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 âa concept demarcating the genre of belles lettres, as well as social and moral comportmentâEl 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 ChraĂŻbi) 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.
The dearth of critical scholarship on al-MasÊżadÄ«âeasily the most renowned Tunisian public intellectualâwithin 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 naháža.7 While all of al-MasÊżadÄ«âs 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-nisyÄn, for example, was translated by the Tunisian intellectual Taoufik Baccar (TawfÄ«q BakkÄr) as La genĂšse de lâoubli in a 1993 publication sponsored by the Tunisian Ministry of Cultureâa subvention that reiterates al-MasÊżadÄ«âs status as a national cultural icon.8
Across his critical and literary writings, al-MasÊżadÄ« 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: âIt 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 divineâ (Collected Works 3:366â67).9 Expanding upon my discussion of Sufism in the Introduction, this chapter situates al-MasÊżadÄ«âs aesthetic philosophy within a Sufi-inflected model of ethical Muslim subjectivity.
was put in charge of the âTunisificationâ 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 âThe Project for Educational Reform of 1958.â 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-ZaytĆ«na 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 Tunisiaâs educational policy following independence, al-MasÊżadÄ« was the minister of cultural affairs (1973â1976) and Speaker of Parliament (1981â1986). An active member of the Neo-DustĆ«r party, his investment in democratizing Tunisiaâs educational system worked in concert with his direct-action political organization and unionization work around labor and education (7).10
Al-MasÊżadÄ« also played a prominent role in Tunisian independence, reportedly participating in decolonial negotiations with the French, and contributing to Tunisiaâs 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 Tunisiaâs UNESCO representative (1958â1968), a member of the UNESCO Executive Council (1977â1978; 1980â1985), and an Advisory Board member of the Arab League Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), in addition to advising on Pan-Arab cultural patrimony projectsâsuch as the Syrian Al-mawsĆ«Êża al-Êżarabiyya 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-MasÊżadÄ« served as the editor in chief of the literary journal Al-mabÄáž„ith (Investigations), which he ran between 1944 and 1947. A remarkable periodical in the history of Tunisiaâs early print culture, the journal was a âforum for a collective academic project to construct a national culture in Tunisiaâ that brought together the countryâs preeminent writers, critics, and public intellectuals (ibid. 6â7). Despite its relatively brief press run, Al-mabÄáž„ith (1938â1947) was influential across the Arab world, âreaching a circulation of seven thousand in 1947 at a time when the average circulation of similar periodicals was two thousandâ (Omri, âHistoryâ 287â88). In addition to embodying the creative zeitgeist of midcentury Tunisia, Al-mabÄáž„ith was also the medium through which al-MasÊżadÄ« serialized and published his earliest stories, plays, and novels.12 He was also a frequent contributor to Al-mabÄáž„ithâs pseudo-successor al-Fikr (Thought, 1955â1986).
Al-MasÊżadÄ« wrote during a vibrant period in Tunisiaâs cultural history when writers, critics, and artists were experimenting with aesthetic styles and theories. He was among such thinkers as SÄliáž„ SuwaysÄ« al-QayrawÄnÄ« (1871â1941), Zayn al-ÊżÄbidÄ«n al-SanĆ«sÄ« (1901â1965), and the members of the underground group JamÊżat taáž„t al-sĆ«r (the below-the-wall gathering)13âsuch as ÊżAlÄ« al-DĆ«ÊżÄjÄ« (1909â1949) and Muáž„ammad Bayram al-TĆ«nisÄ« (1893â1961)âwho ran the avant-garde literary journal Al-ÊżÄlam al-adabÄ« (The literary world).14 Al-MasÊżadÄ« inaugurated a generation of Tunisian writers and critics interested in the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in Islam. The critic Maáž„jĆ«b bin MÄ«lÄd, who wrote the introduction to the first edition of al-MasÊżadÄ«âs celebrated play Al-sudd (The Dam), for example, published a treatise on intellectual renewal in Tunisia entitled Taáž„rÄ«k al-sawÄkin (Arousing those who are stagnant) in 1955. The text employs the concept of ijtihÄd (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 ÊżAzz al-DÄ«n MadanÄ« and al-áčŹÄhir al-HammÄmÄ«, sought to generate novel modes of artistic expression (ibid. 186). As Jean Fontaine writes: âPlots 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 âÊŸibdĂąÊżâ (creation)â (187). This emphasis on creativity as an aestheticâand I would add, ethicalâphilosophy touches on the heart of al-MasÊżadÄ«âs theory of literature.
Despite his widespread influence, al-MasÊżadÄ«âs 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-mabÄáž„ith and Al-fikr were notable for their cerebral philosophical style, esoteric symbolism, and lofty linguistic register. Al-MasÊżadÄ«âs 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 Tunisiaâs status as a French Protectorate and ongoing efforts at decolonization. They consequently imposed didactic nationalist readings, as the Egyptian novelist and critic áčŹÄhÄ áž€usayn 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 TawfÄ«q BakkÄr.15
Al-MasÊżadÄ« 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-MasÊżadÄ« was, in fact, like many Maghrebi intellectuals of his generationâteaching, 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-MasÊżadÄ«âs direct involvement in the development of Tunisiaâs 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-MasÊżadÄ«âs 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: âCultural development must be regarded both as a factor of national identityâor cultural identityâand 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 processâ (al-MasÊżadÄ« qtd. in Davis 2). Al-MasÊżadÄ« 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.