Sacred Language, Ordinary People

Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt

N. Haeri

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780312238971, 9780312238988
• eBook ISBN: 9780230107373
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Social Sciences

The cultures and politics of nations around the world may be understood (or misunderstood) in any number of ways. For the Arab world, language is the crucial link for a better understanding of both. Classical Arabic is the official language of all Arab states although it is not spoken as a mother tongue by any group of Arabs. As the language of the Qur'an, it is also considered to be sacred. For more than a century and a half, writers and institutions have been engaged in struggles to modernize Classical Arabic in order to render it into a language of contemporary life. What have been the achievements and failures of such attempts? Can Classical Arabic be sacred and contemporary at one and the same time? This book attempts to answer such questions through an interpretation of the role that language plays in shaping the relations between culture, politics, and religion in Egypt.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Transliteration
• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Humble Custodians of the Divine Word: Classical Arabic in Daily Life
• Chapter Three: Text Regulation and Sites of Ideology
• Chapter Four: Creating Contemporaneity: Struggles with Form
• Chapter Five: Persistent Dilemmas: Pleasure, Power and Ambiguity
• Chapter Six: Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index