The Qur’an and Modern Arabic Literary Criticism: From Taha to Nasr

176 Pages·2018·2.49 MB·English

by  Mohammad Salama

The Qur’ān and Modern Arabic
Literary Criticism
Suspensions: Contemporary Middle Eastern and Islamicate Thought
Series Editors: Jason Mohaghegh and Lucian Stone
This series interrupts standardized discourses involving the Middle East
and the Islamicate world by introducing creative and emerging ideas. The
incisive works included in this series provide a counterpoint to the reigning
canons of theory, theology, philosophy, literature, and criticism through
investigations of vast experiential typologies—such as violence, mourning,
vulnerability, tension, and humor—in light of contemporary Middle Eastern
and Islamicate thought.
Continental Philosophy and the Palestinian Question, Zahi Zalloua
Gilles Deleuze, Postcolonial Theory, and the Philosophy of Limit,
Reda Bensmaia
Hostage Spaces of the Contemporary Islamicate World, Dejan Lukic
Iranian Identity and Cosmopolitanism, Lucian Stone
On the Arab Revolts and the Iranian Revolution, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
The Politics of Writing Islam, Mahmut Mutman
Remaking Politics, Markets, and Citizens in Turkey, Ebru Kayaalp
Sorcery, Totem, and Jihad in African Philosophy, Christopher Wise
Transgression and the Inexistent, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem
The Writing of Violence in the Middle East, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh
The Qur’ān and Modern Arabic
Literary Criticism
From Ṭāhā to Naṣr
Mohammad Salama
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First published in Great Britain 2018
Copyright © Mohammad Salama, 2018
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Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x–xi constitute
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Names: Salama, Mohammad, author.
Title: The Qur’a¯n and modern Arabic literary criticism :
from Taha to Naòsr / Mohammad Salama. Description:
New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. | Series: Suspensions:
contemporary Middle Eastern and Islamicate thought | Includes
bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017051424|
ISBN 9781474254267 (hardback) | ISBN 9781474253277
(epub) Subjects: LCSH: Qur’a¯n as literature. | Qur’ān–Criticism, interpretation, etc. |
Criticism–Egypt–History–20th century.Classification: LCC BP131.8 .S245 2018 | DDC
297.1/226–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051424
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-5426-7
ePDF: 978-1-4742-5325-3
ePub: 978-1-4742-5327-7
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"ضِ رْ لَْا يِف ثُ كُ مْ َيَف سَ اَّنلا عُ َفنَي امَ امَّ َأوَ ۖ ءً اَفجُ بُ َهذَْيَف دُ َبزَّ لا امَّ َأَف"
(رشع ةعباسلا ةيلآا :دعرلا ةروس)
“As to the froth, worthless it shall go; and as to what benefits people, it shall
remain on the earth.”
Qur’ān (13:17)
vi
Contents
Series Foreword viii
Acknowledgments x
A Note on Transliteration and Translation xii
Introduction 1
1 A Cartesian Backfire? Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, the Qur’ān, and the Cogito 17
2 The Return to Philology and the Unmasking of Traditionalism
in Amīn al-Khūlī 37
3 Muḥammad Aḥmad Khalafallāh: The Art of Narrative
in the Qur’ān 51
4 Bint al-Shāṭi’: Literary Significations in the Qur’ān 65
5 Reclaiming Qur’ānic Exegesis: Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd
between Traditionalism and Postsecularism 77
6 On Metaphor: Abū Zayd and the Ideologies of majāz
in the Qur’ān 97
Conclusion 115
Notes 119
Bibliography 145
Index 155
Series Foreword
Poets, artists, theologians, philosophers, and mystics in the Middle East and
Islamicate world have been interrogating notions of desire, madness, sensuality,
solitude, death, time, space, and so on for centuries, thus constituting an
expansive and ever-mutating intellectual landscape. Like all theory and
creative outpouring, then, theirs is its own vital constellation—a construction
cobbled together from singular visceral experiences, intellectual ruins, novel
aesthetic techniques, social-political-ideological detours, and premonitions of
a future—built and torn down (partially or in toto), and rebuilt again with
slight and severe variations. The horizons shift and frequently leave those who
dare traverse these lands bewildered and vulnerable.
Consequently, these thinkers and their visionary ideas remain largely
unknown, or worse, mispronounced and misrepresented in the so-called
Western world. In the hands of imperialistic frameworks, a select few thinkers
of the Islamic world remain grossly silenced, misrepresented, spoken on behalf
of, or rather about. Their ideas are simplified into mere social formulae and
empirical scholarly categories. Whereas so-called Western philosophers and
writers are given full leniency to contemplate the most incisive or abstract
ideas, non-Western thinkers, especially those located in the imagined realms
of the Middle East and Islamicate world, are reduced to speaking of purely
political histories or monolithic cultural narratives. In other words, they are
distorted and contorted to fit within hegemonic paradigms that steal away
their more captivating potentials.
Contributors to this series provide a counterpoint to the reigning canons of
theory, theology, philosophy, literature, and criticism through investigations
of the vast experiential typologies of such regions. Each volume in the series
acts as a “suspension” in the sense that the authors will position contemporary
thought in an enigmatic new terrain of inquiry, where it will be compelled to
confront unforeseen works of critical and creative imagination. These analyses
Series Foreword ix
will not only highlight the full range of current intellectual and artistic trends
and their benefits for the citizens of these phantom spheres, but also argue
that the ideas themselves are borderless, and are thus of great relevance to all
citizens of the world.
Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh and Lucian Stone