Academic literature on the topic 'Love stories, Arabic'

Medieval Arabic literature is rich in love stories about Bedouin poets who lived in pre-Islamic and Islamic times. By the end of the 9 century AD, these tales have formed an independent genre that followed certain aesthetic principles and norms. One of these stories — the romance of Qays ibn Ḏarīḥ and his beloved Lubnā — is unique, for it has a number of unusual features, including two versions of an ending — tragic and happy. This article attempts to trace the process of the story formation to clarify the reason for the existence of two ending versions and discuss its other peculiarities. The study has revealed that the romance of Qays and Lubnā has a pre-Islamic prototype — the tale of ‘Abdallāh Ibn al-‘Ağlān and Hind. Traces of this version survived in the romance of Qays and Lubnā, which is rooted in the oral tradition: it combines the elements of the old primitive unhappy lovers canon (a marriage, then a divorce under family pressure, separation, suffering and death) and the new model — the ‘Udrī love story that appeared after the rise of Islam as a reaction to new aesthetic values that cultivated chaste love. As the political disagreements emerged in Islam and the role of Šī‘a Islam increased, a number of new details and a happy end were added to the story (very likely in 8 century AD), reflecting the philosophical contradictions between Sunnī and Šī‘a Islam. These points have determined the uniqueness of the story about Qays ibn Ḏarīḥ and Lubnā among other ‘Udrī love stories.

For Abiola Irele, friend, mentor, maître.Language for me is the soul of the text. I love the Arabic language, and I adore writing in it. It is the linguistic mold that I want to fill my personal stories and culture in, distinguished from that of Arabs.—Stella GaitanoI Will Start with Two Stories About This Thing Called Literature and the world it claims to name and possess.The first takes place in Shillong, in the northeast corner of India, a place far removed from the Indian heartland, closer to Bangladesh, Burma, and China than to New Delhi. The setting is the Shillong campus of the English and Foreign Languages University, where I have come to teach a seminar to junior academics and graduate students on decolonization as a theoretical problem. My students and I will embark on a two-week systematic rereading of the philosophical claims made for decolonization in the writings of canonical postcolonial writers, from Mahatma Gandhi's writing on nonviolence to Aimé Césaire's and Léopold Sédar Senghor's on negritude to Frantz Fanon's on the pitfalls of national consciousness to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's and Trinh T. Minh-Ha's on the figure of woman in difference. Although my students are attentive, their relation to these texts is ambivalent: they recognize the importance of these texts to understanding the making of the modern world, yet colonialism, as a world-historical event, occurred too long ago to be part of their lived experience. Their ambivalence is compounded by the fact that the urgency with which the authors of decolonization write, the sense that they are operating at the end of time—the time of Europe—belongs to a moment that no longer resonates with people struggling to survive in a more complex, globalized world. It is hard for my students to make the connection between Senghor's negritude and his incarceration in a Nazi prison camp in Poitiers during World War II or to see that event, the imprisonment of an African fighting for France, as connected to a paradigmatic break in the discourse of empire.

