Check out this interview with German scholar Angelika Neuwirth on enlightenment in Arabic and Islamic cultures !
Some highlights:
On Enlightenment: “The claim that Islam lacks an Enlightenment is an age-old cliché. Pride in the Enlightenment–even though this pride has died down somewhat–continues to lead people to believe that Western Culture is way ahead of Islam.”
On the status of women: “…the Koran is not a reference work for social behaviour…The Koran was a proclamation to people who were familiar with other norms and were willing to call these norms into question…the Koran takes a revolutionary step forward: it puts woman on the same level as man before God.
My academic training is in Arabic literature. By literature, I don’t mean written materials alone. I mean instead the manipulation of language in all of its various forms (whether stories, poems, rhymes, etc.) to reach an audience–expressing feelings, communicating experiences, asking questions, offering advice, and so on.
When I first studied in Morocco, I had to reevaluate my own definition of literature. Having grown up in a very bookish anglophone family, it took some adjustment to understand how people can live quite fully without any great use of books in their lives.
بتحكي عربي؟ بتحب الادب؟ عندنا فرصة لمناقشة الادب(العربي خاصةً) بالعربي بأي نوع (المصري، الشامي، المغربي، إلخ..) مرة كل اسبوع يوم الأحد 3:30 – 4:30 مساءً (Eastern Standard Time)
على Google Hangouts اتصل بي للمشاركة احنا بنقرى “الساق على الساق” للشدياق حالياً
Tarif Khalidi posted this with the intriguing comment that it’s “from an anthology of Arabic literature, ancient & modern, verse & prose, all my own translations, which should be completed in a couple of years or so.” Happy Saturday! ~ m.
Al-Buhturi (d.897)
The Poet and the Wolf
What a night! Dawn at its tail-end Like an inch of gleaming steel, When a sword is drawn from its sheath.
I wrapped myself in its gloom, While wolves were still in slumber, My eyes like a night thief’s, a stranger to sleep, Stirring up the grouse where they squatted, The fox and the viper my only companions.
YA Arabic Fantasy Fiction I recommend anything by Ahmed Salah Al Mahdi, a bright new talent in the Arab World. I’ve dedicated another post to his work here.
Sonia Nimr’s middle-grade novel طائر الرعد / Thunderbird – See here for Marcia Lynx Qualey’s interview with the author. Qualey’s recommendation of طائر الرعد / Thunderbird in the third Bulaq podcast won me over! Arabic review by Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi here. Available in 2022 in English (from Amazon and other booksellers).
YA Arabic Fantasy Fiction I recommend anything by Ahmed Salah Al Mahdi, a bright new talent in the Arab World. I’ve dedicated another post to his work here.
Sonia Nimr’s middle-grade novel طائر الرعد / Thunderbird – See here for Marcia Lynx Qualey’s interview with the author. Qualey’s recommendation of طائر الرعد / Thunderbird in the third Bulaq podcast won me over! Arabic review by Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi here. Available in 2022 in English (from Amazon and other booksellers).
