SA P I E N ZA , UN I VE R S I TÀ DI ROMA DIPA RT I M E N TO D I S T UDI OR IE NTALI
DESIR E, P LE AS URE AND TH E TA B OO: N EW VOICE S AND F RE E DOM OF EX PRE S S ION IN C O NTE MPORARY ARABIC LITE RATURE EDITED BY SOBHI BOUSTANI, ISABELLA CAMERA D’AFFLITTO, RASHEED EL-ENANY, WILLIAM GRANARA
SUPPLEMENTO Nº 1 ALLA RIVISTA DEGLI STUDI ORIENTALI NUOVA SERIE VOLUME LXXXVII
PISA · ROMA FABRIZIO SERRA EDITORE 2014
R IVIS TA DEGL I S T UDI O RI E NTALI NUOVA SERIE Trimestrale I prezzi ufficiali di abbonamento cartaceo e/o Online sono consultabili presso il sito Internet della casa editrice www.libraweb.net. Print and/or Online official subscription rates are available at Publisher’s website www.libraweb.net. I versamenti possono essere eseguiti sul conto corrente postale n. 171574550 o tramite carta di credito (Visa, Eurocard, Mastercard, American Express, Carta Si) Fabrizio Serr a editore Pisa · Roma Casella postale n. 1, Succursale 8, I 56123 Pisa Uffici di Pisa: Via Santa Bibbiana 28, I 56127 Pisa, tel. +39 050542332, fax +39 050574888,
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[email protected] * Sono rigorosamente vietati la riproduzione, la traduzione, l’adattamento anche parziale o per estratti, per qualsiasi uso e con qualsiasi mezzo eseguiti, compresi la copia fotostatica, il microfilm, la memorizzazione elettronica, ecc., senza la preventiva autorizzazione scritta della Fabrizio Serra editore, Pisa · Roma. www.libraweb.net © Copyright 2014 by Sapienza, Università di Roma and Fabrizio Serra editore, Pisa · Roma Fabrizio Serra editore incorporates the Imprints Accademia editoriale, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, Fabrizio Serra editore, Giardini editori e stampatori in Pisa, Gruppo editoriale internazionale and Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali. issn 0392-4866 isbn 978-88-6227-702-0 isbn elettronico 978-88-6227-703-7
CONT ENT S ix
Preface Political and Religious Taboos in Contemporary Arabic Literature William Granara, A Room of One’s Own: The Modern Arabic Heroine Between Career and Domesticity Rasheed El-Enany, God, the Artist and the Critic: a Case Study of Yusuf Idris’s al-Farafir Paola Viviani, Breaking Taboos at Different Levels: a Reading of Khara’it al-Ruh (2007) by Ahmad Ibrahim al-Faqih Richard van Leeuwen, The Forbidden Room: The Thousand and One Nights and Ibrahim al-Faqih’s Gardens of the Night Francesco De Angelis, Censorship, Self-Censorship and Taboos in Contemporary Yemeni Literature Elvira Diana, The New Women’s Writing from Saudi Arabia: A Real Instrument for Freedom and Breaking of Taboos or Just a Response to the Market Demand of the West? Anna Gabai, Samandal: Comics from Lebanon Roger Allen, Criteria for Translation: The Case of the “Arabic Best-Seller” Revisited
3 13 25 45 63
79 95 103
Sexual and Other Pleasures in Contemporary Arabic Literature Stephan Guth, The Changing Role of Pleasure, or: Towards a Fundamentalist Humanism. Some Thoughts on the Place of Pleasure and Desire in the System of a New Period Assad Khairallah, Desire, Taboo, and Transgression. Mystical Hedonism in Qasim ¢addad’s Akhbar Majnun Layla Barbara Winckler, Majnun Layla in Modern Lebanon: Madness between Lovesickness and Mystical Experience in Huda Barakat’s Novel Ahl al-hawa Tetz Rooke, Searching for the Navel: Love Voices in the Poetry of Adonis Francesca Maria Corrao, The Pleasure of Language as an Aesthetic Value in Saniya £alih’s Poetry Sobhi Boustani, Désirs sans limites, plaisirs assumés: Ismuhu al-gharam, un roman de ‘Alawiya £ubh
115 143
153 169 185 195
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contents
[2]
Monica Ruocco, La sensualité dans l’œuvre de al-¢abib al-Salimi Alessandro Buontempo, Mudhakkirat Randa al-Trans by ¢azim £aghiyya: How to Deal with Difficult Topics in a Biography Dounia Abourachid Badini, Le magazine libanais Jasad (2008-2010) ou la transgression du tabou du corps Isabella Camera d’Afflitto, Plaisirs gourmands dans quelques romans arabes
205
Index
277
Contributors
285
221 243 263
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON: MADNESS BETWEEN LOVESICKNESS AND MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE IN HUDĀ BARAKĀT’S NOVEL AHL AL-HAWĀ* BARBARA WINCKLER Profane love, when it was excessive, was commonly believed to be a form of madness. [...] ‘ishq could be, at the same time, a moral issue, a religious goal, a social idea, and a medical problem. 1
T
hrough the ages, in Europe as well as in the Arab world, madness has been viewed in a very ambivalent manner. On the one hand, it is seen as a transgression of social norms that marginalizes the individual and excludes him from society. On the other hand, delusional states are also considered to be the expression of an ideal of transcendence, of overcoming the limits of all earthly things. The phenomenon of obsessive love that transgresses the boundary of sanity and verges on madness is addressed in a broad range of texts – in medical as well as in juridical, in theological as well as in mystical and in literary texts – where it is discussed in its various facets. A striking example is the legend of Majnūn and Laylā, certainly the most famous love story found in Arabic literature that has often been compared to the story of Romeo and Juliet. Set in a Bedouin milieu, it is the tragic story of the love between Qays and Laylā. Early in their youth Qays and Laylā fall deeply in love with each other, but Qays’ request for Laylā’s hand is denied either because of his social position or because of the poems he composed praising Laylā, a matter that flouts social norms. After Laylā is married off to another man, Qays increasingly succumbs to a delusional disorder. He withdraws from the world and retreats to the desert where he spends the rest of his life among wild animals, celebrating his love for
* This paper is an abridged version of a chapter of my PhD thesis on “border situations” in Hudā Barakāt’s early novels: Grenzgänge. Androgynie – Wahnsinn – Utopie im Romanwerk von Hudā Barakāt. Wiesbaden: Reichert (forthcoming). 1 Michael W. Dols, Majnūn. The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, ed. by Diana E. Immisch. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992, p. 313, 319.