محمد حسن بريغش هو أديب وناقد دمشقي، من المثقفين المهتمين بقضايا المسلمين، وكان واحداً من أعظم المنظرين للأدب الإسلامي بمؤلفات متعددة، وللأديب بريغش مئات من المقالات التي نشرت في الصحف والمجلات العربية والإسلامية. وهو من الأدباء الكبار الذين يعتنون بالأدب الإسلامي ويعلون راية الإسلام في أدبهم، وله مصنفات عديدة في النقد الأدبي والتراجم والفكر الإسلامي كما أنه يهتم بتربية الأمة والمرأة المسلمة، وكانت كتابة القصة آخر أعماله قبل رحيله، ونشر المجموعة القصصية (الشيخ والزعيم)، وبفضل ثراء هذه الإسهامات، عد بريغش رائداً من رواد الأدب الإسلامي، وهو يتميز بالحس الإسلامي الفريد الذي جعله يقدم كثيراً من التناولات النقدية في الشعر والقصة وأدب الأطفال في ضوء التصور الإسلامي. وعلى الرغم من غزارة إنتاجه، قلّت الدراسات التي تتناول بشكل عميق حياته وثقافته وآثاره الأدبية وتوجهاته الفكرية. لذا، تأتي هذه الدراسة لتسلط الضوء على هذه الأمور كلها. وتهدف هذه الدراسة إلى إبراز خلفية بريغش العلمية والعملية مع عرض مؤلفاته الوافرة. وانطلاقاً من هذا الأمر، تقوم الباحثة بوصف المعلومات الموجودة وأقوال الأدباء حوله مع القيام بتحليلها. توصّلت الدراسة إلى أن شخصية بريغش، قد شكّلتها عوامل عديدة: تشجيع أبيه المستمر له تجاه المطالعة، وغرس أمه له بالصفات المحمودة، وأسلوب أستاذه الفعّال في زيادة حبه للعلم. أما بالنسبة إلى المحيط الجاد الذي يعيش فيه فهو عامل جانبي له تأثير في شخصيته. اكتسب منه الدأب والمثابرة بشكل غير مباشر من خلال ملاحظته ن ومن ناحية أخرى، وجدت الدراسة أن بريغش قدّم إسهامات كبرى أفادت المجتمع العربي خاصةً والناس عامةً بمؤلفاته العديدة القيمة التي كان يهدف منها نشر الدعوة الإسلامية. الكلمات المفتاحيّة: محمد حسن بريغش، الأديب السوري، الأدب الإسلامي، النقد الأدبي. Abstract Muhammad Hasan Burayghish is one of Damascus’s writers and critics who was concerned about Muslim issues. He was also one of the prominent theorists of Islamic literature who have great number of writings, including literary criticism, biographical studies and Islamic thought as well as education of the Muslim nation and women, published in Arabic newspapers and journals. Apart from that, he was also interested in short story writing and managed to publish his collection of stories entitled (al-Shaikh wa al-Za’im – The sheikh and the leader) before his demise. With all these great contributions, he was deemed as one of the salient pioneers of Islamic literature who played great role in poetry and prose critics as well as juvenile literature especially in the light of Islamic concept. Although he has abundance of writings, there is lack of deep studies on his personal life, educational and working background and his literary career. Therefore, this study is aimed to highlight these matters as well as his numerous writings in detail. The researcher has analyzed critically the information related to Burayghish and the statements of writers upon him. This study found that there are several factors which have set up his high character. Those factors are, continuous encouragement by his father towards reading, instilling of praiseworthy qualities by his mother and effective styles of his teacher in increasing his love towards knowledge. As for the tough place that surrounds him, it was side factors which have influenced his character and personality. He gained diligence and perseverance indirectly through his observation. This study also found that he has given huge contribution towards Arabic people especially, when he left them with hundreds of his Islamic remarkable books and writings. Keywords: Muhammad Hasan Burayghish, Syrian writer, Islamic literature, Literary criticism.

All those desires, discriminations, success stories, and confrontations that otherwise might not have seeped into mainstream discourses are subtly said through the stories that mirror Arab women‟s lives. Girls of Riyadh is a postmodern cyber-fiction that delineates subjects we usually do not get to hear much about, i.e. the quest of heterosexual love and matrimony of young Arab women from the less women-friendly geography of Saudi Arabia. Though in the last two decades the scholarship on alternative discourses produced by Muslim women have been multitudinous, there is a scarcity of critical investigations dealing with creative constructions of postfeminist, empowered Muslim woman, not battling with patriarchal power structures, but negotiating aspects that matter most in real life: human associations and familial formations. This paper engages with the categories of love, marriage, and sexuality, drawing upon the lives of four educated, successful, „velvet class‟ Saudi women. The significance of this study is linked with carefully challenging some of the stereotypes about Arab women as victims of forced marriages and their commonly perceived discomfort with love at large. The study reveals that it is men who need to “man up” against cultural conventions since women are increasingly expressive in their choices and brave enough to face the consequences audaciously.

