Bedouin and 'Abbsid Cultural Identities

This literary-historical book draws out and sheds light upon the mechanisms of "the ideological work" that the Arabic Majn n Layl story performed for 'Abb sid urbanite, imperial audiences in the wake of the disappearance of the "Bedouin cosmos."


The study focuses upon the processes of primitivizing Majn n in the romance of Majn n Layl as part of the paradigm shift that occurred in the 'Abb sid empire after the Greco-Arabian intellectual revolution. Moreover, this book demonstrates how gender and sexuality are employed in the processes of primitivizing Majn n. As markers of "strangeness" and "foreignness" in the 'Abb sid 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 Majn n Layl love story demonstrates, in its text and reception, that a Greco-Arabian and Greco-Persian subculture thrived in the centers of 'Abb sid 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.

Introduction 1. Song Culture, Kit b al-Agh n (Book of Songs) and the Love Story of Majn n Layl 2. On the term 'U hr and its Symbolic Universe for Understanding Majn n Layl 3. The Night in the Ghayl-Love, Meaning, and Language 4. Umayyad and 'Abb sid Constructs of Masculinities in the Love Story of Majn n Layl 5. A Lost 'Bedouin Arcadia'-The Tree Man and the Umayyad Tax Man 6. Majn n as the Knight-Errant: Language and the Significance of Errancy (Huy m) 7. 'Abb sid Culturally Primitivist Readings of Layl as Object and Subject 8. 'Abb sid Readings of the 'U hr Romances: Female Unchastity & the Love Triangle Conclusion Glossary Bibliography