The Literary Qur'an

Narrative Ethics in the Maghreb

Hoda El Shakry

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780823286379
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literatur des Nahen Ostens

Winner, 2020 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies, Modern Language Association The novel, the literary adage has it, reflects a world abandoned by God. Yet the possibilities of novelistic form and literary exegesis exceed the secularizing tendencies of contemporary literary criticism. Showing how the Qur?an itself invites and enacts critical reading, Hoda El Shakry's Qur?anic model of narratology enriches our understanding of literary sensibilities and practices in the Maghreb across Arabophone and Francophone traditions. The Literary Qur?an mobilizes the Qur?an's formal, narrative, and rhetorical qualities, alongside embodied and hermeneutical forms of Qur?anic pedagogy, to theorize modern Maghrebi literature. Challenging the canonization of secular modes of reading that occlude religious epistemes, practices, and intertexts, it attends to literature as a site where the process of entextualization obscures ethical imperatives. Engaging with the Arab-Islamic tradition of adab —a concept demarcating the genre of belles lettres, as well as social and moral comportment—El Shakry demonstrates how the critical pursuit of knowledge is inseparable from the spiritual cultivation of the self.Foregrounding form and praxis alike, The Literary Qur?an stages a series of pairings that invite paratactic readings across texts, languages, and literary canons. The book places twentieth-century novels by canonical Francophone writers (Abdelwahab Meddeb, Assia Djebar, Driss Chraïbi) into conversation with lesser-known Arabophone ones (Ma?m?d al-Mas?ad?, al-??hir Wa???r, Mu?ammad Barr?da). Theorizing the Qur?an as a literary object, process, and model, this interdisciplinary study blends literary and theological methodologies, conceptual vocabularies, and reading practices.

PART I

Poetics of Piety

CHAPTER 1

Existential Poiesis in Maḥmud al-Masʿadī’s Mawlid al-nisyān

We are led by nature towards death and are led by reason towards life.

ABŪ ḤAYYĀN AL-TAWḤĪDĪ

This line, from the celebrated polymath Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (930–1023), is the first of three epigraphs that open Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī’s 1940s novella Mawlid al-nisyān (The genesis of forgetfulness).1 Al-Tawḥīdī was famously described as “faylasūf al-udabāʾ wa-adīb al-falāsifah” (the philosopher of littérateurs and the littérateur of philosophers) (ʿAbbasid 113). When asked about the quote in an interview with the Iraqi journal Al-aqlām (The pens), al-Masʿadī said that it captured the relationship of “the concept of death to the tragedy of human existence” (fikrat al-mawt li-maʾsāt al-wujūd al-insānī) (al-Masʿadī, Collected Works 3:212). His novella, he added, also explores “the problem of death and life, or the tragedy of Man when he confronts the inevitability of death. . . . Put otherwise, in this sense, he suffers from that aspect of his existential tragedy that causes him to be dissatisfied with being ephemeral and transient. He is thus compelled to acquire immortality through means other than those provided by nature” (3:213).2 Al-Masʿadī follows al-Tawḥīdī with epigraphs from Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and Abu al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (973–1057) that similarly bridge metaphysics and aesthetics.3 Al-Tawḥīdī and al-Maʿarrī belong to a rich scholarly tradition at the intersection of Islamic theology, philosophy, and literature. Their works interrogate the epistemological dimensions of human existence by emphasizing the ethical valences of reason, imagination, and artistic creation. In opening Mawlid al-nisyān with references to al-Tawḥīdī and al-Maʿarrī, al-Masʿadī situates his novella within a distinctly philosophical Islamic intellectual tradition. Moreover, the nearly century-long gulf that separates al-Tawḥīdī and al-Maʿarrī from Schopenhauer suggests an alternative genealogy for European aesthetic philosophy.

Drawing upon a variety of literary, philosophical, and theological influences, al-Masʿadī’s fiction traverses genres and historical periodizations. His literary writings build upon the relationship between tragedy and literature in the Sufi poetry of the ascetic Abū al-ʿAtāhiya (748–826), the mystical universalism of the Sufi poet Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (858–922), the philosopher Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s (973–1058) understanding of rationalist Islam, the poiesis of the self from the theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), as well as the liminal concept of the barzakh (isthmus) from the mystic Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165–1240).4 His work is also heavily in dialogue with Greek tragedy, and he cites Baudelaire, Camus, Dostoevsky, Gide, Goethe, Ibsen, Malraux, Sartre, Shakespeare, and Valéry among his influences (Omri, Nationalism, Islam and World Literature 45; and “Interview” 435).5 Al-Masʿadī’s intertextuality with early Arab and Islamic thought, alongside European philosophy and literature, offers a new vision of literary innovation that moves beyond the reductive binary of cultural authenticity (aṣāla) and belated imitation (taqlīd). Working within a variety of traditions in a manner that is innovatively novel but also timeless—insofar as most of his fictional works are staged outside of historical time—al-Masʿadī reimagines the Arab/ic literary heritage, or turāth, as well as its future potentiality.

