Escolar Documentos
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Cultura Documentos
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 theoreti-
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world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of
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vii
viii FOREWORD
debates between the Prophet Muhammad and his opponents. The effec-
tiveness 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 point-
ing 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
FOREWORD ix
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 writ-
ing and editing went through many phases, stages, and across many coun-
tries. 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-tun-
ing 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 conversa-
tion 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 teach-
ing and discussions as well as the academic privileges that come with the
xi
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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 fel-
lowship—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, con-
clusion, and the chapter on al-Maʿarrī were written in Cairo. I thank the
American University in Cairo library and its staff, especially at the circula-
tion 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 recount-
ing 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
xiii
xiv CONTENTS
Bibliography 281
Index 299
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
xv
CHAPTER 1
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 soci-
etal 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 main-
tained 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
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 his-
tory, and therefore others have no obligation to understand them.5
INTRODUCTION 3
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 inimi-
tability of the Qur’an (i ʿjāz), pointing out that that was chiefly respon-
sible 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’, Abu-
Deeb 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 (inimi-
tability); 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 aes-
thetics (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 al-
lugha 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
INTRODUCTION 5
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
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
INTRODUCTION 7
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 understand-
ing 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 neces-
sary to understand adab and its intricacies beyond trite clichés.
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 ‘rumina-
tion’ (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-mod-
ern 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 pre-
judgment, 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 mean-
ing is made. Understanding happens when the present understanding
or horizon is moved to a new understanding or horizon by an encoun-
ter (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 leav-
ing the ‘prejudiced’ hermeneutical horizon to that of the text where the
INTRODUCTION 9
reader meets the text rather than simply projecting it through the distort-
ing 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 ‘litera-
ture’ should be further clarified in light of Wolfhart Heinrichs’ definition
of adab. He maintains,
Adab, therefore, does not readily translate into ‘literature’ nor should
an approach to adab then, i.e. literary criticism, be one that treats it sepa-
rately 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. won-
ders) in The Thousand and One Nights.50 I want to briefly draw atten-
tion 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
10 S.R. BIN TYEER
[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 subse-
quently 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
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 defini-
tion and function? As the Qur’an created this paradigm shift on the intel-
lectual 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 char-
acters 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 theoret-
ical 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 equilib-
rium through its very definition, promoting equilibrium through interper-
sonal relations by seeing to decorum and observing civility: equilibrium
in knowledge through erudition, exposure, and diverse scholarship, equi-
librium 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
INTRODUCTION 15
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 man-
ifestation of ‘justice’ in the Here and Hereafter is apposite after the dis-
cussion 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 them-
selves, 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 circum-
stances 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
INTRODUCTION 17
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 contempla-
tion 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 bal-
ance ‘mizān’ and equilibrium ‘i ʿtidāl’ and their relationship to adab. It is
only logical that the process towards equilibrium or lack thereof in the lit-
erary 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 struc-
ture; 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 disequilib-
rium utilise similar aesthetic features? In other words, must disequilibria
accompany stylistic ugliness to be truly convincing or can it exist indepen-
dent 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 mani-
festation as ʿadl. But what is disequilibrium? This books advances what
shall be called ‘Qur’anic methodology’ or ‘the hermeneutics of the Qur’an
INTRODUCTION 19
for the arts’ to borrow Grabar’s words, to understand the meaning of the
lack of equilibrium, understood morally as ‘injustice’ (ẓulm) and aestheti-
cally 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 com-
paratively read and group World literature thematically together. Despite
noble intentions, this, more often than not, produces misguided conclu-
sions that often divorce the literary works under discussion from the liter-
ary, 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 afore-
mentioned concerns, I will examine the selected literary works to estab-
lish 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 canoni-
cal80 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 Arab-
Islamic scholarship. Thus, it focuses on the language, words and their
usage, and conceptual history and the roles these concepts played in mak-
ing 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
20 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 read-
ing—in the context of Islamic humanism shares the same goal as an unre-
nounceable 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
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 rela-
tionships 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 previ-
ously defined as symbolic violence. As Terry Eagleton rightly argues, ‘the
great majority of literary theories … have strengthened rather than chal-
lenged 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 con-
text 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.
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 nam-
ing the shoulder joint al-ḥasan (the beautiful), according to Ibn Manẓūr,
because the latter is ‘fleshy.’95 However, there could be an implicit underly-
ing 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 rela-
tionship 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 commen-
tary on the verse appears in the lexicons pertaining to the aforementioned
verse. However, this attitude does not seem to be reflected in later lexi-
cons, 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 lexi-
cographers as shown above. It might seem tempting, but al-Zabı̄dı̄’s inclu-
sion 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
INTRODUCTION 25
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
30 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 met-
aphoricity’, 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.
INTRODUCTION 33
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-l-
Nashr 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 spe-
cial 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.
34 S.R. BIN TYEER
71. See, Aḥmad ʿIsa, ̄ Tarı̄kh al-Bimāristānāt fı̄ l-Islām (Beirut: Dār al-Rāʾid
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 expla-
nation, 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): <http://dx.doi.
org/10.7771/1481-4374.1915>
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).
INTRODUCTION 37
ﺣﺴﻦ ﻭ ﻗﺒﺢ
The Hermeneutics of the Qurʾan:
Literary Theory and Key Terms
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
This chapter establishes the concept of ḥusn in the Qur’an and the rela-
tionship 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 varia-
tions: the noun ḥusn (beauty); the superlative adjective in the construct
state al-ḥusnā (the most beautiful, the most excellent); the feminine adjec-
tive 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 (beauti-
ful 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
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 increas-
ingly 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/per-
fect) 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
Ḥ USN: THE ROUTE TO A CONCEPTUAL QUERY 45
Fig. 2.1 The conceptual relationship between iḥsān, muḥsin, and al-ḥusnā in the
matrix of ḥusn
Ḥ USN: THE ROUTE TO A CONCEPTUAL QUERY 47
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 defen-
sive weapon; it was something much more positive and aggressive.16
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-Muhal-
lab. 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
50 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 ‘beauti-
ful’ 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 non-
perceptible’ (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 intel-
lect. 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:
Ḥ USN: THE ROUTE TO A CONCEPTUAL QUERY 53
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.
