Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel / / Ziad Elmarsafy.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2013-2000
• VerfasserIn: Elmarsafy, Ziad,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature : ESMAL
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Series Editor’s Foreword --; Abbreviations --; Acknowledgements --; Introduction: Ouverture --; 1 Naguib Mahfouz: (En)chanting Justice --; 2 Tayeb Salih: The Returns of the Saint --; 3 Maḥmūd Al-Masʿadī: Witnessing Immortality --; 4 The Survival of Gamal Al-Ghitany --; 5 Ibrahim Al-Koni: Writing and Sacrifice --; 6 Tahar Ouettar: The Saint and the Nightmare of History --; Epilogue: Bahaa Taher, Solidarity and Idealism --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780748655649; 9783110780468
• DOI: 10.1515/9780748655649
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Ziad Elmarsafy.

Close readings of 9 contemporary Arab novelists who use Sufism as a literary strategySufi characters – saints, dervishes, wanderers – occur regularly in modern Arabic literature. A select group of novelists interrogates Sufism as a system of thought and language. In the work of writers like Naguib Mahfouz, Gamal Al-Ghitany, Taher Ouettar, Ibrahim Al-Koni, Mahmud Al-Mas’adi and Tayeb Salih we see a strong intertextual relationship with the Sufi masters of the past, including Al-Hallaj, Ibn Arabi, Al-Niffari and Al-Suhrawardi. This relationship interrogates the limits of the creative self, individuality, rationality and all the possibilities offered by literature. In this dialogue with the mystical heritage, these novelists seek a way of preserving a self under siege from the overwhelming forces of oppression and reaction that characterised the late 20th and early 21st centuries.