaphors (Table 9.1). The hijāʾ duel presupposes that the winner should be the most insulting. For this to happen, the winner needs to be successful at the potential of humiliating the other party. This emotion relies on the rhetoric of ibʿād, or exclusion: As for invective, some of the accusations are so grossly and grotesquely exaggerated, especially the obscenities, that nobody among the public is likely to take them seriously. One might think that this would undermine belief

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Table 9.1 Comparison of the hijāʾ duel in al-maqāma al-dı̄nāriyya Categories

Abū’l-Fatḥ

The other mendicant

1.Animals/Insects similes & metaphors a. Animals b. Insects 2. Human bodily functions/ malfunctions a. Natural b. Unnatural

umm ḥubayn; dūdat al-kanīf

qird fı̄ l-firāsh; kalb fı̄ l-hirāsh qurād al-qurūd

tukhmat al-ruʾūs; bawl al-khiṣyān; tharı̄d al-thūm; jushāʾ al-makhmūr; ramad al-ʿayn bukhl al-Ahwāzı̄; fuḍul̄ al-Rāzı̄ kitāb al-taʿāzı̄, khudhrūfat al-qudūr; watid al-dūr; wasakh al-kūz; dirham lā yajūz nak-hat al-ṣuqūr

qalaḥ al-asnān; wasakh al-ādhān; ṣunān al-ibṭ muḥarrik al-ʿaẓm; muʿajjil al-haḍm

3. Cultural stereotypes 4. Material metaphors a. Visual tangible b. Sensory

5. Astronomical metaphors a. Real b. Imaginary 6.Non-Material metaphors a. Temporal-emotional b. Spatial-emotional c. Situational-Emotional

kawkab al-nuḥūs; arbaʿāʾ lā tadūr bard al-ʿajūz; kurbat Tammūz; sanat al-buʾs; sabt al-ṣibyān; sāʿat al-ḥayn; sanat al-ṭāʿūn ghadāt al-bayn; maqtal al-Ḥ usayn; bādiyat al-Zaqqūm ḥadı̄th al-mughannı̄n; wat ̣ʾ al-kābūs; firāq al-muḥibbı̄n; thiqal al-dayn; barı̄d al-shūm; t ̣arı̄d al-lawm; manʿ al-māʿūn; baghı̄ al-ʿabı̄d; farwa fı̄ l-maṣıf̄ ; tanaḥnuḥ al-muḍıf̄ idhā kusir al-raghı̄f; ṭamaʿ al-maqmūr; ḍajar al-lisān; shafāʿat al- ʿuryān

labbūd al-yahūd madrajat al-akuff; ajarr min qalas;waḥl al-ṭarı̄q; makhjal al-misḥa; mukhallal al-milḥb;wakaf al-bayt nak-hat al-usūd; māʾ ʿalā al-rı̄q; mahabb al-khuff; dukhān al-nafṭ; qarʿiyya bi-māsh hilāl al-hulk

zawāl al-mulk; afḍaḥ min ʿabra

(continued)

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Table 9.1 (continued) Categories

Abū’l-Fatḥ

The other mendicant

7.Metaphysical metaphors a. Conceptual b. Constructed

qarārat al- makhāzı̄; simat al-shayn; muʾākalat al-ʿumyān

8. Rhetorical metaphors a. Explicit b. Implicit 9. Concluding insult

kalām al-muʿı̄d; āyat al-waʿı̄d; aqbaḥ min ḥattā fı̄ mawādiʿ shattā wallāhi law waḍaʿt iḥdā rijlayk ʿalā Arwand wa l-ukhrā ʿalā Dumāwand wa ittakhadht bi-yadak qaws quzaḥ wa nadaft al-ghaym fı̄ jibāb al-malāʾika mā kunt illā ḥallāj

ʿadam fı̄ wujūd; aqall min lāsh yā daraj idruj yā dakhal ikhrujc;akhbath mimman bāʾ bi-dhull al-ṭalāq wa manʿ al-ṣidāq; aqall min fals; abghā min ibra kalimat layt; kayt wa kayt

wallāhi law waḍaʿt istak ʿalā al-nujūm wa dallayt rijlak fi al-tukhūm wa ittakhadht al-shiʿrā khuff wa l-thurayya raff wa jaltʿa al-samāʿ minwāl wa ḥikt al-hawāʾ sirbāl fa-saddayt bi-l-nasr al-ṭāʾir wa alḥamt bi-l-falak al-dāʾir mā kunt illā ḥāʾik

a ʿAbduh includes this in the footnote but not the text, and explains that misḥ is the rough dress made of animals’ hair

According to ʿAbduh, this means decayed salt. He also removed it from the body and included it in the footnote b

ʿAbduh only mentions this in the explanatory footnote but he removed it from the body of the maqāma. The expression is an indication of feelings of undesirability and unwelcome towards the person in question

c

in any accusations that do in fact contain elements of truth but the object of invective is to humiliate the victim and to convince the public, not of the truth of the accusations, but of the humiliating potential of the poem.75

Quantitatively, the competing beggar has 31 insults76; this is 15 insults fewer than Abū’l-Fatḥ’s total of 46. The quality of insults of both parties should also shed light on the issue of judgement as to whether Abū’l-Fatḥ is indeed the best mendicant in Baghdad. The match of invective begins with the least sophisticated forms of verbal aggression and ends with the most elaborate. Both parties use the most common denominator of insults, insects, and animal similes and metaphors in this row three times. Abū’l-Fatḥ uses two revolting images to insult his opponent when he chooses to utilise the animal/insect similes. He calls the

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other beggar umm ḥubayn (female chameleon) and dūdat al-kanı̄f (toilet worm/sludge worm). The importance of this reptilian image is evident in the expression dūdat al-kanı̄f, for this is not only a worm but Abū’l-Fatḥ intended for it to conjure the lowest possible form of existence and that is living off human waste, perhaps in a reference to mendicancy in specific and parasitical life forms in general.77 What is interesting about this image of linking human waste to miserliness is its use by Diʿbil (d. 246/860), where someone’s miserliness is described as exceeding all limits in the way it would not allow his own waste to be wasted, so to speak: a-taqfilu maṭbakhan lā shayʾa fı̄hi / min al-dunyā yukhāfu ʿalayhi aklu fa-hādha al-maṭbakhu istawthaqta minhu / fa-mā bālu al-kanı̄fi ʿalayhi qiflu wa lakin qad bakhilta bi-kulli shayʾin / fa-ḥatta al-salḥa minka ʿalayhi bukhl Do you lock a kitchen void of anything edible in the world? The kitchen you have locked, why is there a lock on the toilet’s door? But your miserliness have permeated all, even your waste from you to it [toilet] cannot be spared.78

While the above example of hijāʾ also links images of the toilet and excrements, al-Hamadhānı̄’s image is more elaborate in the manner it crosses boundaries of miserliness (through food, toilet, and excrements) to parasitical activities (feeding off other people’s wastes) and encapsulates these meanings in one precise image of the toilet worm. In addition, Abū’l-Fatḥ’s insults using references to ramad al-ʿayn (ophthalmia), complications of castration, show a certain awareness of developed and acquired physical ailments that go beyond the basic and common bodily functions (ear wax, teeth tartar), poor hygiene (armpits malodour), and/or malfunctions (fever, indigestion) that preoccupy his opponent’s lexicon. After both parties resort to cultural stereotypes to propagate cultural myths they start exchanging a more sophisticated banter of astronomical insults that should be rewarding to investigate. The opponent calls Abū’l-Fatḥ hilāl al-hulk,79 which is a rather elaborate expression. The image is that of an imaginary lunar month of destruction and doom and the latter, Abū’l-Fatḥ, is likened to be its announcing crescent moon. Abū’l-Fatḥ refers to two astronomical similes as well: kawkab al-nuḥūs (O unlucky star!)80 and arbaʿāʾ lā tadūr (O nonrecurring Wednesday!).81 It appears that they are more injurious than

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his opponent’s insult. With astronomy as a category of comparison, it certainly appears that a planet of misfortunes has more permanency than a lunar month of ruin; further, the reference to the last Wednesday of the lunar month is equally perennial in the sense that it is cyclical and is meant to convey a frequent and inevitable occurrence. Insults employing metaphysical metaphors are also to be found in both parties’ sets of verbal assaults at varying degrees. The competing beggar uses two metaphysical insults as follows: ʿadam fı̄ wujūd (O non-entity in existence!) and aqall min lāsh (O less than nothing!). This image of nothingness as unimportance is also found in Abū Tammām’s hijāʾ, ‘mā kuntu aḥsabu anna l-dahra yumhilunı̄/ḥattā arā aḥadan yahjūhu lā aḥadū’82 (I would not have thought that I would have lived to see somebody being insulted by nobody). He is also reported to have said ‘anta anzaru min lā shayʿa fı̄ l-ʿadadi’83 (you are less than zero). The final category of comparison is that of the rhetorical insults, the opponent makes use of two insults: kalimat layt and kayt wa kayt. Typically, kalimat layt [the word ‘would that’] is indicative of regret or simply losses of any kind, hence, the repulsive nature of the person being called layt. The usage of the grammatical particle layt to become an invective communicates the rhetoric of disappointment. This is also evident in the employment of the next rhetorical insult, which the opponent uses before his conclusion: kayt wa kayt (you are such and such). This is quite a clever trick on al-Hamadhānı̄’s part because it is meant to show the talent of Abū’l-Fatḥ on many levels. On one hand, it indicates that the latter is highly unpleasant or offensive to be described; there are no words to sum him up (for good or ill). On the other hand, if taken in the context of the opponent’s overall mediocre skills compared to Abū’l-Fatḥ, it shows verbal (mental) helplessness in the face of adversity and under stress, because the contest is ultimately about doing everything with language. In this respect, kayt wa kayt is annulled as an insult—despite its appearance—and is relegated to defeat instead. The opponent evokes the rhetoric of discomfort through the use of relevant grammatical particles and words that convey this emotion in the aforementioned examples. The method is reversed in Abū’l-Fatḥ’s rhetorical insults whereby he focuses not on signs of this rhetoric exemplified in particles but rather on the meanings and expressions themselves. Abū’l-Fatḥ’s rhetorical metaphors are his most creative insults: āyat al-waʿı̄d, kalām al-muʿı̄d and aqbaḥ min ḥattā fı̄ mawāḍiʿ shattā. They all communicate the discomforting forms of speech and imagery. The distressing aspects communicated in these forms of speech are perceptible. The

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final insult is perhaps the most creative, which capitalises on a problematic issue in Arabic grammar: the particle ḥattā. This particle is described as ugly by Abū’l-Fatḥ whichever way one looks at it and in any position in a sentence. This is precisely the nature of its problem.84 The expression likens the opponent to the unstable meaning of ḥattā through its various uses. Because of this excess in meaning according to its grammatical construction as well, the particle is problematic and tricky; the opponent’s ugliness therefore stems from his tricky nature—much like the particle itself. Further to the abstract rhetoric of disappointment, al-Hamadhānı̄, through Abū’l-Fatḥ and his opponent, excels in producing other insults that describe the emotional indescribable like ḥadı̄th al-mughannı̄n (O conversation of the singers!), farwa fı̄ l-maṣıf̄ (O furred garment in the summer-quarters!), tanaḥnuḥ al-muḍıf̄ idhā kusir al-raghı̄f (O coughing of the host, when the bread is broken!), and qarārat al-makhāzı̄ (O pool of impurities!). The closest effect to describe al-Hamadhānı̄’s metaphors is Ezra Pound’s definition of an image with respect to his concept of Imagism; Pound maintains that an image is ‘that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time’.85 The innovative quality of these insults is situated in their ability to express rarely or hardlyif-ever expressed emotions not only because of their inappropriateness but also because of their indescribability; they resemble transient automatic thoughts that remain uncommunicated between people. They also capture the unease induced by social awkwardness during irritable moments. In most of these situations, silence is declared as the most eloquent response instead of speech. However, al-Hamadhānı̄’s artistry, through Abū’l-Fatḥ’s verbal articulation of the ‘unspoken’ quality of these moments, speaks of a certain faith in the ability of language to do almost anything. For instance, the insult tanaḥnuḥ al-muḍıf̄ idhā kusir al-raghı̄f endeavours to convey avarice but it uses contradictory registers when it associates miserliness with the host (muḍıf̄ ) of the social gathering—it raises the question of illogical associations and conceptual coherence. Al-Hamadhānı̄’s technique becomes obvious when compared to a similar hijāʾ on miserliness: idhā kusira l-raghı̄fu bakā ʿalayhı̄ / bukāʾ l-Khansāʾi idh fujiʿat bi-Ṣakhr86 If the bread loaf was broken/He cries over it like al-Khansāʾ did over Sakhr

The above line is a descriptive dramatisation of the quality of miserliness itself recounting a sequence of events triggered by the breaking of the

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loaf of bread that induces a crying motivated by a loss comparable only to the inconsolable loss of al-Khansāʾ. Al-Hamadhānı̄’s artistry lies in capturing a single moment in time through an action as simple as throat clearing that sums up this quality. His technique rests in turning the decorum of preserving polite silence into articulate speech. It is safe to concur that some of these emotions, because they are rarely expressed out of decorum, could perhaps be amongst the most imaginative in the maqāma. Abū’l-Fatḥ uses one reference to history as an insult, maqtal al-Ḥ usayn (O scene of the martyrdom of al-Ḥ usain!). The advantage of this insult on Abū’l-Fatḥ’s part over his opponent shows an innovation in the metaphor storage as well. Within the context of the maqāma, as a competition of wits, this adds to Abū’l-Fatḥ’s creative use of a wide variety of facts and different areas of knowledge (astronomical, historical, medical, rhetorical, grammatical, and so on). Finally, the formulaic conclusion of the two parties is evocative of the compelling insult formula by Ibn al-ʿAmı̄d87: (d. 360/970): By Heavens! With what embellishments have you stood up to him?! If you crowned yourself with the Pleiades, and wrapped your logic with the Gemini, and took the galaxy as a scarf, and wore the Elpheia as a pendant you would still be plain! If you sought clarity with the flowering spring lights and incised your frontal lobe with the luminous full moon and borrowed from the morning a dress and ventured into the glaring daylight you would still be witless!88 ‫ﻭ ﻟﻴﺖ ﺷﻌﺮﻱ ﺑﺄﻱ ﺣﻠﻲ ﺗﺼﺪﻳﺖ ﻟﻪ ﻭﺃﻧﺖ ﻟﻮ ﺗﺘﻮﺟﺖ ﺑﺎﻟﺜﺮﻳﺎ ﻭ ﺗﻤﻨﻄﻘﺖ ﺑﺎﻟﺠﻮﺯﺍء ﻭﺗﻮﺷﺤﺖ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﺠﺮﺓ ﻭ ﺗﻘﻠﺪﺕ‬ ‫ﻗﻼﺩﺓ ﺍﻟﻔﻜﺔ ﻣﺎ ﻛﻨﺖ ﺇﻻ ﻋﻄﻼ ﻭ ﻟﻮ ﺗﻮﺿﺤﺖ ﺑﺄﻧﻮﺍﺭ ﺍﻟﺮﺑﻴﻊ ﺍﻟﺰﺍﻫﺮ ﻭ ﺷﺪﺧﺖ ﻓﻲ ﺟﺒﻴﻨﻚ ﻏﺮﺓ ﺍﻟﺒﺪﺭ ﺍﻟﺒﺎﻫﺮ ﻭ‬ ‫ﺍﺳﺘﻌﺮﺕ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺼﺒﺎﺡ ﺛﻮﺑًﺎ ﻭﺧﻀﺖ ﺃﻭﺿﺎﺡ ﺍﻟﻨﻬﺎﺭ ﺧﻮﺿًﺎ ﻣﺎ ﻛﻨﺖ ﺇﻻ ﻏﻔﻼ‬

This similar structure observed between al-Hamadhānı̄’s material and Ibn al-ʿAmı̄d’s set expression, is also found in al-Jāḥiẓ’s dramatic exaggeration formula in his Risāla fı̄ l-Jidd wa l-Hazl.89 The formula could be summarised as IF + Impossibilities. That these literatis’ satirical drama fits are witty and amusing is unquestionable but the idea here is to highlight that the formula’s gist is that even if the interlocutor did all these exaggerated impossibilities and unthinkables, the other party would still be quite excessive and unjustified in whatever is dictated by the context. The same formulaic style is in fact adopted by al-Azdı̄’s (fl. fifth/eleventh century) character, Abū’l-Qāsim in Ḥ ikāyat Abı̄’l-Qāsim al-Baghdādı̄,90 in one of his dialogues reproaching

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a guest for brushing the former the wrong way.91 The protagonist sees no reason for this attitude so he takes religious impossibilities to exaggerate a point similar to al-Jāḥiẓ’s style and formula (it means even if the protagonist did all these impossibilities, which is impossible, hence the whole point of exaggeration, the other party would still be unjustified. This is merely to highlight the excess of the other party). Shmuel Moreh overlooks these rhetorical connections and reads this formulaic style in the Ḥ ikāya as a ‘blasphemous’ act when it is merely a common stylistic device in adab as the ones mentioned above; they engage in illogical and impossible exaggerations through negating not positively affirming the content of the exaggeration formula itself. Moreh maintains, ‘If anyone laughs at him, he gets furious and emits a barrage of rude answers and blasphemies against the Qur’ān, the Prophet and all the sacred things of Islam.’ 92 This is not only a gross misreading of the text that rests on the convenient ‘blasphemous’ charges but also a misreading of the stylistic device itself that disregards its engagement with adab as a whole. The resemblance observed between some of al-Hamadhānı̄’s substance and others’ poetry and prose does not preclude his or their originality. In fact, it shows that authors read each other, and that adab as a system of literary networks and stylistic devices is in operation. In addition, the fact ‘…was that originality of material was not appreciated. The focus of originality was the how, not the what.’93 This is also adduced by al-Jāḥiẓ’s views on creativity and originality where he maintains that all meanings are available everywhere and to all people (al-maʿānı̄ mat ̣rūḥa); the most important factor of creativity is form and structure (al-shakl).94 This explains the aforementioned ‘how’. This is not to say that al-Jāḥiẓ de-emphasised content. This is a common misunderstanding. Rather he ‘was simply trying to show that content may be revealed only through adequate form[.]’95 The creative use of meanings in the dı̄nāriyya is evident in the culturally bound verbal assaults. The more universal the insult is, the less it measures up on the creative scale. ‘…what is insulting is culturally determined: it may differ from society to society, from class to class, and even from person to person.’96 This is also obvious in both parties insulting each other for being ‘tailors’; this is indicative of the status of some of the trades, vocations, and occupations in the culture at the time which al-Hamadhānı̄ aptly highlights.97 Abū’l-Fatḥ succeeds in producing the most culturally specific insults in comparison to his opponent; they would be rendered meaningless in any other society or culture. On the surface, this may seem to take the edge out of his insults because they are not universally valid but

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this is hardly the case; the more culturally specific the insult is, the more it boasts of sophistication and awareness. Universal insults (animals, insects, human wastes, and such) are almost effortless but the turning of what may seem like a cultural predicament pertaining to an issue of linguistic preoccupation (the particle ḥattā), for instance, into an insult, is in dialogue with the aforementioned Jāḥiẓian premise of al-maʿānı̄ al-maṭrūḥa. In addition, it shows innovation in the manner it creates a deeper impact through narrowing the sphere of insult application from universal to local/ regional (e.g. it is unlikely that a lot of people will be insulted as aqbaḥ min ḥattā, aside from the beggar, while the universal ‘dogs’ and ‘monkeys’ are ineffectual because of their enlarged community already). Abū’l-Fatḥ has the lead both quantitatively and qualitatively. However, ̄ b. Hishām judges that they both are winners. This at the end, a rapt ʿIsa begs the question of performance versus meaning: ̄ ibn Hishám: ‘By Heavens! I did not know which of the two I Said ʿIsa should prefer, for nought proceeded’from them save marvellous language, wonderful aptness, and intense enmity. So I left the dinar before them undivided and I know not what Time did with them.’98

̄ been carefully analysing the insults from both parties, he would Had ʿIsa have effortlessly realised that Abū’l-Fatḥ deserves the dı̄nār but it is clear ̄ was entranced by both performances and disregarded the quality that ʿIsa of the content. With respect to the three aforementioned paradoxes defining the structure of the maqāmāt: content, character, and structure, the dı̄nāriyya is in dialogue with these paradoxes. Not only is the content of the maqāma in direct contrast to the paradigmatic function of language, but it also epitomises the characteristics of qabı̄ḥ language by subverting truth and clarity through verbal aggression. Al-maqāma al-dı̄nāriyya stands as an embellished composition of verbal assaults and also as a maqāma that is void of real content, a narrative so to speak. This here is in keeping with al-Hamadhānı̄’s overall satirical thesis that contains a criticism of eloquence itself where the meaning ceases to become important and only the pleasure derived from language is what matters. The focus on the concept of pleasure derived from language on ̄ ’s part in relation to the pleasure experienced by the mendicants in the ʿIsā form of the anticipated dı̄nār should guide this investigation further and situate it within the main frame of qubḥ. As van Gelder maintains, each

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hijāʾ has its history,99 but the insults in the dı̄nāriyya are not motivated by a reason or a history except financial gain. The dı̄nār represents the story behind this hijāʾ.100 The absence of a reason for exchanging verbal aggressions and intense enmity then creates a seemingly illogical situation, which is concomitant with the illogical content (hyperbolic and fallacious language: laghw). Most of the exchanged insults fall under the category of laghw because (a) they satisfy at least one of its aforementioned conditions of being nonsensical and hyperbolic and as a result (b) they constitute a disagreeing relationship between the insults (naqāʾiḍ) and the victim. This situation in turn maximises the humour in the maqāma because it plays on the aforementioned concept of tensions as well. The two beggars are not represented as malicious men who are hostile to each other, or as enemies or even as strangers; rather they are represented as members of the same fraternity of Banū Sāsān. The dı̄nār then may very well stand for greed. This interplay becomes materialised in the maqāma as well, since the act of insulting, which is a transgression against Reason (qabı̄ḥ), is also an act that is void of reason because it lacks a motive. Perhaps the maqāma is to be read as a satire on some of the well-known greed-motivated hijāʾ in the pre-modern literary milieu. It is only a product of this desire (dı̄nār), which eventually results in a form of linguistic qubḥ. The act of taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ (insults become a source of pleasure and material ̄ ’s gains) is obvious. In like manner, taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan is also perceptible in ʿIsā ̄ actions. ʿIsā’s dı̄nār, which is meant to be a ṣadaqa (ḥasan), has lost all its ḥusn because charity is invalidated as he interchanges neediness with excellence in return for linguistic pleasure that is categorised as qabı̄ḥ. The pleā 101 becomes the pleasure of the dı̄nār for the beggars. sure of hijāʾ for ʿIsa Since the dı̄nāriyya is devoted solely to the qabı̄ḥ, the above analysis endeavoured to show how the qabı̄ḥ was deliberately ornate as is evident in ̄ ’s overwhelmed reaction and how the ḥasan was uglified through ʿIsā ̄ ’s ʿIsā invalid ṣadaqa. This explains the technique of the dı̄nāriyya in specific and similarly could shed light on the technique of the maqāmāt in general. The characterisation of laghw in its manifold expressions manifests itself also in the guises Abū’l-Fatḥ takes in most of the maqāmāt as someone who overturns truth by taking the guise of a lying trickster or as someone who upsets clarity through the license of insanity. Yet, despite Abū’l-Fatḥ’s ̄ ’s gratification from incessant upsetting of language and its function, ʿIsā these encounters is marked in the act of reporting them to a third party, who is equally enjoying these linguistic pleasures, the anonymous narrator of the maqāmāt. The circle of guilty pleasures then extends to an audience

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(the readers) who are willing to be entertained by three unreliable characters. The communication of pleasure becomes the most obvious and the most important factor in this enterprise.