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BARBARA WINCKLER Laylā in his poems. Henceforth, he is known as “al-Majnūn”, “the possessed.”2 Over the centuries, the figure of “Majnūn Laylā”, “the one possessed by Laylā,” has become the epitome of absolute and unfulfilled love that, consequently, takes on delusional traits. In Arabic literature (and beyond), the legend has been rewritten again and again with new interpretations emphasizing different aspects. In many of these versions, both lovers, but in particular the female beloved Laylā, become symbolic figures, vehicles for illustrating and debating ideas of the most diverse kind, from mystical through to nationalist approaches, as well as positions critical of culture and society. These different rewritings demonstrate how affects and social norms are, implicitly or explicitly, negotiated in literary texts. In her second novel, Ahl al-hawā, 3 the Lebanese writer Hudā Barakāt (b. 1952) explores questions of love and madness. Unlike a number of other literary texts, this novel does not refer explicitly to the legend of “Majnūn Laylā”. Nevertheless, it proves illuminating to read the novel in the light of the “Majnūn Laylā” paradigm. If read in the tradition of previous rewritings of the legend, the novel shows striking similarities to interpretations of the theme in earlier texts, and, despite the completely different contexts, it becomes possible to perceive the conflicting interpretations of the theme of love and madness as continuities.
2 Etymologically, the Arabic term majnūn does not refer to a deficiency as does, for example, the German “Wahnsinn” (madness) that originally means “devoid of reason”. Majnūn literally means “jinn-possessed” or “inspired by the jinn”, a kind of demon: “In preIslamic Arabia, soothsayers were believed to have received messages from the djinn during ecstatic experiences […], and poets were believed to have been inspired by their individual djinn, similar to the Greek idea of Muses”. Alford T. Welch, “Madjnūn,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition, Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill, 1986, pp. 1101-2, here 1101. The historicity of this figure is disputed. Whereas there has been a number of Arab poets to whom the epithet “al-Majnūn” was applied, there is not sufficient evidence that proves that one of these poets has really been the model for the legendary figure. For the conflicting arguments see, among others, Ignatij J. Kračkovskij, “Die Frühgeschichte der Erzählung von Macnūn und Lailā in der arabischen Literatur,” [1946] in Oriens, 8, 1955, pp. 1-50, here 8-15; Charles Pellat, “Madjnūn Laylā – In Arabic literature,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition, Vol. 5, op. cit., pp. 1102-3, here 1102; as well as Renate Jacobi, “‘Udhrī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition, Vol. 10. Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 774-6, here 775. 3 Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā. Bayrūt: Dār al-Nahār, 1993. English translation Disciples of Passion, translated by Marilyn Booth. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005.
