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.)

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.

Table of Contents

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