ETERNAL TENSION… There is a perceptible linguistic and content tension in the world of the maqāmāt, which lends it its propensity for satire as well as humour. This quality was picked up on by later Arab authors and novelists such as Egyptian Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥı ̄ (1858–1930) whose work Ḥ adı̄th ̄ b. Hishām or A Point of Time joins the classical adab tradition with ʿIsa modern Arabic literature, so to speak. While the burgeoning Arabic novel at the time concerned itself with a new form and other stylistic questions as well as new questions, al-Muwayliḥı ̄ adopted the maqāma form and al-Hamadhānı̄’s narrator to write an acerbic satire on Egyptian society. Similarly, Palestinian Emile Habibi’s (1922–1996) novel al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Gharı̄ba fı̄ Ikhtifāʾ Saʿı̄d Abı̄’l-Naḥs al-Mutashāʾil [The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist] written in 1974 adopted the maqāma technique not because there was not any available. Rather, because the form evoked the classical maqāma known for its linguistic and content tensions and satire. From the start, Habibi’s novel employs this tension even in the title where the protagonist is called Saʿı̄d (Happy) Abı̄’l Naḥs (Father of Calamity), al-Mutashāʾil (a made up word combining the words mutafāʾil optimist and mutashāʾim pessimist, this is a technique known in Arabic as naḥt or sculpting).102 The tension does not stop at the title but Habibi’s technique and his mixing of the classical maqāma form with science fiction and the uniqueness of his character rescued ‘this work from gloom and harsh reality common to political novels, and so makes it a pleasure to read’.103 The entertainment value and the pleasure derived, by the reader, are a result of the tension the maqāma form espouses. The protagonist subtly informs the reader that everything he says is a deceptive lie, whilst simultaneously entertaining the reader with not only embellished language but also scholarly topics against a background and method (lies) that are characteristically unfit for both the language used and the topics discussed. This deliberate incongruity and the clash between language and behaviour in the maqāmāt’s structure are the sources of its self-acclaimed jocular phenomenon. This is only half of the tension created in the maqāmāt. A return to the meaning of eloquence at this juncture should guide this

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point further. While the above technique is considered one of the measurements of eloquence, it is presented by al-Hamadhānı̄ as a critique of eloquence. Al-Jāḥiẓ’s definition of eloquence should clarify this point. ‘Eloquence brings out the core of the problem. It assigns to meaning the words which legally belong to them and it assigns to words the content which they have.’104 In this regard, the definition evokes the two main aspects of beautiful speech: truth and clarity, which contribute to the concept of balāgh mubı̄n. Thus, it could be argued that in al-Hamadhānı̄’s view, this technique (taḥsı̄n al-qabı̄ḥ wa taqbı̄ḥ al-ḥasan) in itself perhaps constitutes a measurement of verbal acrobatics, as part of eloquence, which in its extremes resembles al-Hamadhānı̄’s own metaphor in his letter of ‘a person moving his tongue across his face and chest’ or even someone bearing a close resemblance to Abū’l-Fatḥ himself. Al-Hamadhānı̄’s views with respect to verbal acrobatics are quite clear in a letter addressed to Abū’lFawāris al-Aṣsạ m, he expresses his reserve with respect to the exaggeration of these games in the following manner: I like it that a man is eloquent and not at a loss for words (faṣiḥ al-lisān ṭawı̄luhu), with elegant clarity and vocabulary (ḥasan al-bayān jamı̄luhu) but I do not like it that his tongue gets so long that he licks his forehead and beats his chest with it. Moderation is the best in all things…105

Yet, he employs some of these very games in his work. He shows great pride in his work and he defends it by challenging his contemporaries on their inability to come up with something similar to it.106 How is this contradiction to be resolved? Al-Hamadhānı̄ could be described as possessing a semiotician’s outlook. His technique, therefore, becomes the message itself, ‘the medium is the message’ can thus be seen as reflecting a semiotic concern; to a semiotician the medium is not ‘neutral’.107 Thus, the deliberate destruction of all basis for indication by the incongruity al-Hamadhānı̄ creates in his maqāmāt is only faulty because of the ̄ deliberate representation of the unreliable characters, Abū’l-Fatḥ and ʿIsa. This aforementioned incongruity is ultimately the apparatus that sets the entertainment value of the maqāmāt in motion. Its entertainment value is eternal and timeless because the state of constant tension that is created between its content and its expression. ‘The combination of plebeian characters’, Hämeen-Anttila maintains, ‘with aristocratic language had been the backdrop of many comic maqamas, creating a dramatic tension between polished expression and uncouth scenes.’ The characters in

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the maqāmāt create the rhythm and harmony that are achieved through balancing the ‘uncouth scenes’ concomitantly with elegant and graceful language; this state of unresolved tension between qubḥ and embellished language is the crux of its innovative value. Finally, the structure of this ‘eternal tension’ employed by al-Hamadhānı̄ relies on the semiotic tensions between qubḥ and ḥusn not just in language and content but also in place and action references throughout the maqāmāt (mosques versus taverns, praying versus drinking, charity versus paying for verbal abuse, and so on). The maqāmāt in general and the maqāma under discussion in particular do not challenge either concept, because they rely on the established codes of both matrices of ḥusn and qubḥ, which is the essence of the rhetorical technique of ‘beautifying the ugly and uglifying the beautiful’. This is verified by the ‘ruse’ used by Abū’l-Fatḥ to employ the aforementioned technique. Reading and understanding the maqāmāt, which is the virtual resolving of this tension, is provided by the literary sensibility of the readers who are acquainted with the rhetorical technique employed and understand it as satire. However, it (the tension) continues on a purely linguistic level as a renewable experience between the reader and the text that gives it its timeless value and its status as a classic. Indeed, it shows how problematic it is to take the maqāmāt (or any work) as a true mirror for the writer’s views or even society.

NOTES 1. Maqāmāt Abı̄’l-Faḍl Badı̄‘al-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ (Lakh’naw: Maṭbaʿat Matḷ aʿ al-Nūr, 1876). There are no editors’ names on the copy and no editorial footnotes explaining word meanings. 2. One maqāma (al-Shāmiyya) is removed from the ʿAbduh edition, which makes them fifty-two. For a discussion on the debatable issue of the real number of the Maqāmāt, see Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 39–40. 3. The parts ʿAbduh removed are mainly similes of wind-breaking (faswat al-tinnı̄n; faswat al-sūd; ḍartạ fı̄ l-sujūd; ḍartạ t al-ʿarūs) and two other insults (khajlat al-ʿinnı̄n; dibbat al-raqqūm). Ibn Manẓūr explains the ʿinnı̄n as the man who is either impotent and/or is not sexually attracted to women (not to be confused with sexual orientation) and the same expression in the feminine (ʿinnı̄na) is used for women as well. See Lisān al-ʿArab, 4: 448. The other insult dibbat al-raqqūm is very likely an expres-

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sion intended to convey an insult equivalent to ‘creep’ in English. According to Lane, dibbat (d-b-b) is inclusive of all the crawling and creeping things because dabba is the verb used for the creeping of reptiles in particular. According to Ibn Manẓūr, arqam means ‘dangerous (marked) snake’ (akhbath al-ḥayyāt). See Lisān al-ʿArab, 3:108–9. ʿAbduh explains in the preface that he removed parts of the Maqāmāt with the reason that tastes change across ages and these expressions find no reception in his times (li-kull zamān maqāl). With respect to al-maqāma al-dı̄nāriyya, one needs only to look at the types of courtly entertainment before and during al-Hamadhānı̄’s time to understand ʿAbduh’s statement. The presence of al-ḍarrāt ̣ı̄n (fart-makers) for instance, as part of the culture of humour does not make al-Hamadhānı̄’s expressions come across as ‘out of place’, in his time. However, with the disappearance of this taste and culture, they may seem alien and distasteful for the non-specialist reader. See Rosella Dorigo Ceccato, ‘Drama in the Post-Classical Period: A Survey’ in Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, ed. Roger Allen and D.S. Richards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 354 for a reference to the other genres that al-Hamadhānı̄ alludes to; see also James T.  Monroe, The Art of Badı̄ʿ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ as Picaresque Narrative for a discussion on the Maqāmāt’s parodic nature especially of the ḥadı̄th as a genre. See, Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of Genre, 46 for a criticism of Monroe’s argument. According to Ḥ asan, al-Jāhị ẓ was the first to classify their tricks according to their professional nicknames in his al-Bukhalāʾ, also the Damascene, al-Jawbarı̄ in his al-Mukhtār fı̄ Kashf al-Asrār ‘demystified’ the tricks of the mendicants with a detailed analysis of the usage of chemical substances (from herbs, trees, animals) they used to feign deformity. For more on this and also a bibliography, see Ḥ asan, Adab al-Kudya fı̄ l-ʿAṣr al-ʿAbbāsı̄, 42ff. See also Monroe’s discussion of the religious denouncing of begging, 46–7. See Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s discussion of God’s speech to Adam in his chapter on beauty (al-ḥusn wa l-jamāl) in Rawḍat al-Muḥibbı̄n wa Nuzhat al-Mushtāqı̄n, 189–195. He explains the juxtaposition of hunger with nakedness in the verse on account of hunger being the humiliation and the nakedness of the inside while nakedness as the hunger and humiliation of the outside, in the same manner thirst is juxtaposed with hot temperature as the heat of the inside (thirst) with the heat of the outside (hot temperature). These conditions are explained as a consequence of the expelling of Adam and Eve from paradise. For more on this, See, Ahmed Alwishah and David Sanson, ‘The Early Arabic Liar: The Liar Paradox in the Islamic World from the Mid-Ninth to the Mid-Thirteenth Centuries CE,’ Vivarium 47 (2009): 97–127.

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̄ is a liar, but for entirely dif9. Monroe also makes this observation, that ʿIsa ferent reasons pertaining to time and space inconsistencies, which he calls ‘Ashʿaristic’ to relate them to his overall argument referred to earlier in the introduction. See Monroe, The Art of Badı̄ʿ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ as Picaresque Narrative, 108–14. 10. Ebrahim Moosa, ‘Textuality in Muslim Imagination,’ 60. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., 61. 13. See, James T.  Monroe, The Art of Badı̄ʿ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ as Picaresque Narrative for a discussion on the Maqāmāt’s parodic nature especially of the ḥadı̄th as a genre. See Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 46, for a criticism of Monroe’s argument. 14. Hämeen-Anttila describes al-Hamadhānı̄’s language as ‘ornamental but lacks the baroque over-elaboration of later periods[,] in comparison to al-Harı̄rı̄,’ See, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 52. 15. van Gelder, ‘Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful,’ Journal of Semitic Studies 68, no. 2 (2003): 321–51. 16. van Gelder, ‘Beautifying the Ugly,’ 321. 17. See Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre for a thorough discussion of the history of the maqāma starting with al-Hamadhānı̄ and his successor al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ and the development of the maqāma from the 12th– 14th century in the East then the development of the genre in Spain and North Africa as well. 18. Monroe, The Art of Badı̄ʿ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānı̄ as Picaresque Narrative, 38. 19. Bosworth, The Medieval Islamic Underworld, 1: 30; cf. Ḥ asan, Adab alKudya fı̄ l-ʿAṣr al-ʿAbbāsı̄, 145. 20. Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 20. 21. For a discussion on the origins of the terms kudya, shaḥādha, and sāsān, see Ḥ asan, Adab al-Kudya fı̄ l-ʿAṣr al-ʿAbbāsı̄, 11–23. 22. Taḍmı̄n has three meanings: (1) ‘inclusion’ as observed in ‘the incorporation in a poem of a line, or part of a line, by another poet by way of quotation rather than plagiarism;’ and/or (2) ‘enjambment’ which means ‘the syntactical dependence of a line on a following line’ and finally (3) ‘implication’ that is conveyed ‘as a form of brevity […] or the connotation of word or expression.’ van Gelder, ‘Taḍmı̄n’ in EI2. It is the first and third meanings that are used by al-Hamadhānı̄ in the Maqāmāt as made clear by the various editors of the Maqāmāt, which classifies his work as highbrow, also, to be able to trace these taḍmı̄ns requires erudition and that is the reason, as Hämeen-Anttila maintains, it was/is considered an enjoyable ‘bonus’ for the reader, 52.

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23. Sources document Bedouin (aʿrāb) mendicants’ eloquence that only used sajʿ (rhymed prose) in their speech. One should not define real mendicants’ ‘eloquence’ here as one that is comparable to the language of Abū’l-Fatḥ at least as seen in the examples of the Bedouin’s usage of sajʿ, which drew the attention of some literati such as Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, for instance because of the graceful nature of the language and the decorative and metaphorical aspects of it as such. For more on this, see Ḥ asan, Adab al-Kudya fı̄ l-ʿAṣr al-ʿAbbāsı̄, 162–4. 24. Prendergast, viii. 25. See, al-Hamadhānı̄, Rasāʾil, ed. Ibrāhı̄m Al-Ṭ arābulsı̄ (Beirut: Al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kāthūlı̄kiyya li-l-Ā bāʾ al-Yasūʿiyyı̄n, 1890). 26. Ḥ asan, Adab al-Kudya fı̄ l-ʿAṣr al-ʿAbbāsı̄, 151. 27. See for example al-Qarı̄ḍiyya, al-Jāḥiẓiyya, and al-ʿIrāqiyya for explicit references to poetry, metaphor and writing. Other maqāmāt such as al-Māristāniyya and al-Ḥ ulwāniyya deal with criticism on philosophical and theological debates (the Muʿtazilite doctrine; the issue of precedence of Will to Ability or vice versa and the essence of Truth, respectively). 28. Prendergast, 20. 29. Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 106. 30. Ibid. 31. Maqāmāt, 16. 32. Maqāmāt, al-maqāma al-Balkhiyya, 18. 33. Ibid., 83. 34. Ibid., 60. 35. Prendergast, 56. 36. Lenn E. Goodman, ‘Hamadhānı̄, Schadenfreude and Salvation Through Sin,’ JAL 19, no. 1 (1988): 27–39. 37. Abdullah al-Dabbagh, Literary Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and Universalism (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010), 25. 38. Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄, maqāmāt, ed. Yūsuf Biqāʿı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānı̄, 1981), 17–18. 39. Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄, maqāmāt, 15–16. 40. Ibid., 15. 41. Umberto Eco, ‘On the Ontology of Fictional Characters: A Semiotic Approach,’ Sign System Studies (2009) 37: 1, 2, 87. 42. Ibid., 109. 43. Ibid., 240. 44. Ibid., 190–95. 45. Ḥ ammādı̄ Ṣammūd, al-Wajh wa l-Qafā fı̄ Talāzum al-Turāth wa l-Ḥ adātha (Tunis: al-Dār al-Tūnisiyya li-l-Nashr, 1988), 32.

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46. Ibid. 47. Prendergast, 68. 48. Monroe also refers to Abū’l-Fatḥ’s deliberate seduction of others through language, 96. 49. Prendergast, 55. 50. Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 50. For a discussion on the entire structure of the Maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄, see also 45–51. 51. Philip F.  Kennedy, ‘Islamic Recognitions: An Overview’ in eds. Philip F. Kennedy and Marilyn Lawrence, Recognition: The Poetics of Narrative: Interdisciplinary Studies on Anagnorisis (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 47. 52. Maqāmāt, 50. 53. Prendergast, 53. 54. Prendergast, 75. 55. al-Dabbagh, Literary Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and Universalism, 25. 56. cf. Monroe, 110. 57. The work is estimated to have been written between the years (407– 412/1016–1021) based on the dedication to the Ghaznavid courtier ̄ al-Karājı̄. See Bilal Orfali, ‘The Works of Abū’l-Ḥ asan Muḥammad b. ʿIsa Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibı̄,’ JAL 40, no. 3 (2009): 292. 58. Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 27. 59. al-Thaʿālibı̄, Taḥsı̄n al-Qabı̄ḥ wa Taqbı̄ḥ al-Ḥ asan, ed. ʿAlā’ ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Muḥammad (Cairo: Dār al-Faḍıl̄ a, 1994), 21. 60. Ibid., 30–31. 61. Ibid. 62. See, Lara Harb, ‘Poetic Marvels: Wonder and Aesthetic Experience in Medieval Arabic Literary Theory.’ (Unpublished PhD Dissertation, New York University, New York, 2013). 63. See Chap. 5. 64. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄, Kitāb al-Ṣināʿatayn, ed. ʿAlı̄ Muḥammad al-Bijāwı̄ ̄ al-Bābı̄ al-Ḥ alabı̄, 1971), and Muḥammad Abū’l-Faḍl Ibrāhı̄m (Cairo: ‘Isā 16–60. 65. ed. ʿIzza Ḥ asan (Damascus: Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya, 1969), 1:116. 66. Ibn Rashı̄q, al-ʿUmda, ed. al-Nabawı̄ ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Shaʿlān (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjı̄, 2000), 1:382–99. 67. Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-Farı̄d, ed. ʿAbd al-Majı̄d al-Tarḥın̄ ı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1987), 4:272. 68. Kitāb al-Ṣināʿatayn, 59. 69. al-ʿUmda, 1:395–6. 70. al-ʿUmda, 1:394–7. 71. al-Nuwayrı̄, Nihāyat al-Arab fi Funūn al-Adab, ed. Mufı̄d Qamḥiyya et al. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000), 1:50.

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̄ al-Bābı̄ al-Ḥ alabı̄, 72. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄, Kitāb al-Ṣināʿatayn (Cairo, ‘Isā 1971), 59 quoted in van Gelder’s ‘Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful,’ 327. 73. For more on this, see van Gelder ‘Beautifying the Ugly’ for examples and bibliography. 74. Hämeen-Anttila contends, ‘Al-Hamadhānı̄ created his Abū’l-Fatḥ to be a chameleon character, now an Arab, now something else. This idea of a character of many identities was by no means anything new. In invective poetry, we often find the idea of an ever-changing identity,’ 43. 75. van Gelder, The Bad and the Ugly, 33. 76. Twenty-eight insults in the body of the maqāma and three in ʿAbduh’s footnotes. 77. Monroe makes a reference to the similarities found in various places in the Maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄ and t ̣ufaylı̄ literature, 126; see also Fedwa Malti-Douglas’s discussion of al-maqāma al-maḍır̄ iyya in ‘Maqāmāt and Adab: Al-Maqāma al-Maḍır̄ iyya of al-Hamadhānı̄,’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 105, no. 2 (1985): 247–58. 78. Diʿbil b. ʿAlı̄, Dı̄wān Diʿbil b. ʿAlı̄ al-Khuzāʿı̄, ed. ʿAbd al-Ṣāḥib ʿUmrān al-Dujaylı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānı̄, 1972), 260. Cf. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄, Dı̄wān al-Maʿānı̄, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Muḥammad Maḥmūd al-Tarkazı̄ al-Shinqı̄tı̣ ̄ et  al (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsı̄, 1933), 1:184. 79. Based on ʿAbduh’s diacritical mark. 80. According to ʿAbduh in the first edition (1889), the last Wednesday in the lunar month was regarded as the longest day of the month in the sense that time was believed (felt) to never pass on that day, i.e. moved slowly. In the second edition (1908), ʿAbduh also maintains this explanation but he adds that it might be the last Wednesday of the lunar month of Ṣafar in particular because it was believed that all affairs and businesses seem to be counterproductive on that day. 81. Dı̄wān al-Maʿānı̄, 1:177. 82. Ibid., 178. 83. The particle is a problematic one in Arabic grammar as pointed by ʿAbduh’s explanatory footnote in reference to the Kufan grammarian Yaḥyā b. Ziyād al-Farrā’ (d. 207/822) who is reported to have said, ‘I shall die and something unresolved remains in me because of ḥattā’ (amūt wa fı̄ nafsı̄ shayʾ min ḥattā). The issue perhaps could be explained using the famous example ‘akalt al-samaka ḥattā raʾsihā, ḥattā raʾsuhā, ḥatta raʾsahā.’ (I ate the fish to its head, and its head, even its head). In every case, the meaning is different and accordingly the case ending is different because of the usage of ḥattā. See Ibn Abı̄ Saʿı̄d al-Anbārı̄, Asrār al-ʿArabiyya, ed. Fakhr Ṣāliḥ Qadāra (Beirut: Dār al-Jı̄l, 1995), 242.

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84. Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, ed. T. S. Eliot (London: Faber and Faber, 1954), 4. This term is used to describe the emotional effect and not to make comparisons with Imagism as a movement. 85. Dı̄wān al-Maʿānı̄, 1:185. 86. Kamal Abu-Deeb maintains that a ‘recognized turning point was reached about 350/960 with the celebrated epistles of the Būyid vizier Ibn al-ʿAmı̄d, encapsulated in the sajʿ formula that ‘chancery prose [kitāba] began with ʿAbd al-Ḥ amı̄d and was sealed by Ibn al-ʿAmı̄d.” ‘Saj‘ʿ in EAL, 2:677–678. 87. Dı̄wān al-Maʿānı̄, 1:189. 88. al-Jāḥiẓ, ‘Risāla fı̄ l-Jidd wa l-Hazl ‘in Majmūʿ Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Muḥammad Ṭ āha al-Ḥ ājirı̄. (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya, 1983), 80. 89. For more on this, see, Sarah R. bin Tyeer ‘The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of adab’ in Qur’an and adab: The Making of Classical Literary Tradition, ed. Nuha al-Shaʿar, (Forthcoming, 2016). 90. Ḥ ikāyat Abı̄’l-Qāsim al-Baghdādı̄, 19. 91. Moreh, Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature in the Medieval Arab World, 96. 92. Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 98. 93. ʿAbbās, Tārı̄kh al-Naqd al-Adabı̄ ʿInd al-ʿArab, 99. 94. Krystyna Skarzyńska-Bocheńska, ‘Some Aspects of al-Jāḥiẓ’s Rhetorical Theory,’ Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies 3 (1990): 104. 95. van Gelder, The Bad and the Ugly, 11. 96. Similarly, the Thousand and One Nights boasts of a literary portrayal of some professions and menial jobs and their cultural status. See, Muhsin J. Al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights for a discussion on class issues within the Thousand and One Nights and also several various professions and their social statuses. 97. Prendergast, 167. 98. van Gelder, The Bad and the Ugly, 6. 99. As van Gelder maintains, ‘[t]he functions of hazl and jidd in hijāʾ are complex, more than in other poetic modes. Mock-panegyric, mock-love-poetry or mock-elegies turn into satire or invective; but mock hijāʾ still is hijāʾ[.]’, The Bad and the Ugly, 51. 100. ‘Amusement (of others than the victims) is one of the main functions of hijāʾ.’ van Gelder, ‘hijāʾ’ in EAL, 1:284. 101. Cf. Hamdi Sakkut, 85. 102. Ḥ amdı̄ Sakkūt, The Arabic Novel, trans. Roger Monroe (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000), 1:85. 103. al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Tarbı̄ʿ wa l-Tadwı̄r, 96–7 quoted in Krystyna SkarzyńskaBocheńska, ‘Some Aspects of al-Jāḥiẓ’s Rhetorical Theory,’ 102.