The dearth of critical scholarship on al-Masʿadī—easily the most renowned Tunisian public intellectual—within Euro-American Maghrebi studies is rather striking.6 His name is largely absent from the (predominantly Francophone) Maghrebi canon and is infrequently cited in critical histories of Arabic literature. Moreover, his prolific writings on Arab/ic literature and philosophy are a glaring lacuna within canonical archives of the nahḍa.7 While all of al-Masʿadī’s fiction was written in Arabic, much of it has been translated into French, and he wrote some of his literary criticism in French. Mawlid al-nisyān, for example, was translated by the Tunisian intellectual Taoufik Baccar (Tawfīq Bakkār) as La genèse de l’oubli in a 1993 publication sponsored by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture—a subvention that reiterates al-Masʿadī’s status as a national cultural icon.8

Across his critical and literary writings, al-Masʿadī explores literature as a creative praxis that speaks to broader existential and humanist concerns. He theorizes artistic creation as an ethical imperative of human existence: “It is through literature that man achieves some degree of completeness, that he actualizes his humanity and completeness, because he gives his entirety to inquiring into the meaning of existence and the values through which man can be elevated from the level of animals to that of the divine” (Collected Works 3:366–67).9 Expanding upon my discussion of Sufism in the Introduction, this chapter situates al-Masʿadī’s aesthetic philosophy within a Sufi-inflected model of ethical Muslim subjectivity.

Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī

Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī (1911–2004) was a prolific writer, educator, editor, trade unionist, and government official. Educated during the French Protectorate, he studied at elite institutions of both French and Islamic thought: the Lycée Carnot and the Sorbonne, as well as al-Ṣādiqiyya and al-Zaytūna University. His commitment to bilingual education carried over into simultaneous teaching appointments at Collège d’Etudes Supérieur in Tunis, where he eventually chaired the Arabic literature department, and at the Centre d’Etudes Islamiques at Paris University. More crucially, al-Masʿadī

was put in charge of the “Tunisification” and reform of the educational system in the newly-independent country as Secretary of State for Education, Youth and Sports, which led to the conception and implementation of “The Project for Educational Reform of 1958.” His goals were universal access to elementary education and the establishment of a modern university system. Among the most prominent aspects of this reform were integration of the Islamic institution al-Zaytūna within the university system as a college for religious studies, and maintaining bilingual education in Arabic and French, two daring moves, which continue to be debated today. (Omri, Nationalism, Islam and World Literature 6)

In addition to reforming Tunisia’s educational policy following independence, al-Masʿadī was the minister of cultural affairs (1973–1976) and Speaker of Parliament (1981–1986). An active member of the Neo-Dustūr party, his investment in democratizing Tunisia’s educational system worked in concert with his direct-action political organization and unionization work around labor and education (7).10

Al-Masʿadī also played a prominent role in Tunisian independence, reportedly participating in decolonial negotiations with the French, and contributing to Tunisia’s decision to not align with the Axis powers while under German occupation in 1942 (ibid.). He was a cultural ambassador on behalf of the postindependence government, serving as Tunisia’s UNESCO representative (1958–1968), a member of the UNESCO Executive Council (1977–1978; 1980–1985), and an Advisory Board member of the Arab League Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), in addition to advising on Pan-Arab cultural patrimony projects—such as the Syrian Al-mawsūʿa al-ʿarabiyya al-kubra (The great Arabic encyclopedia) and the Jordanian Academy of Arabic Language (ibid.).

Cultural journals were a pivotal space for the development of autochthonous print networks that supported national, regional, and global networks of exchange and alliance across the decolonizing world.11 To that end, al-Masʿadī served as the editor in chief of the literary journal Al-mabāḥith (Investigations), which he ran between 1944 and 1947. A remarkable periodical in the history of Tunisia’s early print culture, the journal was a “forum for a collective academic project to construct a national culture in Tunisia” that brought together the country’s preeminent writers, critics, and public intellectuals (ibid. 6–7). Despite its relatively brief press run, Al-mabāḥith (1938–1947) was influential across the Arab world, “reaching a circulation of seven thousand in 1947 at a time when the average circulation of similar periodicals was two thousand” (Omri, “History” 287–88). In addition to embodying the creative zeitgeist of midcentury Tunisia, Al-mabāḥith was also the medium through which al-Masʿadī serialized and published his earliest stories, plays, and novels.12 He was also a frequent contributor to Al-mabāḥith’s pseudo-successor al-Fikr (Thought, 1955–1986).

