Publication

2014 - Edinburgh University Press

Language

English

Word Count

64,000 words, Guess

Page Count

256 pages

Identifiers

  • ISBN-139780748695850
  • ISBN-100748695850
  • Better World Books9780748695850
  • Open LibraryOL28539136M

Classifications

  • LCCPJ7577.E4 2014

Description

Sufi 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.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic NovelEdinburgh University Press2014

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