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 adorn-
ment 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 sur-
face 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 aes-
thetic 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
Ḥ USN: THE ROUTE TO A CONCEPTUAL QUERY 55
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,
56 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 ‘anti-
reason’ 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
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 con-
struct an analysis based on the situating of the maqbūḥı n̄ 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 ref-
erence 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 wrongdo-
ers! 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
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 que-
ries 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 concep-
tual 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’ eschatologi-
cal 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 every-
one) accountable for their choices; in this case Mercy or ‘divine forgive-
ness’ 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 eschato-
logical verses in the Qurʾan where it foreshadows a future event: the pun-
ishment of the wrongdoers. Eschatology in the Qurʾan could be divided
into phases: cosmological events announcing the Day of Judgment, the
62 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 ‘punish-
ment’ (ʿadhāb) as concomitant with the actions described. The mention-
ing 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 ‘humiliat-
ing 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 wrongdo-
ers! 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
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, trans-
gression, 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 rea-
son 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 sen-
timent of condemnation (dislike). This is morally articulated in the Qurʾan
through the taxonomy of qabı h̄ ̣ as excess, transgression, and lack of rea-
son. 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 cor-
rupt people (Q. 5:64; 28:77); the ungrateful sinners (Q. 2:276;); ignor-
ing 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
QUBḤ AND THE WAY TO HELL 67
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) spa-
tially 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 (del-
uge, storms, and such), which is a literal ibʿād (wiping out), so to speak,
through punishment. Another level of ibʿād is a foreshadowed ibʿād on
QUBḤ AND THE WAY TO HELL 69
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 representa-
tion 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 intel-
lectual parameters for distance that is farther from rushd. In this respect,
the notion of ibʿād stands conceptually, at a distance, from beauty. It cor-
responds 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 rea-
soning (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 ̄ ).’
70 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 indi-
vidual 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 conse-
quences.’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 des-
ert 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 quali-
ties 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 essen-
tial 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. Al-Qaṣaṣ (28:42).
2. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı h̄ ̣ al-Ghayb, 24: 218.
3. Ibid.
4. 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.
5. Ibid., 255.
6. Ibn al-ʿArabı̄, Tafsı r̄ al-Qurʾān al-Karı m ̄ (Beirut: Dār al-Yaqaẓa
al-ʿArabiyya, 1968), 2: 229–30.
7. Abdel Haleem trans., The Qur’an (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), xix–xx.
8. Primary medieval manuals of eschatology are replete with these details.
Studies, especially medieval, concerned with the eschatology of Hell
72 S.R. BIN TYEER
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.
74 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 repul-
sive’.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 elabo-
rate and intricate punishments in the Qur’an have an effect akin to what
James Joyce and later Joseph Campbell called ‘aesthetic arrest’5 and simi-
larly 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 rep-
resents 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 explana-
tory 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
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 77
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 descrip-
tion 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 nour-
ishment 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 repul-
siveness 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 fail-
ures, 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,
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 83
and like the tree, they grow the ugliest fruits imaginable. There is a hun-
ger 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 indi-
vidual. As al-Rāzı̄ laconically puts it, the Zaqqūm tree is the only appropri-
ate 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 reit-
erated 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 suste-
nance (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 punish-
ments 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
84 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 cer-
tainty 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 mag-
nitude that the subject under discussion, in this case Saqar, as part of an
eschatological Hereafter (ghayb), is beyond the intended audience’s imagi-
nation. 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 commen-
tators 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 con-
temporary rather exploitive recycling of this discourse.
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 85
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 impossibil-
ity 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 mun-
dane 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 metaph-
orises 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
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 87
Hell. The image is reiterated in various places in the Qur’an.57 The expres-
sion 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 com-
mitted/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 cheer-
ful faces in Paradise versus the sad, darkened, and grimaced faces is obvi-
ous. 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 emo-
tional 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 igno-
rance, 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-
88 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 mean-
ing of ibʿād not only from God’s mercy in the literal sense of the situa-
tion (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
90 S.R. BIN TYEER
(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 propor-
tional 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 becom-
ing. 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
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 91
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:
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 quali-
ties and senses, but also mostly of their intellect. This reduction to a quasi-
stone-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 main-
tain.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 ‘ugli-
ness 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 rea-
son. 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 reiter-
ates 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 destruc-
tive 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
94 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 self-
destruction or be detrimental to the thriving of the individual (on any/
all level(s): physically, emotionally, intellectually, financially, morally, spiri-
tually, 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 there-
fore 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 aforemen-
tioned 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 under-
stood 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 chro-
notopic 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 over-
come and achieve if understood from a moral development perspective
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 95
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 cat-
egorically affirms free will and that everyone is responsible and account-
able for their choices and actions.
With respect to Adam, Eve, and Satan, the Qur’an portrays the dynam-
ics 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 ‘human-
ity’ 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
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 97
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 trans-
gression 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 (beau-
tiful/good deed). Shame and disgrace become psychological correla-
tives 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 wrong-
doers 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.
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 99
The Qur’an depicts two types of ʿaql, which shall be referred to hence-
forth 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 seman-
tic 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 seman-
tic 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 rea-
soning (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 com-
parisons 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/
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 101
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.
104 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 inconsis-
tency 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.
106 S.R. BIN TYEER
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: Adrien-
Maissonneuve, 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 dis-
qualified 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 al-
Nashr 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).
HELL AND THE AESTHETICS OF QUBḤ 107
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
108 S.R. BIN TYEER
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.
100. al-Rāzı̄, Mafātı̄ḥ al-Ghayb, 11:71–2.
101. Al-Zalzala, Q. 99:6–8.
102. Mustansir Mir, ‘Accountability’, Dictionary of Qur’anic Terms and
Concepts, 6.
103. Eagleton, After Theory, 104.
104. Q. 20:134; 3:192, 194; 9:2, 63; 11:39, 93; 16:27; 39:40; 41:16; 59:5.
105. Q. 2:114; 5:33, 41; 22:9; 41:16.
106. Lange, Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination, 103.
107. Izutsu, God and Man in the Koran, 65–7.
108. 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.
109. Ibid.
110. al-Māwardı̄, al-Ḥ āwı̄ al-Kabı̄r, 16:54.
