NOVEL ZAYNAB: BETWEEN ARAB TRADITIONALISM AND EUROPEAN ROMANTICISM

Novel Zaynab by Egyptian author Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal has become a subject of interest for Arab and Western European scholars in the field of literature. This novel is interesting and important in many aspects, one of them being a skillful blend of traditional Arab literary heritage and European Romanticism elements Haykal presented in this novel. Thus, individuality as one of the most important elements will be emphasized, which in a broader context marks the awakening of national consciousness and the formation of a new image of the Arab society. This work highlights the most significant stances of Arab and Western critics of this novel, points out its literary and artistic elements with a particular emphasis on the elements of ancient classical Arab literature and European Romanticism, comparing them to the classical literary works of the two civilizations.

Muḏakkirāt fī l-siyāsah al-miṣriyyah: Nationalism and the Politics of Memory in 20th-Century Egypt

Despite the massive research carried out on Egyptian nationalism and its ideological premises in the first half of the 20th century, little is known on the copious political memoirs composed and published in the same period and on their contribution to the development of a nationalist discourse in its strict sense. Among these “political autobiographies”, the Muḏakkirāt fī l-siyāsah al-miṣriyyah (Memoirs on Egyptian Politics) by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal played a crucial role in the dissemination of a shared sense of identity based on the nation-state. By performing the act of remembering, Haykal continually reshapes the boundaries of his community and questions the inner meaning and the long-term impact of concepts drawn from the liberal-democratic ideology, such as “freedom”, “justice”, “equality”, on the Egyptian system of government and socio-cultural context. This study will therefore attempt to unveil the ‘sense of community’ conveyed by Haykal’s political memoirs by following the theory of Benedict Anderson on the nation defined as an imagined community.

Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal’s Anti-Enlightenment Modernity (1916–1925)

In public discourse and scholarly literature alike, the notions of “modernity,” “Enlightenment” and “the West” are often associated. This article underscores the problems inherent in these associations by focusing on the Egyptian context of the second and third decades of the twentieth century, and in particular on several nationalist articles published by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (1888–1956). The article contends that Haykal’s writings contributed to the shaping of a modern worldview, the unifying elements of which are represented by the tenets of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. Reference to this intellectual tradition, which the eminent historian of ideas Zeev Sternhell theorized almost exclusively in relation to European intellectual debates, proves to be a far more accurate approach to Haykal’s ideological orientations than the paradigms traditionally employed in the critical analysis of his writings.

Tarjama as Debt: The Making of a Secular History of Arabic Literature

Chapter four investigates tarjama’s dual meaning in Arabic as biography and translation in the works of Ṭāhā Ḥusayn and Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal. Following up on the secular prophecy of chapter three, it studies the complex relationship between Islam and literature in the two modernists’ mappings of Arabic literary history and in relation to their approach to translation. It examines specifically Haykal’s two-volume biography of Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1921 and 1923, his biography of the Prophet and literary essays, exploring political and spiritual temporalities in his unfolding critique of colonialism. It then considers Ṭāhā Ḥusayn’s controversial claims about the historicity of Jahili poetry as post-Islamic in On Jahili Poetry (1926) and argues that it prefigures his translations of André Gide ((1946) and Voltaire (1947), resituating his “heretic” claims within his translation theory. It concludes on the failed narrative subjectivities that emerge from the translations’ critique of European Enlightenment thought, contextualizing the importance of these adaptations to the study of the Arabic novel.

Prophetic Tendencies: Egyptian Translators of the Twentieth Century

The introduction explores the complex history of literary translation into Arabic from Napoleon’s arrival in Alexandria in 1789 until the 1950s. It considers the formative correlation between the stylistics of translation, the promise of fiction, and the political context as they relate to the ‘modernity’ of the novel form. Focusing on the works of four major translators - Muṣṭafa Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī, Muḥammad al-Sibā‘ī, and Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal and Ṭāhā Ḥusayn – it highlights the different translation aesthetics from free adaptation to literal copying and biographical rewriting. It situates these trends in conversation with translation theory to offer a novel way of approaching literary adaptation in colonial situations. The introduction tackles the debate on ‘arabization’ (ta‘rīb) as opposed to pure translation (tarjama) in Egypt and considers how it has informed genealogies of the Arabic novel more broadly. Precisely because translation appears as failed emulation, the chapter addresses how through the playful adaptation of European influence of romanticism and realism, translation stages the emergence of a secular, prophetic narrative voice in the works of the four translators that challenges dominant narratives of Arab literary modernity.

Egypt until 1959

This chapter examines the development of the novel in Egypt until 1959, focusing on its chronology and literary characteristics. It begins with an overview of the Egyptian novel genre and its narrative precedents, along with its connection to the cultural movement of the nineteenth century known as al-Nahḍa. After discussing al-Nahḍa’s two primary sources of inspiration, iqtibās (borrowing) and iḥyā’ (revival), the chapter considers the early periods in the development of modern Arabic narrative in Egypt. It also explores the emergence of the travel narrative and the historical novel, the rise of women writers, and the revival of the maqāma. Finally, it analyzes the novel Zaynab, published in 1913 by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal, and novels published from the 1930s to the year 1959.