All those desires, discriminations, success stories, and confrontations that otherwise might not have seeped into mainstream discourses are subtly said through the stories that mirror Arab women‟s lives. Girls of Riyadh is a postmodern cyber-fiction that delineates subjects we usually do not get to hear much about, i.e. the quest of heterosexual love and matrimony of young Arab women from the less women-friendly geography of Saudi Arabia. Though in the last two decades the scholarship on alternative discourses produced by Muslim women have been multitudinous, there is a scarcity of critical investigations dealing with creative constructions of postfeminist, empowered Muslim woman, not battling with patriarchal power structures, but negotiating aspects that matter most in real life: human associations and familial formations. This paper engages with the categories of love, marriage, and sexuality, drawing upon the lives of four educated, successful, „velvet class‟ Saudi women. The significance of this study is linked with carefully challenging some of the stereotypes about Arab women as victims of forced marriages and their commonly perceived discomfort with love at large. The study reveals that it is men who need to “man up” against cultural conventions since women are increasingly expressive in their choices and brave enough to face the consequences audaciously.

Media has been blamed for long time and more these days for spreading bad eating habits, inactivity and making unhealthy food choices especially among children. Through my work in the media especially TV, I wanted to use the other side of media and influence healthy eating habits among children and adults. Competitions drive challenge and determination, I created the first Arabic weight loss competition for kids on TV titled "Ghizaak Sihtak" may be translated to " Eat Well Live Well Competition". The competition allows kids to live their normal everyday life (not in camps) and teaches them how to make healthy choices, be more active and thus lose weight. The Ghizaak Sihtak Compeition helped many kids lose more than 20Kilos in around 6months and keep it off for 2 years so far. This year - the 5th season for kids - 10 kids started are participating in this weight loss journey while many others are watching them and are affected with their stories. The Compeition is broadcasted on Roya TV.

This is one of the stories that illustrate the failure to marry the woman that a man chooses to marry. Bassim and Salwa love each other, but due to his economic status, he cannot afford the marriage requirements. Like his other stories, Khalil I. Al-fuzai, a Saudi Arabian short story writer, addressed “many social, political, and religious aspects he found in his society” (Dohal, 2013). In this story as it is the case with many other stories written by Al-fuzai, Bassim “struggles to overcome the financial difficulties he faces” (Dohal, 2020). In translating this story, Khalil I. Al-Fuzai (1940- ) will be introduced to new readers as an author of a different culture who has done his utmost to discuss the social issues found in his saudi 1970’s environment. Here, like Khalil I. Al-fuzai’s other protagonists in his collection of stories, Bassim struggles with his economic reality; in his society, marriage requires wealth; without money, a male should not consider getting married. Bassim has a job, yet his job does not provide him with enough money to marry and have a family. Here, like Khalil I. Al-fuzai’s other protagonists in his collection of stories, Bassim struggles with his economic reality; in his society, marriage requires wealth; without money, a male should not consider getting married. Bassim has a job, yet his job does not provide him with enough money to marry and have a family.

This two-part article argues that the earliest Arabic manuscripts of the 1001 Nights celebrate sameness, especially physical sameness, in sexual relationships to the extent that a category of erotic embodiment emerges that cannot be understood through a binary construction of sex. The first part of the article proposes a reading of a fifteenth-century manuscript that takes its descriptions of beautiful bodies on their own terms. Eroticized characters recur as both lover and beloved in a series of parallel sexual encounters that situate them in emphatic mutual relation and accumulate weight as the text unfolds. The resulting erotics of sameness decenters the perspective of adult men and displaces or undermines, at least temporarily, the lines of gender otherwise drawn in the stories. By contrast, when difference is stressed via explicitly sexed or racialized bodies, it is used to deem a relationship ridiculous or threatening. The second part of the article presents a diachronic analysis of one story, “The Story of Qamar al-Zaman and Budur,” to show how modern editors, translators, and scholars have read binary sex into the text in order to make sense of its erotics. Manuscripts of the Nights dating from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries differ considerably from the earliest Arabic print editions in their presentation of the story. This case study reveals what translators and scholars miss when they work from these print editions and/or from modern constructions of gender, sexuality, and embodiment.