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104. al-Hamadhānı̄, Rasāʾil, ed. Ibrāhı̄m al-Ṭ arābulsı̄ (Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kāthūlı̄kiyya li-l-Ā bāʾ al-Yasū‘iyyı̄n, 1890), 510. 105. See Nādir Kāẓim, al-Maqāmāt wa l-Talaqqı̄ (Beirut: al-Muʿassasa al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa l-Nashr, 2003), 75–6. 106. Attributed to the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911–80) in an assertion that ‘to a semiotician the medium is not ‘neutral.” Daniel Chandler, Semiotics (Routledge, New York, 2002), 81. 107. Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 335.

CHAPTER 10

The Litterateurs of Hell and Heaven

This chapter approaches al-Maʻarrī’s (d. 449/1058) Risālat al-Ghufrān through his aesthetics of place and time in the narrative, and its eschatological significance, since Hell and Heaven inform both the aesthetics and poetics of the risāla. I argue that al-Maʿarrī utilises the theological finality of Hell/Paradise to address literary criticism issues. As the protagonist meets with authors in the Hereafter, the authors’ explanations of the texts shed light on interpretation, overinterpretation as well as misinterpretation. This chapter also addresses critical issues surrounding opinions and scholarship on the risāla and their relationship to current events. A cosmos as large as al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Heaven and Hell in Risālat al-Ghufrān [The Epistle of Forgiveness] cannot be exhausted in one chapter. His work is deeply rooted and invested in Islamic culture and sensibilities where Heaven and Hell are not only articles of faith, but also part of material culture. Al-Maʿarrı ̄ lost his eyesight at a very young age because of chickenpox; he was renowned for his photographic memory and razor-sharp intellect to the extent that anecdotes on his intelligence and memory border on the ʿajāʾibı̄, or wondrous. He was involved in social life as a younger man but never married; later in life he became a recluse and is often described as a pessimist. He spent all his life in literary pursuits, a fact that explains his remarkable erudition and mature judgment in the risāla. This also explains the consensus among literary critics that his literary production in old age was of a better quality than his earlier works. The risāla is estimated to have been dictated circa 423 and dictation may have ended in

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_10

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424 A.H., but it is likely to have ended after, i.e. 425.1 I seek to approach al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s work through his aesthetics of place and time in the narrative of the epistle, and its eschatological significance, since Hell and Heaven inform both the aesthetics and poetics of the risāla. But before venturing further, it is important to address some critical issues surrounding opinions and scholarship on the risāla and their relationship to current events.

AL-MAʿARRI ̄ AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF EXTREMISM The first, almost instinctual reaction to al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s world in the risāla, especially in Western scholarship, is an accusation that al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s is mocking, not only what Western scholarship perceives and labels as ‘Orthodox’ Islamic conceptions of Hell and Heaven, but Islam in its entirety.2 These views regard literature as something that is expected to conform to a conception of what Islam means to them; it obliterates human and literary history to read all activities in the Arab-Islamic world as solely having a function in religion. With regards to al-Maʿarrı’̄ s epistle, this attitude has freed itself from a literary reading, and opted for a literal reading to measure the faithfulness of the literary depiction of Hell and Heaven against ‘Islamic Orthodox’ conceptions of the Hereafter. It unimaginatively regards Heaven and Hell as mere articles of faith, when they are so much more. Nerina Rustomji maintains, […]the non-event driven Garden and Fire are so ubiquitous within Islamic texts that they do more than provide details of the life to come; they inform a sensibility.[…] many theological and literary works employ metaphors about the Garden. References to the afterlife are so pervasive that the concept loses visibility as an article of faith.3

For believers, Rustomji argues, ‘the afterlife maybe imagined, but it is not a figment of their imagination’.4 The development of Heaven and Hell ‘[…] from article of faith to realm of imaging to refined metaphor depends on Muslims’ expanding interest in material culture’.5 But Heaven and Hell are not the only things that assisted in developing metaphors in material and literary culture. The narrative style (al-islūb al-qaṣaṣı)̄ in the Qur’an containing descriptions of human states and conditions (tamthı̄l al-aḥwāl), especially in the description of Hell and Paradise throughout, and the utilisation of dialogue, especially in the chapter of The Heights (al-Aʿrāf) where the Qur’an relates a dialogue in the afterlife between

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people in Heaven and others in Hell, for instance, are also factors that contributed to the development of a literary style that is unique in adab. Some of these Qur’anic stylistics and features were unheard before Islam, except for a little story in one of poet al-Nābigha’s poems where he relates the story of a snake who killed a man and made a pact with his brother, but the brother killed it.6 Al-Maʿarrı ̄ utilises a lot of these stylistic features, vivid images, and dialogues inspired by the afterlife, as related in the Qur’an, in his own dialogues and scenes. A literary and aesthetic sophistication that is manifest in al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s work as well as Arab-Islamic material culture in general. The sophistication and depth of this work deserve to be met with proportional acuity and profundity in interpretation. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. In a recent interview with Gregor Schoeler, a scholar of Islamic studies, Schoeler speaks about his collaboration with Geert Jan van Gelder in translating al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Epistle of Forgiveness (Risālat al-Ghufrān) as part of the NYU Abu Dhabi Library of Arabic Literature’s (LAL’s) ongoing efforts to translate Arabic classics. Schoeler spoke of al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s classic as a work that, in his own words, ‘assaults Islam’. As we can see with al-Dhahabı̄, the few Muslims who knew al-Maʿarrī’s work in pre-modern times considered him a heretic because he evidently doubted established religious beliefs or treated them with irony or even with ridicule. Obviously, modern extreme Islamists share this conviction: Remember that al-Maʿarrı’̄ s statue in his birth place Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān was beheaded in the civil war not long ago.7

The eleventh century Epistle is a literary work that was written in response to a letter sent to al-Maʿarrı̄ by another literati, Ibn al-Qāriḥ. It contains speculative gossip and judgment on other well-known literatis’ ‘beliefs’ and ‘faiths.’ Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Epistle, a satiric response, imagines a literary afterlife in Hell and Heaven for Arab poets, litterateurs, and grammarians who are judged based on their good deeds and literary excellence and, most importantly, by God, not people such as the self-righteous Ibn al-Qāriḥ and his ilk. It has often been compared to, and discussed in juxtaposition to Dante’s fourteenth century Commedia Divina, because of their eschatological themes.8 Al-Maʿarrı ̄’s reception, as well as collected statements about his life during his time, as noted in the ḥadı̄th scholar and historian al-Dhahabı̄’s (d. 748/1348) work, are about twenty pages of personal testimonies

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and anecdotes, including an elegy by a student of his, Abū’l Ḥ asan ʿAlı̄ b. Hammām,9 as well as a first-hand account of al-Maʿarrı̄ himself, in addition to people who knew him and his peers, amounting to fourteen people. Al-Dhahabı̄ cites all opinions on al-Maʿarrı̄, in other words, those who questioned his faith and those whose accounts of him negated these allegations.10 Al-Dhahabı̄ cites a very telling one of al-Manāzı̄’s meeting with al-Maʿarrı̄, asking him, ‘Why do people say these things about you?’ To which al-Maʿarrı̄ replied, ‘They envy me and spread lies about me.’ The man exclaimed, ‘Why do they envy you and you had left them this world and the hereafter?’ Al-Maʿarrı̄ replies in astonishment, ‘and the hereafter?!’ Another telling anecdote in al-Dhahabı̄ relates judge Abū’l Fatḥ’s firsthand account of his visit to al-Maʿarrı̄’s house who remembers him as someone with ‘strong faith.’ Al-Dhahabı̄’s scholarly integrity gives space to all views and sensibly shows how these ‘circulated allegations’ were likely a result of resentment, as per his historical narrative arrangement, including al-Maʿarrı’̄ s own explanation, and the other anecdotes ending with the student’s elegy remembering his teacher. The ḥadı̄th scholar and historian describes al-Maʿarrı̄ as an ‘honourable man who was content with his lot in life’ (qanūʿan wa mutaʿffifan) and that his best poetry is on par with that of al-Mutannabı̄ and al-Buḥturı̄ and that he was of exceptional intelligence.11 Even when al-Dhahabı̄ is personally displeased with al-Maʿarrı̄’s aversion to marriage and children, and some of his poetry, he does not call him a ‘heretic’; he often says only God knows about al-Maʿarrı̄’s faith and end (wa Allāhu aʿlamu bi-ma khutima lahu).12 Clearly, the picture is neither of a ‘few Muslims who knew him’ and considered him a ‘heretic’, nor of al-Maʿarrı ̄ ‘ridiculing Islam.’ It is a complex picture of an exceptionally intelligent scholar who was popular with his students and, yet, who is reported to have been a victim of malicious rivalry and resentment as the sources maintain. It is rather strange that the very historical sources and accounts cited to support the accusation of al-Maʿarrı̄’s ‘assault on Islam’ and convince us that this is a ‘belief’ shared by contemporary Muslims, as well as the extremists who beheaded his statue in Syria, do not uphold the aforementioned claims. What is even stranger is the conceptual linking of the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nuṣra’s ‘beheading’ of al-Maʿarrı̄’s bust statue in his birthplace Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān (Northwestern Syria) in 2013 with Muslim reception of his literary work, past and present. The conceptual link made between the mainstream Muslim and would-be-conventional reception

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of al-Maʿarrī relied on obfuscating the historical sources to reinforce the trendy ‘Muslim extremists’ and ‘terrorists’ ‘conviction.’ The interview offered the readers a conceptual link saying: ‘Muslims qua extremists ‘share this conviction’ so they (Muslims qua extremists) beheaded the statue. By conflating the reception of the work with extremists’ actions and convictions, the interview (and similar views) is disseminating information that is coloured, and informed by, destructive aesthetics and ‘extremist’ convictions through intertwining the category of Muslims with that of ‘modern extremists’ into a single entity. The statue, an effigy for al-Maʿarrı ,̄ becomes an effigy for creativity and intellectual thought beheaded by ‘shared Muslim conviction.’ But these strange developments do not end here. After stating that Muslims, past and present, regard al-Maʿarrı̄ as a heretic to assert the ‘Muslims qua extremists’ and ‘Islam against adab’ image, a paradox emerges. Schoeler had previously admitted that Muslims do not perceive the work as one that assaults Islam. Yet, this very Arab-Muslim scholarship that analyses al-Maʿarrī’s work and its reception in its entirety, and does not espouse the ‘ridicule of Islam’ shared with the ‘modern extremists’ that are conceptually invoked in this regard, is discarded. On this point, Schoeler maintains: Bint al-Shāt ̣iʾ was a religious Muslim, but she was influenced by Western culture and had adopted the scholarly methods of the West. She devoted a large part of her life to the study of al-Maʿarrı ̄ and not only appreciated him as a poet and man of letters, but also held him in high regard as a human. I suppose that she wanted to keep the pure image she had of his personality flawless. As a religious Muslim, she could not admit that the works of her favorite poet contain assaults on Islam.13

ʿAisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, a.k.a Bint al-Shaṭı̄ʾ (lit. daughter of the seashore) is an expert on the Qur’an, pre-modern adab and Arabic literature, and also on al-Maʿarrı̄, whom she has spent decades studying, editing, and comparing the different manuscripts of his Epistle. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Ellen McLarney maintains, ‘… was able to synthesize intellectual arguments for popular audiences, meld literary creativity with religious scholarship, build on theories of the liberating nature of Islam’.14 But it is implied that she is not ‘scholarly credible’, based on the circumstances of her Muslimness, which lead to an unfounded speculative conclusion on her ‘inability’ to admit to something with her only

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proof based on the uncanny ability to see through people’s conscience and faith? The last time possessing an uncanny ability to read peoples’ consciences and what they ‘secretly’ believe in, but did not admit, was enough proof was during the Inquisitions. How does this reasoning fit with academic arguments, or logic, for that matter? Does this also apply to the rest of scholarly studies on al-Maʿarrı̄, Arabic and otherwise, that share ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s views, and do not see the ‘ridicule’ and ‘assault on Islam’?15 Relying on an appeal to ʿAbd el-Raḥmān’s identity and background to make an assumption about her conscience, or the internal state of her mind (which has no relevance in the argument at hand), without refuting the argument itself, is neither scholarly, nor a counterargument. That ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is a Muslim, therefore ‘…she could not admit that the works of her favourite poet contain assaults on Islam’ is not an argument that legitimises discounting her entire body of work and scholarship. Rejecting scholarship based on identity politics, as opposed to responding to ideas in a scholarly manner, and clinging to an ‘opinion’, while rejecting all evidence of the opposite, is a violation of the principles of scholarship. These are, unsurprisingly, the markers of a partial reading, and rightly so, because ‘reasoning’ that does not rest on proof, reason, and/ or logic lacks objectivity. Is a reminder of the primary factor that destroys the integrity of academic enquiry at this juncture timely? By insinuating himself as more objective through accusing ʿAbd al-Raḥmān of bias on the grounds of her Muslimness, Schoeler evoked the Cartesian egopolitics of knowledge, which Colombian philosopher Santiago CastroGómez describes as the hubris of the zero point.16 The ‘zero point’ ‘…maps the world and its problems, classifies people and projects into it what is good for them’.17 Schoeler adopts the ‘zero point’ and not only tells us what ʿAbd al-Raḥmān secretly thinks and feels, but what we should think. Schoeler’s sub-alternisation of the scholarly production of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is aimed at presenting it as a partial argument that belongs to what Walter D. Mignolo calls, ‘the geography of non-thought.’18 Even al-Dhahabı̄ is in agreement with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. He said that his [al-Maʿarrı’̄ s] epistle contains ‘mazdakaism wa istikhfāf (mazdaka and satire) and in another source for al-Dhahabı̄ too, the words used are ‘mazdaka wa farāgh’ (mazdaka and vacuity, inanity, banality).’19 Both judgments, coming from a ḥadı̄th scholar and historian, and not a literary critic, tell that he regards the work as ‘of little weight’, ‘uninteresting to him’, but not as ‘heresy.’ Should al-Dhahabı̄, a ḥadı̄th scholar,

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have used the readily available Arabic word for ‘blasphemy’ at the time, such as zandaqa (Manichean heretic, a clear-cut, well-known and wellcirculated term for heresy and irreverence), or ilḥād and mulḥid (atheism, atheist, respectively), which are used in his accounts and book as well, then it would have referred to ‘blasphemy’/‘heresy’ proper, but he did not. ‘Mazdakaism’ then does not readily translate into ‘heresy.’ Similarly, Kilito argues that al-Dhahabı̄ did not define ‘mazdaka’ and neither did he explain ‘istikhfāf.’20 It is used in al-Dhahabı̄’s book and others as well, to most likely refer to a ‘behaviour’, a ‘style’—one which we may not easily ascertain, but one which could be semantically juxtaposed with ‘istikhfāf’ and not appear strange in its grouping. According to al-Shahrastānı̄’s (d. 548/1153) book on sects and creeds, al-Milal wa l-Niḥal, ‘mazdaka’ originally refers to the Persian cult of Mazdak who argued that the world’s problems are reduced to fighting over money and women, so he proposed that men share their wives and their wealth with each other.21 Is it possible to ascertain that the word is used in the same semantic capacity to refer to the ideology of the cult, or has it acquired a new cultural or behavioural meaning? If so, what is the new acquired semantic capacity of the word? Al-Dhahabı̄ uses ‘mazdaka’ again in his Tarı̄kh al-Islām to describe someone’s character as containing ‘mazdaka’, not enough good, and that he was a good-looking old man (wa fı̄-hi mazdaka wa qillat khayr wa kān shaykhan malı̄ḥ al-shakl).22 If ‘mazdaka’ is indeed ‘blasphemy’, it would not make sense that one’s character contains ‘blasphemy’ in it, would it? Elsewhere he describes the poet Ḥ ammād ʿAjrad, familier du roi of al-Walı̄d b. al-Yazı̄d, who arrived in Baghdad during the time of al-Mahdı̄. The poet is described as having had an obscene satirising/jesting poetic relationship (mizāḥ wa hijāʾ fāḥish) with Bashshār b. Burd. Al-Dhahabı̄ describes him as ‘qalı̄l al-dı̄n, mājin, ittuhim bi-lzandaqa’ (has little religion, obscene, was accused of blasphemy)23; why did al-Dhahabı̄ not use ‘mazdaka’ if it indeed means the aforementioned? Clearly, the term does not mean irreverence or blasphemy. Al-Maʿarrı̄ satirises Ibn al-Qāriḥ, grammarians, and literary critics in general. His ‘istikhfāf’ is understood to be directed at literary critics and some scholars. Thus, Schoeler’s translation of ‘mazdaka’ and/or ‘istikhfāf ’ as ‘irreverence’ is as peculiar and inexplicable as the rest of the interview. ‘Irreverence’—with its ‘blasphemy’ undertones—is not ‘satire’ and ‘banality’, is it? This spurious dismissal of Arab and Muslim scholarship and the keenness on reading the work as an ‘assault on Islam’ is as questionable as the

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deplorable assemblage of general Muslim reception of al-Maʿarrı̄ (past and present) with ‘modern extremists convictions.’ In Language and Symbolic Power, Pierre Bourdieu reminds us, ‘[w] hile every speaker is both a producer and consumer of his own linguistic productions, not all speakers […] are able to apply to their own products the schemes according to which they were produced’.24 In other words, the exclusion of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s scholarship, and most Arab-Islamic scholarship, from scholarly discussions on the grounds of their Muslimness, which becomes an ‘acceptable pretext’ to reject them, bespeaks of a blatant lack of objectivity. In Bourdieu terms, the ‘value’ of this symbolic production (scholarship), by virtue of its exclusion from the academic market under the alleged pretext, is ultimately deemed scholarly unprofitable, hence useless. Thus, what these presumably scholarly views tell us is that the only credible knowledge, or scholarship for consumption, is the Western produced scholarship by virtue of its acquired value at the expense of other scholarship. These invisible sanctions, and couched exclusions of certain scholarships from academic discourse, in favour of advancing certain arguments—sometimes at the expense of academic integrity—are an example, not only of symbolic power, but ultimately of symbolic violence. Symbolic violence is definitely not practiced for itself, but to advance a particular point of view. This point of view becomes the ‘doxa’: ‘…an orthodoxy, a right, correct, dominant vision, which has more often than not been imposed through struggles against competing visions […] it presents and imposes itself as a universal point of view’.25 The ‘doxa’ advanced in Schoeler’s interview intertwines the category of ‘terrorist’ with ‘Muslim reception past and present.’ The implications are far worse than the geopolitics of knowledge production. The implied argument is that Arab-Muslim scholarship is untenable, which not only hails the Western instruments of knowledge production, and the locus of enunciation as the only credible alternative, but academically authenticates the extremist terrorists actions as exemplary of both an ‘Islamic response’ and a proper reading of the text. ‘The sense of the value of one’s linguistic products’, Bourdieu tells us, ‘is a fundamental dimension of the sense of knowing the place which one occupies in the social space’.26 What place does this excluded Arab-Muslim scholarship inhabit? It occupies the “places of nonthought (of myth, non-western religions, folklore, and underdevelopment involving regions and people).”27 The extremists’

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readings, hence actions, are deployed as being representative of Islam through their shared reading of the literary work with Western (read: credible) scholarship, and this distorted ‘Muslim reception’ is presented as ‘Muslim reception past and present.’ This analysis, therefore, instrumentalised and presents the ‘extremist/terrorist’ reaction as a ‘Muslim insider understanding’ shared by average Muslims, as well as Western scholarship, thereby bestowing a scholarly authentication of a distorted reading of the work through the geopolitical power of knowledge production, while academically endorsing and mainstreaming the representation of Muslims as ‘terrorists.’ Adamant in this reading of al-Maʿarrı̄, Schoeler reverts to Reynold A.  Nicholson, who ‘Abd-Raḥmān criticises for his unscholarly additions and omissions from al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Epistle in his mistranslation of the work, and for completely misunderstanding the work, for having failed to read the letter of Ibn al-Qāriḥ of which the work constitutes a reply and, therefore, key to understanding this work. To further continue highlighting the dangers of atomistic readings and the treatment of adab as isolated pieces, notwithstanding their identity and belonging to a larger whole, much of the controversy surrounding Risālat al-Ghufrān is, in part, a result of these readings. The risāla itself was written as a response to Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s epistle to al-Maʿarrı̄. Nicholson did not read the epistle of Ibn al-Qāriḥ, nor did he know who the latter was.28 His mistake regarding Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s epistle is not the only one. Some of these cursory judgments accused al-Maʿarrı̄ of incoherence and irreverence, based on a lack of understanding that much of what it refers to is a response to Ibn al-Qāriḥ. The hasty assertions made by Nicholson have lead to many erroneous judgments on al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s work, starting with Nicholson, and propagated by those who view Nicholson as an infallible authority for decades. An example of Nicholson’s unscholarly reasoning and argument against al-Maʿarrı̄ is as follows: In the second place, a man is known by the company he keeps. Sale translated the Kor’ān, so he was therefore ‘a Turk’. Abū’l ʿAlāʾ published stories about the zindiks and blasphemous quotations from their poetry: who could doubt that he was a rascally fellow?29

It would be shocking if no one doubted that. If translation errors could be, at best, generously viewed as anomalous incidents of incompetence, or a lapse in judgment, as part of ‘honest mistakes’, but additions to, and omissions of, a text are a betrayal to, and a deliberate corruption