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON 1.1 “MAJNŪN LAYLĀ” THROUGH THE AGES: THE LEGEND AND ITS REWRITINGS Maǧnūn represents the rejection of established intellectual, social, and psychological limitations and symbolizes the basic yearning of the “I” to be at one with the Other. His project is to fulfil the eternal human desire to make the part identical with the Whole, a project that is conceivable only within the realms of love, madness, and poetry.4
The manifold rewritings of the “Majnūn Laylā” legend from different times and contexts reflect changing ideals concerning affects such as love and lovesickness, as well as changing attitudes towards norms and norm transgressions. They also show the different levels of meaning upon which the theme of love and madness is projected. Despite his outstanding position in literary history, Majnūn is far from being the only figure of a poet who, because of an unfulfilled love, withdraws from society and retreats to the wasteland and/or perishes of despair. In fact, we find in Arabic literature of the Umayyad period a specific attitude characterized by a passionate love for an unattainable beloved together with an ideal of chastity and faithfulness until death. This attitude is found in the ‘udhrī love poetry, named after the South Arabian tribe ‘Udhra, known in the West through Heinrich Heine’s poem that says: “those Asra, who die when they love.”5 This model from the 7th century was later incorporated into the ideal of courtly love of the Abbasid period, and the tradition of the ‘udhrī poets became a literary topos, the object of retrospective inspiration that idealized the Bedouin past. 6 If one were to examine the poetic conceptualization of the individual love affair here against communal norms, it stands to reason that, as Renate Jacobi suggests, ‘udhrī love poetry is analogous to the religious combat poetry of the Kharijites, an Islamic sect that grew out of an early secession from majority Islam. Thus, the two traditions can be interpreted “as the active and the passive form of a protest in
4
As‘ad Khairallah, Love, Madness, and Poetry. An Interpretation of the Maǧnūn Legend. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980, p. 2. 5 In the original German, it reads: “jene Asra, welche sterben, wenn sie lieben,” quoted from Mirjam Weber, Der “wahre Poesie-Orient”. Eine Untersuchung zur OrientalismusTheorie Edward Saids am Beispiel von Goethes “West-östlichem Divan” und der Lyrik Heines. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001, p. 107. 6 Renate Jacobi, “‘Udhrī”, op. cit., pp. 775-6.
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which the loss of certainty and the painful search for a new meaningful order is expressed.”7 Within this group of poets, however, Majnūn constitutes a special case. Specifically, no other manifestation of life remains in this character and the affect of love is detached from the real person of the beloved and completely internalized.8 Moreover, in this figure the three elements of love, madness and poetry are inextricably linked, a point that makes As‘ad Khairallah consider this constellation an archetype of its own:9 In this, we must understand madness as standing for the extreme position of the two other dimensions. Mad is he who goes beyond the rational and reasonable, transgressing socially accepted norms of thinking, feeling, or behavior. Therefore, poetry should be understood in its highest claims, as the equal of prophetic vision, embodying the spiritual and magic yearning to see through the veils of reality and to influence it. Similarly, love would have to be seen as the extreme act of transcending oneself, as Sartre understands it, even when it is still on the most primitive level, or a sheer physical obsession. All three dimensions (love, madness and poetry) function then as a unity, expressing man’s longing to go beyond his condition in all the fundamental aspects of his earthly existence, and to have access to the supernatural, or surreal.10
In this sense, various ways of rewriting and interpretation, most notably the mystical one, are already inherent in the legend of “Majnūn Laylā.” 11 Although at an early stage the story was already circulated in a huge number of fragments and variants – the oldest surviving written version by Ibn Qutayba dating from the 9th century12 –, it is particularly the later rewritings that clearly reflect the negotiation of norms and affects. Geographically, we 7
Renate Jacobi, “Omaijadische Dichtung (7.-8. Jahrhundert),” in Helmut Gätje (ed.), Grundriß der Arabischen Philologie, Vol. II. Literaturwissenschaft, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1987, pp. 32-40, here p. 37. Translation from the German original is mine. 8 Hellmut Ritter, “Nachwort des übersetzers [sic],” postface to Ignatij J. Kračkovskij, “Die Frühgeschichte der Erzählung…,” op. cit., pp. 49-50, here p. 49. 9 As‘ad Khairallah, Love, Madness, and Poetry..., op. cit., especially pp. 1-2, 23. 10 As‘ad Khairallah, “The Individual and Society: Ṣalāḥ ‘Abdaṣṣabūr’s Laylā wal-Majnūn,” in Johann Christoph Bürgel, Stephan Guth (eds.), Gesellschaftlicher Umbruch und Historie im zeitgenössischen Drama der islamischen Welt. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1995, pp. 161-77, here p. 163. 11 Ibid., p. 161; Hellmut Ritter, “Nachwort des übersetzers [sic],” op. cit., p. 49. 12 For Ibn Qutayba’s version see, among others, Ignatij J. Kračkovskij, “Die Frühgeschichte der Erzählung…,”op. cit., p. 4; as well as Stefan Leder, “Frühe Erzählungen zu Maǧnūn. Maǧnūn als Figur ohne Lebensgeschichte,” in Werner Diem (ed.), XXIV. D.O.T. 1988 in Köln. Ausgewählte Vorträge. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1990, pp. 150-61, here p. 152. An English translation of Ibn Qutayba’s text is provided by As‘ad Khairallah, Love, Madness, and Poetry…, op. cit., pp. 135-43.
