Table Of ContentBedouin and ‘Abbāsid Cultural
Identities
This literary-historical book draws out and sheds light upon the mechanisms
of “the ideological work” that the Arabic M ajnūn Laylā story performed for
‘Abbāsid urbanite, imperial audiences in the wake of the disappearance of the
“Bedouin cosmos.”
The study focuses upon the processes of primitivizing Majnūn in the romance
of Majnūn Laylā as part of the paradigm shift that occurred in the ‘Abbāsid empire
after the Greco-Arabian intellectual revolution. Moreover, this book demonstrates
how gender and sexuality are employed in the processes of primitivizing Majnūn.
As markers of “strangeness” and “foreignness” in the ‘Abbāsid interrogations
of the multiple categories of ethnicity, culture, identity, religion and language
present in their cosmopolitan milieus. Such “cultural work” is performed through
the ideological uses of alterity given its mechanisms of distancing (e.g., temporal
and spatial) and nearness (e.g., affective). Lastly, the Majnūn Laylā love story
demonstrates, in its text and reception, that a Greco-Arabian and Greco-Persian
subculture thrived in the centers of ‘Abbāsid Baghdad that molded and shaped the
ways in which this love story was compiled, received and performed.
Offering a corrective to the prevailing views expressed in Western scholarly
writings on the Greco-Arabian encounter, this book is a major contribution to
scholars and students interested in Islamic studies, Arabic and comparative
literature, Middle East and gender studies.
Ruqayya Yasmine Khan is an associate professor and the M. Malas Chair of
Islamic Studies in Claremont Graduate University’s Religion Department.
Khan’s research interests include Arabic literature (early and modern), Qur’anic
studies, gender/women’s studies and Islam and the digital age. Her more recent
scholarly interests include late antiquity and Islam, origins of Islam and cultures
of Umayyad Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad. Khan is the author of the book
Self and Secrecy in Early Islam (2008), which maps the relationships between the
concepts of secrecy and identity in early Islamic cultures. She is also the editor of
Muhammad in the Digital Age (2015).
Culture and Civilization in the Middle East
Series Editor: Ian Richard Netton
Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter
This series studies the Middle East through the twin foci of its diverse cultures
and civilisations. Comprising original monographs as well as scholarly surveys, it
covers topics in the fields of Middle Eastern literature, archaeology, law, history,
philosophy, science, folklore, art, architecture and language. While there is a plu-
rality of views, the series presents serious scholarship in a lucid and stimulating
fashion.
New Horizons in Qur’anic Linguistics
A grammatical, semantic, and stylistic analysis
Hussein Abdul-Raof
Arabs and Iranians in the Islamic Conquest Narrative
Memory and Identity Construction in Islamic Historiography, 750–1050
Scott Savran
The Chaldean Catholic Church
Modern History, Ecclesiology and Church-State Relations
Kristian Girling
Text Linguistics of Qur’anic Discourse
An Analysis
Hussein Abdul-Raof
The Early Muslim Conquest of Syria
An English Translation of al-Azdī’s Futūḥ al-Shām
Hamada Hassanein & Jens Scheiner
Bedouin and ‘Abbāsid Cultural Identities
The Arabic Majnūn Laylā Story
Ruqayya Yasmine Khan
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
middleeaststudies/series/SE0363
Bedouin and ‘Abbāsid Cultural
Identities
The Arabic Majnūn Laylā Story
Ruqayya Yasmine Khan
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Ruqayya Yasmine Khan
The right of Ruqayya Yasmine Khan to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khan, Ruqayya Yasmine, author.
Title: Bedouin and ’Abbā sid cultural identities : the Arabic Majnū n Laylā
story / Ruqayya Yasmine Khan.
Description: 1. | New York : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Culture and
civilization in the Middle East | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019031600 (print) | LCCN 2019031601 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367333942 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429319617 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781000699982 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781000700596 (mobi) |
ISBN 9781000701203 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Majnū n Laylá —Criticism and interpretation. | Abbasids—
Intellectual life.
Classification: LCC PJ7700.M312 Z75 2019 (print) | LCC PJ7700.M312
(ebook) | DDC 892.7/12—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019031600
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019031601
ISBN: 978-0-367-33394-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-31961-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To the beloved memory of my dearest Ammi and Mother,
Rashida Begum Khan, November 1, 2018
and
To John Edward Sepich
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1 Song culture, Kitāb al-Aghānī (book of songs) and the love
story of Majnūn Laylā 26
2 On the term ‘Uḍhrī and its symbolic universe for
understanding Majnūn Laylā 44
3 The night in the Ghayl – love, meaning and language 66
4 Umayyad and ‘Abbāsid constructs of masculinities in the
love story of Majnūn Laylā 84
5 A lost “Bedouin Arcadia” – the tree man and the Umayyad
tax man 108
6 Majnūn as the knight-errant: language and the significance
of errancy (Huyām) 129
7 ‘Abbāsid culturally primitivist readings of Laylā as object
and subject 159
viii Contents
8 ‘Abbāsid readings of the ‘Uḍhrī romances: female unchastity
and the love triangle 185
Conclusion 208
Glossary 211
Bibliography 215
Index 227
Preface
On the evening of June 29, 2018, I sat and watched O rfeo and Majnūn being
performed at La Monnaie, Brussels’ beautiful, stately Opera House. It was per-
formed in French and Arabic (with Dutch subtitles on electronic screens), and it
had a full orchestra. The backdrop on stage consisted of large screens with con-
temporary, abstract images (e.g., of the earth and moon and other orbs in slate,
aqua, black, silver and pale green colors) accompanied now and then by outsized,
white figures of animals in the corners: reindeer, ram, gazelle. This was a com-
munity production in some ways, and local school students were also involved,
alternating the times at which they sat in rows on each side of the stage. In
effect, I was witness to a contemporary, hybrid rendition of an operatic M ajnūn
Laylā that, at times, made me feel like I was watching an Arab R omeo and Juliet ;
at other times, the 1960s American musical H air came to mind; and yet at other
moments, it seemed I was viewing something akin to a classical Greek opera. The
audience appeared multicultural and hip, with native, white Belgians as well as
many Belgian-Arabs and Belgian-Africans in attendance. Tickets started at eight
euros.
A s I watched, I felt the twinges of being in the presence of something so large,
inexpressible and indescribable: the use of myth and symbol to bridge the chasms
of so-called East and West – Brussels, marked by segregated neighborhoods of
affluent white Belgians and the Arab immigrant quarters, Brussels with growing
African and Arab diasporic populations. Watching the opera made me confront
thoughts and feelings linked with death, loss, old age, youth, love, longing, sick-
ness, madness, boredom, passion, dance and magic . . . I can go on. Homeland,
difference, yearning, childhood, strangeness, mother, beloved, poetry, desire, God,
forgiveness, vengeance, betrayal, money, parents, beauty, elegance, night and dark-
ness, east and west, meaning, pain, joy, delusion, isolation, wildness, ecstasy. Was
it art? Was it myth? Was it philosophy of love? Orpheo is saying: you are ravish-
ing my soul. . . . Whatever it is, it works, I thought.
When I first heard about this opera O rfeo and Majnūn , I wondered why Orpheus
or Orfeo? That winter of 2018, as I put the finishing touches on my book man-
uscript about this classical Arabic love story, I no longer had to wonder why:
among the gems of discoveries I made when I repeatedly assessed the Arabic tex-
tual material was how much of the story is about the Arab encounter with Greek