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of the text. It exceeds the boundaries of honest mistakes. At this juncture, one should mention that Nicholson’s was almost the only academically official English translation available until 2013.30 It is not difficult to imagine what a century of consumption of ‘opinions’, mistakes, and misunderstandings can do to scholarship. For instance, Adam Mez and Miguel Asín Palacios maintained that their primary reference for Risālat al-Ghufrān was Nicholson’s translation.31 Having said that, it is remarkable how Schoeler dismisses ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s well-evidenced criticism (that appears throughout her footnotes of the Epistle and her commentary) of Nicholson’s and the latter’s questionable reasoning and understanding of the text, and scholarly integrity, and instead says, Nicholson got to the heart of the matter when saying that what we nowadays consider “honest doubt” was categorized as “total unbelief” by the Islamic rule of orthodoxy.32

It is strange, yet again, that the sources do not support such claims. And obliged by doubt, the above statement, like the entire argument, is doubtful. ‘Honest doubt’ is part of Islam or what is referred to above as ‘Islamic rule of Orthodoxy’. Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: “Some of the companions of the Prophet came to him and said, ‘We find in our hearts things that none of us dares utter.’ He said, ‘Do you really find that?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ The Prophet said, ‘That is clear faith.’” [Sahih Muslim (2/153)]33

Questions and inner dialectic are understood not only as a mark of a strong intellect, but a fundamental prerequisite for a healthy belief, as per the aforementioned ḥadı̄th, the Qur’an, and accordingly Islamic theology. Rationalism, Sabine Schmidtke maintains, ‘has been a salient feature of Muslim theological thought from the earliest times’.34 Kalam scholars, Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites, Sunnis and Shiʿites regard a rational investigation of God as requisite to belief. Baber Johansen maintains, ‘…the obligation to rationally recognize God has remained part of the Sunnı̄ definition of belief’.35 It is farcical to fathom how an Islamic Studies scholar claims, or rather fabricates, that ‘honest doubt’ and ‘rational investigation’ become ‘total unbelief’ according to the ‘Islamic rule of Orthodoxy’ when it is a constituent of belief proper in Islam. And it is disturbing to insistently present al-Maʿarrı̄ as the Rationalist, often with ex-Muslim, or

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skeptic annexed to it, implying that ‘Rationalist’ and ‘Muslim’ are incompatible and antagonistic. Indeed, it is even more tragic to read these falsifications from a scholar in Islamic Studies with an award-winning book.36 It is quite ironic to read these claims against the backdrop of al-Ghazālı̄’s famous theological and philosophical treatises on the methodology of doubt summarised in his famous maxim ‘the first step towards certainty is doubt’(al-shakk awal marātib al-yaqı̄n). Al-Ghazālı̄ says, (fa-lā khalās ̣ illā fı̄ l-istiqlāl […] al-shukūk hiya al-muwaṣsị la ilā al-ḥaqq fa-mann lam yashukk lamm yanẓur wa man lam yanẓur lam yubṣir wa man lam yubṣir baqı̄ fı̄ l-ʿamā wa l-ḍalāl),37 ‘there is no salvation without [intellectual] independence […] for doubts are the path to truth. One who does not doubt, does not reflect, and who does not reflect does not comprehend and who does not comprehend will stay in blindness and error’. It was not only theologians and philosophers who were engaged in ‘doubt.’ Qur’anic exegetes spoke about ‘doubt’ as an ingredient of faith and how doubt leads to certainty, as per the levels of certainty (marātib al-yaqı̄n), which they categorised as three, and that no faith occurs without rational proof and reason, as per the Qur’an.38 It is quite clear that al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s famous quote ‘There is no Imam except reason’, ‘la imām illā al-ʿaql’, often taken out of this theological context and distorted to the nth degree to fabricate the aforementioned clash and instrumentalise him in the narrative of ‘Escape from Islam’ on the grounds of rationality explains this idea. By negating Islam as a proper religion capable of contributing to civilisation through proselytising some of its philosophers, intellectuals, poets and litterateurs from Islam, as such, through obfuscating history, or practicing some hermeneutical legerdemain, this ‘scholarship’ absolved itself from academic freethinking and knowledge-production and, instead, opted for dirty politics. The Prophet himself decentralised authority when he elevated the role of heart to be understood as fiṭra (uncorrupted human nature) and intellect as the sole guiding ‘Imam.’ According to Wabisah b. Maʿbad: I came to the Messenger of Allah and he said: “You have come to ask about righteousness?” “Yes,” I answered. He said: “Consult your heart. Righteousness is that about which the soul feels tranquil and the heart feels tranquil, and sin is what creates restlessness in the soul and moves to and fro in the breast, even though people give you their opinion (in your favour) and continue to do so.”39

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Having said that, it is unclear what is the ‘Islamic rule of Orthodoxy’ that is invoked to represent the purported fictitious monolithic Islam bloc that shuns doubt and reason (read: Islam is insecure and illogical) amongst other things. Even more problematic to the aforementioned claim, is that Islamic religious authority, as such, is decentralised and the problematic concept of ‘Orthodoxy’ does not exist; it does not take a specialist in Islamic studies to know that. In other words, the distorted monolith that is singular Islam, which served Orientalist discourse well in the past, continues to serve its myriad purposes in the present as it corresponds conveniently to the trendy misrepresentations of ‘Muslims qua extremists’ in various mediums, even, surprisingly, in the Humanities. The monolithic bloc is invoked to be then defeated, as part of the narratives and strategies of ‘essentialist Islam’ for the purposes of pseudo-scholarship. And on that final note of ‘scholarship’, it is again strange how the basic tenets of Islam, theology, ḥadı̄th, as well as existing scholarship on al-Maʿarrı̄ that supersede Nicholson and his disciples, miraculously escape this type of ‘scholarship’? Schoeler continues to see nothing in the work, but a ridicule of Islam and even distrust for the divine justice of God on al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s part. On the latter point he compares him to Dante (d. 1321), whom he sees as observing the fundamental belief in divine justice. Schoeler’s claims against al-Maʿarrı̄ on that point are based on a scene in the Epistle, where al-Maʿarrı̄ ‘... has one of the condemned souls say: “Some worse people than I have entered Paradise! But it is not everybody’s fortune to be granted forgiveness, it is like wealth in the fleeting world.”’ One of the abecedarians of literary criticism is that a literary characterisation in a literary work is not be taken as the author’s opinion, especially when it is not based on a contextual analysis of the entire work, and especially not when it is based on a scene/line from the work to bolster a fallacious argument. For the condemned souls in the literary Hell of al-Maʿarrı̄, everyone is seen to be worse than them, because the latter wishes to escape an unenviable position, as is obvious from the setting, and so the character speaks from a subjective stance. Al-Maʿarrı̄ is in dialogue with the Qur’an 16:111 as it describes these eschatological moments [On the Day when every soul will come pleading for itself, every soul will be paid in full for all its action—they will not be wronged]. Alternatively, perhaps Schoeler might have referred to al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s poetry where he says ‘I thank God for vision loss equally as the non-visually impaired thank Him for their vision’. (aḥmadu Allāha ʿalā l-ʿamā kamā yaḥmadahu ghayrı̄ ʿalā

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l-baṣar)40 or equally where he says ‘Do I fear a punishment knowing that God is just?’ (a-akhshā ʿadhābu Allāh wa Allāhu ʿādilun)41 and in a similar vein, al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s lines idha kunta min farṭi as-safāhi muʿaṭillan/fa-yā jāhı̣ d̄ u ish.had annanı̄ ghayru jāhị di akhāfu min Allāhi l-ʿuqābata ājilan/wa azʿumu an al-amra fı̄ yadi wāhị di fa-innı̄ raʾaytu al-mulḥidı̄na taʿūduhum/nadāmatuhum ʿinda l-akuffi l-lawāḥidi If your extreme idiocy has lead to you to become a muʿatṭ ị l [a nullifier of God’s attributes] You ungrateful! Take witness that I am not ungrateful I fear God's later punishment; I maintain that it is all in a One’s hand I have seen atheists visited by remorse at their graves.42

Poetry is a remedy against many things; polish poet and writer Anna Kamienska says, ‘against the ease and deluge of words’. Perhaps the ease and deluge of words with which scholarship like this describes al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s work within the parameters of what it regards as his ‘disturbing disbelief in God’s justice’ and ‘assault on Islam’ would have been dispelled and remedied by some of his poetry. However, it is rather strange that Schoeler, a scholar of Islam, fails to remember, or mention two revealing ḥadı̄ths warning against narrow and subjective judgments—main themes at the core of al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Epistle and his entire career—that are at the heart of understanding the scene in Hell and his work. The ḥadı̄ths warrant against literal and/or superficial readings of people and, by extension, all situations as such, which the condemned soul in Hell reminds us of. Narrated Ibn ʿUmar: The Prophet said, “A woman was punished because of a cat which she had tied until it died and thus she entered [Hell] Fire because of it. She allowed it neither to eat or drink nor set it free so that it might eat off the vermin of the earth.” [Sahih Bukhari 4/535]43

Similarly, the other ḥadı̄th tells of the woman who was forgiven all because she helped a thirsty dog.

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Narrated by Abu Hurarya, the Prophet said: A prostitute was forgiven [by God], because, passing by a panting dog near a well and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe, and tying it with her scarf she drew out some water for it. So God forgave her because of that. [Sahih Bukhari 4/538]44

Clearly, the first ḥadı̄th informs that all good deeds are annulled because of the abuse of the cat. The woman may very well have been ‘observing’ all religious duties strictly, and in the eyes of everyone around her, is a ‘pious person’ and ‘deserving of Paradise.’ But the ḥadı̄th relates that it does not matter anymore because her cruelty with the cat attests that she is ‘performing religion’ without really believing in its core value. Her humanity is thus questioned as she was not only incapable of showing mercy to the cat, but eventually killed it. The other opposite example is a woman known to everyone around her as a prostitute, which may invite inner comparative self-righteousness from her community—much like Ibn al-Qāriḥ and the condemned soul in Hell in the Epistle—however, her core values as a ‘human being’, and her showing mercy to the helpless dog were the reasons she was forgiven all as the ḥadı̄th maintains. The moral of the two ḥadı̄ths: appearances are sometimes deceiving and ‘religiosity’ is not just about ‘performing’ religion as much as it is about being true to the core value of all religions: compassion and practicing one’s ‘humanity’ and assisting in the thriving of other humans, non-human creatures and life in general—a core value in all religions as well as in Islam: ʿimārat al-arḍ (lit. the thriving of the earth/world, for the common good of all forms of life human and non-human alike). Thus, the condemned soul crying in Hell about another being a much worse person than he is, may indeed be read in light of ‘deceiving appearances’, which was the reason for writing the work, as al-Maʿarrı̄ saw the self-righteousness in the gossipy letter received from Ibn al-Qāriḥ, and in some people who are ‘performing’ religion, which reminds us of al-Hamadhānı̄’s satire on fake religiosity. Surely, a satire against hypocrisy and fake religiosity of some individuals or institutions does not by any stretch of hermeneutics become a satire of Islam, does it? It is rather ironic that al-Maʿarrı̄ is still being subjected to that which he fought against all his life: superficiality, narrow-judgment, and distortions. When Arab-Islamic scholarship has been discarded as untenable, this literary work and many others are represented to be in scholarly danger of being distorted and misunderstood because of alleged bias. Western

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methodologies, scholarship, and actual geography are represented as the instruments of rigorous scholarship that stand in opposition to the purported partisan and unconvincing Arab-Islamic scholarship on grounds of their ‘Muslimness.’ Emily Apter argues, ‘[w]orld Literature, institutionally speaking, increasingly resembles the global museum in its practice of curatorial salvage. It gathers up swaths of literary culture deemed vulnerable to extinction and performs preservational intervention’.45 Extending this argument, this ‘preservational intervention’, or ‘the Western salvation narrative’ is sometimes performed under the guise of misrepresenting this literature as one that is in deep conflict with Islam and facing danger in its habitat—much like comparing the reception of the work to the destructive aesthetics of the beheaded bust statue—and, therefore, could only be ‘salvaged’, understood, and read properly outside this culture as a geography, outside Arab-Muslim scholarship, and outside Islam as a religion. This ultimately ensues in contributing to denying and obliterating not only people’s understanding of their own history, culture, and literature, but the Other’s understanding of this people’s history, culture, and literature: a potent ingredient in the process of dehumanisation. It is deplorable that the translation and dissemination of a major Arabic literary classic has been tainted with an interview that is full of scholarly distortions and that these distortions have become normative and are considered an acceptable way of speaking about adab, Arabic literature, Islam and Muslim reception, as part of the legitimisation and mainstreaming of this discourse. Al-Ghazālı̄ reminds us, the keenness and eagerness to readily call someone/something blasphemous is a mark of ignorance (al-mubādara ilā al-takfı̄r innama taghlub ʿalā ṭabāʾiʿ man yaghlub ʿalayhim al-jahl).46 Jahl, of course, is a loaded word in Arabic language and culture (and other languages as well). It stands to reason that scholarship and its dissemination are not built on the tenets of jahl. Adab, by definition, is contrary to jahl. Adab, roughly translated as ‘literature’ where the Arabic literary corpus is concerned, carries more semantic weight in its literary and institutional history as it encompasses, in addition to literature, politesse, decorum, observing civility, erudition and scholarship, and being a well-rounded human-being, all central and shared values with the discipline of humanities and its mission of understanding, not misunderstanding, the world we share.

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THE EPISTLE ʿAbd al-Raḥmān reads the risāla as a literary expression of the desperation of the litterateur. She views al-Maʿarrı̄, whom she perceives as a man who has been deprived of many worldly pleasures and comforts in his life, and his turn to the afterlife as a turn of relief.47 If this is true, it may explain the choice of Time/Space as Hell, Paradise and judgment day, but it does not explain the satire in his risāla, nor does it explain why it is an eschatological moment and a Paradise and Hell for poets and litterateurs only. Al-Maʿarrı̄ did not utilise the Time/Space of Paradise and Hell as a mental and emotional release of his presumed frustrations. Nor is it possible to speculate if he was indeed frustrated, based on empirical observations of his blindness, life as a recluse, and abstinence from marriage, and his pessimistic views on life. After all, al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s life as a recluse and his aversion to marriage and children are his own personal choices. To be ‘frustrated’ is to want other choices than the current ones, but these choices cannot be realised. Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s choices in life fully reflected his own personal will for the best way he wanted to live his life (including his celibacy, vegetarianism, and avoiding social life) as his tombstone quote attests.48 He may have been a recluse later in his life, but not necessarily frustrated. It is obvious that he enjoyed a rich inner life as his works attest. His perceived frustration, or lack thereof should not be the basis for a literary approach, or a methodology of reading the work. Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s satire on hair-splitting literary readings and grammatical corrections throughout the text, and the exposing of the pretentiousness of critics and poets, are all clues to what may have fired his creativity to the Time/Space choice. Rather, his choice of an eschatological geography of a literary afterlife in Paradise/Hell functions on epistemological and semiotic levels for the reader. It could be seen as the only fitting response to Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s judgments on other people that come across as ‘theological finalities’ as it takes these ‘theological finalities’ in their appropriate setting to the only place where ‘finality’ is possible. In other words, it rhetorically devastates Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s self-righteousness.

ZERO TIME/SPACE Al-Maʿarrı̄ defines time (zamān) as ‘an entity (shayʾ) where the smallest part of it (aqall juzʾ minhu) contains all conceivable things (yashtamil ʿalā jamı̄ʿ al-mudrakāt). In this respect, he maintains, that it is

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the opposite of space (makān). Because the smallest part of space cannot contain all circumstances (lā yumkin an yashtamil ʿalā shayʾ kamā tashtamil ʿalayhi al-ẓurūf)’.49 Hell and Paradise, by their very theological nature, equate space with time because the Qur’anic conception of the Paradisiacal and Hell spaces contains all people and conceivable things and circumstances at all times. The past is not only retrievable as a memory, but it is retrievable as circumstances (ẓurūf) as a result of folded time and space. The Qur’an informs that the very nature of the eschatological moment and the Day of Judgment is not only a folding of time and space, but a recreation of all events with their corresponding times in a moment of Time. [On that Day, We shall roll up the skies as a writer rolls up [his] scrolls. We shall reproduce creation just as We produced it the first time: this is Our binding promise. We shall certainly do all these things.]50

Pre-modern grammarian Sı̄bawayh’s (d. 180/796) functional and pragmatic definition of Time as the passing of Night and Day (muḍiyy al-layl wa l-nahār) does not find reception in al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s definition of time, and neither does Time as the movement of celestial bodies (al-zamān ḥarakāt al-falak).51 The Qur’an speaks about the quintessential relationship of the celestial bodies to Time. [He created the heavens and earth for a true purpose; He wraps the night around the day and the day around the night; He has subjected the sun and moon to run their courses for an appointed time; He is truly the Mighty, the Forgiving]52

The passing of Night and Day is an essential feature of the experience of Time as seen in Sı̄bawayh’s definition. Naturally, this ‘passage of time’ has been/is measured and indicated by celestial bodies, primarily but not exclusively, to the sun and moon. [The sun cannot overtake the moon, nor can the night outrun the day: each floats in [its own] orbit]53

But then the Qur’an describes the celestial markers of Time as objects running ‘their courses for an appointed time.’ The Qur’an’s eschatology describes the Day of Judgment with regards to the irregular behaviour

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of the celestial bodies, in Q. 75:8–9, as follows: (wa khasafa l-qamaru wa jumiʿa l-shamsu wa l-qamaru); [and the moon eclipsed, when the sun and the moon are brought together]. The moon will lose its lustre and disappear, be conjoined and swallowed by the sun to become one entity indicating the loss of celestial bodies as significations of Time. The sun’s irregularity along with planets and stars are further described in Q. 81:1–3. (idhā l-shamsu kuwwirat wa idhā l-nujūmu inkadarat wa idhā l-jibālu suyyirat). [When the sun is shrouded in darkness, when the stars are dimmed, when the mountains are set in motion] kuwwirat (spherified or made into a spheroid) is understood and described by exegetes and rhetoricians as the further turning into a spherical shape with the cessation of its light or its existence altogether.54 The Qur’an relates that the stars and planets will lose their lustre, hence the cessation of the astronomical function of these celestial bodies. Time will not be possible. The eschatological destruction of the conception of Space will also accompany this destruction of Time as the ‘al-jibālu suyyirat’ [mountains are set in motion] maintains, neither Time nor Space will be possible. The beginning of the aforementioned sura in the Qur’an commences with thirteen eschatological oaths using the particle idhā (when) Q. 81:1–13. In Arabic rhetoric, any oath (qasam) has a response to indicate the event attached to this oath. In other words, it is the answer to the questions ‘what will happen when the oath happens?’ The response to these oaths (jawāb al-qasam) is given in Q. 81:14 (ʿalimat nafsun mā aḥḍarat) [then every soul will know what it has done and what it has left undone]. The Qur’an speaks about this moment as a grand moment of self-realisation and finality. It appears, then, that al-Maʿarrı̄ wants to go beyond the obvious. His definition of Time conjoins Time’s relationship to Space, or rather, Time from a subjective point of view. Whereas Sı̄bawayh’s regards Time as an objective, abstract entity independent of Space, the eschatological moment described in the Qur’an stops Time as the passing of Night and Day ensuing from the movement of celestial spheres; the earth’s movement and the celestial spheres will no longer be functioning to generate Time, they will be scattered (wa idhā l-kawākibu buʿthirat) as Q. 82:1–5 maintains. The practical, working definition of Time that could find application in the real world, therefore ceases to exist. [When the sky is torn apart, when the stars are scattered, when the seas burst forth, when graves turn inside out: each soul will know what it has done and what it has left undone]55

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In other words, the eschatological Time/Space moment ensuing of the Day of Judgment, Hell and Paradise obliterates the familiar linearity of Time, as well as the stability of Space and place. The Qur’an maintains that neither the earth nor the seas will be stable geographical places, nor will they remain as part of space anymore. In this respect, the experience of Space will stop, as does the experience of Time with the cessation of the movement of celestial spheres. This eschatological Time/Space stops the experience of the linearity of Time and stability of Space, and recreates another experience of Time/Space, one that is inclusive of all peoples at all times/spaces with all circumstances (ẓurūf) at one moment in time. This is the nature of the eschatological moment maintained by the Qur’an.

