¿Qué les queda a las putas para jactarse? Una invectiva paleoislámica de subtemática promartirial

El marco ğāhilī en el que se sitúa la pieza, atribuida a Hind bint U h, sirve para representar la depravación de los Banū Umayyah, como representantes del mundo pagano al que el nuevo modelo político-religioso, el islam, trata de dejar atrás. La autora, para ello, contrapone dos modelos político-religiosos distintos utilizando un preciso lenguaje con el que arremete sexual y culturalmente contra Hind bint Rab `ah, que actúa como símbolo de paganismo anti-islámico cuyos máximos representantes caen en la mítica batalla de Badr. Frente a ello, los musulmanes caídos en U ud simbolizan la entrega auto-martirial del musulmán como representante del nuevo modelo.The djāhilī framework in which the poetic piece attributed to Hind bint Uth th h is located, represents the depravation of the Banū Umayyah, who symbolize the pagan world that should be transcended by the new political-religious model, Islam. The author confronts two different political-religious models using precise language to attack Hind bint Rabī `ah from both sexual and cultural viewpoints. Opposite Hind bint Rabī `ah, who acts like an anti-Islamic pagan symbol, the leaders of which died in the mythical battle of Badr, we find the Muslims killed in U ud who symbolize the self-martyrdom offering like representatives of the new model

The Autobiography of Muhammad Shukrī: Modern Su'lūk

n Arabic literature, the autobiographical works of Muḥammad Shukrī (1935-2003), al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī (For Bread Alone), Zaman al-Akhṭā (Time of Mistakes), and Wujūh (Faces), fit into a liminal, mythological space first populated by the pre-Islamic ṣulūk (rogue or vagabond) poets, such as Ta'abbaṭa Sharr, Urwah ibn al-Ward, and al-Shanfarā. By reading Shukrī's autobiographical trilogy as a modern version of al-Shanfarā's wholly liminal Lāmīyat al-ʿArab (The "L" Poem of the Arabs), the borders between traditional society and that of its ostracized validation, the ṣuʿlūk, can be elucidated. This study is further called for due to the problematic history of Shukrī's most popular work, al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī, first published in an English translation by Paul Bowles in 1974. Due to its frank descriptions of alcohol and drug use, sexual exploration, and abject poverty in pre- and independence-era Morocco, this first work of his three-volume autobiography was banned in Morocco until 2000 and remains so at the American University of Cairo ever since a 1998 row over its place on an Arabic literature syllabus there. Shukrī's autobiography provides further opportunity to explore the notion of social borders in 20th century Morocco. In al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī, the author's—the main character's—quest for literacy and deliverance from an impoverished life drives the narrative. In this pursuit, the narrator encounters numerous obstacles facing poor, homeless youths in 1950s northern Moroccan cities. His situation is further complicated by the fact that Shukrī himself learned to speak his native tongue—Rīffian Berber, Spanish, Moroccan dialectical Arabic, and even some French prior to learning the modern standard Arabic in which he ended up writing. Shukrī's two sequels offer an inversion of the narrator's initial quest for aggregation with society through acquiring literacy instead retreating into a life of seclusion, a rejection of social norms, and, at times, complete exile

Qalāwūnid discourse, elite communication and the Mamluk cultural matrix: interpreting a 14th-century panegyric

This article analyses a brief panegyric text from mid-14th-century Egypt, authored by the court scribe Ibrāhīm b. al- Qaysarānī (d. 1352) and dedicated to the Qalāwūnid Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl (r. 1342-5). It challenges this panegyric’s standard treatment as a work of history and as a product of court propaganda and connects it to wider issues of Mamluk literary production and social organisation. In doing so, a new understanding of this panegyric emerges within a specific context of Mamluk elite communication and social performance, demonstrating at the same time how such a social semiotic reading of Mamluk cultural expressions generates further insights into the symbiotic interactions between Mamluk culture and society

“Barzanji Bugis” dalam Peringatan Maulid: Studi Living Hadis di Masyarakat Bugis, Soppeng, Sul-Sel

Prior to reading this paper, it is important to realize that hadis as source of islamic teachings has been expressed on cultural varieties. This aims to explore how the Bugis society views both the meaning of Maulid (prophetic birthday celebration) and the reading of Bugis-barzanji and to analyze the acculturation between both islamic teaching and Bugis culture on reading the Barzanji in Maulid. This research uses acculturational concept to explore deeply and briefly how islamic teaching and local tradition produce the new religious cultural practices. This concludes that first, barzanji in Bugis society is one of religious cultural practices regarded as secred tradition excepting in Maulid. Second, the Bugis-barzanji read on maulid celebration in order that society are able to understand easily the barzanji containing sīrah nabawiyyah (prophetic history) is one of living-hadis phenomena

From king to stylite in Axūm: The Ethiopian king Elesbās and the symbolic and propagantistic value of the narrative colophon of the ‘History of the massacre of Naǧrān’

En el presente artículo nos ocupamos del colofón de la „Historia de la masacre de Naǧrān‟, en el que analizamos el valor simbólico de la breve narración allí contenida en la que el rey etíope Elesbās deja de ser el rey de Axūm para convertirse en estilita.Our aim in the present article is to analyze the symbolic value of the short account contained in the colophon of the „Story of the massacre of Naǧrān‟, in which the Ethiopian king Elesbās stopped being the Axūmite king to became a stylite

Limits of ‘authoritarian upgrading’ in Syria:Private welfare, islamic charities, and the rise of the zayd movement

The growth of private welfare in Syria since the 1990s and a parallel détente between the Baʿth regime and the Islamic trend have allowed an Islamic movement called Jamaʿat Zayd to gain an impressive hold on Damascus’ charitable sector. Through a detailed, fieldwork-based analysis of this process, the article argues that the movement’s success as a private welfare provider is the product rather than the cause of its large religious following. We also propose an empirically nuanced contribution to the debate on the current transformations of Arab authoritarian systems, questioning the regime’s ability to effectively co-opt the Zayd movement. Whereas the development of private welfare is politically risk-free when authoritarian leaders control the financial and symbolic resources needed to maintain it, it can also strengthen independent-minded groups when, as in Zayd’s case, its funding stems from a large popular base that limits the possibilities of instrumentalization by the regime