111. Ibid.
112. al-Ghazālı̄, al-Iqtiṣād fı̄ l-Iʿtiqād (Beirut: Dār al-Hilāl, 1993), 28–9.
113. Ibid., 28.
114. This was first developed by al-Ghazālı̄ in the 12th century, then Ibn
Taymiyyah and al-Shāt ̣ibı̄ in the 14th century.
115. 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.
116. Abū’l ʿAtāhiya, Diwān Abū’l-ʿAtāhiyya, ed. Karam al-Bustānı̄ (Beirut: Dār
Beirut, 1986), 164.
117. 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.
118. 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
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)
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 inevitabil-
ity 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 vari-
ous explanations as follows: mā yaṣuddu ʿan al-khayri wa yadʿū ilā al-
sharr,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 meaning-
less (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 kad-
hib may encompass such as hyperbolic nonsense and defying decorum,
for instance. Laghw, as a wider category, encompasses kadhib as a sub-
category 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):
LANGUAGE: BEAUTIFUL SPEECH/UGLY SPEECH 111
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 believ-
ing 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 ‘opin-
ion’ with no substantiated evidence. If it were indeed true, substantial
proof needs to be presented (in this case, four witnesses, as the verse main-
tains). The Qur’an describes the absence of reason in the following man-
ner: ‘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 transgres-
sion 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).
112 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 orna-
ment. 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 lev-
els 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 with-
out 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 ren-
ders 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 intel-
lectual 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 contra-
dicts human reason and/or objective reality altogether) in the same man-
ner it should be respectful of human dignity and feelings. In this respect,
‘peace peace’ is extended to the intellect as well.
LANGUAGE: BEAUTIFUL SPEECH/UGLY SPEECH 113
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 under-
stand 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
114 S.R. BIN TYEER
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
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 elo-
quence (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 imita-
tions of the Qur’an. The emphasis was on the aesthetic-ethical aspects of the
master-Text, or simply, Text.17
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 frame-
work of the delineated methodology.
NOTES
1. Protection in paradise extends itself to the physical (from Hell and punish-
ment) 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 acciden-
tally 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 scandal-
mongers 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
118 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 eat-
ing 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—imme-
diately 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:
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 anoma-
lies and unusual punishments are more popular than al-Tanūkhı̄’s ‘model
men and women’ rewards, although both works carry the same moral pre-
cepts. However, al-Tanūkhı̄’s formula offers a linear progression of events
towards the recognition of ‘reason’ or iʻtidāl (equilibrium) whereas the
124 S.R. BIN TYEER
Nights in its progression towards iʻtidāl and ‘reason’ offers a limitless hori-
zon for the unfolding of unreason, folly, and exaggerated punishments; all
offer dramatic entertainment beside the moral lesson.
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 mad-
man! 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
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 instan-
taneous 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 condi-
tions. 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 maxi-
mum 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
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 127
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 ‘preju-
diced’ (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, explain-
ing 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 xeno-
phobia 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 his-
torical explanations fully and convincingly explain to the storyteller’s audi-
ence 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
128 S.R. BIN TYEER
his hand: aesthetic qubḥ. This aesthetic aftermath ensures a literary after-
math 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 transfor-
mative 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) under-
stood 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 com-
municated 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
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 129
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
130 S.R. BIN TYEER
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,
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 131
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, seem-
ingly 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 involve-
ment 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
132 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 defer-
ral 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 intro-
duced 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 con-
trast 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 juxtaposi-
tion 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 mis-
placed wordings therefore uncover his intentions and also supply humour
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 133
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 mea-
surement.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 automati-
cally disqualify anyone from ruling are:
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 dis-
cussion 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 pre-
cisely 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 inter-
feres 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 impor-
tance 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 for-
tune. ‘In medieval literatures’, James Monroe maintains, ‘the relationship
between frame and enframed tale is often one of contrast. The purpose
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 137
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 becom-
ing 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 inabil-
ity 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 mani-
festation 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 defor-
mities 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 reli-
gious 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
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 139
the vocabulary and language used and also through the graphic disfigure-
ment 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 com-
mentary 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 for-
mer, 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).
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 143
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 heav-
ily 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 Wen-
Chin 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 Arab-
Islamic 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 mention-
ing of radiant faces vs. darkened faces.
144 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 neces-
sitating 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 ‘won-
der books’ as Campbell calls them) satisfy the very need they have created
and, through the permanent absence of their subjects, ensure that the cir-
cuit of desire will never be completely fulfilled.’ See, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen,
‘The Order of Monsters: Monster Lore and Medieval Narrative Traditions’
THE AESTHETICS OF REASON 145
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.
43. 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.
44. Ibid.
45. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 152.
46. 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.
47. Monroe maintains ‘…in the Thousand and One Nights, Shahrazād tells
king Shahriyār, who is convinced that all women are evil, many tales involv-
ing 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.
48. Ibn Khaldūn, 158–9.
49. Ibn Khaldūn refers to this as the ‘knowledge of law’ that enables the mon-
arch to carry independent thought.
50. 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 al-
Jinn (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).
146 S.R. BIN TYEER
51. Quoted in Mottahedeh, ‘ʻAjāʼib in The Thousand and One Nights,’ 30–1.
52. Ibid., 31.
53. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 203.
54. 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’).
55. 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.
56. Sadan, al-Adab al-ʻArabı̄ al-Hāzil, 68–9.
57. 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.
58. 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
himself in the clothes the servants prompted him to wear. Naturally, the
atmosphere is all leading to one expected thing. The lady and the unas-
suming 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 rea-
son 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 ʻaẓım̄ innanı̄ lā budd ann aznı̄ maʻa
awsakh al-nās wa aqdharihim).3 She referred to the potential candi-
date 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 slaughter-
house) 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 irrever-
ence 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.