Al-Masʿadī wrote during a vibrant period in Tunisia’s cultural history when writers, critics, and artists were experimenting with aesthetic styles and theories. He was among such thinkers as Sāliḥ Suwaysī al-Qayrawānī (1871–1941), Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Sanūsī (1901–1965), and the members of the underground group Jamʿat taḥt al-sūr (the below-the-wall gathering)13—such as ʿAlī al-Dūʿājī (1909–1949) and Muḥammad Bayram al-Tūnisī (1893–1961)—who ran the avant-garde literary journal Al-ʿālam al-adabī (The literary world).14 Al-Masʿadī inaugurated a generation of Tunisian writers and critics interested in the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in Islam. The critic Maḥjūb bin Mīlād, who wrote the introduction to the first edition of al-Masʿadī’s celebrated play Al-sudd (The Dam), for example, published a treatise on intellectual renewal in Tunisia entitled Taḥrīk al-sawākin (Arousing those who are stagnant) in 1955. The text employs the concept of ijtihād (individual reasoning independent of precedent) as a basis for collective and individual creativity (Fontaine 185).

Reflecting existentialist themes and motifs, avant-garde Tunisian literature of the 1960s, such as the works of ʿAzz al-Dīn Madanī and al-Ṭāhir al-Hammāmī, sought to generate novel modes of artistic expression (ibid. 186). As Jean Fontaine writes: “Plots were often reduced to backward spirals, in which times were embedded in each other. Heroes deconstructed themselves, and the real was cloaked in dreams. For that matter, members of the Avant-Garde no longer spoke about poetry or prose, but about ‘ʾibdâʿ’ (creation)” (187). This emphasis on creativity as an aesthetic—and I would add, ethical—philosophy touches on the heart of al-Masʿadī’s theory of literature.

Despite his widespread influence, al-Masʿadī’s fiction challenged discourses of the committed intellectual while simultaneously troubling the perceived relationship between cultural innovation and Islamic intellectual traditions. His fictional works and critical contributions to Al-mabāḥith and Al-fikr were notable for their cerebral philosophical style, esoteric symbolism, and lofty linguistic register. Al-Masʿadī’s literary writings are mythical in nature, staged outside of time and space, and devoid of any markers of historical or geographical specificity. As such, Arab literary critics of the time found it challenging to read his aesthetic philosophy in relation to Tunisia’s status as a French Protectorate and ongoing efforts at decolonization. They consequently imposed didactic nationalist readings, as the Egyptian novelist and critic Ṭāhā Ḥusayn did with his play Al-sudd (The Dam), or they dismissed his writing as apolitical artistic navel-gazing, as was the case with the Tunisian critic Tawfīq Bakkār.15

Al-Masʿadī is at once a representative and remarkable figure in twentieth-century Maghrebi literature. At first glance, his status as an experimental writer and literary critic seems to contradict his role as a public intellectual and policymaker with prominent positions in the postindependence government. Al-Masʿadī was, in fact, like many Maghrebi intellectuals of his generation—teaching, writing, theorizing, and contributing to the cultural advancement of the postindependence state across a variety of platforms. These figures embodied a holistic model of the engaged public intellectual in ways that disrupt many of the anti-statist assumptions about avant-garde cultural movements. Tunisian intellectuals in particular frequently worked in concert with state institutions and initiatives.16 They did not see their literary projects as necessarily in conflict with the state; rather, they helped define and shape postindependence cultural trends across their fiction, criticism, teaching, and political platforms. Al-Masʿadī’s direct involvement in the development of Tunisia’s national education policy and role as minister of cultural affairs, for example, harkens to my discussion of adab in the Introduction. Fusing aesthetics and ethics, as well as pedagogy and cultural edification, he illustrates the complex ways in which Tunisian national culture developed in the postindependence period.

Al-Masʿadī’s experimental fiction, coupled with his interdisciplinary engagement with a diverse range of intellectual traditions, reflect his broader view of cultural innovation. Speaking in his capacity as the minister of cultural affairs, he stated: “Cultural development must be regarded both as a factor of national identity—or cultural identity—and as an instrument of transformation or change of a society. . . . [D]evelopment and modernization must be pursued under the triple banner of (i) fidelity to oneself, (ii) the profound will to renew, and (iii) the wise and rational selection of borrowing and influences to integrate into the modernization process” (al-Masʿadī qtd. in Davis 2). Al-Masʿadī here outlines the subtle dynamic of authenticity, transformation, and exchange that is crucial to his theory of cultural innovation and literary modernization. Integrating a variety of philosophical, theological, and literary conventions, he challenges their discursive authority in the very act of bringing them together. These subversions play out rhetorically, formally, and thematically across his mythical tales.

Uncanny Worlds

Al-Masʿ...