THEOLOGICAL FINALITIES, HERMENEUTICAL FINALITIES In this respect, to retrieve poets and litterateurs from distant pasts in one place is realistically possible only in Hell/Paradise inspired by the Qur’an’s conceptions of the experience of Time/Space in the Hereafter. Al-Maʿarrı̄ utilises the theological finality of Hell/Paradise, but takes that finality a step further. He emphasises it as literary criticism finality as well. Throughout the risāla, the meetings and conversations with deceased poets and hommes des lettres revolve around solving a literary issue regarding a literary work, a poem, or a grammatical point to get the final word on it from the author himself. It becomes the theological final abode and also the final literary judgment on certain topics. This is definitely a satire of the often-pedantic questions posed by Ibn al-Qāriḥ, which could be read as a satire on the pretentiousness of some literary critics altogether. It astutely raises questions such as: when is the final word said about literary works? When does it end and who gets the last word? And if a literary work was received well during its time, is it realistic to criticise it at a later time based on ‘moral grounds’? In the meantime, it also responds to Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s ‘judgements’ questioning many a literati’s faith in God and their body of literary works. Literary works remain open to interpretation, over-interpretation, and unfortunately, misinterpretation, but there comes a point when it is no longer possible to offer criticism, or voice an opinion, after that of the author herself/himself. ‘What does the text mean’ is ultimately a question that the final say on it is reserved to the author, as the risāla maintains. Since it is not possible to pose the many literary questions to deceased poets and authors, interpretations may continue for as long as they might, until the end of Time literally,

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as al-Maʿarrı̄ cleverly intuits. It is only possible to get the final say from the authors if they are all present at a certain moment in time: the afterlife. The literary afterlife al-Maʿarrı̄ constructed in the risāla borrows the theological finality manifest in Paradise and Hell to reconstruct a parallel literary finality: criticism finality.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE AUTHOR The satire in the risāla speaks of a frustration but it is not that of a man deprived of the stimuli of an active social life, or the warmth of love and family as ‘Abd al-Raḥmān maintains; it is an intellectual frustration. The never-ending piling on of ‘stating-the-obvious’ views, or the sometimescontradictory critical and scholarly opinions, especially among linguists, is a rich material of satire for al-Maʿarrı̄.56 Al-Maʿarrı̄ expresses similar views in the Epistle of Angels [Risālat al-Malāʾika]. He satirises pedantic grammarians debating morphology and etymology with the guardians of Paradise and Hell. In a highly comical scene, a group of litterateurs are pardoned from Hell, but do not make it to Paradise either, so they plead to the guardian of Paradise to let them enter so that they can teach Paradise inhabitants how to praise God properly without making grammatical mistakes, and also teach them about the morphology of all the fruits they are enjoying there.57 The litterateurs’ pleading to the guardians of both Heaven and Hell does not change the outcome of anything in the epistle expectedly, because al-Maʿarrı̄ repeatedly tells us that it is not up to them to change the outcome of things—as could be seen in the scene where a grammarian offers to explain to the angel of death the etymology of his name provided that he gives him more time.58 In this respect, al-Maʿarrı̄ never mocks the conceptions of the afterlife. The finality of Space and Time is used to maximise the satire of what al-Maʿarrı̄ perceives as the irredeemable pretentiousness that would hyperbolically continue even in death and after death. Similarly, Risālat al-Ghufrān is full of ample examples from conversations with poets and litterateurs that reveal al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s criticism of the methodology of the satirised scholars; he is particularly critical of their problematising and complicating of simpler things. He is critical of their pretentiousness to make themselves appear more learned and erudite than they actually are. In the conversation between the poet Labı̄d (d. ca. 41/661) and Ibn al-Qāriḥ in Paradise, they discuss a grammatical issue

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in the former’s poem. Labı̄d is asked about it and Ibn al-Qāriḥ, being a later reader of Labı̄d, relates what critics and a certain grammarian say about his poem; he relates a later explanation of Labı̄d’s poem. Labı̄d answers Ibn al-Qāriḥ that ‘it is much simpler than what this pretentious man had thought’. (al-amru aysaru mimma ẓanna hādha al-mutakallif).59 Al-Maʿarrı̄ may have indeed been frustrated, as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān maintains, but by a literary pretentiousness and scholarly rivalry that sometimes aimed at character assassination through pretentious readings, false accusations, and gossip as the risāla subtly maintains in its response to Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s epistle. Pretentiousness does not stop at elevated and inflated language and complicating simple things. For al-Maʿarrı̄, this also extends to pretentious piety, narrow-mindedness, and deliberate, or non-deliberate shallow readings of literary works. This is obvious in the scene where Ibn al-Qāriḥ meets with Ḥ assān b. Thābit (d. 54/674), the Prophet’s poet and one of his companions, and other poets. Ḥ assān is asked about a metaphor in one of his famous poems praising the Prophet Muḥammad and the city of Mecca. He compares the effect of Mecca to the invigorating sweetness of a woman’s kiss.60 A shocked opinion is voiced objecting to the audacity of the metaphor in a poem praising the Prophet to which Ḥ assān b. Thābit replies that the Prophet ‘was much more easy going and tolerant than you think (asjaḥu khuluqan mimmā taẓunnūn)’.61 Ḥ assān adds that there is nothing shocking in the metaphor. He explains that there is not a mention of drinking or something that was unlawful in the poem; the metaphor describes the sweetness of a woman’s kiss (rı̄qu imraʾatin) likening her saliva to honey mixed with water and apples. The poem further relates to the metaphor under discussion, that upon drinking this sweetness; a feeling of being akin to kings and lions (in bravery) not shaken by the looming encounter ensues.62 Ḥ assān further rebuts the shocked opinions by emphasising the Prophet’s generosity with the poet al-Aʿsha’s (d. 7/629) poems and with Ḥ assān himself when he was amongst those who engaged in the slandering against ʿAisha, the Prophet’s wife (ḥadı̄th al-ifk).63 Why does al-Maʿarrı̄ bring up the kiss metaphor in particular and expose it as a potentially problematic metaphor amongst the company of litterateurs in Paradise who are later readers of Ḥ assān b. Thābit like Ibn al-Qāriḥ himself? Al-Maʿarrı̄ wants to emphasise that petty opinions like this, objecting to the metaphor under ‘moral pretexts’ notwithstanding that the metaphor was said during the Prophet’s time, in his company, with his knowledge

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are not to be taken seriously. Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s rational analysis and judgment, voiced by Ḥ assān himself, that the Prophet ‘was much more tolerant and easy going that you think’ comes as a reminder of his attitude not only towards Ḥ assān, but the others whom Ḥ assān mentions. But his judgment does not rest on the Prophet’s generosity alone; in other words, it does not abuse this generosity to extend it to hypothetical and imaginary situations. It is a rational judgment based on his knowledge and acceptance of the metaphor and the poem altogether; it becomes very difficult to take any criticism against the metaphor on religious or moral grounds when it was composed and recited to the Prophet himself. In other words, the historicity of the metaphor’s ‘legitimate real decorum’ stands against later critics’ imagined and constructed decorum and contrived morality, or lack thereof, regarding the appropriateness of this metaphor. Their ‘objections’ could not supersede the legitimising historicity of the event of the metaphor. Al-Maʿarrı̄ therefore maintains that inane opinions as such have no place in sound and rational criticism; they have no place in Paradise because they lack common sense as the risāla maintains. Paradise inhabitants, al-Maʿarrı̄ maintains, through Ibn al-Qāriḥ, are intelligent. Paradise is not a place for idiots (wa ahl al-janna adhkiyāʾ lā yukhāliṭhum al-aghbiyāʾ).64 A Paradise inhabitant, the pre-Islamic poet al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānı̄ (d.c. 18/604) (his name literally means the genius of Dhubyān), was asked by al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mundhir (King of Hı̄ra) to compose a poem mentioning his wife, al-Mutajarrida.65 Al-Nābigha wrote a poem for al-Nuʿmān, as the conversation in Paradise maintains, worthy of critical attacks, he says: The brave one claimed that her mouth is cool, sweet If you ever tasted it, you would say ‘more’ The brave one claimed—and I have not tasted it— That her breezy lips cure the rusty thirst66

Al-Maʿarrı̄ voices the explanation of the poem through its author al-Nābigha and emphasises the acumen and shrewdness of the latter to accentuate an important paradisiacal quality in the risāla: intelligence and reason. Al-Nābigha explains that he could not have described her explicitly in blazon (waṣfan muṭlaqan) lest al-Nuʿmān falls in love with someone else one day.67 In other words, his poem would go out of poetic fashion

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for al-Nuʿmān and it would become obsolete, poetically. He also adds that he was reluctant to mention her name in the poem because it would not agree with the King; Kings are often not at ease with that.68 Al-Nābigha finally defends his poem and adds that he attributed the description of the woman in question to al-Nuʿmān himself (zaʿama al-humāmu) because if he had left it out, readers/people would think that it was al-Nābigha’s own description, which would be inappropriate for the king.69

THERE IS A TIME AND PLACE FOR BEAUTY Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s literary criticism in the risāla is marked by a sense of finality in its location at the theological finality that is Hell and Paradise. The Time/Space is chosen for the very purpose al-Maʿarrı̄ purports. The finality is also clear in the authors’ and poets’ own explanations and defences of their literary choices in their work. Any further or other interpretation is futile after this finality, according to al-Maʿarrı̄. Upon what categories do al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s choices rest in placing poets in either Hell or Paradise? What are the markers of the conversations that take place in Paradise as opposed to those that do in Hell? As previously mentioned in part one, where a delineation of the meaning of beauty, and by default, ugliness in the Qur’an manifest in the Time/Space axis of Paradise/Hell, ḥusn and qubḥ are not moral categories only. These are aesthetic, moral, and literary categories. Al-Maʿarrı̄ emphasises the literary beauty of Paradise by emphasising the intellect of its inhabitants discernible in the engaging conversations and the ability of the poets to defend their literary and aesthetic choices and moral deeds. There is no ‘bad’ poetry in Paradise, neither grammatically nor aesthetically as the risāla implies. In addition, the moral character of all the poets in al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Paradise conforms to what has been discussed earlier. Al-Maʿarrı̄ had been cautious in making each inhabitant of Paradise qualifies his entrance, or position, in Paradise as a theological finality before its literary finality. Each poet is asked ‘with what deed did God pardon you?’ (bi-mā ghufira lak?) The answer is usually a justification based on a moral life, character, and/or a literary work that inspires good, or even a couplet, or a line that has served a good moral cause. Belief in God, from Muslims and other monotheistic faiths (a Christian poet is named) is also a reason for salvation, and one of the justifications al-Maʿarrı̄ voices through his characters. The latter empirical observation does not make al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Paradise, according to popular

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opinion, a Muslims’ private club (compare Dante’s Commedia Divina, for instance). Pre-Islamic poets who did not live to see Islam, as well as nonMuslims, are in Paradise based on Universal ethics and the ethical maxims of Islam. Inhabitants of Paradise, Zuhayr b. Abı̄-Sulma and ʿUbayd b. al-Abraṣ al-Asadı̄, who both died before Islam, meet Ibn al-Qāriḥ who is startled by their presence in Paradise.70 They justify their presence with their aversion to all wrongdoings and God’s mercy, and their belief in God (kānat nafsi mina al-bāt ̣ili nafūran, fa-ṣādaftu malikan ghafūran wa kuntu muʾminan bi-llāhi al-ʿaẓım ̄ ).71 It is clear that the Qur’an informs al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s literary construction beyond the obvious Paradise/Hell settings as locales of reward and punishment. The conceptual networks delineated previously between Paradise, and its conceptual and semantic informing of the category of beauty as literary, moral, and aesthetic, in the same manner Hell informs ugliness in a similar capacity, is obvious. Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s protagonist, Ibn al-Qāriḥ decides that he wants to visit Hell to see its inhabitants and be grateful for God’s blessings in Paradise.72 It should be noted here that with every literary choice made in the narrative of the risāla, for instance: the banquet of the inhabitants of Paradise,73 the indecorous nature of the dispute between poets,74 and the visit of Ibn al-Qāriḥ to Hell to see its inhabitants, al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s bolsters the narrative choices with Qur’anic reminders and proofs for his readers that his literary choices are ‘theologically possible’ and, therefore, his narrative is neither a dissent from the Qur’an’s theological realm, nor is it a blasphemous intellectual meandering, as some would like us to believe that his creativity and rationality are directly proportional to his ‘blasphemy’ and/or it (creativity) is to be analysed in these parameters. Al-Maʿarrı̄, and presumably his target readers, are intelligent enough to know that his literary Paradise, by definition, is not circumscribed to ‘a fixed list’ or a ‘certain image’; only a miserable literary sensibility with crippled imagination would presume so. The very concept of the afterlife in the Islamic tradition is not bound by what is ‘known.’ Ibn al-Qāriḥ’s visit to Hell is preceded with meeting a Jinn called al-Khaytaʿūr (lit. the wolf, the ghoul, the devil, or any creature not to be trusted) and they discuss poetry.75 He asks him about the claims of some poets, namely al-Marzubānı̄’s (d. 384/994), and, by extension, other poets’ ability to collect the poetry of the Jinn to which the Jinn replies that these claims are ‘delusions’ or ‘nonsense’ (hadhayān).76 The Jinn then rambles on humans’ lack of poetic talent compared to that of the Jinn. Al-Khaytaʿūr maintains that whereas humans have only fifteen poetic metres (buḥūr al-shiʿr), rarely exceeded or exhausted by the poets; the Jinn

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have thousands of metres. He further brags that human composition of poetry is a result of their (Jinn) passing by (at ̣yāf) humans where a splinter of a toothbrush’s hair (ḍuwwāza) of their talent is wafted on them. The tongue-in-cheek anecdotes of Jinn inspiration spread by poets are brought up here to be exposed as lies and desert legends. The lies of those who claim that they have collected the Jinn poetry, or have been in direct conversation with them, are further highlighted throughout the risāla. Similar claims by poets are further exposed when Ibn al-Qāriḥ leaves the Jinn and visits Hell and meets pre-Islamic poets alShanfara (d. 525) and Taʾabaṭa Sharran (d. 530) (lit. he folded evil under his armpit). He asks the latter, if it is really true that he married the ghouls as the anecdotes and his poetry maintain?77 Taʾabatạ Sharran answers, ‘during the Jāhiliyya, we fabricated (nataqawwal) and lied (natakhkharaṣ); whatever has reached you from us that goes against common sense (mimmā yankirahu l-maʿqūl) is a lie. Life is the same at all times (al-zaman kulluhu ʿalā sajiyyatin wāḥida). What Maʿd b. ʿAdnān saw is the same as to what the last son of Adam sees’.78 It becomes clear that the verdict with regards to the nonsensical (hadhayān) claims of the poets is final. It should be noted that al-Maʿarrı̄ chooses to emphasise these fabrications, which may be regarded as absurd to say the least, in Hell befittingly. The nature of questions points to a rather irrational enterprise and the answer given constantly points to ‘pride’ and ‘lies.’ Here, the questions and conversations are marked by qubḥ and lack of reason. In the same manner rationality and intelligence are highlighted in the risāla as markers of Paradise.

IBLIS̄ IAN ANALOGIES In Hell, life and conversations are uninteresting because people are rather unintelligent and dull, as al-Maʿarrı̄ depicts. Unlike Dante, where the lord of Hell residing in the ninth circle is Satan/Lucifer, albeit a Satan with three faces and some mythological undertones in his body chewing on Brutus, Cassius, and Judas in each mouth, Iblı̄s is just another inhabitant punished with the rest of the denizens of Hell as the Qur’an attests. Al-Maʿarrı̄ equally depicts Iblı̄s as one of the inhabitants of Hell. He is portrayed as the chief imbecile in Hell. In chains and iron clads, Iblı̄s is punished by the guardians of Hell (zabāniyya).79 Ibn al-Qāriḥ is thrilled for the divine retribution as the archetype charlatan is finally punished. He and Iblı̄s have a conversation whereby Iblı̄s enquires about the former’s profession. When he learns that Ibn al-Qāriḥ is a litterateur, he is appalled

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by his profession because of its lack of monetary gains. He boasts that he has tempted many litterateurs—as they are so easy to tempt, according to him—and that the lucky ones are those that survive his temptations.80 Is Iblı̄s telling the truth or is he being his deceptive self? If Iblı̄s is known to be a liar, is everything he says a lie, or is he saying the truth now with regards to his tempting litterateurs, because this is what he does: tempting? Which part of his statement is a lie and which is truth?81 Iblı̄s then enquires from Ibn al-Qāriḥ about alcoholic drinks (alkhamr). He questions if ‘it has been prohibited in the previous life and allowed in Paradise in the afterlife, will the inhabitants of Paradise do to the waiting young men what the people of the villages (People of Lot in the villages of Sodom and Gomorrah) do?’ (yaf ʿalu ahlu l-jannati bi-lwildāni l-mukhalladı̄na fiʿlu ahlu l-qaryyāt?).82 A shocked Ibn al-Qāriḥ curses Iblı̄s ‘ʿalayka al-bahltahu’ (May you be cursed!) and asks him if all the punishment he is going through is not distracting enough.83 He then deconstructs his question by quoting the Qur’an (Q. 2:25) with regards to spouses [They will have pure spouses]. Iblı̄s retorts that there are other drinks in Paradise beside wine. His analogy is that since alcoholic drinks were unlawful, then it was made lawful beside other lawful drinks; unlawful spouses may very well also be made lawful, like wine, in Paradise. In other words, he argues that there should be other kinds of spouses beside the lawful azwāj muṭahhara. Iblı̄s’ analogy and argumentation uncover al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s praiseworthy understanding of this character in this remarkable and comical scene. Satan’s characterisation in the Qur’an from the moment of disobedience, and until his final placement in Hell shows that his character does not undergo development.84 Satan does not develop intellectually or emotionally. He is one-dimensional, lacks complexity, and is rather obsessed with tempting people and making false analogies. His argument is that if alcoholic drinks were prohibited in the previous life, but allowed in Paradise then ‘the actions of the People of Lot’, which were prohibited in the previous one should be allowed in Paradise. Iblı̄s’ analogy assumes (a) the similarity of the two things compared in the analogy: alcohol and ‘what the People of Lot did’ based only on their ‘prohibition’ status and (b) therefore the presumption continues to assume that they essentially share the same characteristics that led to their theological prohibition in a previous life and, by extension, based on their falsely assumed similarity, they should be both allowed notwithstanding the grounds of similarity or dissimilarity, or if they are identical in their respective characteristics. One also could extend Iblı̄s’s fallacy and say if alcohol was pro-

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hibited in previous life, and allowed in Paradise, all things prohibited in previous life should be made lawful in Paradise. Iblı̄s starts with a false conclusion that Y should be allowed in exact the same manner X was allowed because they were both prohibited. His analogy is similar to his prototypical analogy of disobedience between fire (him) and clay (Adam/ human beings in general). Iblı̄s objects, if fire is better why should it bow to a lesser, in Iblı̄s’ view, life form and element? [God said, ‘Iblis, what prevents you from bowing down to the man I have made with My own hands? Are you too high and mighty? Iblis said, ‘I am better than him: You made me from fire, and him from clay.’]85

The same presumption that prompted the first Iblı̄sian analogy that had him kicked out of Paradise is repeated again in al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s depiction of Hell. But his analogy is also false. He is comparing two organic elements or life forms (fire vs. clay) claiming that fire is better, but with regards to which properties and to what end? The analogy is again false because it disregards characteristics. But why does Iblı̄s insist on making these false analogies? Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s characterisation of Iblı̄s, comical as it may be, accurately captures the essence of his irredeemable nature and methodology that does not cease even in Hell; he is not expected to stop even in Hell. A fan of Iblı̄s’ analogy is the Shuʿūbı̄ (Pro-Persian/anti-Arab) poet Bashshār b. Burd (d. 167/783).86 According to the character of Iblı̄s in al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s Hell, he is Iblı̄s’ favourite not only in Hell, but in all humanity (inna lahu ʿindı̄ yadan laysat li-ghayrihı̄ min waladi Adam). Bashshār is also regarded to be the most favouring of Iblı̄s amongst all poets because he believed fire to be superior to clay and propagated the Iblı̄sian analogy in his poems.87 As Iblı̄s expresses his appreciation of Bashshār b. Burd, Ibn al-Qāriḥ sees Bashshār being punished with his eyes closed, in order not to see his own punishment. Bashshār has no vision disability in Hell as a further punishment to witness his punishment. Despite this, he refuses to open his eyes; fire-made-hooks (kalālı̄b min nār) are used to keep his eyes open.88 Ibn al-Qāriḥ greets Bashshār and compliments him on his work, but expresses disappointment in having had to see him in Hell because his beliefs has led him to this place [laqad aḥsanta fı̄ maqālak wa asaʾta fı̄ muʿtaqadak].89 He then seizes the opportunity to discuss poetry with him. Ibn al-Qāriḥ actually discusses only the negative aspects of the grammatical ambiguities in Bashshār’s poetry.90 He awaits an answer from the latter; but Bashshār

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refrains from giving him an answer asking him to spare him from this vain talk (yā hādha daʿnı̄ min abāt ̣ı̄lak fa-innı̄ la-mashghūlun ʿank).91 Bashshār’s inability to answer questions with regards to his poetry points to the intellectual atmosphere of his habitat, as depicted by al-Maʿarrı̄. The fact that Ibn al-Qāriḥ also focuses only on the negative grammatical aspects and the ambiguities of Bashshār’s poetry justifies al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s literary choice to place him in the poets’ Hell of literary criticism, so to speak. Ibn al-Qarı̄ḥ similarly discusses poetry with poets Imruʾ al-Qays92; ʿAntara al-ʿAbsı̄93; ʿAlqama b. ʿAbda94; ʿAmru b. Kulthūm95; al-Ḥ ārith al-Yashkarı̄96; Ṭ urfa b. al-ʿAbd97; Aws b. Ḥ ajar98; Abū Kabı̄r al-Haudhalı̄99; Ṣakhr al-Ghayy100; al-Akhṭal al-Taghlabı̄101 and others. While in conversation with al-Akhṭal, Iblı̄s overhears them and rebukes the zabāniyya of Hell for letting Ibn al-Qāriḥ wander around distracting everyone from their punishment and interfering in other people’s affairs. He tells them that they should drag him down to the pits of Saqar.102 The zabāniyya cleverly retort and ask Iblı̄s why is it that he had not done something about it himself (lamm taṣnaʿ shayʾan yā abā zawbaʿa) and say that they have no jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Paradise.103 Al-Maʿarrı̄ dramatically restages the same Iblı̄sian attitude witnessed in the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve as Iblı̄s convinced them to eat from the Forbidden Tree to attain immortality. In other words, if the Forbidden Tree truly bestows immortality, why does Iblı̄s not eat from it himself as well? Iblı̄s wants to interfere in the work of zabāniyya and make them drag an inhabitant of Paradise to the pits of Hell just because the latter annoys Iblı̄s. Al-Maʿarrı̄ accurately and comically depicts a tragically pathetic Iblı̄s that still pathologically works his methods because he is irredeemable. Hell’s inhabitants bore Ibn al-Qārı̄h (wa yamill min khiṭāb ahl al-nār).104 They are incapable of answering any questions. Al-Maʿarrı̄ portrays Hell in a stark difference to Paradise, which is animated with witty conversations and intelligent explanations of literary issues. Hell’s inhabitants, according to al-Maʿarrı̄, are unintelligent and inarticulate.

THE LITERARY AFTERLIFE OF AL-MAʿARRI ̄ At the beginning of this chapter, I have discussed some prevalent attitudes in Western scholarship towards al-Maʿarrı̄, in particular, and have shown how these untenable scholarly claims regarding al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s work are couched in unwarranted analogies and arguments that have nothing to do with adab, literary criticism, or the Humanities. It is remarkable

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that this scholarship is blinded to the body of modern and contemporary Arabic works, scholarship and fiction that grew around al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s work. Al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s risāla dissected a cognitive threshold fueled by selfrighteousness and pretentiousness that misread both people and literary works. The only way to go past this threshold is in the afterlife. A precursor in reviving al-Maʿarrı̄ is Egyptian intellectual ʿAbbās Maḥmūd al-ʿAqqād (1889–1964) who wrote on Islam, philosophy, literature, and poetry and founded al-diwān poetry group with poets Ibrāhı̄m al-Maznı̄ and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Shukrı̄. He was also a member of the Arab Academy. ʿAbbās Maḥmūd al-ʿAqqād wrote a work of fiction on al-Maʿarrı̄ slightly partaking of the maqāma form in its time and place travels, not only to celebrate al-Maʿarrı ’̄ s philosophical insights, but to respond to what he terms as the ‘spiteful and ignorant’ (ḥussād wa jāhilı̄n) claims of those who deliberately misread al-Maʿarrı̄.105 It is rather difficult to take any literary criticism within the parameters of the ‘hermeneutics of Inquisition’ seriously. These received opinions have become almost a tradition in itself. Perhaps al-Maʿarrı̄ criticism of those who opt for imitation without fully examining the proof is valid, ‘fı̄ kulli amrika taqlı̄dun raḍayta bihi ḥatta maqāluka rabiyya wāḥidun aḥadu/ wa qad amaranā bi-fikrin fı̄ badāʾiʿihi wa in tafakkara fı̄hi maʿsharun laḥadu?’ [in everything you do is a complacent tradition and imitation even when you say God is One/We are prompted to examine His wondrous Creation, so if some did, they are then atheists?]. He criticises even those who profess knowledge and faith that God is one without having questioned that and found out for themselves as per the aforementioned constituent of rational proof and ‘honest doubt’ as a requirement of faith in Islam and as he himself did. Perhaps if al-Maʿarrı̄ and his literary colleagues discussed in this book like al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ and al-Ḥ amadhānı̄ could teach us anything, it is what has been explicitly and implicitly said by them, when one applies common sense and reason, things usually work out.