150 S.R. BIN TYEER
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
The paradox of the alleged reason (oath) functions on three levels: (a)
while it engages with a discourse in observing religious duties, it demar-
cates 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, par-
tially 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 por-
trayal of her search for ‘filth’ to match the multifaceted levels of transgres-
sion (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 sug-
gested 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 aforemen-
tioned 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 viola-
tion 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
154 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 condi-
tion—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 ques-
tion 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,
156 S.R. BIN TYEER
Woman with Five Suitors’. In ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, ḥumq is evi-
dent 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 struc-
tures. 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 discern-
ible in the characters’ transgression of the moral codes of their profes-
sional 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 sys-
tem 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 senti-
ment 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 transgres-
sive 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
158 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 eth-
ics 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
OF MISPLACEMENT OF THINGS, PEOPLE, AND DECORUM 159
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 meton-
ymy 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 displace-
ment of the act of urination itself, which does not logically comply with
the setting (cupboard), nor is it acceptable to urinate on others, natu-
rally, create the stark ‘frame-breaking’, using Umberto Eco’s term, as it
160 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 catego-
ries 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 offi-
cial 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 posi-
tions. The tale injects humour by making them laughable because of the
aforementioned incongruities. In fact, the tale furthers these incongrui-
ties 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 com-
pensate 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 oper-
ate 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.
OF MISPLACEMENT OF THINGS, PEOPLE, AND DECORUM 161
LINGUISTIC MISPLACEMENT
In ‘The Lady and the Ḥ ashshāsh’, the flawed mental paradigm, ḥumq, is evi-
dent 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 trans-
gression. 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 state-
ments 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:
The sober and rather solemn religious overtones of the Ḥ ajj with its self-
discipline 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 nei-
ther 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
162 S.R. BIN TYEER
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:
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 wear-
ing 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 space-
time 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 ques-
tion 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 narra-
tive’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;
OF MISPLACEMENT OF THINGS, PEOPLE, AND DECORUM 165
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 trans-
gression 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 per-
sona 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 trans-
gressions 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
166 S.R. BIN TYEER
NOTES
1. Nights 282nd–285th.
2. Nights 593rd–596th.
3. Night 285th.
4. 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.
5. al-Musawi, The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights, 6.
6. Bellamy, ‘Sex and Society in Islamic Popular Literature,’ 42.
7. Corps et Traditions Islamiques, (Tunis: Noir sur Blanc, 2000), 75.
8. Lisān al-ʻArab, 2:157.
9. Lane, ḥ-m-q.
10. Ibid.
11. al-Ghazālı̄, Kitāb al-Arbaʻı̄n fı̄ Uṣul̄ al-Dı̄n (Beirut: Dār al-Ā fāq, 1979), 57.
12. 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.
13. Bedhioufi, 124.
14. Ibid., 83–5.
15. 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.
16. Night 595th.
17. Fazlur Rahman, ‘Law and Ethics’ in Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard
G. Hovannisian (California: Undena, 1983), 13.
OF MISPLACEMENT OF THINGS, PEOPLE, AND DECORUM 167
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 con-
sequently 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 Arab-
Islamic 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 his-
torical 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-
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.
a ‘thief’.8 The Sufi ideals of futuwwa are portrayed as a desire for enlight-
enment 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 fail-
ure 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 mean-
ing of separation and detachment, from the Arabic root sh.t ̣.r (split).9
With this demarcation in perspective, an approach to theft as it fea-
tures 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 inter-
preted 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 pertain-
ing to the tale under study specifically and the tales of the shuṭṭār in gen-
eral 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 pro-
totypes of shut ̣ṭār. By virtue of their activities (transgressions), these
shut ̣t ̣ār are exemplars of qubḥ but in an apparently successful enterprise of
172 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 chroni-
clers and not conflated with the often politically engaged ʿayyārı̄n. The
shuṭt ̣ār were recognised as thieves, which reinforces their inseparability
from al-ʿāmma:
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 character-
ises 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
when ʿIsa ̄ b. Hishām and his companions ran out of drinks but still needed
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 ‘mis-
chievous 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 representa-
tion 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.
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 al-
Ashraf 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 fifteenth-
century 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 criti-
cal 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 intel-
lectual’ 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 connec-
tions to the storyteller but rather through a realistic and objective depic-
tion. Nonetheless, like The Thousand and One Nights, these literary works
acknowledged the established category of the shāt ̣ir as a literary type.
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 represen-
tation of reality:
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 some-
times marginalised storyteller and the shut ̣ṭār through intelligence; and (b)
the historical background and reality of these thieves that allow more nar-
rative 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 hus-
band 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
178 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 al-
hamm). When I scrutinised it more, I understood that not only do people
THE TRANSGRESSION OF REASON 179
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
Allah.” The tongue praises God while the heart runs in the path of ugli-
ness.’ [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 jew-
ellery 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-for-
life narrated in The Thousand and One Nights for both the characters in
these tales and the intended listeners/readers. If, as Peter Brooks main-
tains, ‘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 oper-
ates 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
182 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 reward-
ing 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
THE TRANSGRESSION OF REASON 185
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 hap-
pened 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 read-
ing 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 hap-
pened 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 influ-
enced 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
186 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 dis-
cussion 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.
188 S.R. BIN TYEER
Canonical Literature
CHAPTER 9
This chapter continues to examine the category of qubḥ and its relation-
ship 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 pre-
sented 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,
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 ref-
erential 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
stand as neither true nor false because they are paradoxical. Both ʿIsa ̄ b.
Hishām and the reader equally, therefore, are presented with a liar para-
dox.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?