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON can trace the legend from Arabic literature via other literatures of the Middle East through to Europe where it was reworked by Goethe and Heine,13 as well as, much later, by Louis Aragon in his surrealistic long poem Le fou d’Elsa (1963).14 In a number of these rewritings, often labelled as “romantic”, society is denounced for prohibiting the lovers from realizing their love.15 In contrast, probably the most famous version by the Persian poet Niẓāmī (12th century) emphasizes the destructive nature of this form of unconditional love, which “like the raging fire” knows no limits and defies all control. Mystical readings, on the other hand, turn the legend into something positive altogether, and for centuries it was exalted as the “Song of Songs of Ṣūfī (i.e. Islamic mystic) poets.”16 In these texts, we find a radical reinterpretation that would prove to be highly influential. According to the mystical view, the moral is less about rebelling against social constraints, or matters pertaining to earthly existence, but rather about overcoming immanent and material reality and transcending toward the Divine. Majnūn in the Sufi reading replaces the real Beloved by her ideal image, his aim is no longer to unite with the real Laylā but to annihilate himself or sacrifice himself for the sake of the true union with the divine Beloved, a union that could be achieved only in an otherworldly state of being. 17
In modern literature, the legend has been repeatedly represented in allegorical form. Whereas in pre-modern times one finds a transfer from the real person Laylā to the Divine, in the modern age the national dimension becomes predominant. Therefore, in the (post-)colonial context the relationship between the two lovers primarily represents the relationship of the poet or intellectual to his homeland or nation, which is imagined as a woman. The lover in the figure of the poet appears to be the sole legitimate partner for a woman elevated to the status of a symbol. In many cases, he is identified with the freedom fighter who sacrifices his life for the sake of his country. Prominent examples for this position include the poems of Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb (1926-64) from Iraq and the early texts of the Palestinian poet Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1941-2008), who in 13
For Goethe’s and Heine’s rewritings of the legend see Mirjam Weber, Der “wahre Poesie-Orient”…, op. cit., pp. 100-7. 14 As‘ad Khairallah, “The Individual and Society…,” op. cit., pp. 162-3, 166; as well as Amīra al-Zayn, “Min Majnūn Laylā ilā Majnūn Ilsā: Baḥth fī ’l-tanāṣṣ wa-l-faḍā’ al-adabī,” in Alif. Journal of Comparative Poetics, 21, 2001, pp. 161-83. 15 As‘ad Khairallah, “The Individual and Society…,” op. cit., p. 165. 16 As‘ad Khairallah, Love, Madness, and Poetry…, op. cit., p. 11. 17 Angelika Neuwirth, “Emblems of Exile: Laylā and Majnūn in Egypt, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon,” in Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, 58, 2005, pp. 163-87, here p. 170.
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his later works, however, revised this position and henceforth expressed the notion of existential alienation as part of the human condition.18 In these texts, the intertextual reference to the legend of “Majnūn Laylā” is not necessarily made explicit, and the (imminent or experienced) loss of the homeland is not necessarily caused by external influence, expulsion or occupation. In many cases, it is the experience of alienation that makes the legend appear as an appropriate model for the relationship of the modern intellectual to his society: It suffices to recall the basis of the self-understanding oriented on Majnun: the experience of the world as a desolate “wasteland”, dominated by the suffering of existential loss and an insatiable thirst for a reunion with the beloved “thou”; the plight that modern writers so emphatically believe themselves to share with Majnun.19
The Arab defeat in the Six-Day War of June 1967 led to general disillusionment and radical self-criticism, in the context of which old certainties, prevailing ideologies and self-understanding were radically questioned. Leftist intellectuals were quick to criticize the idealization of the woman and the homeland. This is most noticeably observed in the verse drama Laylā wa-l-Majnūn (Laylā and the Possessed, 1970) by the Egyptian poet and playwright Ṣalāḥ ‘Abd al-Ṣabūr (1931-81). By showing how political dreams and the mythical transfiguration of the woman in effect block a clear view of reality and suppress a perception of the beloved as a real person, Ṣalāḥ ‘Abd al-Ṣabūr unmasks the noble goals put forward by leftist intellectuals as mere rhetoric.20 The general departure from “committed literature” (al-adab al-multazim) is also noticeable in recent reworkings of “Majnūn Laylā”, which are, however, far from being less “political” than their “committed” predecessors: as part of the inauguration of the “Bahraini Spring of Culture” festival 2007, the text Akhbār Majnūn Laylā (Accounts of Majnūn Laylā, 1996) by the Bahraini poet Qāsim Ḥaddād (b. 1948) was first performed in an on-stage version combining reading, music and dance. The production, which was composed together with the Lebanese composer and musician Marcel 18
Ibid., pp. 170-3, 182-4. Angelika Neuwirth: “An Egyptian Don Quixote? Salah Abd al-Sabur’s Rethinking of the Majnun-Layla Paradigm,” in Angelika Neuwirth, Andreas Pflitsch, Barbara Winckler (eds.), Arabic Literature – Postmodern Perspectives. London et al.: Saqi, 2010, pp. 410-28, here p. 416. 20 Ibid., especially pp. 412, 423-4. 19
