Unit 9

English 203: Literature of the NonWestern World

Introduction:

Reading:  The 1,001 Nights, 923-48;
                    Naguib Mahfouz, "Zaabalawi," 2881-93.

1,001 Nights:

This is something of a unique work because it was revised or rewritten by 3 very different cultures over a 1,000 year period.  Our text says the text was "translated or adapted from Sanskrit in the time of the Sassanids (226-652 c.e.).  So the first text was Hindu (Indian).  The second text was Persian & it was written before the influence of Islam.  This is obvious because of the sexual motives & sexual ambiance in the stories.  Our text says that the stories are "still occasionally banned as immoral by Arab [i.e., Islamic] governments -- most recently by Egypt in 1989" (923).  In the 9th & 10th centuries, after Islam had changed in midEast culture, the stories were translated into Arabic & the dramatic location was changed to Baghdad.

Our text is a selection from a work "based on the 13th c. Syrian manuscript . . . completed only in 1984" (924).  For the most part, it illustrates a pre-Islamic outlook, although there are obvious Muslim revisions & interjections.

The theme of the story is as old as Gilgamesh: how do we temper power & make the powerful sensitive to the lives of those who do not have power?  This is easily construed (in Homer, e.g.) as men learning to appreciate women & the civilization they produce. It is also the universal story of human growth & development.  Young children rebel against total parental control, wanting a measure of power for themselves. Only after acquiring power (& a sense of personal identity & responsibility) can a child begin to respect & empathize with others.  Our king, Shahrayar, is a child who has gained power & who is frustrated & enraged to learn (like Achilles) that power cannot compel love & loyalty.  "Women are not to be trusted," Shahzaman says, before "he drew his sword & struck both his wife & the cook" (926).  You do not have to be Sigmund Freud to recognize how violence & destruction are sexually fueled in the fearful child's hope to escape vulnerability.  We also recognize how morality is similarly used in the futile process of denial: only women (or adults) have sexual needs & desires.  I am both all powerful (complete in myself or by myself) & too moral to have such feelings.  If they appear, violently destroy or repress them.  You should notice how childish or child-like the brothers are.  When Shahzaman relates the story of his wife's strange ritual adultery, Shahrayar -- like a child -- says: "In my opinion, what happened to you has never happened to anyone else.  By God, had I been in your place, I would have killed at least a hundred or even a thousand women" (929).  You see here the naiveté of the prepubescent child.  You see the violent response that voices both denial & moral outrage (more naiveté).  & you see that empathy has not yet developed in the king who blames all women for treachery & nasty, unthinkable sexuality.

You will recall that The Epic of Gilgamesh split the process of maturation into something like a sibling stage, between Gilgamesh & Enkidu, & a pubescent stage represented by Enkidu's  involvement with a temple prostitute.  Here the process of growing up takes a more abstract & elegant form: teasing, dalliance & love instruction from Shahrazad, made all the more tantric by the threat of bondage, whipping, & execution.

Zaabalawi:

Naguib Mahfouz's story is about Sufism.  I hear many of you asking, what is that?  Sufism is the adoption of Hindu bhakti, reoriented toward Allah.  Sufism developed for 2 or 3 major reasons:

• The Koran could not be adequately translated from Arabic.

To be fully involved in the Islamic program for salvation, you needed to be fluent in Arabic.
• By 1,000 c.e. the Islamic faith was no longer exclusively an Arab program or culture.  The most populous Muslim states were Indonesia, India, & Turkey.  Who knew enough Arabic in these countries to recite the Koran?  Virtually no one.  The problem was similar to that of medieval Europe when Latin was necessary for full church participation.
• Incredibly the Sufi solution downplayed the importance of the Koran. Arab speakers, especially in Saudi Arabia (look up the Wahabi movement on the Net), insisted that the Islamic program was the Koran & there could be no hope of salvation without its guidance.  Nonetheless, Sufis followed the example of illiterate & uneducated Hindu bhaktas, saying that all Allah required was a pure heart.  Sincerity & devotion, Sufis preached, were the authentic Islamic program.
• Better education, easier travel, the hegemony of the Saudis, & the murder of Sufis in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), made Sufism either a historic program or an ad hoc personal dedication.

Sufism must work, if Mahfouz advocates it.  The end of the story confirms that it does: "the universe moved in a rapture of ecstasy" (2892).  On the other hand, we cannot possess the divine & the narrator continues to live in our familiar world of money & power.  Still he is better off than he was & better off than almost everyone else: "How many weary people in this life know him not or regard him as a mere myth!" (2893).

Click on the next section:

Explication