This becomes tantamount to ʿIsā ̄ ’s reporting on these events that
are controversial in their semiotic significance because of the nature of
Abū’l-Fatḥ’s upsetting of registers and his character as a fraud. ʿIsa ̄ is
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
his own deception, it is inferred that he is lying because ʿIsa ̄ uncovers
̄
his guise. However, ʿIsa does seem adamant on recounting his episodes
̄ ’s eagerness to give an account on an unreli-
with Abū’l-Fatḥ; it is ʿIsā
able character that raises questions. The very fact that ʿIsa ̄ b. Hishām’s
9
reliability is questionable adds to the conundrum of one unreliable
narrator reporting about another unreliable character. ʿIsa ̄ b. Hishām’s
accounts are therefore neither true nor false. With regards to the unre-
liable chain of transmission ethics, manifest in the character of ʿIsā ̄ , a
text ‘[…] derive[s] its authenticity and authority mainly from both the
reporter’s individual integrity and the ideological community which he
belonged to’.10 A narrative that lacks authenticity, like the one ʿIsa ̄ is
transmitting is void of meaning. If ‘[…] the authenticity of narratives
gave them an epistemological quality as knowledge’,11 by reverse anal-
ogy, 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
196 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 main-
tained 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 attri-
bute 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 unten-
able; 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
198 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 antici-
pates some literalist readings and views during his time. He says:
Al-Ḥ arı̄rı̄ attributes the inspiration behind his work not only to his pre-
decessor al-Hamadhānı̄ as the author and founder of the maqāma genre
but also to the two fictional protagonists. He discusses both Abū’l Fatḥ
al-Iskandarı̄ and ʿIsa ̄ b. Hishām in a telling manner. He discusses the for-
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 char-
acters 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 rein-
carnation of an ontological object known as Abū Zayd al-Surūjı̄, the pro-
tagonist 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
202 S.R. BIN TYEER
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
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 centu-
ries, 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 elo-
quence 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 afore-
mentioned 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-
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 207
As for invective, some of the accusations are so grossly and grotesquely exag-
gerated, especially the obscenities, that nobody among the public is likely
to take them seriously. One might think that this would undermine belief
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 209
1.Animals/Insects similes & umm ḥubayn; dūdat qird fı̄ l-firāsh; kalb fı̄ l-hirāsh
metaphors al-kanīf qurād al-qurūd
a. Animals
b. Insects
2. Human bodily functions/ tukhmat al-ruʾūs; bawl qalaḥ al-asnān; wasakh
malfunctions al-khiṣyān; tharı̄d al-ādhān; ṣunān al-ibṭ
a. Natural al-thūm; jushāʾ muḥarrik al-ʿaẓm; muʿajjil
b. Unnatural al-makhmūr; ramad al-haḍm
al-ʿayn
3. Cultural stereotypes bukhl al-Ahwāzı̄; fuḍul̄ labbūd al-yahūd
al-Rāzı̄
4. Material metaphors kitāb al-taʿāzı̄, madrajat al-akuff; ajarr min
a. Visual tangible khudhrūfat al-qudūr; qalas;waḥl al-ṭarı̄q; makhjal
b. Sensory watid al-dūr; wasakh al-misḥa; mukhallal
al-kūz; dirham lā yajūz al-milḥb;wakaf al-bayt
nak-hat al-ṣuqūr nak-hat al-usūd; māʾ ʿalā
al-rı̄q; mahabb al-khuff;
dukhān al-nafṭ; qarʿiyya
bi-māsh
5. Astronomical metaphors kawkab al-nuḥūs; hilāl al-hulk
a. Real arbaʿāʾ lā tadūr
b. Imaginary
6.Non-Material metaphors bard al-ʿajūz; kurbat zawāl al-mulk; afḍaḥ min ʿabra
a. Temporal-emotional Tammūz; sanat al-buʾs;
b. Spatial-emotional sabt al-ṣibyān; sāʿat
c. Situational-Emotional 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
(continued)
210 S.R. BIN TYEER
7.Metaphysical metaphors qarārat al- makhāzı̄; ʿadam fı̄ wujūd; aqall min lāsh
a. Conceptual simat al-shayn; yā daraj idruj yā dakhal
b. Constructed muʾākalat al-ʿumyān ikhrujc;akhbath mimman bāʾ
bi-dhull al-ṭalāq wa manʿ
al-ṣidāq; aqall min fals; abghā
min ibra
8. Rhetorical metaphors kalām al-muʿı̄d; āyat kalimat layt; kayt wa kayt
a. Explicit al-waʿı̄d; aqbaḥ min
b. Implicit ḥattā fı̄ mawādiʿ shattā
9. Concluding insult wallāhi law waḍaʿt iḥdā wallāhi law waḍaʿt istak ʿalā
rijlayk ʿalā Arwand wa al-nujūm wa dallayt rijlak fi
l-ukhrā ʿalā Dumāwand al-tukhūm wa ittakhadht
wa ittakhadht bi-yadak al-shiʿrā khuff wa l-thurayya
qaws quzaḥ wa nadaft raff wa jaltʿa al-samāʿ minwāl
al-ghaym fı̄ jibāb wa ḥikt al-hawāʾ sirbāl
al-malāʾika mā kunt illā fa-saddayt bi-l-nasr al-ṭāʾir wa
ḥallāj 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
b
According to ʿAbduh, this means decayed salt. He also removed it from the body and included it in the
footnote
ʿAbduh only mentions this in the explanatory footnote but he removed it from the body of the maqāma.
c
The expression is an indication of feelings of undesirability and unwelcome towards the person in
question
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
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 destruc-
tion and doom and the latter, Abū’l-Fatḥ, is likened to be its announc-
ing crescent moon. Abū’l-Fatḥ refers to two astronomical similes as
well: kawkab al-nuḥūs (O unlucky star!)80 and arbaʿāʾ lā tadūr (O non-
recurring Wednesday!).81 It appears that they are more injurious than
212 S.R. BIN TYEER
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
a guest for brushing the former the wrong way.91 The protagonist sees
no reason for this attitude so he takes religious impossibilities to exag-
gerate 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 impos-
sible 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 origi-
nality 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 avail-
able everywhere and to all people (al-maʿānı̄ mat ̣rūḥa); the most impor-
tant 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 con-
tent. 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 per-
son 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
216 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 dia-
logue 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,
at the end, a rapt ʿIsā b. Hishām judges that they both are winners. This
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 undi-
vided and I know not what Time did with them.’98
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 repre-
sented 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 excel-
lence in return for linguistic pleasure that is categorised as qabı̄ḥ. The plea-
̄ 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
ʿIsā ̄ ’s
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
incessant upsetting of language and its function, ʿIsā ̄ ’s gratification from
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
218 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 ques-
tions as well as new questions, al-Muwayliḥı ̄ adopted the maqāma form
and al-Hamadhānı̄’s narrator to write an acerbic satire on Egyptian soci-
ety. 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 fic-
tion 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 simul-
taneously entertaining the reader with not only embellished language but
also scholarly topics against a background and method (lies) that are char-
acteristically 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
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 219
point further. While the above technique is considered one of the mea-
surements 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 con-
cept 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 bear-
ing 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’l-
Fawāris 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 con-
tradiction 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 incon-
gruity 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 cre-
ated between its content and its expression. ‘The combination of plebe-
ian characters’, Hämeen-Anttila maintains, ‘with aristocratic language
had been the backdrop of many comic maqamas, creating a dramatic ten-
sion between polished expression and uncouth scenes.’ The characters in
220 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 ten-
sions 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 particu-
lar 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 rhe-
torical 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 vir-
tual 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-
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 221
9. Monroe also makes this observation, that ʿIsa ̄ is a liar, but for entirely dif-
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 discus-
sion 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 al-
Kudya 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 incorpora-
tion in a poem of a line, or part of a line, by another poet by way of quota-
tion rather than plagiarism;’ and/or (2) ‘enjambment’ which means ‘the
syntactical dependence of a line on a following line’ and finally (3) ‘impli-
cation’ 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.