We can say that culture includes knowledge, arts, morals, beliefs, customs and other capabilities that a person obtains from life. The difference in the cultures that the groups of Jews from different parts of the world carried to (Israel) led to a difference in customs and traditions between them, and this in turn led to a conflict between them in particular and between cultures in general. That is, the culture of the Sephardi Jews and the culture of the Western Ashkenazi Jews.Sephardi are the Jews who immigrated from Arab and eastern countries, while Ashkenazim are the Jews who immigrated from Western countries (European, America and Russia(. Therefore, (Israel) worked in two directions with these immigrants, some of them called for integration with the new society, and the other part to assimilate them. But with all these attempts, some of them ended in failure. The eastern Jews (Iraqis in particular) have kept the Iraqi customs and traditions that they were brought up with and did not lose their identity. I will discuss in this research some of these customs and traditions that they maintained even after their immigration to (Israel). Such as the use of some Arabic expressions, oriental food, eastern folklore, through some stories and novels written by Iraqi Jewish writers who immigrated to (Israel), such as Shimon Palace, Samir Naqqash, Anwar Shaul, Sami Michael.

Matthew Pierce’s first book, Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shi‘ism, is a unique scholarly work about Ithnā Ash‘arī Shī‘ism and the development of communal identity. His main argument in this book is that the Shi‘a religious identity was shaped over time based on collective social memory and specific biographical depictions of spiritual leadership centered on the sacredness of the Prophet Muhammad and his family, the ahl al-bayt. While much scholarship on Shi‘ism is centered on the topics of succession, theological doctrines, or the specific rituals of ‘Ashura, Pierce focuses instead on how love and devotion towards the imams and the ahl al-bayt developed. His scholarly inquiry was piqued by his experience in the shrine city of Qum, Iran, where he was a resident and scholar of an inter-faith dialogue program from 2003-2006. There he observed firsthand the personal devotional lives of Twelver Shi‘as who cultivate personal connections and relationship with the imams through devotional ritual, seeking intercession, pilgrimages to shrines, mourning their suffering, and seeking their guidance. In Twelve Infallible Men this system of piety and devotion is traced to five early biographical figures. His primary source material was biographical works, in particular the five collective biographies of the imams written between 943-1150 CE: The Establishment of the Inheritance (Ithbāt al-waṣiya), attributed to al-Masʿūdī; Proofs of the Imamate (Dalāʾil al-imāma), attributed to Ibn Jarīr; The Book of Guidance (Kitāb al-irshād), by al-Mufīd; Informing Humanity (Iʿlām alwara), by al-Ṭabrīsī; and Virtues of the Descendants of Abū Ṭālib (Manāqib Āl Abī Ṭālib), by Ibn Shahrashub. Through his thematic and comparative analysis of these five sources Pierce traces the origin of communal remembrance and the Shi‘i system of piety utilizing the methodology of collective 57 memory studies. Throughout his text he notes broader religious rhetorical trends related to the geographic area and time period, such as the martyrdom narrative in early Christianity and the influence of miraculous stories to confirm saintly status, amongst others. In this way, Pierce situates the Shi‘i narrative within a wider milieu that speaks to sociological developments and broader religious experiences. The selected texts were all produced during the ‘Abbasid reign that was established by utilizing the legitimacy of ahl al-bayt as the source of proper Islamic leadership in their overthrow of the Umayyad regime. The ‘Abbasid era saw the development and emergence of Shi‘i scholarship and identity. Pierce could perhaps have given more historical context and analysis of anti-‘Alid sentiment (such as the institutionalized cursing of ‘Ali) during the Umayyad regime, as part of the development of sympathy and sorrow for the family of the Prophet. But one aspect of the Shi‘i narrative that Pierce analyzes in great depth throughout his work is the shared memory of suffering, primarily as demonstrated by the martyrdom of and the centrality of sorrow for the ahl al-bayt. In his analysis of narrative patterns and recurring symbols he is interested in revealing the needs of the believing community and what made these particular stories meaningful to them. The book is organized into five chapters. Crucial to this work is Pierce’s clarification of Sunni-Shi‘a disputes and the fluidity of how these identities developed and eventually solidified over time. He notes how this time period saw a variety of theological and jurisprudential debates, and the central aspects of what formalized into a Shi‘a identity, ritual, and concepts. The writings Pierce examines emerged during a period where Arabic literature was first taking shape and therefore demonstrate a process within the Islamic community at large of articulating specific narratives. The first chapter describes the canonization of the Twelve Infallibles. Pierce purposefully does not engage the polemics of the time, although these may have provided