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON Khalifeh (b. 1950), again conceives the two characters as real lovers, especially in their corporeity and physical desires. The production provoked vehement protests from a group of Islamist deputies in the Bahraini Parliament, who perceived in the performance, as well as in the text itself, a violation of the religious and moral sentiments of the audience. The two artists responded with a joint statement, making a plea for the right of artistic expression and the propagation of love. In particular, they referred to “Islamic values” such as “love, tolerance and coexistence”, stating: “Islam, in essence, rests upon a wide spectrum of interpretations, and, consequently, fosters a spirit of dialog among such interpretations.” 21 A broad local, regional and international public declared its solidarity with the artistic duo and advocated artistic freedom. The virulent reactions from both sides demonstrate how potentially volatile such issues are today, perhaps even more so than in preceding periods, and how they instigate inquiry into how one should approach and work with cultural heritage (turāth). Moreover, the manifold and ever-changing process of interpretation throughout the ages tellingly shows how the legend of “Majnūn Laylā” lends itself, now and then, as a projection surface for current debates. 1.2 THE “BASIC” AND THE “SUFI-AMPLIFIED” FABLE: TWO INTERPRETATIVE TRADITIONS OF MADNESS IN AHL AL-HAWĀ Hudā Barakāt is primarily known as a novelist, but more recently, she has also turned to writing for the stage. Born in 1952 in Beirut, she is considered one of the most prominent voices of Lebanese literature, indeed of Arabic literature in general. The protagonists of her novels (five by the printing of this paper), all of which are situated in the time of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90),22 are men with unstable personalities and whose masculinity – and thus their role in society – appears extremely precarious. In her literary works, the war functions as a kind of “blind spot” that, although it necessarily determines the events, is not the focus of attention. The main point of interest is the psychological constitution of man and the conditio humana in general. 21
For the artists’ statement as well as a statement signed by a number of Arab intellectuals see http://www.freemuse.org/sw18628.asp (30/03/2007); for the reactions to the performance see, among others, http://www.freemuse.org/sw18500.asp (27/03/2007). Most recently, Thomas Bauer has published a programmatic, though highly debated, study on what he calls the “culture of ambiguity” in Islamic history: Thomas Bauer, Die Kultur der Ambiguität. Eine andere Geschichte des Islams. Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2011. 22 The only exception is her very last novel, Malakūt hādhihi ’l-arḍ (2011, The Kingdom of this Earth) which traces the history of a Maronite village right through the 20th century, beginning with the 1920s and ending on the eve of the Lebanese Civil War.
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All her novels are extremely complex, densely woven texts, written in a language full of empathy with their protagonists, and yet critical of them. Hudā Barakāt’s second novel, Ahl al-hawā (1993), attempts to fathom the relationship between love, madness and death. The novel revolves around the obsessive love of the male protagonist for a woman who remains nameless, an amour fou, marked by the desire to merge with the beloved into a hermaphroditic being – as well as by the panic-stricken angst of loss. The story of this impossible love, told by the male protagonist himself, suggests that his madness is not the result of his wartime experiences, which included abduction and torture, but in fact has been triggered by his obsession: the ideal of an absolute love which cannot be lived out in reality. As a patient in an insane asylum, the narrator looks back at the past only to find the boundaries between reality and imagination blurred. In the end, he himself doubts that what he has reported actually ever took place: that he has killed “her”, so as to “breathe in her soul”. . جلست على صخرة عالية،بعد أن قتلتها وانسابت أعضائي بعضها إلى بعض، تراخت مفاصلي.أغمضت عيني طويالً حتى هدأت أنفاسي وانتظمت . اآلن وقد استعدته، كان جلدي يبترد بلطف في النسيم العليل. كمياه تتهادى بعد لجم ثم تالحم قويين،واتصلت 23 ً . جديدا.اآلن وقد استعدت غالفي الحافظ متينا ً كامالً خاليا ً من أي تشقق أو ثقوب After killing her, I sat down on a high bolder. I closed my eyes for a long spell, keeping them shut until my breathing was calm and regular. My joints went slack, and I felt my limbs and organs flow together like waters commingling after their pent-up energies have surged toward the point of collision. Now that I had reclaimed it, my skin was softly cool in the mild and pleasant breeze. Now I had retrieved my protective shell, strong and seamless, unbroken by cracks or punctures. New. 24
This opening scene of the novel, at first glance enigmatic, turns out to be a key scene as the plot unfolds, a turning point and at the same time the moment when one interpretation of madness crosses over to a contrary one. In her analysis of Ṣalāḥ ‘Abd al-Ṣabūr’s verse play Laylā wa-l-Majnūn, Angelika Neuwirth has identified and elaborated two interpretative traditions of the legend which are brought together for the first time in this play and, indeed, enter into a dialectical relationship. Neuwirth characterises them as
23 24
Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., p. 7. Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., p. 1.