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 223
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 ref-
erences 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.
224 S.R. BIN TYEER
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
Abū’l-Ḥ asan Muḥammad b. ʿIsa ̄ al-Karājı̄. See Bilal Orfali, ‘The Works of
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
and Muḥammad Abū’l-Faḍl Ibrāhı̄m (Cairo: ‘Isā ̄ al-Bābı̄ al-Ḥ alabı̄, 1971),
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.
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 225
72. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarı̄, Kitāb al-Ṣināʿatayn (Cairo, ‘Isā ̄ al-Bābı̄ al-Ḥ alabı̄,
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 particu-
lar because it was believed that all affairs and businesses seem to be coun-
terproductive 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 some-
thing unresolved remains in me because of ḥattā’ (amūt wa fı̄ nafsı̄ shayʾ
min ḥattā). The issue perhaps could be explained using the famous exam-
ple ‘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.
226 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 com-
plex, 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 Skarzyńska-
Bocheńska, ‘Some Aspects of al-Jāḥiẓ’s Rhetorical Theory,’ 102.
BEAUTIFYING THE UGLY AND UGLIFYING THE BEAUTIFUL 227
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 opin-
ions and scholarship on the risāla and their relationship to current events.
[…]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 con-
cept loses visibility as an article of faith.3
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 stud-
ies, 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
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 sea-
shore) 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 specula-
tive conclusion on her ‘inability’ to admit to something with her only
234 S.R. BIN TYEER
have used the readily available Arabic word for ‘blasphemy’ at the time,
such as zandaqa (Manichean heretic, a clear-cut, well-known and well-
circulated 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 ‘maz-
daka’, 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 con-
tains ‘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 dur-
ing 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-l-
zandaqa’ (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 sati-
rises 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 keen-
ness on reading the work as an ‘assault on Islam’ is as questionable as the
236 S.R. BIN TYEER
In the second place, a man is known by the company he keeps. Sale trans-
lated 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
Nicholson got to the heart of the matter when saying that what we nowa-
days 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’.
skeptic annexed to it, implying that ‘Rationalist’ and ‘Muslim’ are incom-
patible and antagonistic. Indeed, it is even more tragic to read these falsi-
fications 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 fabri-
cate 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 lit-
terateurs 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 intel-
lect 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
240 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 read-
ings of people and, by extension, all situations as such, which the con-
demned 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.
242 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 ‘observ-
ing’ 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 ‘human-
ity’ 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 ‘perform-
ing’ religion, which reminds us of al-Hamadhānı̄’s satire on fake religios-
ity. 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
THE LITTERATEURS OF HELL AND HEAVEN 243
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 escha-
tological 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 pes-
simistic 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 per-
ceived 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 small-
est part of it (aqall juzʾ minhu) contains all conceivable things (yas-
htamil ʿalā jamı̄ʿ al-mudrakāt). In this respect, he maintains, that it is
THE LITTERATEURS OF HELL AND HEAVEN 245
the opposite of space (makān). Because the smallest part of space can-
not contain all circumstances (lā yumkin an yashtamil ʿalā shayʾ kamā
tashtamil ʿalayhi al-ẓurūf)’.49 Hell and Paradise, by their very theologi-
cal 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 correspond-
ing 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
[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 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
246 S.R. BIN TYEER
[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
THE LITTERATEURS OF HELL AND HEAVEN 247
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 after-
life. 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.
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 preten-
tious 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 feel-
ing of being akin to kings and lions (in bravery) not shaken by the loom-
ing 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
250 S.R. BIN TYEER
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
[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, accu-
rately 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 punish-
ment 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
256 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 intel-
lectual 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 conversa-
tion 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 dramat-
ically 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 patho-
logically 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.
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
258 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 inter-
view 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-
260 S.R. BIN TYEER
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.
262 S.R. BIN TYEER
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid. 182ff.
71. Ibid., 182.
72. Ibid., 289.
73. Ibid., 269–72.
74. Ibid., 227–33.
75. Ibid., 290–1.
76. Ibid., 291.
77. Ibid., 359.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., 309.
80. Ibid.
81. 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.
82. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 309.
83. Ibid.
84. Nazı̄h Muḥammad Iʿlāwı̄, al-Shakhṣiyyāt al-Qurʾāniyya (Amman: Dār Ṣafāʾ
li-l Nashr wa l-Tawzı̄ʿ, 2006), 368.
85. Ṣād Q. 38:75–76
86. 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.
87. Risālat al-Ghufrān, 310.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. Ibid., 311–13.
91. Ibid., 313.
92. Ibid., 313–22.
93. Ibid., 322–27.
94. Ibid., 327–29.
95. Ibid., 329–32.
96. Ibid., 332–34.
97. Ibid., 334–39.
98. Ibid., 339–42.
99. Ibid., 342–44.
THE LITTERATEURS OF HELL AND HEAVEN 263
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 through-
out 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 criti-
cism.’ It consists of invoking the Qur’an/Islam as a yardstick of ‘ortho-
praxy 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 differ-
ences 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
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 pat-
terns’.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 mean-
ing 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 ‘hori-
zon 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 notwith-
standing their techniques and/or forms.