NOTES 1. The date is known by a reference made by al-Maʿarrı̄ more than halfway through the epistle to the year 424 A.H. Since al-Maʿarrı̄ was assisted by an amanuensis, it is unlikely that he dictated the entire epistle at one go or in one year as Reynold A. Nicholson presumes notwithstanding if that date reference was made towards the beginning, middle or end of that year. Assuming a linear progress of dictation regardless of the logical fact that

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2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

the epistle is a large volume and is bound to be subjected to what is commonly referred to as ‘life happens’, i.e. the availability of the amanuensis or al-Maʿarrı̄’s health, or the commonsensical fact of the sheer time it takes to finish a volume as such, etc. is not only erroneous but naïve. ʿAisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān takes into consideration several factors and interpolates several dates to estimate the date when dictation began circa 423 with a probable end date at or after 424 A.H.  See, ʿAisha Abd al-Raḥmān, al-Ghufrān li-Abı̄’l ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrı̄: taḥqı̄q wa dars (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1954), 8–11. nyupress, ‘Eschatological tourism and collaborative authorship: An interview with Gregor Schoeler on translating al-Maʿarrı̄’, Library of Arabic Literature. March 13th 2014. Accessed March 17th, 2014. http://www.libraryofarabicliterature.org/2014/eschatological-tourism-and-collaborativeauthorship-an-inter view-with- gregor-schoeler-on-translating-alma%CA%BFarri/ Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, xix. Ibid. Ibid. bin ʿAshūr, al-Taḥrı̄r wa l-Tanwı̄r, 1:120. nyupress, ‘Eschatological tourism and collaborative authorship: An interview with Gregor Schoeler on translating al-Maʿarrı̄’, Library of Arabic Literature. March 13th 2014. Accessed March 17th, 2014. http://www. libraryofarabicliterature.org/2014/eschatological-tourism-and-collaborativeauthorship-an-inter view-with- gregor-schoeler-on-translating-alma%CA%BFarri/ Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, vxii. Rustomji suggests that Christian textual culminations of heaven and hell as places may have been shaped by Islamic conceptions of the afterworld. She argues that Dante’s work is ‘… the closest approximation that a Christian work ever reaches to the Islamic afterworld’. For the student’s elegy, see, Ibn Khallikān,Wafāyāt al-Aʿyān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, n.d.), 1:115. al-Dhahabı̄, Tarı̄kh al-Islām, ed. ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salam Tadmurı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabı̄, 1987), 30:199–220. al-Dhahabı̄, Siyyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūt and Muḥammad Naʿı̄m al-ʿIrqsūsı̄ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1413 A.H.), 18:25ff. Ibid., 39. nyupress, ‘Eschatological tourism and collaborative authorship: An interview with Gregor Schoeler on translating al-Maʿarrı̄’, Library of Arabic Literature. March 13th 2014. Accessed March 17th, 2014. http://www. librar yofarabicliterature.org/2014/eschatological-tourism-andcollaborative-authorship-an-inter view-with- gregor-schoeler-ontranslating-al-ma%CA%BFarri/

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14. Ellen McLarney, ‘The Islamic Public Sphere and the Discipline of Adab.’ International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 43, no. 3 (2011): 430–31. 15. See Ṭ aha Ḥ ussein, Maʿa Abı̄’l-ʿAlāʾ fi Sijnihi (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿarif, 1963); idem, Tajdı̄d Dhikrā Abı̄’l-ʿAlāʾ (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1937); ʿAbbās Maḥmūd al-ʿAqqād, Rajʿat Abı̄’l ʿAlāʾ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Ḥ ijāzı̄, 1937); ʿAbd al-Majı̄d Diāb, Abū’l ʿAlāʾ al-Zāhid al-Muftarā ʿAlayh (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀ mma li-l-Kitāb, 1986), to mention a few sources. 16. Walter D. Mignolo, ‘Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and De-Colonial Freedom,’ Theory, Culture and Society 26, no. 7–8 (2009): 2. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 3. 19. al-Dhahabı̄, Siyyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 18:25. 20. Kilito, Abū’l al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrı̄ aw Matāhāt al-Qawl, (Morocco: Toubkal, 2000), 19. 21. al-Shahrastānı̄, al-Milal wa l-Niḥal, ed. Muḥammad Sayyid Kı̄lānı̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Nashr, 1404 A.H.), 1:249. 22. al-Dhahabı̄, Tarı̄kh al-Islām, 15:260. 23. al-Dhahabı̄, Siyyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 7:156. 24. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. and intr. John B. Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 82. 25. Bourdieu, ‘Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field [1994]’ in Contemporary Sociological Theory, ed. Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff and Indermohan Virk, (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 383. 26. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 82. 27. Mignolo, ‘Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and De-colonial Freedom,’ 3. 28. Nicholson, ‘The Risālatu’l-Ghufrān: by Abū’l-ʿAlā al-Maʿarrı̄,’ Journal of Royal Asiatic Society 34, no.1 (January 1902), 78–9; cf. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Ghufrān, 62–3. 29. Ibid., 78. 30. A 1943 translation by G.  Brackenbery is based on an edition by Kamel Kilānı̄. The new translation by Gregor Schoeler and Geert Jan van Gelder was completed in 2013 under the auspices of NYU Abu Dhabi The Library of Arabic Literature (LAL). 31. See, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Ghufrān, 62. 32. nyupress, ‘Eschatological tourism and collaborative authorship: An interview with Gregor Schoeler on translating al-Maʿarrı̄’, Library of Arabic Literature. March 13th 2014. Accessed March 17th, 2014. http://www. libraryofarabicliterature.org/2014/eschatological-tourism-and-collaborative-

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33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43.

authorship-an-inter view-with- gregor-schoeler-on-translating-alma%CA%BFarri/ al-Nisabūrı̄, Ṣaḥıh̄ ̣ Muslim, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqı̄ (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, n.d.), 1:119. Sabine Schmidtke, ‘Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam’ al-ʿUṣūr al-Wustạ 20, no. 1 (April 2008):17. Baber Johansen, Contingency in a Sacred Law: Legal and Ethical Norms in the Muslim Fiqh (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 6. Gregor Schoeler’s book The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity, trans. Uwe Vagelpohl, ed. and intr. James E. Montgomery (London: Routlegde, 2010) had won World Prize for the Book of the Year by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2012. al-Ghazālı̄, Mizān al-ʿamal (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabı̄, n.d.), 137. Several scholars investigated the place of doubt in Islamic theology and epistemology based on al-Ghazālı̄’s work. Some of these studies engaged in a comparative investigation of al-Ghazālı̄’s thought to René Descartes ‘Cartesian doubt.’ See Muhammad lqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan & Institute of Islamic Culture, 1989), 102; M.  Saeed Sheikh, ‘Al-Ghazzali: Metaphysics’ in A History of Muslim Philosophy, ed. M.  M. Sharif, (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1963), 1:587–88; Sami M. Najm, ‘The Place and Function of Doubt in the Philosophies of Descartes and al-Ghazzali,’ Philosophy East and West, 16, no. 3/4 (1966):133–141; and also W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazali (Chicago, IL: Kazi Publications, 1982), 12. See, for instance, al-Alūsı̄, Rūḥ al-Maʿānı̄ (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, n.d.), 9:165. He categorises yaqı̄n into three levels: ʿilm al-yaqı̄n, ḥaqq al-yaqı̄n and ʿayn al-yaqı̄n. Once yaqı̄n is reached, despite its level, doubt is eliminated, according to al-Alūsı̄. al-Nawawı̄, Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥın̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2000), 130. Yaqūt al-Ḥ amawı̄, Muʿjam al-Udabāʾ, (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1991), 1:410; cf. al-Thaʿālibı̄, Yatı̄mat al-Dahr, ed. Mufı̄d Muḥammad Qamḥiyya (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 5:16. al-Maʿarrı̄, al-Luzūmiyyāt, ed. Amı̄n ʿAbd al-ʿAzı̄z al-Khānjı̄ (Beirut: Maktabat al-Hilāl and Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanjı̄, n.d.), 1:112. al-Maʿarrı̄, al-Luzūmiyyāt, 1:266. See, al-Bukhārı̄, Ṣaḥıh̄ ̣ al-Bukhārı̄ ed. Muṣtafa Dı̄b al-Baghā (Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathı̄r, 1987), 2:834; 3:1284. See, also al-Nisābūrı̄, Ṣaḥıh̄ ̣ Muslim, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqı̄ (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabı̄, n.d.), 4:1760, 2022. The ḥadı̄th is also mentioned in al-Qurṭubı̄’s exegesis of Surat al-Aʿrāf, see, al-Qurṭubı̄, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān (Cairo: Dār al-Shaʿb, n.d.), 7:216.

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44. See, Ṣaḥıh̄ ̣ al-Bukhārı̄, 3:1206; see also al-Suyūtı̣ ,̄ Jāmı̄ʿ al-Aḥādı̄th, ed. ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ṣaqr and Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Jawwād (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994), 5:245. 45. Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability, (London and New York: Verso, 2013), 326. 46. al-Ghazālı̄, Fayṣal al-Tafriqa bayn al-Islām wa l-Zandaqa, ed. Maḥmūd Bı̄jū, (n.p,1993), 66. See, also, the English translation, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam, trans. Sherman A.  Jackson (Oxford University Press, 2002). 47. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Ghufrān, 42. 48. It reads, ‘hādha janāhu abı̄ ʿalayy/wa mā janaytu ʿalā aḥadin’ ‘This is what my father committed against me and I have not committed any injustice towards anyone.’ By ‘injustice’ he means marrying and bringing children to this world as his father did to him. See, Ibn Khallikān,Wafāyāt al-Aʿyān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, n.d.), 1:115. 49. Risālat al-Ghufrān, ed. ʿAisha ʿAbd el Raḥmān, 11th edition (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 2008), 426. 50. Al-Anbiyāʾ [The Prophets] Q. 21:104 51. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 426. 52. Al-Zumur [The Throngs] Q. 38:5 53. Yā Sı̄n Q. 36:40 54. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 31:61. 55. Al-Infiṭār [Torn Apart] Q. 82:1–5. 56. See, al-Maʿarrı̄’s Risālat al-Malāʿika [The Epistle of the Angels], which revolves around a conversation between linguists at the gates of Paradise, debating grammatical issues. For more, See, Kees Versteegh, ‘Are Linguists Ridiculous? A Heavenly Discussion between Linguists in the 11th Century’ in History and Historiography of Linguistics, ed. by Hans-Josef Niederehe & Konrad Koerner, 1:147–155. (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J.Benjamins, 1990). 57. Risālat al-Malāʾika, ed. Muḥammad Salı̄m al-Jindı̄ (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1992), 26. 58. Ibid., 8–9. 59. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 217–18. 60. Ibid., 234–35. 61. Ibid., 235. 62. Ḥ assān b. Thābit, Diwān Ḥassān b. Thābit, ed. Walı̄d ʿArafāt (Beirut: Dar Ṣādir, 1974), 1:17–18. See the comments on the poem in Ibid., 2:5–18. 63. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 235. 64. Ibid., 185. 65. Ibid., 205. 66. Ibid., 204.

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67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 182ff. Ibid., 182. Ibid., 289. Ibid., 269–72. Ibid., 227–33. Ibid., 290–1. Ibid., 291. Ibid., 359. Ibid. Ibid., 309. Ibid. For more on the Liar Paradox, See, Ahmed Alwishah and David Sanson, ‘The Early Arabic Liar: The Liar Paradox in the Islamic World from the Mid-Ninth to the Mid-Thirteenth Centuries CE,’ Vivarium 47 (2009): 97–127. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 309. Ibid. Nazı̄h Muḥammad Iʿlāwı̄, al-Shakhṣiyyāt al-Qurʾāniyya (Amman: Dār Ṣafāʾ li-l Nashr wa l-Tawzı̄ʿ, 2006), 368. Ṣād Q. 38:75–76 For more on Bashshār b. Burd’s life and work, See, for instance, Ibn Khallikān,Wafāyāt al-Aʿyān, 1:271–4; al-Dhahabı̄, Siyyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 7:24–5, 156; al-Baghdādı̄, al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, (Beirut: Dār al-Afāq al-Jadı̄da, 1977), 39–42. See also, R. Blachère, ‘Bashshār b. Burd’ in EI2. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 310. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 311–13. Ibid., 313. Ibid., 313–22. Ibid., 322–27. Ibid., 327–29. Ibid., 329–32. Ibid., 332–34. Ibid., 334–39. Ibid., 339–42. Ibid., 342–44.

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100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

Ibid., 345. Ibid., 345–49. Ibid., 349–50. Ibid. Ibid., 350. al-ʿAqqād, Rajʿat Abı̄’l ʿAlāʾ, 4.

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CHAPTER 11

CODA: The Interpretation and Misinterpretation of adab in Modern Scholarship

This book has highlighted several practices of literary criticism and ‘ways of speaking’ about Arabic literary works and Arab-Islamic culture that are not conducive to the study of adab or the development of Arabic Poetics and literary criticism. Indeed, some of the practices highlighted throughout are blatantly prejudiced, as is the case in the discussion on al-Maʿarrı̄ in Chap. 10. The problem with this type of approach is that the monolithic bloc of Islam is invoked under the guise of ‘responsible non-Western criticism.’ It consists of invoking the Qur’an/Islam as a yardstick of ‘orthopraxy measurement’, or a proxy to construct fake conflicts when discussing literary works in ‘Islam.’ This instrumentalisation ultimately fabricates the clash between human creative activity and Islam, as pointed out in due places, with regards to the alleged ‘Islam’s stance’ on (insert activity), or through reading the literary work via referencing a Western horizon, or a paradigm of thought. Once this clash is fabricated, the Othering process presents a narrative where Islam and Arab-Muslim culture have nothing in common with other people, highlighting the often fabricated differences as ‘essentially Islamic,’ hence the dehumanisation of Muslims. I have endeavoured throughout to offer hermeneutical solutions, key terms, and a language for literary criticism to interpret adab. That being said, the interpretation of adab presupposes that there is also a way to misinterpret adab that relies on several proxies that not only diminish our appreciation

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2_11

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of the literary work but also reduce the possibilities of developing Arabic poetics and a responsible language for literary criticism.

DECONTEXTUALISE AND ANACHRONISE Decontextualised, anachronistic, and atomistic readings impose meanings through hermeneutical violence. This practice isolates the texts from all legitimate links to their textual ‘interpretive community’ in favour of a bastardised reading. Hämeen-Anttila argues, with respect to the maqāmāt of al-Hamadhānı̄, ‘…al-Hamadhānı̄ plays with allusions. He does have a message underneath the surface, but the message has to be sought in what contemporaries may have thought, not in any twentieth century patterns’.1 A view that perhaps echoes Wolfgang Iser’s concept of the ‘implied reader’ whom the author believed that s/he has the knowledge required to understand the text designated by ‘a network of response-inviting structures’.2 In this respect, if one truly seeks to understand the meaning that was shared by al-Hamadhānı̄’s contemporaries, for instance, as his literary successor and emulator, al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ or any of the readers of the discussed works, one has to view the works as part of a whole entity that belong to their age, and most importantly a wider and interacting system, not as independent parts. In other words, one has to look into the ‘horizon of the question’ of the literary work. The twentieth century patterns highlight the likely miscommunication (between reader and text) that may occur as a result of modernistic readings of pre-modern works notwithstanding their techniques and/or forms. Muḥammad ʿAbduh anticipates this in his preface, explaining and justifying his own expurgation of the maqāmāt. He says that al-Hamadhānı̄ was infatuated with verbal acrobatics and the work may contain things that a litterateur would shy away from, or things that would be embarrassing for him to explain. He further explains that this should not be read as a censure on al-Hamadhānı̄’s character, or in any way, a gesture that incriminates his work. Rather, he said that he believes that people would not appreciate, or understand, the purpose behind those expurgated pieces because the style and age are different, ‘wa lakin li-kull zamān maqāl wa li-kull khayāl majāl’ [every age has its style and every imagination has its method]. 3 Abduh’s statement with regards to the ‘change in taste and method’ should not be taken as a sophist’s argument. The changing reception and acceptance of pre-modern Arabic literature and the ‘creation of a new taste’ as ʿAbduh has argued, anticipated the

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change in the understanding and appreciation of the artistic language and method accordingly. The consideration of pre-modern literature and, consequently its aesthetics, is an activity that has weakened with the succession of ages and the rise of modern literature, or more specifically, ‘literature’ in the nineteenth century and its initial contempt of adab in some circles because it does not represent the times.4 Some modernists voiced their need for a ‘modern literature’ that captures the times; there was a gradual abandoning of adab and a rise of ‘literature’, the definition of ‘literature’ itself was beginning to change. With respect to the maqāmāt, Nādir Kāẓim relates how Najı̄b al-Ḥ addād, Rūḥı ̄ al-Khālidı̄ and Qusṭākı̄ al-Ḥ imṣı— ̄ all influenced by European literature—were amongst those who voiced this need with regards to the unsuitability of the literary heritage. Their views regarding literature are as follows. It was not therefore a literature that was focused on the decorative style (jamāl al-ṣiyāgha), the aesthetics of phrases (ḥusn al-ʿibāra), eloquence of expression (faṣāhat al-taʿbı̄r) and excellence of technique (balāghat al-sabk) till the end of all these measurements that were the focus of the pre-modern and the revivalist (iḥyāʾı̄) schools of criticism. Literature should not be called literature if it is not able to express the inner most emotions and feelings of individuals, to portray its surroundings, the spirit of the age and the characteristics of society. As long as literature is Expressionistic (taʿbı̄rı̄yyan) and Impressionistic (taṣwı̄rı̄yyan) then it possesses ‘literariness’ and vice versa.5

One notices the shift towards the subjectivity of representation and the focus on individual experience and the prerogative of ‘reality’ in portraying the spirit of society. The ‘artistic language’, therefore, began to construct a new system, new aesthetics, and a new literary sensibility. Thus, while art objects and literary works are timeless, artistic language and method often are not. This modern trend gave literature and, unknowingly, in a retrospective way, adab, almost a sanction of ‘reality’, albeit subjective, which represents the ‘Expressionistic’ and ‘Impressionistic’ tendencies of modern literature that portray its surrounding and ‘reality’. This is evident in the intentional and unintentional misreadings of some pre-modern texts that often occur through using the Qur’an or Islam only to reiterate the Pavlovian statements of what the literature represents as ‘venting’, ‘mockery’, ‘permissible’ or ‘not permissible’—which are inaccurate—but not focusing on the Qur’an’s influence on the conceptual, aesthetic, and structural levels

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of the literary works themselves. Even the father of scatology and one of the most obscene poets in the history of adab and Arabic literature, Ibn al-Ḥ ajjāj (d. 391/1001), wrote poems that did not ‘express’ or ‘convey’ any reality about his life. As Sinan Antoon tells us in his detailed study on al-Ḥ ajjāj, he was a talented poet, but as anecdotes relate, he found that writing regular poetry was not that profitable because of competition, so he resorted to hijāʾ and sukhf because they were profitable.6 Anecdotes tell us, al-Ḥ ajjāj, with all his ‘filth’, using van Gelder’s descriptive word, was a pious and serious man who rarely smiled. Apparently, he is the total opposite of sukhf in real life as biographers maintain. With these changes in both the definition and function of literature itself, it is obvious that a retrospective assessment of some pre-modern literary works may not succeed in viewing these works’ content/techniques/devices as divorced from an ‘expression’ or an ‘impression’ of a ‘reality’ despite their beauty and order affirming nature. It becomes also clear that these modernistic techniques may become a proxy for projecting a ‘reality’ on the work to instrumentalise it for the production of damaging conclusions. As Wael Hallaq argues, If politics is war by other means, and undoubtedly it is, then knowledge— including academia—is politics-cum-war by other means. The appearance of knowledge’s form as the business of soft-handed professors and bearded older scholars, with eager students who are on a “quest to know,” should never mask or change this sober reality. In fact, it is one of the greatest modern deceptions.7

The pathological obsession with Islam as a ‘sign’ in works of adab and Arabic literature that must be diagnosed, dissected, to be then assessed, defeated, or moulded according to the core belief and doxa of the day is not scholarship or literary criticism. The quest for ḥalāl and ḥarām conclusions with regards to adab/literature/author is not poetics. That Islam and the Qur’an play an influential role in adab and Arabic literature is unquestionable, however, the aim is to figure how this role is manifest on the conceptual, aesthetic, and linguistic levels, not in the Islamic freight of the literary work, or of characters that are used as a faith-o-meter of authors, or for entire periods and cultures. The Islamic element is not there to capitalise on it for meme, propaganda, and counterproductive purposes. These are the markers for prejudiced reading and knowledgeproduction as propaganda in discourse, as Teun A. van Dijk maintains,

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as he theorises prejudice. Prejudice is focused on action interpretation; in other words, there is a selective attention on this particular group of people for hypothesis testing strategies to confirm stereotypes.8 By hyperfocusing on mundane actions to make them important, focusing on actions that are culturally different and assigning distinctive values to different or important actions.9 This then becomes the building blocks of the stereotype and goes toward what van Dijk calls ‘model building’, where ‘people represent such actions and their situations in memory and thus build models of such situations, at the same time retrieving similar models and updating old models’.10

IMPORTED CATEGORIES AND OVERTAXING THE TEXT The other factor that is involved in the misinterpretation of adab is the referencing of a Western horizon manifest in the use of anachronistic literary terms, paradigms, and methodologies to read literary works. It has been referred to earlier that Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, which, more often than not, is called upon in reading literary manifestations of qubḥ, is not suitable. However, a number of studies—that have been referred to in their due places throughout this text—discuss some of these works through the carnivalesque albeit implicitly at the background and resort to Bakhtinian parameters in an attempt to assess their literary merits notwithstanding the hermeneutical costs involved. Bakhtin mentions the essential burning of ‘hell’ at the beginning of carnivals to indicate the liberation from all fear, especially the ultimate fear in the lives of people.11 The symbolic defeat of fear then launches after all that is known to fit the term ‘carnivalesque’: excesses, transgressions, and acts of ‘decrowning’. It is worth restating at this point that aspects of the concept of qubḥ are engaging directly with the images of ‘Hell’ through both the aesthetics of the place itself as a locale of aesthetic disfigurement, humiliation, and punishment, and through the language and vocabulary of hell. Qubḥ therefore invokes Hell and does not defeat it. The Bakhtinian carnival on the other hand, or Bakhtin’s idea of ‘freedom’, is about the celebration of the body as manifest in Bakhtin’s idea of ‘grotesque realism’ and the defeat of fear through the defeat of ‘Hell’ manifest in its burning and destruction. At this juncture, one ought to ask, what does the concept of freedom mean in pre-modern Arab-Islamic culture? Is it universal also so that Bakhtin’s carnivalesque could so readily fit?