means to understand another facet of how the selected authors chose to craft their narrative. But he analyzes how the biographies of the imams became standardized over time—for example, how martyrdom was attributed to all of the imams after Mufīd’s writings and how Mufīd in particular set the standard for these narratives contributing to a coherent Shi‘a community with clear boundaries. In the second chapter Pierce explores the collective biographies’ central concern, namely the deaths of the Imams. Their tragic martyrdom becomes a theme in this genre of writing where suffering and grief comprise the proper Shi‘a response. Notably, Pierce also sheds light on the role of martyrdom in minority spiritual groups in the Near East. In this chapter Pierce also begins his gendered analysis, which is a highlight throughout the work, bringing in the tropes of the treacherous wife and the vulnerable bodies of the imams. These characterizations make the earlier narratives circulated, especially in Mufid’s writing, now unthinkable. Furthermore, emotional performances of grief and weeping emerge as demonstrations of piety, as well as being associated with political rebellion. Pierce explores how this emotional performance was in distinct contrast to the proto-Sunni traditionalists’ emphasis on controlling grief. The third chapter revolves around the themes of suffering and betrayal that permeate the biographies. Pierce investigates the arc of sacred history for Shi‘is as evidenced by their afflictions and the denial of their rights, which feature as central literary motifs in these primary sources, along with the symbols of suffering and outsiders. He discusses how the imams emerge as a distinctive type, as too do their betrayers. This chapter also features important events in Shi‘i history: the events of Ghadir and the martyrdom of Husayn in Karbala, a pivotal story in the Shi‘a community, but one that did not take central stage until later in these collective biographies. Love and devotion to the ahl al-bayt become salvific mechanisms that draw upon performances of mourning. Pierce also explores how religious ritual developed along with the narratives in the biographies. He continues his exploration of gender tropes where the female body is the site of mistrust and fear, specifically in the example of ‘A’isha. A central point of his book, elaborated in this chapter, is how the boundaries of the community were conceptually paired with the imams’ bodies. The fourth chapter is a systematic exploration of masculinity as revealed through the imams’ vulnerable bodies and the idealization of male performance. Pierce describes how masculine ideals as envisioned by the biographers comprise the concepts of virtue, manliness, and group loyalty. He explores how the narratives describe the physical appearance, miraculous achievements, and heroics of the imams. The importance of maleheirs, courage, strength, and skill in weaponry are all gendered themes of the imams as characterized in the biographies. Pierce analyzes how these qualities render claims of their legitimacy as leaders, observing how their portrayals also exemplify refinement and self-control. With the exposition of miraculous knowledge and actions, Pierce describes how the imams find victory in the spiritual realms while having experienced loss in the physical world. This chapter also features an important discussion of Fatima in the collective biographies and a fascinating and unique description of her pious female embodied performance sanitized of all female bodily imperfections (most specifically, blood). This last part of chapter four leads into the final chapter, which explores birth narratives in the collective biographies. These narratives form a unique center around which Shi‘is could celebrate and demonstrate communal devotion; it also established a divine ordainment through the transmission of prophetic light to the imams. Pierce explains that a unique aspect of Shi‘i hagiography is how the biographers labor to establish the imams’ mothers’ purity and chastity. His analysis of the sanitized bodies and bodily functions of these mothers is of particular interest. Part of the unique function of the imam is the transmission of his leadership to his successor and is revealed in the way in which the imams occlude the mothers in nurturing and caring for their newborn. These birth narratives underscore the Shi‘i claims of divinely appointed and rightful spiritual leaders, giving evidence to the community of believers that the imams were clearly designated from birth. Pierce effectively explores the Shi‘i community of memory and how these biographers established communal boundaries. His exploration of these primary sources with attention to literary analysis and genre specific themes and symbols is distinctive, and brings a different perspective into Islamic studies. Pierce’s analysis of gender ideals is also elucidating and could be explored more deeply in future work. It is also worth noting that within the body of the text, he predominantly references women scholars in his and related fields. Pierce successfully establishes the case for the crafting and defining of socio-religious Shi‘i identity via biographical texts whose key themes include loyalty, mourning, and justice for rightful heirs who were pure, ideal, and miraculous men. Nicole Correri, M.Ed., M.A.Hartford Seminary