Muḥammad ʿAbduh anticipates this in his preface, explaining and jus-
tifying 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 embar-
rassing 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 expur-
gated 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
CODA: THE INTERPRETATION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF ADAB... 267
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 char-
acteristics 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 portray-
ing the spirit of society. The ‘artistic language’, therefore, began to con-
struct 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 state-
ments of what the literature represents as ‘venting’, ‘mockery’, ‘permis-
sible’ or ‘not permissible’—which are inaccurate—but not focusing on
the Qur’an’s influence on the conceptual, aesthetic, and structural levels
268 S.R. BIN TYEER
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 oppo-
site 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/tech-
niques/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 damag-
ing conclusions. As Wael Hallaq argues,
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 free-
dom 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 fea-
ture in the definition of freedom; it is mainly restricted to the ability of a
CODA: THE INTERPRETATION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF ADAB... 271
storyteller/author of the tale, is her returning of all the goods she had ini-
tially 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, there-
fore, 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 per-
son 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 dis-
regard 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
CODA: THE INTERPRETATION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF ADAB... 273
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
Folly is, of course, deeply ambivalent. It has the negative element of debase-
ment and destruction (the only vestige now is the use of ‘fool’ as a pejora-
tive) 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
CODA: THE INTERPRETATION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF ADAB... 275
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 prevent-
ing 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 power-
system’.32 The propagation of the same recycled clichés under the guise
of literary theory and imported neologisms are hardly exercises in think-
ing—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 cul-
ture 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 some-
thing ‘unreal’ as ‘real.’
276 S.R. BIN TYEER
Arabists are still in no position to advocate for the inclusion of Arabic think-
ers 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:
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,
CODA: THE INTERPRETATION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF ADAB... 277
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 sim-
ply become ‘ugly’ nor ‘carnivalesque’ in the same manner carnivalesque,
as a word and a category of thought cannot be divorced from its his-
tory 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 litera-
ture or when reading Arabic literature from outside or when engaging
theoretically with Comparative Literature, but rather one should be sensi-
tive 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 lazi-
ness. On fear, Martha Nussbaum says, ‘[f]ear is a “dimming preoccupa-
tion”: 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 self-
satisfied 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
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 ̄
̄ all influenced by French literature—who
al-Khālidı̄ and Qusṭākı̄ al-Ḥ imṣı—
were amongst the first to voice this need with regards to the unsuitability of
CODA: THE INTERPRETATION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF ADAB... 279
the literary heritage, with respect to the Maqāmāt—as the subject of the
author’s book—to the times they were living in.
5. Kāẓim, al-Maqāmāt wa l-Talaqqı̄, 159 [My translation].
6. See, Sinan Antoon, The Poetics of the Obscene in pre-modern Arabic poetry:
Ibn al-Ḥ ajjāj and sukhf (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
7. 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-as-
politics-by-other-means_an-interview-
8. Teun A. van Dijk, Prejudice Discourse (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John
Benjamins Publishing Co., 1984), 30.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 31.
11. RAHW, 90–91.
12. The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1969), 10.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 81–5.
15. 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 (jeal-
ousy, 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.
16. 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 pos-
session of noble qualities and the concept of freedom.
17. Rosenthal, The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century, 12.
18. 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].
19. 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.
20. Rosenthal, The Muslim Concept of Freedom Prior to Nineteenth-Century,
116. Rosenthal discusses this concept with respect to an individual’s rela-
tionship with God. However, it is used here to include all relationships.
21. Literature as System (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), 4.
280 S.R. BIN TYEER
22. Ibid., 5.
23. RAHW, 19.
24. RAHW, 17.
25. For more on hijāʾ, see van Gelder, The Bad and the Ugly.
26. van Gelder, ‘Hijā’ in EAL, 1:284.
27. 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.
28. RAHW, 148.
29. RAHW, 273.
30. RAHW, 260.
31. 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.
32. Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, 170.
33. Taneli Kukkonen, ‘The Good, the Beautiful and the True Aesthetical Issues
in Islamic Philosophy,’ Studia Orientalia 111 (2011):100.
34. Biliana Kassabova, ‘Stanford scholar explores Arabic obsession with lan-
guage.’ January 23rd 2015. Accessed April 16th 2015. http://news.stan-
ford.edu/news/2015/january/arabic-language-key-012315.html
35. Alexander Key, ‘Arabic: Acceptance and Anxiety’. March 5th 2015. Accessed
April 16th 2015. http://stateofthediscipline.acla.org/entry/
arabic-acceptance-and-anxiety
36. Mohamed-Salah Omri, ‘Notes on the Traffic between Theory and Arabic
Literature’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (2011): 732.
37. Mottahedeh, ‘‘Ajāʾib in The Thousand and One Nights,’ 38.
38. Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability
(London and New York: Verso, 2013).
39. 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.
40. James E. Montgomery, ‘Jahiz: Dangerous Freethinker?’ in Critical Muslim
Issue 12, (October–December 2014): 15.