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON the “basic” and the “Sufi-amplified” fable. 25 This possibility for a dual interpretation, I will argue, is also inherent in Ahl al-hawā. Following the first interpretative tradition – that of the “basic” fable – madness is an expression of the deep and festering wound caused by the pain of separation which ultimately leads to the ruin of the lovers. Sa‘īd, the “Majnūn” of ‘Abd al-Ṣabūr’s drama, is characterised by an “obsession with an ideal” that is by no means to be seen as positive, for it blocks any genuine perception of the beloved’s real feelings and needs, subsequently supplanting them with an idealised notion. The narrator in Ahl al-hawā also appears to be a “Majnūn”, not just because he is placed in an asylum due to increasing mental confusion; much earlier in the plot the traits of a “Majnūn” are discernible in so far as the protagonist is obsessed with an ideal, an obsession that, in its intensity, borders on the pathological. Like Sa‘īd, he is not primarily the victim of external circumstances and conditions, but rather of his own obsessions. Even in the first phase of the love affair, which is marked by complete and utter devotion to one another, the narrator senses the harbingers of catastrophe. He already suspects that he will lose himself by becoming too attached to, and therefore too dependent on, another person. ألن أياما ً كثيرة من،ً كنت هلعا.ً ألني بعد أن خرجت منها عرفت أني لن أخرج منها أبدا.ً أنظر الى وجهها هلعا ألن، ندمي الذي ال قعر له. ويقيني من غلبتي وخسارتي نفسي،الصراخ والبكاء والرقص لن تكفي فرحي وندمي وألني لن. غير نفسي، لكي أحاول استعادتها عل ّي أن أكون مع أحد آخر، وألني،لذة كهذه لن تجيء مرة أخرى لن يمكنني احتمال خضوعي لجسم آخر يشيخ ويمرض ويموت.يمكنني احتمال تبعية لما هو من خارج نفسي لم يجعلوا. ألنهم يعرفون أنهم لن يرونه، وقد اخترع الناس الحب الخالص هلل،ويغادر وال أحد غيري يمكنه ذلك 26 . وهو ال يغادر ألنه في كل األمكنة الفارغة منه.ً له جسما ً وال موتا I studied her face anxiously, for after I came out of her, I knew that I would never come out of her. I was frightened because days and days of screaming and crying and dancing would not contain my joy and my regrets, my assurance of being defeated, my final loss of self. This is a remorse that has no end because such pleasure will not happen again, and because if I want to regain it, I must be with someone else, someone other than myself. And because I will not be able to bear my dependence on what is outside of myself. I will not be able to endure my submission to another body – one that will age, sicken, die, and leave me forever. No one but I may do that. 27 People invented pure love for God because they knew they would never see Him.
25
Angelika Neuwirth: “An Egyptian Don Quixote?...,” op. cit., especially pp. 413-4. Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., p. 64. 27 There is another possible reading for this sentence which, I think, renders the intended meaning more precisely: “No one could do that.” 26
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They did not give Him a body or a death. And God never leaves, for He enters all places that are empty of Him.28
Thus, from early on it is clear that the fear of losing the beloved stems neither from the war situation nor from the specific circumstances of their relationship, as it may appear at first glance. Having once had an affair with her, the narrator accidentally bumps into the woman again while she is doing her shopping in his native village. One day, as heavy fighting prevents her from reaching her home and returning to her husband and children, she goes with the narrator and, as though it were a matter of course, becomes “his woman”. But it is not the woman’s family situation that endangers the relationship, nor the fact that they are from different religious faiths. Rather it is the conditio humana which exposes it to peril, the fact that the two lovers are not one, but two distinct separate beings. The inevitable happens: The gap between the lovers widens and the relationship is increasingly marked by estrangement, helplessness and violence. .ً يع ّرفني يقينا. ال شيء يكفيني.أعرف أنها تحبني لكن ال شيء يكفيني . وال أعود قادراً على شيء، أصغر وأتضاءل. تتسع وتكبر حتى أصغر.كانت كلما أحبتني أكثر اتسعت عل ّي 29 .تلتبس عل ّي أموري وأعيا أحيانا ً عن مضاجعتها I know that she loves me, but nothing is enough to satisfy me. Nothing suffices for me. Nothing is enough to fill me with certainty. The more she loved me, the vaster she seemed to be and the farther beyond my embrace I felt she was. As she encompassed more, so I shrank. I became smaller and weaker, so diminished that I felt helpless. I became confused about everything, and sometimes I wasn’t able even to sleep with her.30
The narrator’s desire to communicate with the soul of his lover directly through the body, much more intuitively than ever possible with words,31 – in a sense the preliminary stage for the striven-for ideal of merging with the other – is doomed to failure. The more the woman becomes part of his life, the more he feels weak and abandoned, threatened in his personality and position in life. When she gradually befriends his sister, trying to become integrated into his family, he perceives this as a threat and ultimate loss.