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An investigation of the concept was not unknown to pre-modern ArabIslamic adab, philosophy, and theology as well. In The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to the Nineteenth Century, Franz Rosenthal elucidates in his study two foci around which several subcategories and definitions of freedom revolve: the legal and sociological aspects on one hand, and the philosophical views in pre-modern Arab-Islamic culture on the other. Under the legal and sociological aspects, issues of slavery, imprisonment, and forced labour are paramount. Where philosophical issues are concerned, the ethical meaning of freedom and its delineation in political theory, as well as metaphysical speculation comprise the other part of Rosenthal’s study. The discussion also does not abandon the meaning of the concept and its implications in pre-Islamic Arabia. A summary of the investigation of the meaning of the concept, as such, yields the following main conclusions: (a) ḥurr (freeman/woman) originally had a strong moral undercurrent in both pre-Islamic and Arab-Islamic cultures because of its antithesis to the state of slavery.12 In this respect, the ‘general human inclination ascribe[d] all bad qualities to the slave and his miserable lot, and all good qualities to those who were legally free men’.13 (b) After the advent of Islam, within both the social and legal frames, as well as the philosophical frame, the term was not divorced from its moral undercurrents. Within the social/ legal frame, to be ‘free’ meant to possess a desire to be a ‘good’ person and to be free of all desires.14 This becomes understandable in light of freedom as the possession of noble qualities.15 (c) Within the philosophical, ethical, and theological frames, while the aforementioned definition still holds true where perhaps destructive desires are concerned, the Sufi dimension added the ‘freedom from everything’ (zuhd) to the definition.16 On the other hand, addressing the question of freedom as ‘choice’ in relationship to ‘free will’ should also complement this discussion. In Islam, ikhtiyâr was never seen together with ḥurrîyyah, nor was it felt as one aspect of the complex structure of freedom. It remained a limited term. In addition, it was deprived of its potential vigor by the direction Muslim theological speculation eventually took concerning free will. Human freedom of will was largely restricted to the ability of making a choice with regard to individual situations. This development, it may be added, had its roots in pre-Islamic times and began before the theological discussions of Muslim scholars attempted to shape Near Eastern intellectual history.17

It becomes clear then the term ikhtiyār (choice) does not actually feature in the definition of freedom; it is mainly restricted to the ability of a

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person to make a choice. The splitting of philosophical and semantic hairs shall be further highlighted with Miskawayh’s (d. 421/1030) explanation of the term in his letter to Abū Ḥ ayyān al-Tawḥıd̄ ı̄ (d. 414/1023): We say: ikhtiyâr ‘choice’ is derived etymologically from khayr ‘good, best.’ It is the infinitive of the eighth conjugation of this root. Saying, ‘Someone chose something,’ is about the same as saying, ‘He did what was good for him,’ that is, good either in reality, or in his opinion even if it was not good for him in reality.18

It figures, then, that the very concept of ‘choice’ evokes an assessment of what may, or may not, be ‘good’ to someone; the ability to make a choice and making this choice is therefore presented as an indirect measurement of ʿaql as reason and not freedom as such. On the other hand, Spanish polymath Ibn Bājja or Avempace (d. 533/1138) defines ‘freedom’ as ‘the ability to think and act rationally’.19 He also indirectly links the ability of making a ‘choice’ as a measure of ʿaql to freedom through the making of rational choices, i.e. the quality of one’s choices defines one’s moral make-up and character. In the aforementioned stories from the Thousand and One Nights discussed throughout, ikhtiyār was defined as what constitutes ‘good’ for the person involved and also as a measurement of ʿaql. The choices made by the characters in ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, such as the bridegroom’s choice to be wed with smelly hands, for instance, is referred to as a deficiency in reason. Even in ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, the man’s choice to pray at the Kaʿba that the lady’s husband may cheat on her, so he may have an opportunity to sleep with her, focuses on the nature of his choice as incongruent with ʿaql and not on the freedom of choice itself (because it is granted) as also evident in the reaction to his story. On the contrary, according to the aforementioned definitions, the ḥashshāsh is not ‘free’ because he is not thinking or acting rationally. Thus, a Bakhtinian reading that would attempt to tell us how the ḥashshāsh is celebrating ‘freedom’ as he ‘subverts’ prayers at the Kaʿba has to disregard an entire corpus of adab, philosophy, theology, ethics, and how premodern Arab-Islamic culture defined ‘freedom’ as such. One then should ask, if such a reading disregarded this entire corpus, what relation does it still maintain to adab? In a similar manner, Dalı̄lah al-Muḥtāla’s choice to steal, for instance, has raised the question of ʿaql as both a moral force and a reasoning faculty. Dalı̄lah’s only redeeming turn of events, by the

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storyteller/author of the tale, is her returning of all the goods she had initially stolen, otherwise both aspects of ʿaql would be deemed ineffective; the heroine of the tale herself would be regarded as a fool because she chose what is not good for her. The act of returning the goods establishes the fact that Dalı̄lah affirms the definition of ikhtiyār as choosing the best for her, which means returning the goods at the end, which complements the definition of freedom in its Arab-Islamic context as a desire to be a good person with an ability to think and act rationally. Dalı̄lah, therefore, cannot be deemed a ‘rogue’ in the Bakhtinian sense where ‘roguery’ implies criticism of the establishment and an oppositional stance towards it, whereas Dalı̄lah does not challenge the establishment; she integrated herself in it. The presupposition of a relationship of any kind with a person and/or institution negates the notion of unlimited freedom because the presence of dependence.20 It is precisely her wish to integrate into society that had Dalı̄lah affirm this concept. Readings that wish to regard this story and the others as solely carnivalesque in their shifting of the state power or religious powers in an upside-down world will have to disregard the definition of freedom, as such, and also the meaning of ikhtiyār in Arab-Islamic culture and adab. In like manner, Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarı̄ justifies his lifestyle choice at the envoi. The justification Abū’l-Fatḥ gives in most of his envois refers directly to ʿaql; he explains that his behaviour is the height of ʿaql. In this respect, the idea of ikhtiyār does not refer to Abū’l-Fatḥ’s sense of freedom to do as he pleases—which he does all the time—but it refers to ʿaql, as his definition of it in the maqāmāt maintains. It appears that the carnivalesque might present itself as a problem solving technique to read these literary works, primarily to situate them in the comparative literature cabinet with their European counterparts using terminology that is accessible to all. However, if this methodology is applied, various problems appear that not only hinder the full appreciation of these works, but also contribute to misunderstanding adab and Arab-Islamic culture. This practice also obstructs the development of a responsible language for literary criticism from within adab. As Claudio Guillén maintains, literature ‘…presents itself or functions historically as a system–i.e., as an order (of interacting parts) and a cluster of orders, changing and yet enduring through the centuries’.21 In this respect, it becomes understandable that ‘…the individual work of art did not merely become an addition unit in a sum of separate units. It entered a structural whole, a system, among whose parts significant and reciprocal

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relations existed. The inability to perceive these relations is what one might call the “atomistic fallacy” in literary studies’.22 Amongst the set of problems in assessing the applicability of the carnival is not just the disparity between the definition of the concept of freedom in pre-modern Arab-Islamic culture and freedom as envisioned by Bakhtin, which is the raison d’être of the carnival, but also the paradigmatic differences between activities that might be mistaken for ‘decrowning’ and ‘liberation’ in pre-modern Arabic literary works in comparison to their counterparts in the Bakhtinian carnival; these activities though similar, take on a different meaning in the Arab-Islamic culture. Images of excess, transgression, and folly are represented in the selected literary works discussed as contrary to Reason/reason: qabı̄ḥ. They are not celebrated in the Bakhtinian sense of the word, nor do they contribute to ‘…fertility, growth, and a brimming-over abundance’23 as Bakhtin explains, or as sometimes anachronistically assumed in adab. Another category, which is also quintessentially universal and overlaps with the Bakhtinian carnival, is profanity. Profanities and oaths were not initially related to laughter, but they were excluded from the sphere of official speech because they broke its norms; they were therefore transferred to the familiar sphere of the marketplace. Here in the carnival atmosphere they acquired the nature of laughter and became ambivalent.24

Profanities are never ambivalent in the Arab-Islamic culture. Hijāʾ, the most serious mode devoted to profanities was actually a part of official speech between tribes in pre-Islamic times and after the advent of Islam as well. It continued to be a recognised form of speech that is acknowledged by tribes, heads of tribes, caliphs and monarchs, institutions, and individuals alike.25 While more often than not, it is not an occasion for laughter, it does offer amusement for those who are not directly involved in it, as van Gelder maintains.26 In some cases, the language of the marketplace might very well inspire hijāʾ,27 as anecdotes from al-Aghānı̄ tell us, but it is not restricted within, or to the marketplace, exclusively; it found its way to the corpus of adab. On the other hand, scatological images related to the carnival, such as the images of urine and defecation related to degradation as seen in ‘The Tale of the Woman with Five Suitors’ and ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’ presume a different meaning in comparison to Bakhtin’s ideas.

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… the slinging of excrement and drenching in urine are traditional debasing gestures, familiar not only to grotesque realism but to antiquity as well. Their debasing meaning was generally known and understood. We can find probably in every language such expression as ‘I shit on you.’ (Bowdlerized equivalents are: ‘I spit on you’ or ‘I sneeze on you.’)…This gesture and the words that accompany it are based on a literal debasement in terms of the topography of the body, that is, a reference to the bodily lower stratum, the zone of the genital organs. This signifies destruction, a grave for the one who is debased. But such debasing gestures and expressions are ambivalent, since the lower stratum is not only a bodily grave but also the area of the genital organs, the fertilizing and generating stratum. Therefore, in the images of urine and excrement is preserved the essential link with birth, fertility, renewal, welfare.28

There is hardly any trace of birth, fertility, renewal or welfare in the images of urine and excrement that have been discussed throughout. On the contrary, they are meant as forms of hijāʾ, a graveyard as Bakhtin emphasises, but they share nothing with the rebirth liberating carnivalesque image of shared laughter he argues for. The deliberate linking, in the literature under discussion, of these images with the concept of najāsa, and the rhetoric of ibʿād, hence qubḥ as a moral commentary on the authors’ parts, affirms the argument put forth the overlapping of the aesthetic with the moral and their utilisation in the literary through the artistic language as well. Further, a consideration of the issue of the representation of reason as an intellectual faculty, or lack thereof, is of utmost importance at this point. Madness and folly, according to Bakhtin, permit seeing the world with different eyes.29 Folly is, of course, deeply ambivalent. It has the negative element of debasement and destruction (the only vestige now is the use of ‘fool’ as a pejorative) and the positive element of renewal and truth. Folly is the opposite of wisdom—inverted wisdom, inverted truth. It is the other side, the lower stratum of official laws and conventions, derived from them. Folly is a form of gay festive wisdom, free from all laws and restrictions, as well as from preoccupations and seriousness.30

Seeing the world with different eyes through madness and folly is a recognised category in Arabic literature in the established types of the romantic fool, the wise fool, and the holy fool, as have been thoroughly

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researched by the late Michael Dols,31 but it does not involve the Bakhtinian carnivalesque. The absence of reason is a main ingredient of qubḥ and has been prominently used as an excuse for derailing and preventing moral commentary on the characters’ parts as in ‘The Tale of the Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, because it is a moral commentary in itself. In Risālat al-Ghufrān, al-Maʿarrı̄’s Hell is marked by dullness and the inability to respond to questions properly as opposed to Paradise, which he depicts as intrinsically more animated, intelligent, and intellectually stimulating. Not only that, but the character of Iblı̄s (Satan) is presented as a fool with logically flawed analogies and pathological obsessions of tempting Hell’s guardians to take an inhabitant of Paradise to Hell. The production of meaning through Western paradigms and Western literary theories and models, the carnivalesque in this case, will therefore take it upon itself to show us how the literary work ‘mocks’ and ‘assaults’ Islam as dictated by the Bakhtinian upside-down world and shuffling of state, power, and/or religious authorities to achieve ‘freedom.’ As Terry Eagleton rightly argues, ‘the great majority of [these] literary theories … have strengthened rather than challenged the assumptions of the powersystem’.32 The propagation of the same recycled clichés under the guise of literary theory and imported neologisms are hardly exercises in thinking—it is the absence of thought for the preservation of the status quo. It is not possible to insert an experience that informs a certain Western literary concept qua theoretical model, like the carnivalesque, for instance, with its European cultural heritage and collectively shared experience, to the Arab-Islamic (or any other) experience and claim it as part of literary and cultural history and speak about adab, Arabic literature, and culture through it. How does it become a ‘real’ experience for the Other culture simply by attempting to legitimise its reality by reading this literature through that experience? It does not make it ‘real’ nor does it make it part of the ‘real’, ‘…concepts arise from common experience and that it is to such shared experience that we give names in order to communicate them’.33 The concept of qubḥ was a common experience manifest on the literary level; it was informed by aesthetic and moral registers; its name was pronounced as such and it was cognitively and idiomatically recognised as such. For this and for all the other reasons, attempting to obliterate the Arab-Islamic literary history and the influence of the Qur’an by reading this heritage through modern knowledge-production paradigms to create ‘fake conflicts’ will remain a ‘fake’ conflict that rests on perceiving something ‘unreal’ as ‘real.’

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MINDING OUR LANGUAGE Advancing a language for literary criticism from within adab and the development of responsible key terms to discuss adab and Arabic literature—which is undeniably hindered by such practices –is fundamental not only to combat some of the damaging conclusions and misinterpretations of adab, but also to the development of the field itself. It is remarkable that a field as rich as Arabic should borrow methodologies, key terms, and critical tools, instead of using and developing the rich theoretical reservoir it has. For instance, with regards to ‘metaphor’, Alexander Key contends, ‘…the medieval Arabs and Persians may have just done a better job than we have been managing to do with these same questions’.34 Nonetheless, the field cannot engage theoretically in Comparative Literature departments yet. On the state of Comparative Literature and the position of Arabic therein, Key comments: Arabists are still in no position to advocate for the inclusion of Arabic thinkers on our departments’ theory reading lists. What could one claim should be added? A work from a genre that doesn’t have a name that makes sense in English? A work with no Church, no State, no Enlightenment and little Plato in its genealogy? A work that no-one has translated into a European language yet?35

Yet, Key is optimistic that things are bound to change in the coming decade not just for Arabic but also for other non-European literatures, hopefully. Similarly, Mohamed-Salah Omri maintains: It would be interesting to study in what ways a genuine training that crosses comparative literature and area studies could allow the Arabist to enter into dialogue with other literary studies scholars; to engage with questions of theory and test their applicability and limitations; to interrupt the undisturbed calm of Arabic literary studies; and to act as a corrective to unidirectional traffic. Arabic literature has the potential to challenge literary theory to be genuinely global, flexible, and self-critical.36

Likewise, Roy Mottahedeh has previously argued for the presence and advocating of a ‘moral vocabulary’ that should offer a useful language for literary criticism.37 Mottahedeh’s astute observation on the existence of a moral vocabulary, which has been highlighted throughout, offers a key towards not only understanding the works’ internal mechanics,

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but also in viewing the works as part of a collective and organic whole and a contextualisation of these works through the return to philology and the development of responsible and principled language for literary criticism. Qubḥ conjures what Emily Apter recently argued for in her discussion of the concept of the ‘Untranslatable.’38 Words carry a linguistic, cultural, and historical baggage with them. Conceptually, qubḥ has layers of lack of reason on top of (or underneath) excess and transgression; it does not simply become ‘ugly’ nor ‘carnivalesque’ in the same manner carnivalesque, as a word and a category of thought cannot be divorced from its history or culture and teleported to read adab or Arabic literary works as an ‘untranslatable’ word (hence its use as such), nor as a category of thought or a tool of literary criticism. Words and concepts are not units in a void; they form a part of the whole literary, linguistic, and cultural systems. This is not to say that one is faced with an impasse when reading World literature or when reading Arabic literature from outside or when engaging theoretically with Comparative Literature, but rather one should be sensitive to the hermeneutical costs involved in reading, as well as translation, and the ‘nice’ ironing out of literary, linguistic, and cultural differences through sweeping and gross generalisations. Despite its flaws, the Enlightenment’s motto, Sapere aude ‘dare to know’, is achievable unless it is hindered by two obstacles: fear and laziness. On fear, Martha Nussbaum says, ‘[f]ear is a “dimming preoccupation”: an intense focus on the self that casts others into darkness. However valuable and indeed essential it is in a genuinely dangerous world, it is itself one of life’s great dangers’.39 It is not surprising that Nussbaum calls it a ‘narcissistic’ feeling. ‘Fear’ and ‘vicious narcissism’ engenders selfsatisfied intellectual laziness that contributes to the ‘dimming’ of societies and academic disciplines as Nussbaum intimates. The laziness expressed in accepting and recycling ‘received ideas’ is the antithesis of scholarship. In the context of al-Jāḥiẓ’s encyclopedic scholarship, James E. Montgomery encourages us to shed a few received ideas about some ‘received ideas’ on the definition of ‘freethinking’ itself, he says I do not consider secularism or irreligiosity (or even atheism) to be essential to the notion of freethinking. In my view freethinking is characterised instead by a reliance on independent, reasoned thinking driven by a quizzical stance with regard to received knowledge.40

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This idea is elaborated on elsewhere where Edward Said explains the role of intellectuals and educated people. He maintains, ‘…the duty of the educated person is to constantly resist the narrowing confines of an ethnic or national identity—which leads to apartheid, racism, hatred, violence, war’.41 While doing so, he maintains it is not an invitation to abandon one’s religious roots or identity but rather not let one’s ‘beliefs’ (including secular beliefs) to stand in the way of the evolution of ideas. ‘This is not to deny one’s Islamic, Christian, or Jewish roots, he says. But it means not allowing one’s identity to freeze—blocking growth, the evolution of ideas, a larger sense of human identity’.42 Julia Bray expresses a similar line of thought where she questions some scholars’ difficulty ‘…to relinquish the belief that some historical trajectories, or civilisations, or cultural traditions, are richer and more significant—more universal, if not more global—than others: that the Roman empire is more paradigmatic than that of the Mughals, for example’.43 Bray, Montgomery, and Said all remind us in different words and ways of the core values of adab. If there were any doubtful questions raised about the value of the Humanities at this time and age: the age of globalisation, epistemic violence, epistemicide, and destructive discourses, it is left to the Humanities (adab, literature, and the arts) to constantly remind us of what it means to be ‘human’ and that practicing adab entails that one applies its definition as a guideline when practicing literary criticism. If adab saw to the thriving of decorum, observing civility, erudition, and scholarship, and being a well-rounded human being and a humanist, it behooves to us as adı̄bāt/udabāʾ (humanists in George Saliba’s rendering) to remember that acting otherwise is not only against the very discipline, but also against civilisation and humanity altogether.

NOTES 1. Hämeen-Anttila, Maqama: A History of a Genre, 114. 2. The Act of Reading, (London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 28, 34. Original German: Der Akt des Lesens (Munich, 1976) quoted in Selden, The Theory of Criticism: from Plato to the Present, 215. 3. Maqāmāt, 7. 4. Kāẓim, al-Maqāmāt wa l-Talaqqı̄, 153  ff. On Najı̄b al-Ḥ addād, Rūḥı ̄ al-Khālidı̄ and Qusṭākı̄ al-Ḥ imṣı— ̄ all influenced by French literature—who were amongst the first to voice this need with regards to the unsuitability of

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5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

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the literary heritage, with respect to the Maqāmāt—as the subject of the author’s book—to the times they were living in. Kāẓim, al-Maqāmāt wa l-Talaqqı̄, 159 [My translation]. See, Sinan Antoon, The Poetics of the Obscene in pre-modern Arabic poetry: Ibn al-Ḥ ajjāj and sukhf (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Hasan Azad, ‘Knowledge as Politics by Other Means: An Interview with Wael Hallaq (Part One),’ Jadaliyya May 16 2014 Accessed December 25 2014. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/17677/knowledge-aspolitics-by-other-means_an-interviewTeun A. van Dijk, Prejudice Discourse (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1984), 30. Ibid. Ibid., 31. RAHW, 90–91. The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969), 10. Ibid. Ibid., 81–5. The highlighting quality of this nobility of character is jūd (generosity) not only expressed materially but also in spirit and magnanimity of character, to the extent that a person possessing qualities contrary to this definition (jealousy, envy, cowardice, etc.) is deemed akin to a slave even if the person was legally free. See ibid., 81–99. The moral dimension of ḥurriyya could also be traced in pre-modern Arabic book titles or literary phrases such as ḥurr al-kalām, which as Rosenthal maintains, ‘does not refer to “free speech” but to speech of a high literary quality.’ See ibid., 10. Ibid., 109–115. It is worth mentioning that al-Qushayrı̄ was the first Sufi writer to discuss and define freedom in his epistle, as also noted by Rosenthal. Note here also the parallels between the Sufi concept of futuwwa as the possession of noble qualities and the concept of freedom. Rosenthal, The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century, 12. Miskawayh and Abū Ḥ ayyān al-Tawḥıd̄ ı̄, al-Hawāmil wa l-Shawāmil, ed. A. Amı̄n and A. Ṣaqr (Cairo, 1370/1951), 220–26 quoted in Rosenthal, The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century, 19 [Rosenthal’s translation]. Amber Haque, ‘Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists,’ Journal of Religion and Health 43, no.4, (2004): 368. Rosenthal, The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century, 116. Rosenthal discusses this concept with respect to an individual’s relationship with God. However, it is used here to include all relationships. Literature as System (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), 4.

280 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41.

42.

43.