41. 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
42. 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
43. 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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INDEX
E H
Edward Said, 6, 20, 31, 34n37, 278 ḥadı ̄th , 23, 69
Emile Habibi, 218 ḥadı ̄th al-ifk, 110, 249
Emily Apter, 22, 36n84, 243, 277, ḥadı ̄th, ḥadıt̄ hs, 99, 241, 242
280n38 ̄ b. Hishām, 218
Ḥ adı ̄th ʿḷsa
Enlightenment, 2, 3, 6, 171, 276, 277 Hans-Georg Gadamer, 5, 8, 21, 34n44
Equilibrium (i ʿtidāl), 14 Ḥ assān b. Thābit, 249, 250, 261n62
302 INDEX
laghw, 110, 112, 115, 194, 202, 217 misinterpretation, 247, 265–280
lahw, 179, 180 Miskawayh, 271, 279n18
laughter, 134, 160, 164, 165, 273, mizān, 11, 18, 54, 64
274 mı ̄zān, balance, 11, 18, 54, 64
Lexicography, lexicons, 1, 22–32, 136, moral agent, 71
162, 174, 211 moral commentary, 135, 137, 142,
Liar Paradox, 195, 221n8, 262n81 158, 165, 274, 275
Lisān al-͑Arab, 23, 101, 114, 153, moral desert, 70, 97, 98
166n8, 221n3 moral diseases, 82, 83
literary analysis, 10 moral failure, 17, 27, 29, 80–83, 86,
literary criticism, 8–11, 18, 19, 21, 48, 88, 91, 98, 99, 121, 125, 135,
116, 152, 170, 198, 202, 229, 137, 138, 141
240, 247, 251, 256, 257, 265, moral force, 64, 69, 70, 100, 101,
266, 268, 272, 276–8 103, 130, 196, 204, 271
literary device, 5 moral vocabulary, 10, 11, 32, 276
literary technique, 11, 187, 193, 200 Muḥı ̄ṭ al-Muḥıṭ̄ , 24
literary theory, literary theories, 8, 22, Muḥammad ʿAbduh, 188n20,
104n20, 275, 276 189n39, 193, 225n78, 266
literary tools, 10, 149 Muḥammad al-Muwaliḥı,̄ 218
locus of enunciation, 236 Muʿjam al-Taʿrifāt, 27
‘The Lover who Pretended to be a Mujmal al-Lugha, 23
Thief’, 129 mujūn, 1
mukaddı ̄, mukaddın̄ , 194, 195, 197,
198
M Muʿtazilite, 78, 107n99, 188n29, 238
madı ̄ḥ (panegyrics), 47
madness, 124, 161, 194, 196, 204,
207, 274 N
Majnūn, Majnūn Layla, 161 nafs, 50, 93, 94, 107n92
Maḥmūd al-ʿAqqād, 257, 259n15 Naguib Mahfouz, 6
maqamāt, maqāma, 1, 10, 19, 30, najāsa, 67, 149, 159, 160, 274
174, 177, 187, 193–203, 206–8, Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, 4
210, 214, 216–21, 222n22,
224n50, 257, 266, 267, 272
Martha Nussbaum, 277 O
mazdaka, 234, 235 Orientalism, 6
‘meaning of meaning’, 91, 92, 125 Orientalists, 125, 127, 146n58, 240
metaphor, 4, 30, 78, 82, 86, 87, the other, othering, 18, 20,22, 24, 29,
89–92, 101, 163, 169, 170, 186, 47, 54, 60, 66, 68, 70, 78, 84,
197, 208–14, 219, 223n27, 230, 100, 101, 110, 137, 151, 154,
249, 250, 276 164, 169, 170, 200, 208–10,
Miguel Asín Palacios, 238 212, 215, 221n4, 232, 242, 243,
Mikhail Bakhtin, 1, 31 250, 265, 269–75
304 INDEX
S
Q sacred, 1–3, 16, 31, 156, 161, 163,
qadar, measure, 54, 64 215
qubḥ, qabı ̄ḥ, 19, 48, 59–109, 121, Santiago Castro Goméz, 234
147, 169, 193, 151, 269 Satan, 94–6, 98, 107n96, 253, 254,
Qur’an 275
applicatio, 5, 6, 14, 101 satire, 198, 200, 204, 207, 217, 218,
and history of reading in Islam, 20 220, 234, 235, 242, 244, 247–9
inimitability, i ʿjāz, 4, 12 scatology, 147, 268
literary canon, 9, 14, 19, 29 Scheherazade, 128, 167n27, 186
metaphors, 4, 52, 82, 87–89, 91, secular criticism, 31
101 semantics, 22, 27–9, 43, 53, 60, 61,
narrative, qaṣaṣ, 12, 13, 16, 17, 21, 65, 66, 98, 100, 102, 109, 114,
40, 69, 125 116, 199, 202, 235, 243, 252,
paradigm shift, 3–7, 14 271
INDEX 305
semiotics, 22, 30, 112, 114, 167n27, ‘Thousand and One Nights, 1, 9, 10,
194, 195, 199, 200, 207, 219, 19, 30, 31, 38n122, 122, 123,
220, 223n41, 244 126, 128, 130, 134, 137–9,
Shahriyar, 128, 145n47 144n41, 148, 151, 162, 163,
shaṭāra, shāṭir, shuṭṭār, 170–72, 174, 166n15, 167n27, 169–71,
176, 180, 184–6 174–5, 177, 179–81, 183, 186,
Sı ̄bawayh, 245, 246 189n34, 271
story, stories, 4, 11–17, 26, 30, 51, Time/Space, 244–47, 251
52, 57n24, 57n27, 63, 65, 66, transgression, 29, 49, 50, 55, 62, 63,
69–71, 94, 95–99, 121, 123–5, 65–9, 75, 92, 95–103, 109–111,
128–37, 142n2, 145n50, 148, 115, 116, 121, 124, 139, 141,
150, 154, 156, 157, 163, 164, 142, 147, 151–7, 159–162, 164,
166n4, 167n27, 169, 170, 174, 165, 169–190, 194, 204, 217,
176, 179, 180–84, 186, 189n34, 269, 273, 277
196, 217, 231, 237, 256, 271, translation, 5, 6, 22, 27, 55n2, 60, 87,
272 145n46, 154, 189n39,231, 235,
storytelling, 15, 36n79, 122, 123, 238, 243, 277, 279n18
131, 141, 148, 169, 172, 185,
186
sub-alternisation, 234 U
Sufi, Sufism, 12, 13, 25, 27, 60, 67, Umberto Eco, 157, 167n22, 201
82, 87, 89, 170, 187n5, 270, ‘untranslatable’, the, 22, 277
279n16 ʿUrwa b, al-Ward, poet, 48
sukhf, 1, 162, 168n30, 268
symbolic power, 236
symbolic violence, 22, 236 V
Virtue, virtues, 7, 20, 25, 43,
47, 48, 50, 57, 71, 75,
T 112, 115, 117n9, 140, 141,
Taʾabaṭa Sharran, 253 163, 164, 171, 177, 186,
Taha Hussein, 4, 33n18, 128, 259n15 207, 236
Ṭ āhir al-Wat ̣t ̣ār, 6
Tāj al- ʿArūs, 24
takhyyı ̄l, 77, 78 W
‘The Tale of Crafty Dalı ̄lah’, 166, 169 Walter D. Mignolo, 234
taqbı ̄ḥ al-ḥasan wa taḥsın̄ al-qabıh̄ ̣, Wolfgang Iser, 266
194, 196, 197, 203, 205–8, 219, ‘The Woman with Five Suitors’, 142,
224n59 147, 149, 151, 157, 163, 183,
terrorist, terrorists, 232, 233, 236, 272
237 World literature, 1, 6, 19, 22, 33n33,
Terry Eagleton, 10, 22, 98, 275 147, 277
306 INDEX