Islam and New Directions in World Literature
Edited by Sarah R. Bin Tyeer, Claire Gallien
Foreword by Jeffrey Einboden
- Disrupts the one-way traffic in the field of World Literature studies by regarding Islam as both an alternative and a critical force behind creative processes
- Understands Islam as a driving creative force and situates its contribution in the development, past and present, of world imaginaries
- Covers a variety of global locations to discuss the Islamicate as developed in Western European, Turkic, Indo-Persian, Middle-Eastern, African Indonesian and Chinese literatures
- Examines a diversity of genres including fiction and poetry, but also philosophy, and oral literature
Since its advent, Islam has been a representational force to be reckoned with, cross-pollinating world literatures in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Americas. Yet, scholarship on Islam in world literatures has been sparse despite its significant presence. This book understands Islamic literary and cultural heritages as dynamic forces, constantly enriched and enlivened by various humanistic traditions in multiple languages, spanning the lives of individuals and societies throughout history. It is also designed to incorporate a variety of themes, influences, ramifications and representations of Islam in world literatures in classical and contemporary contexts.
Exploring Islam’s presence in world literatures in two strands: on the one hand, examining the orientalist versions and usages of Islam; and on the other hand, analysing the presence of Islam as Islamicate, this book advances a consideration of Islam as an agent in the history of World Literature.
Foreword - Jeffrey Einboden (Northern Illinois University)
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
1. The World Imaginaires of Islam: Islam and New Directions in World Literature - Sarah R. Bin Tyeer (Columbia University) & Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier 3)
Tropes of Orientalism
2. Los moros de la hueste: Recovering the Islamicate in the Goths’ Lament - Gregory Hutcheson (University of Louisville)
3. Just One Word - Gil Anidjar (Columbia University)
Sensory Fluctuations: Aural, Oral, Visual, and Written
4. Poems in Praise of the Prophet (madīḥ) as a Citizen of the Literary World - Walid Ghali (Aga Khan University)
5. The Place and Function of Imagination in Fulani Mystical Poetry (Massina, Mali) - Christiane Seydou (CNRS-Paris)
6. Vanishing Art, Genre-making: The Uyghur Storytelling Tradition and its Heritagization - Musapir
Circulation,Translation, Rereading
7. Friedrich Rückert’s Understanding of Islam and Poetic Translation of the Qur’ân - Georges Tamer (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) and Cüneyd Yıldırım (Münster Universität)
8. The "Islamic" Arabian Nights in World Imaginaries - Muhsin al-Musawi (Columbia University)
9. Where is World Literature? - Hamid Dabashi (Columbia University)
Secular/Non-Secular
10. Praising the Prophet Muhammad in Chinese. A New translation and Analysis of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s Ode to the Prophet - Haiyun Ma (Frostburg State University) and Brendan Newlon (Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC)
11. A Fine Romance: Translating the Qissah as World Romance - Pasha M. Khan (McGill University)
12. Indonesia’s "Sastra Profetik" As Decolonial Literary Theory - Nazry Bahrawi (University of Washington)
An Islamicate turn in world literature? Introduced in the 1970s, Islamicate never seemed likely as a descriptor supplanting Muslim and Islamic, but its ascent now seems imminent due to this sparkling collection of essays, from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, with fresh insight and apt analysis in every chapter.
Like the regions of the map on this book's cover, the places the contributors take us to have long been there but have remained largely uncharted—until now. By bringing together important interventions on the world literature of Islam, Bin Tyeer and Gallien are showing— and leading—the way.