S.R. BIN TYEER

Ibid., 5. RAHW, 19. RAHW, 17. For more on hijāʾ, see van Gelder, The Bad and the Ugly. van Gelder, ‘Hijā’ in EAL, 1:284. An example would be the poet Ibn al-Ḥ ajjāj who listened to verbal assaults in the market and recorded them and would ask people in the market the following day about meanings he did not understand, see van Gelder, The Bad and the Ugly, 81–82. RAHW, 148. RAHW, 273. RAHW, 260. For a classification of the types of fools in Arabic literature and culture (the romantic fool, the wise fool, the holy fool), see Michael Dols, Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, 313–422. Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, 170. Taneli Kukkonen, ‘The Good, the Beautiful and the True Aesthetical Issues in Islamic Philosophy,’ Studia Orientalia 111 (2011):100. Biliana Kassabova, ‘Stanford scholar explores Arabic obsession with language.’ January 23rd 2015. Accessed April 16th 2015. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/january/arabic-language-key-012315.html Alexander Key, ‘Arabic: Acceptance and Anxiety’. March 5th 2015. Accessed April 16th 2015. http://stateofthediscipline.acla.org/entry/ arabic-acceptance-and-anxiety Mohamed-Salah Omri, ‘Notes on the Traffic between Theory and Arabic Literature’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (2011): 732. Mottahedeh, ‘‘Ajāʾib in The Thousand and One Nights,’ 38. Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (London and New York: Verso, 2013). Martha C.  Nussbaum, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age, (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012), 58. James E. Montgomery, ‘Jahiz: Dangerous Freethinker?’ in Critical Muslim Issue 12, (October–December 2014): 15. Robert Marquand, ‘Conversations With Outstanding Americans: Edward Said,’ The Christian Science Monitor. May 27, 1997. Accessed March 13, 2014. http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0527/052797.feat.feat.1.html Robert Marquand, ‘Conversations With Outstanding Americans: Edward Said,’ The Christian Science Monitor. May 27, 1997. Accessed March 13, 2014. http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0527/052797.feat.feat.1.html Julia Bray, ‘Global Perspectives on Medieval Arabic Literature’ in Islam and Globalisation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Agostino Cilardo in, (Leuven and Paris: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2013), 215.

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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2

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INDEX

A ʿAbd al-Ḥamı ̄d al-Kātib, 6 ʿAbd al-Ghanıā l-Nābulsı,̄ 87, 106n60 Abū Hayyān al-Tawḥı ̄dı,̄ 271, 279n18 Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı,̄ 38n116, 167n19, 179, 186, 206, 207, 224n64, 225n72 Abū’l ʿAlāʼ al-Ma͑arrı,̄ 1, 19, 30, 76, 229–57, 258n1, 265, 275 Abū’ l ʿAtāhiyya, 102 Abū’l Fatḥ al-Iskandarı ̄, al-Iskandarı ̄ (fictional character), 194, 197, 201, 272 Abu’l Ṭayyib al-Washshāʼ, 81 Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb, 175 Abū Zayd al-Anṣārı,̄ 23 Abū Zayd al-Sarūjı ̄, al-Sarūjı ̄ (fictional character), 201 adab definition, 7, 9, 11, 18, 30, 32 vs. literature, 189n32, 268, 278 Adam, Adam and Eve, 95, 96, 98, 99, 107n97, 221n7, 256 Adam Mez, 238 Adunis, 4–7, 32n9, 33n27, 76

Aḥmad Ibn Rajab’s, 72n8, 77 ʿAisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 233, 258n1, 261n49 al-Akhfash, 25 ʿAlā’ al-Dın̄ Abū’l Shāmāt’, 169, 184 ‘ʿAlı ̄ al-Zaybaq’, 169, 171, 174, 175, 184 Al-Aʿ shā, 249 Al-Azdı,̄ 214 al-Azharı,̄ 23, 24 ʿAlı ̄ b. Abı ̄ Ṭālib, 99 Al-Baghdādā al-Khāzin, 12, 35n63, 117n7, 143n7 Al-Baqillı ̄nı,̄ 4, 38n120 Al-Buḥturı,̄ 232, 260n43 Al-Dhahabı,̄ 231, 232, 235, 258n10, 262n86 Al-Fır̄ ūzābādı,̄ 24, 37n89, 174, 188n18 al-Ghazālı,̄ 67, 72n8, 73n18, 74n30, 76, 82, 90, 101, 103n12, 105n41, 106n72, 108n112, 154, 166n11, 239, 243, 260n37, 261n46

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 S.R. bin Tyeer, The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59875-2

299

300

INDEX

al-Hamadhānı,̄ 1, 174, 179, 188n20, 193, 194, 196–8, 200, 201, 203–8, 211–16, 218, 219, 220n1, 221n3, 222n14, 223n25, 224n50, 227n106, 242, 257, 266 al-Ḥ arır̄ ı,̄ 1, 201, 202, 206, 222n17, 223n38, 257, 266 al-Ḥ uṣrı ̄ al-Qayrawānı,̄ 185 Al-Jāḥiẓ, 69, 112, 117n10, 167n19, 168n31, 175, 176, 185, 188n29, 194, 214, 215, 219, 221n5, 226n94, 226n103, 277 al-Jurjānı,̄ 27, 28, 38n106, 38n120, 48, 79, 91, 104n29, 106n79 al-Kalbı,̄ 25 al-Kashshāf, 24, 35n64, 37n101, 103n19, 107n99 al-Khalı ̄l b. Aḥmad al-Farāhı ̄dı,̄ 22–3 Al-Marzubānı,̄ 252 al-Mas͑ūdı,̄ 169, 174, 188n23 al-Mawardı,̄ 100, 108n108 Al-Mubarrad Al-Mutannabı,̄ 232 Al-Nābigha, 231, 250, 251 Al-Naḥḥās, 110, 117n2 al-Nawādir f ı ̄ l-Lugha, 23 al-Niffarı,̄ 89, 106n68 al-Qāmūs al-Muḥı ̄t,̣ 24, 37n96 al-Qurtubı,̄ 25, 37n104, 72n8, 77, 104n32, 107n99, 260n43 al-Qushayrı,̄ 12, 25, 35n65, 170, 187n6, 279n16 al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānı,̄ 90, 138 al-Ṣaghānı,̄ 23, 37n92 al-Ṣāḥibı ̄ f ı ̄ Fiqh al-Lugha, 4 Al-Samarqandı,̄ 16, 17, 36n73, 36n74, 80, 104n31 al-Shahrastānı,̄ 235, 259n21 Al-Shanfara, 253 al-Sharı ̄f al-Raḍı,̄ 33n15, 38n119, 73n22, 106n78

al-Shawkānı,̄ 13, 35n65, 37n94, 107n99 al-Shāf iʿı,̄ 92, 107n80, 114, 117n12 al-Shārı ̄f al-Jurjānı,̄ 27, 38n106, 48 al-Ṭ abarı,̄ 24, 93, 97, 107n86 al-Ṭ abarsı,̄ 25, 37n105, 60, 71n4, 88, 106n66 al-Takmila wa l-Dhayl wa l-ṣila li-Kitāb Tāj al-Lugha wa-Saḥāḥ al-ʿArabiyya, 23, 37n92 al-Tanūkhı,̄ 122, 143n4, 185, 186 Al- Thaʿālibı,̄ 205, 207, 224n59, 260n40 Al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Gharıb̄ a f ı ̄ Ikhtifāʾ Saʿı ̄d Abı’̄ l-Naḥs al-Mutashāʾil, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, 218 al-Zabı ̄dı,̄ 24, 37n98 Al-Zamakhsharı,̄ 12, 23, 25, 37n91, 37n101, 78, 93, 97, 104n21, 107n99, 143n22 anachronism, anachronistic, 266–9 ʿaql, 28, 44, 49, 53, 69, 93, 95, 100–102, 139, 140, 153, 154, 176, 194, 202, 204–8, 271, 272 Arabic Language, 4, 22, 37n94, 57n31, 101, 243 Asās al-Balāgha, 23, 37n91, 104n29 atomistic readings, 237, 266 Avicenna, 79, 94, 104n28 aya, āyāt, signs, 63, 99, 102, 114 ʿayyār, ʿayyārın̄ , 170–73, 187n3

B badı ̄ʿ, rhetorical embellishments, 64 Banū Sāsān, 208, 217 Barbara Cassin, 22, 36n85 Bashshār b. Burd, 235, 255, 262n86 Beautiful Name, 45 blasphemy, 235, 252 Buṭrus Bustānı,̄ 24

INDEX

C Carnival, carnivalesque, 1, 19, 22, 147, 152, 161, 167n22, 185, 269, 272–5, 277 Claudio Guillén, 35n57, 272 Commedia Divina, 231, 252 Comparative literature, 20, 35n57, 36n81, 272, 276, 277 conflict, 2, 3, 31, 50, 94, 187n7, 243, 265, 275 creative process, 1–3, 21, 141, 163, 177, 186–75, 193 creativity, 31, 175, 183, 215, 233, 244, 252

D Dante, 231, 240, 252, 253, 258n8 David Damrosch, 18, 36n76 Day of Judgment, 61, 70, 76, 98, 245, 247 decontextualisation, decontextualise, decontextualised, 266–9 deformity, deformed, 121, 134, 135, 137, 138, 145n42, 186, 194, 221n5 Disequilibrium, 18, 138, 147, 165, 185, 186 disfigurement, 27, 29, 81–92, 116, 133, 138, 142, 269 Disgust, 93, 130, 159, 160, 164, 165 divine Reason, 100, 102 doxa, 236, 268

E Edward Said, 6, 20, 31, 34n37, 278 Emile Habibi, 218 Emily Apter, 22, 36n84, 243, 277, 280n38 Enlightenment, 2, 3, 6, 171, 276, 277 Equilibrium (i ʿtidāl), 14

301

Eschatology, eschatological, 61, 71n8, 76–7, 83–4, 87, 103n7, 103n15, 229, 230, 240, 244–7, 258n2, 258n13, 259n32 essentialist, essentialised, essentialising, (essentialism), 3, 21, 240 extremist, extremists, 232, 233, 236, 237, 240

F fabricate, fabrications, 15, 238, 265 Fakhr al-dı ̄n al-Rāzı,̄ 12, 35n60, 60, 76, 103n4, 144n34 fatā, futuwwa, 170 f i ṭrah, 50, 55n5, 73n23 folly, 47, 53, 57n31, 124, 131, 133, 137, 138, 140, 151, 153, 154, 184, 194, 204, 273, 274 Forbidden Tree, the, 96, 99, 107n97, 256 Franz Rosenthal, 145n43, 161, 167n24, 270 Frederic Jameson, 198, 223n29 freedom, 135, 137, 167n22, 185, 259n16, 269–73, 275, 279n16 freethinking, 239, 277 free-will, 17, 88, 96, 270 ‘fusion of horizons’, 8

G game theory, 182, 190n45

H ḥadı ̄th , 23, 69 ḥadı ̄th al-ifk, 110, 249 ḥadı ̄th, ḥadıt̄ hs, 99, 241, 242 ̄ b. Hishām, 218 Ḥ adı ̄th ʿḷsa Hans-Georg Gadamer, 5, 8, 21, 34n44 Ḥ assān b. Thābit, 249, 250, 261n62

302

INDEX

hawā, 50, 93–5, 111, 157, 210 hell, 25, 59–108, 124, 147, 186, 199, 229–63, 269 hereafter, 11, 16, 18, 62, 67, 79, 80, 84, 86, 99, 230, 247 heresy, 234, 235 hijāʾ (invective poetry), 47 Ḥ ikāyat Ab?’l Qāsim al- Baghdādı,̄ 1, 214, 226n90 ḥıl̄ a, ḥiyal, 186 Humanism, Islamic, 19, 20 human reason, 64, 100–102, 112, 124–33, 151, 153, 169, 182 humour, 116, 132, 142, 153, 155, 157, 159, 160, 165, 177, 183, 200, 217, 218, 221n8 ḥumq, 57n31, 153–8, 160–65, 196, 204 ‘The Hunchback Cycle’, 121, 122, 125, 129, 133, 134, 136–8, 141, 147, 154, 165, 183, 186, 271 Ḥ usn, aḥsan, 12, 13, 17, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 43–55, 60, 66, 67, 70, 80, 94, 113, 115, 116, 139, 141, 182, 184, 185, 187, 199, 205, 217, 220, 251, 267

I ibʿād, rejection, banishment, ousting, 25, 124 Iblı ̄s, 23, 95, 107n95, 202, 253–6 IbnʿAbbās, 24, 25, 117n8 IbnʿAbd Rabbihi, 206, 223n23, 224n67 Ibn al-ʿAmıd̄ , 214, 226n86 Ibn al-Athı ̄r, 174 Ibn al-Ḥ ajjāj, 268, 279n6, 280n27 Ibn al-Jawzı,̄ 49, 169, 176, 189n31 Ibn al-Muʿtazz, 64, 73n20 Ibn al-Qāriḥ, 231, 236, 237, 242, 244, 247–50, 252–6 Ibn al-Rūmı,̄ 205, 207 IbnʿArabı,̄ 25, 60

IbnʿAtāʾ al-Iskandarı,̄ 13, 14 Ibn Ḥ azm, 178, 179, 189n37 Ibn Iyās, 175 Ibn Manẓūr, 23, 24, 174, 221n3 Ibn Qutayba, 69, 70, 73n28 Ibn Rashı ̄q, 206 Ibn Sharaf, 48 ikhtiyâr, 270–72 implied reader, 266 instrumentalisation, 265 interpretive community, 266 irony, 81–85, 134, 136, 157, 165, 231 Islam, Muslims, 1, 2, 4, 6, 11, 20–1, 31, 45, 47, 49, 61, 70, 84, 89, 95, 107n97, 126, 127, 139, 141, 152, 215, 230–43, 252, 257, 265, 267, 268, 270, 273, 275 isrâf, excess, 63, 66, 101, 109

J Jacques Berque, 5 jahannam, 77, 80, 81 jahl, 66, 87, 91, 109, 111, 116, 121, 132, 154, 169, 243 jamāl, beauty, 54 Jinn, 95, 160, 163, 253 justice, adl ͑ , 11, 17, 154

K khabar, akhbār, anecdotes, 101 Kitāb al-ʿAyn, 22, 172 knowledge production, knowledgeproduction, 236, 237, 239, 268, 275

L Labı ̄d, 248 The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, 142, 147–149, 151, 155, 156, 159, 161, 163, 183, 271, 273, 275

INDEX

laghw, 110, 112, 115, 194, 202, 217 lahw, 179, 180 laughter, 134, 160, 164, 165, 273, 274 Lexicography, lexicons, 1, 22–32, 136, 162, 174, 211 Liar Paradox, 195, 221n8, 262n81 Lisān al-͑Arab, 23, 101, 114, 153, 166n8, 221n3 literary analysis, 10 literary criticism, 8–11, 18, 19, 21, 48, 116, 152, 170, 198, 202, 229, 240, 247, 251, 256, 257, 265, 266, 268, 272, 276–8 literary device, 5 literary technique, 11, 187, 193, 200 literary theory, literary theories, 8, 22, 104n20, 275, 276 literary tools, 10, 149 locus of enunciation, 236 ‘The Lover who Pretended to be a Thief’, 129

M madı ̄ḥ (panegyrics), 47 madness, 124, 161, 194, 196, 204, 207, 274 Majnūn, Majnūn Layla, 161 Maḥmūd al-ʿAqqād, 257, 259n15 maqamāt, maqāma, 1, 10, 19, 30, 174, 177, 187, 193–203, 206–8, 210, 214, 216–21, 222n22, 224n50, 257, 266, 267, 272 Martha Nussbaum, 277 mazdaka, 234, 235 ‘meaning of meaning’, 91, 92, 125 metaphor, 4, 30, 78, 82, 86, 87, 89–92, 101, 163, 169, 170, 186, 197, 208–14, 219, 223n27, 230, 249, 250, 276 Miguel Asín Palacios, 238 Mikhail Bakhtin, 1, 31

303

misinterpretation, 247, 265–280 Miskawayh, 271, 279n18 mizān, 11, 18, 54, 64 mı ̄zān, balance, 11, 18, 54, 64 moral agent, 71 moral commentary, 135, 137, 142, 158, 165, 274, 275 moral desert, 70, 97, 98 moral diseases, 82, 83 moral failure, 17, 27, 29, 80–83, 86, 88, 91, 98, 99, 121, 125, 135, 137, 138, 141 moral force, 64, 69, 70, 100, 101, 103, 130, 196, 204, 271 moral vocabulary, 10, 11, 32, 276 Muḥı ̄ṭ al-Muḥıṭ̄ , 24 Muḥammad ʿAbduh, 188n20, 189n39, 193, 225n78, 266 Muḥammad al-Muwaliḥı,̄ 218 Muʿjam al-Taʿrifāt, 27 Mujmal al-Lugha, 23 mujūn, 1 mukaddı ̄, mukaddın̄ , 194, 195, 197, 198 Muʿtazilite, 78, 107n99, 188n29, 238

N nafs, 50, 93, 94, 107n92 Naguib Mahfouz, 6 najāsa, 67, 149, 159, 160, 274 Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, 4

O Orientalism, 6 Orientalists, 125, 127, 146n58, 240 the other, othering, 18, 20,22, 24, 29, 47, 54, 60, 66, 68, 70, 78, 84, 100, 101, 110, 137, 151, 154, 164, 169, 170, 200, 208–10, 212, 215, 221n4, 232, 242, 243, 250, 265, 269–75

304

INDEX

P paradise, heaven, 43, 45, 55n3, 60, 62, 76–8, 80, 87,94, 96–9, 103, 109, 110, 117n1, 186, 221n7, 229, 230, 240, 242, 244, 245, 247–56, 261n56, 275 Pharaoh, 26, 27, 59–63, 65, 66, 95 philology, 9, 20, 21, 33n31, 34n49, 277 Pierre Bourdieu, 22, 236, 259n24 pre-Islamic Arabia, 47, 48, 81, 83, 87, 270 prejudice, prejudiced, 2, 8, 9, 20, 21, 31, 90, 91, 94, 127, 265, 268 profane, 1, 2, 10, 16, 31, 156, 164 profanity, 147, 273 propaganda, 268 Prophet Muhammad, 23, 29, 37n97, 249 punishment, 25, 28, 45, 61, 62, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72n8, 75–88, 91, 97, 111, 117n1, 122–6, 141, 142, 153, 154, 159, 163, 165, 176, 183, 185, 186, 199, 241, 252, 254, 256, 269

Q qadar, measure, 54, 64 qubḥ, qabı ̄ḥ, 19, 48, 59–109, 121, 147, 169, 193, 151, 269 Qur’an applicatio, 5, 6, 14, 101 and history of reading in Islam, 20 inimitability, i ʿjāz, 4, 12 literary canon, 9, 14, 19, 29 metaphors, 4, 52, 82, 87–89, 91, 101 narrative, qaṣaṣ, 12, 13, 16, 17, 21, 40, 69, 125 paradigm shift, 3–7, 14

reception, 4, 6, 13, 54, 69, 80 rhetorical device of exemplification, 82 rupture, 3, 5, 30 the story of Joseph, 11–13, 16, 17, 52, 71, 94 stylistics 4, 5, 12, 14, 16, 83, 84, 231 translation, 5, 27 The verse of Light, 89–92 worldly text, 6, 7

R rationality, rationalism, 70, 78, 140, 239, 252, 253 reward, 43, 44, 47, 50, 51, 53, 55n2, 70, 71, 75, 76, 80, 97, 100, 123, 129, 186, 252 Reynold A. Nicholson, 237, 257n1 Risālat al-Ghufrān, The Epistle of Forgiveness, 1, 30, 229 rogue, rogues, 170–76, 185, 194, 272 roguery, 1, 171, 172, 175, 176, 272

S sacred, 1–3, 16, 31, 156, 161, 163, 215 Santiago Castro Goméz, 234 Satan, 94–6, 98, 107n96, 253, 254, 275 satire, 198, 200, 204, 207, 217, 218, 220, 234, 235, 242, 244, 247–9 scatology, 147, 268 Scheherazade, 128, 167n27, 186 secular criticism, 31 semantics, 22, 27–9, 43, 53, 60, 61, 65, 66, 98, 100, 102, 109, 114, 116, 199, 202, 235, 243, 252, 271

INDEX

semiotics, 22, 30, 112, 114, 167n27, 194, 195, 199, 200, 207, 219, 220, 223n41, 244 Shahriyar, 128, 145n47 shaṭāra, shāṭir, shuṭṭār, 170–72, 174, 176, 180, 184–6 Sı ̄bawayh, 245, 246 story, stories, 4, 11–17, 26, 30, 51, 52, 57n24, 57n27, 63, 65, 66, 69–71, 94, 95–99, 121, 123–5, 128–37, 142n2, 145n50, 148, 150, 154, 156, 157, 163, 164, 166n4, 167n27, 169, 170, 174, 176, 179, 180–84, 186, 189n34, 196, 217, 231, 237, 256, 271, 272 storytelling, 15, 36n79, 122, 123, 131, 141, 148, 169, 172, 185, 186 sub-alternisation, 234 Sufi, Sufism, 12, 13, 25, 27, 60, 67, 82, 87, 89, 170, 187n5, 270, 279n16 sukhf, 1, 162, 168n30, 268 symbolic power, 236 symbolic violence, 22, 236

T Taʾabaṭa Sharran, 253 Taha Hussein, 4, 33n18, 128, 259n15 Ṭ āhir al-Wat ̣t ̣ār, 6 Tāj al- ʿArūs, 24 takhyyı ̄l, 77, 78 ‘The Tale of Crafty Dalı ̄lah’, 166, 169 taqbı ̄ḥ al-ḥasan wa taḥsın̄ al-qabıh̄ ̣, 194, 196, 197, 203, 205–8, 219, 224n59 terrorist, terrorists, 232, 233, 236, 237 Terry Eagleton, 10, 22, 98, 275

305

‘Thousand and One Nights, 1, 9, 10, 19, 30, 31, 38n122, 122, 123, 126, 128, 130, 134, 137–9, 144n41, 148, 151, 162, 163, 166n15, 167n27, 169–71, 174–5, 177, 179–81, 183, 186, 189n34, 271 Time/Space, 244–47, 251 transgression, 29, 49, 50, 55, 62, 63, 65–9, 75, 92, 95–103, 109–111, 115, 116, 121, 124, 139, 141, 142, 147, 151–7, 159–162, 164, 165, 169–190, 194, 204, 217, 269, 273, 277 translation, 5, 6, 22, 27, 55n2, 60, 87, 145n46, 154, 189n39,231, 235, 238, 243, 277, 279n18

U Umberto Eco, 157, 167n22, 201 ‘untranslatable’, the, 22, 277 ʿUrwa b, al-Ward, poet, 48

V Virtue, virtues, 7, 20, 25, 43, 47, 48, 50, 57, 71, 75, 112, 115, 117n9, 140, 141, 163, 164, 171, 177, 186, 207, 236

W Walter D. Mignolo, 234 Wolfgang Iser, 266 ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, 142, 147, 149, 151, 157, 163, 183, 272 World literature, 1, 6, 19, 22, 33n33, 147, 277

306

INDEX

Z zabāniyya, 81, 254, 256 zandaqa, 235 Zaqqūm, the tree of, 81–4 ‘zero-point’, 234 zı ̄na, adornment, 54

Zuhayr, pre-Islamic poet, 48, 117n2, 252 ẓulm, 19, 50, 79, 92, 154, 157 ẓulm al-nafs (self-harm, self-injury), 47, 50, 154