This chapter focuses on a set of Arabic stories from the Umayyad period (661–750) that were further elaborated in the literature of the Abbasid period (750–1258). These tales about chaste lovers typically feature a pastoral setting, a male point of view, a melancholy mood, and lovers who live, suffer, and die for love—providing delight for the court audiences for whom they were performed. Not all stories about chaste love, however, fit the dominant paradigm, and unusual cases can shed light on ways in which the Umayyads were viewed in the Abbasid imagination, point to intersections between love story and political life, and show how stories of chaste love live on in courtly, orthodox Islamic, and Sufi discourse.

This chapter discusses how husbands' loving commitments toward their wives are a major part of Middle Eastern conjugality and an important feature of emergent masculinities in the region. Even seemingly traditional men such as Hatem—a farmer from a “closed” rural Syrian community—defy masculine stereotypes. Although conventional wisdom suggests that Middle Eastern men routinely divorce their infertile wives, Hatem's case provides evidence to the contrary. His story suggests that enduring conjugal commitments are a key feature of emergent masculinities in the Middle East, even in the face of intractable infertility. According to studies, this is as true among lower-class Middle Eastern couples, both urban and rural, as it is among cosmopolitan elites.

The first chapter outlines Rossetti’s fascination with the East, as exemplified by his illustrations and paintings remediating the stories of the Arabian Nights. Rossetti illustrated the stories of Aladdin, Sinbad, Amine and Princess Parisad by employing the magical lamp of translation, fostering cultural diversity and Oriental pluralisms. By conceiving the East as a blended space, he produced Oriental ‘double works of art’ that blend together poetry and painting, East and West, and experiment with forms of Turkish and biblical Orientalism. Such conceptual metaphors as East is violence and love is destruction are projected on to Cassandra (1861) and Helen of Troy (1863), examples of Turkish Orientalism that remediate Oriental schemas by applying a tuning approach. Other Oriental double works of art, such as The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849), Ecce Ancilla Domini! (1849–50), The Beloved, or The Bride (1865), Astarte Syriaca (1876) and Mnemosyne (1881), represent Rossetti’s mental picture of biblical Orientalism. By restructuring a few variables of the Oriental biblical schema, and by blending Western female beauty with Eastern symbology, Rossetti creates an entirely new vision of the East.

Albert Schweitzer called pain “a more terrible lord of mankind than even death.” Thus, it is not surprising that humans have from the earliest times attempted to identify plants which might provide pain relief. The Odyssey by Homer provides a mythic account of the use of one such agent. . . . Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, took other counsel. Straightaway she cast into the wine of which they were drinking a drug to quit all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill. Whoso should drink this down, when it is mingled in the bowl, would not in the course of that day let a tear fall down over his cheeks, no, not though his mother and father should lie there dead . . . Such cunning drugs had the daughter of Zeus, drugs of healing, which Polydamna, the wife of Thor, had given her, a woman of Egypt, for there the earth, the giver of grain, bears the greatest store of drugs . . . . . . More than a century ago, it was suggested by Oswald Schmiedeberg, a German scientist regarded by many as the father of modern pharmacology, that the drug to which Homer refers is opium for “no other natural product on the whole earth calls forth in man such a psychical blunting as the one described.” When today, in the fields of Afghanistan or Turkey or India, the seed capsule of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is pierced, a milky fluid oozes from it which, when dried, is opium. Virginia Berridge, in her elegant history of opium in England, tells us that the effects of opium on the human mind have probably been known for about 6,000 years and that opium had an honored place in Greek, Roman, and Arabic medicine. I will not dwell on that ancient history but will instead jump ahead to the 17th century by which time opium had gained wide use in European medicine.