28
Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., p. 45. Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., p. 85. 30 Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., p. 60. 31 Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., pp. 105-8. Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., pp. 75-9. 29
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON [...] .حين صارت تلك المرأة بيتي وأهلي عرفت أني فقدت بيتي وفقدت أهلي ألنها لن تكون أيا ً منهم ْ ْ ُ [...] .فقدت ك َّل ما كان لي مكثت حتى .ًمكثت طويال 32 .أسماء صارت كأنها أختها هي ال أختي When that woman became my home and my family, I knew that I had lost home and family because she would never be either one to me. [...] She stayed a long time. She stayed until I had lost everything that had been mine. [...] Asmaa became more like her sister than like mine.33
One day the woman tries to leave him, and although he is the one who violently hauls her back from the checkpoint and humiliates her, he declares himself to be the victim and claims to be the weaker of the two. The situation culminates in an extremely violent scene, the outcome of which is left open34 and yet refers back to the novel’s opening: the (alleged) murder of the beloved. However, this version of the story that the man narrates in retrospect while in the mental asylum and that ends in delusion and despair, is not the only, definitive one. The narration, interspersed with accounts about everyday happenings with the nurses and other patients, with visions and reflections, mirrors the narrator’s continuous fluctuation between clarity and confusion; between feelings of disorientation and loss of control on the one hand, and a sense of absolute happiness, almost omnipotence on the other. Thus, the beginning of the novel quoted before proves to be a key scene, a turning point where the narrator’s spirits change from despair to rapturous bliss: عرفت اني بدأت أملك اآلن ما بحثت عنه طوال. وكنت أرتوي،ً كنت أعبّه عبا.في هذه الساعة دخلت العالم ، أسيب نفسي للريح والغابة. كأني أولد. أني أملك اآلن كل نفسي التي تدخل هذا الفضاء وتصير منه.عمري . وتسيب نفسها لي،للوديان والسماء 35 . أني شربت مالكها فصار ف ّي. أني شربت روحها،عرفت حين قتلتها ورأيت أني قتلتها In this hour I came into the world. I gulped the universe down, greedily; I quenched my thirst. Now, I knew, I had begun to possess what I had been seeking as long as I’d been alive. Now, I thought: only now do I occupy my own being, the whole of it; I own this self of mine that has flowed into space to become a fragment of it. It is as if I am giving birth to myself. I give myself, my soul, to the wind, to the forest, to the ravines and the sky; and they tender themselves to me. 32
Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., pp. 121-2. Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., pp. 89-90. 34 Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., pp. 170-2. Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., pp. 124-6. 35 Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., p. 8. 33
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At the moment I killed her, when I saw and realized that I had killed her, I knew that I had breathed in her soul. I swallowed the angel of her, and it was within me.36
Union with the lover is finally attained. After having increasingly alienated himself from his social environment, this union concomitantly forges nothing less than a spiritual connection with the world, with nature and the cosmos, to which, now in a state of newly acquired freedom, he abandons himself: وأن جسمي هذا قد بدأ صعوده البطيء ولكن، عرفت أني قديس. الفضاء وانفتح جسمي،انفتحت لي السماء ...ً. وكفني فارغا، لن يجدوا سوى رباطاتي مفككة. وأنهم إذ سيفتحون ذات يوم قبري فلن يجدوني،المحقّق 37 . مب ّشرات بغيابي،وسوى نساء يدلقن الطيب على التراب ويركضن فرحات The sky flung itself wide before me; all of space broke open, and my body unfolded itself. A sacred being, a saint; that, I knew, was what I was. I knew that this body of mine had embarked on its slow but assured ascent. I knew that if one day they were to open my tomb, they would not find me there. They would find nothing but my shroud, split asunder, emptied; they would find only the women, tipping their scents into the soil and running, joyous, to tell the tidings of my absence.38
The narrator identifies with figures from Christian salvation history, even with Christ himself, whose tomb is found empty by the women after his resurrection. Thereby, he imagines himself as someone who has left the suffering of earthly life behind him, even as the herald of a message, a saviour and redeemer. And in the following narrative passages dealing with his life in the asylum he repeatedly describes himself as eminently happy – despite recurring seizures and fits, despite losing control over his body and mind. It is as if the murder, which takes place outside the village, in natural surroundings, is a kind of rite de passage that transfers the narrator to a new state of being. On the worldly level, the plane of the novel’s plot, the love affair drives the narrator to despair and leaves him deeply wounded – this is also how the persons around him perceive him, first of all his sister and the personnel at the asylum. On a higher, more abstract level, however, his madness does not seem to be restrictive or a deficiency. Rather, the lover transcends the agonising pain and transforms it into a mystical experience which carries him 36
Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., pp. 1-2. Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., p. 8. 38 Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., p. 2. 37
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON away from all that is of this world and is expressed in the feeling of extreme bliss and perfection depicted at the beginning of the novel.
