Blindness and Autobiography: Al-Ayyam of Taha Husayn [Course Book ed.] 9781400859375

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I. BLINDNESS AND SOCIETY
Chapter One. Blindness I: Recognition
Chapter Two. Blindness II: Conflict
Chapter Three. Blindness III: Resolution
Chapter Four. Power
Chapter Five. Traditional/Modern, East/West
PART II. BLINDNESS AND WRITING
Chapter Six. Narration
Chapter Seven. Blind Writing, Blind Rhetoric
Chapter Eight. Humor
Chapter Nine. Narrative Techniques
Chapter Ten. Time
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

BLINDNESS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

FEDWA M A L T I - D O U G L A S

BLINDNESS &

AUTOBIOGRAPHY Al-Ayyam of Taha Husayn

PRINCETON

UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON,

NEW

PRESS

JERSEY

Copyright © 1988 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN O - 6 9 I - 0 6 7 3 3 - 3

Publication of this book has been aided by the Paul Mellon Fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in Linotron Granjon Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Paperbacks, although satisfactory for personal collections, are not usually suitable for library rebinding Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

To Those Who Ignore Social Barriers

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

3 PART I. BLINDNESS AND SOCIETY

Chapter One

Blindness I: Recognition

19

Chapter Two

Blindness II: Conflict

32

Chapter Three Blindness III: Resolution

41

Chapter Four

Power

66

Chapter Five

Traditional/Modern, East/West

75

PART I I . BLINDNESS AND WRITING

Chapter Six

Narration

93

Chapter Seven Blind Writing, Blind Rhetoric

113

Chapter Eight Humor

124

Chapter Nine

Narrative Techniques

144

Chapter Ten

Time

173

Works Cited

185

Index

193

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T H E HISTORY of the gestation of this book is also that of the contribution of the many friends and scholars who have aided its development. It was conceived under the influence of two great riverine civilizations, the Egyptian and the Parisian. In 1976, while a Chercheur Associe at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, I had the opportunity to work with the Onomasticon Arabicum project, whose goal was the computerization of Islamic biographical dictionaries. The project was then under the tutelage of Georges Vajda. But it was Jacqueline Sublet who was anxious to have as-Safadl's biographical dictionary of the blind computerized, and suggested it to me. This was my entree into the world of the Islamic blind. And I am ever grateful to Jacqueline for this introduction. It was in 1983, however, that the present book began to take shape. "Abd al-Hamid Ibrahim, chairman of the Department of Arabic at the University of Minya, Egypt, invited me to participate in a special festival honoring Taha Husayn, held in Minya, in January 1983. It was for that festival that I first began examining the issue of blindness in Taha Husayn's autobiography. In effect, the intellectual festivities began on the long train ride up the Nile valley, from Cairo to Minya. I had the good fortune to travel with a number of Egyptian scholars and intellectuals with whom I could discuss my burgeoning theses. But more than anyone else, it was Izz ad-Din Ismail who enriched that train ride with his insights. The conference itself, of course, was the occasion for further discussion. While there, I also met Amlna Taha Husayn, Taha Husayn's daughter, and listened to tapes of her distinguished father.

Shortly before I left for Egypt, Michael Beard called my attention to the autobiography of the blind Indian-American writer, Ved Mehta, and to a review of his book. The tip has been invalIX