1.3 FATHOMING THE ABYSSES OF THE SOUL: BALANCING THE VARIANT READINGS The epilogue gives the story a surprising twist: The narrator retracts all that he has told. In reference to his state of mind, he utters his doubts that he has committed the murder he has described. .أعرف أنه مضى وقت طويل وأنا هنا بأني لم أقتل. أف ّكر بأني لم أقتلها، لذا حين أعود أحيانا ً من نسياناتي الكثيرة،أعرف أني تعبان ومريض في عقلي [...] .أحدا . ولم ترجع إل ّي بعد ليلة القصف كما كانت تطمئنني أختي أسماء لعودتها في اليوم التالي،ربما عادت إلى زوجها في بيتهما البعيد الذي ال أستطيع أن،ً في سالم البالد الذي خيّم عارما ً خالصا ً نهائيا، قربه،وربما هي معه اآلن قبل الفجر، أتأمل في فراغي منها، ما زلت قاعداً في ليلة القصف حيث تركتني، فيما أنا،ًأتص ّور له شكالً أبدا . كك ّل أهل الهوى،بقليل 39 .يا ليل I know that a long time has passed during my stay here. I know that I am tired and that my mind is unwell. That is why, sometimes when I return from my many spells of amnesia, I believe that I did not kill her, that I did not kill anyone. [...] She might have gone back to her husband. Perhaps, after all, she did not return to me after that night of shelling, as my sister Asmaa reassured me, again and again, that she would do. And maybe she is with him now, by his side, in the peace this country knows now, the peace that has lingered to settle over us fiercely, conclusively – an unblemished peace. Perhaps they are in their home, so far from here, of which I can’t form any image at all. Perhaps she is there while I stand here still, where she left me, on the night of the bombardment, contemplating my emptiness of her, a little before dawn, like all of love’s folk, passion’s disciples, the scorned, vessels of a special light. In the soft sweet night.40 O night. Ya layl[...]41
39
Hudā Barakāt, Ahl al-hawā, op. cit., pp. 187-8. The words from “passion’s disciples” to the end of the paragraph appear to be an interpolation by the translator: No equivalent could be found in the Arabic original. 41 Hoda Barakat, Disciples of Passion, op. cit., pp. 135-6. 40
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When the narrator, at the end, calls into question everything he has previously reported and feels “tired and unwell in his mind,” a prisoner of his loss and of the memories from which he cannot free himself, he returns to the first, the “simple” reading of the love story. But this interpretation cannot be considered as the final and definitive version, which is already made clear through the repeated use of “perhaps” or “maybe” (rubbamā) in the passage quoted above. Moreover, this conclusion to the novel contains another example of aesthetic hyperbole: With the concluding “Ya layl” (“O night”), the standard form of Arabic vocalise, the text refers to Arabic music and its key element, the ṭarab (enchantment). Thereby, the narrator counts himself among the ranks of the “disciples of passion” (ahl al-hawā) and thus establishes an intertextual connection to Umm Kulthūm’s song of the same name.42 Looking at the novel as a whole, both interpretations of the protagonist’s state of mind as either lovesickness or mystical experience, although fundamentally irreconcilable, are juxtaposed in Ahl al-hawā. It is left to the reader to give preference to one of the perspectives – or to leave things undecided. Ahl al-hawā, like Hudā Barakāt’s works in general, deals with the specific Lebanese situation. But, as in all her works, reflection and analysis go far beyond this: As the author herself has remarked, in her literary texts the war merely “functions as one of many possible extreme situations in which what lies under the flimsy veneer of value judgments and morality becomes visible.”43 The text seems to suggest that, given the complexity of the situation in Lebanon in particular and the current (post-modern) situation as well as the abysses of the human soul in general, definite statements are out of the question and rational explanations are limited and limiting. It seems possible to attribute to Hudā Barakāt’s novel – mutatis mutandis – what Angelika Neuwirth states concerning Ṣalāḥ ‘Abd al-Ṣabūr’s text. In her view, the drama goes far beyond a direct ideological critique of a specific political event.
42
For references to Umm Kulthūm in the novel Ahl al-hawā and its interpretation see Michelle Hartman, “Intertextuality and Gender Identity in Hudā Barakāt’s Ahl al-Hawā,” in Robin Ostle (ed.), Marginal Voices in Literature and Society. Individual and Society in the Mediterranean Muslim World. Strasbourg, Aix-en-Provence: European Science Foundation – Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aix-en-Provence, 2001, pp. 171-88. 43 Hudā Barakāt in an interview with the author of this paper, January 29th 2000, quoted from Barbara Winckler, “Androgyny as Metaphor. Hoda Barakat and The Stone of Laughter,” in Angelika Neuwirth, Andreas Pflitsch, Barbara Winckler (eds.), Arabic Literature – Postmodern Perspectives, op. cit., pp. 382-96, here p. 384.
MAJNŪN LAYLĀ IN MODERN LEBANON What the author shows on the stage [...] is at once an analytical operation and appeal: the careful, sensitive, and yet critical disclosure of the diverse psychological strata which form the basis of the painful identity crisis plaguing his contemporary Arab intellectuals, and at the same time an encouragement to reflect on this complex situation anew.44
This combination of analysis and appeal, criticism and empathy, specific and universal statement is also a characteristic of Hudā Barakāt’s work. Ahl al-hawā proves to be – like all Hudā Barakāt’s novels – an extremely complex text that refrains from providing any unequivocal and conclusive statement; rather, the text challenges the reader time and again, opening up ever new possible readings. Thus, Ahl al-hawā contributes a new voice to the tradition of variations of the “Majnūn Laylā” legend that continue to negotiate perennially the order of affects in manifold ways.
44
Angelika Neuwirth, “An Egyptian Don Quixote?...,” op. cit., pp. 426-7.
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com p o sto i n c a r att e re da n t e m onotype da lla fa b ri z i o se rr a e d i to re, pisa · ro m a . sta m pato e ri l e gato nella ti po g r a f i a d i ag na n o, ag na no pisa no (pisa ).
* Finito di stampare nel mese di Marzo 2014 (cz 2 · fg 21)
* Periodico iscritto alla Cancelleria del Tribunale di Roma in data 7 marzo 2006 n. 121/06 Raffaele Torella, Direttore responsabile Periodico già registrato in data 30 aprile 1958 n. 6299