X

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

uable, since studying Mehta's autobiography has helped me to clarify my conceptions of Taha Husayn's. After the Minya conference, I returned to Cairo to spend the next nine months in the Egyptian capital on a grant from the American Research Center in Egypt. It was during this stay that I decided to write a book on Taha Husayn's autobiography from a blindness perspective. Everything about Cairo stimulated my continued interest in the project. Critics and scholars there treat modern Arabic literature not as an academic concern but as an important part of the civilization they are creating. I have always been flattered by their repeated invitations to me to participate in this process. Leading scholars and critics were always happy to discuss my ideas and share their knowledge of Taha Husayn with me. Numerous were the conversations I enjoyed, often late into the night, with Ί ζ ζ ad-Din Isma'll, Jabir 'Usfur, Shukri 'Ayyad, and others. The presence of Claude Audebert in Cairo at the same time was a special treat. When I wrote an article for Fusiil on blindness and the autobiographical venture in Taha Husayn and Ved Mehta, Claude generously read and discussed it with me. In Cairo, many other friends and colleagues aided me. Michael Albin, then director of the Library of Congress in Cairo, and Ah­ mad H a n d ! both provided me with sources that were difficult to acquire or might otherwise have escaped my attention. Begun in Cairo, the manuscript was finished in the United States. Fortunate is the scholar provided with an efficient and helpful librarian. At the University of Texas at Austin, I have been particularly lucky to be able to work with Abazar Sepehri, the director of the Middle East Collection. His cheerful and knowledgeable assistance has always gone well beyond what his job requires. Quite simply, he has been invaluable, and I am ap­ propriately grateful. No university collection is complete, how­ ever. I am indebted to George N. Atiyeh, Head of the Near East Section of the Library of Congress in Washington, who, as he had

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Xl

so many times in the past, went out of his way to procure materials for me on short notice. But no book is ever finished without the attention that friends and colleagues give it. Jerome Clinton, Miriam Cooke, Andras Hamori, and Barbara Harlow read the manuscript and made very useful suggestions; and Roger Allen, Pierre Cachia, and Sasson Somekh gave the entire text a particularly thorough and valuable going-over. I have benefited greatly from their painstaking criticisms. Finally, Suzanne and Jaroslav Stetkevych read the manuscript and encouraged its author. My dear friend, Georges Bahgory, with that extraordinary generosity which characterizes him, freely donated the time to make the cover portrait. I consider myself lucky to have had the benefit of two excellent editors at Princeton University Press. Mrs. Arthur M. Sherwood and Robert Brown both worked patiently with me to trim the fat from an overweight manuscript. Refinements too numerous to name were suggested by my painstaking copyeditor, Sherry Wert. Any elegance of line attaching to the result should be laid at the door of these three individuals. Need I add that any errors or infelicities remaining should be laid at mine? No work I do is ever what it is without my husband, Allen Douglas. From the genesis of this project to its completion, he has always been there. He has questioned my ideas and forced me to perfect them. He has patiently read and reread the manuscript, often taking time from his own work for the benefit of mine. Only he knows how indebted I am to him. Austin, Texas June 1987

BLINDNESS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

T

read work in Arabic literature? This is a tall claim in a literary tradition as long and as rich as that of the Arabs, a tradition that has nurtured novelists, playwrights, and, for centuries, constellations of great poets. Yet the best-known book may well be the autobiography of the Egyptian intellectual Taha Husayn. Certainly no other work of modern Arabic literature is so familiar to readers in both the Arab world and the West, and the same could reasonably be said for classical Arabic literature as well, if one excepts The Thousand and One Nights. The reasons for the success of this autobiography, entitled alAyyam ("The Days"), are manifold. The text itself, published between 1926 and 1967, is a landmark in the development of modern Arabic prose.' Its author was a leading modernizer and perhaps the most important Egyptian intellectual of the twentieth century. Making his saga even more dramatic is the fact that its hero was blind from early childhood. Taha Husayn has already spawned an enormous literature, both in his own country and abroad, and al-Ayyam has been translated into the major European languages.2 Yet, this most HE MOST

i. The first volume of al-Ayyam was published in periodical form in al-Hilal from January 26, 1926 to January 7, 1927, and as a separate volume in 1929. The second volume was published in 1940. The third volume was published in periodical form in A\hir Sa'a from March 30, 1955 to June 29, 1955 and as a separate volume in 1967. See Hamdl as-Sakkut and Marsden Jones, Taha Husayn (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnanl, 1982), p. 85. Here I will use the Dar alMa'arif edition: Taha Husayn, al-Ayyam, vol. 1 (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'anf, 1971); vol. 2 (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'anf, 1971); vol. 3 (Cairo: Dar al-Ma arif, 1973). 2. The three volumes have been translated into English as Taha Hussein, An Egyptian Childhood, trans. E. H. Paxton (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1981); Taha Hussein, The Stream of Days, trans. Hilary Wayment (London: Longmans, 1948); and Taha Husayn, A Passage to France, trans. Kenneth Cragg (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976). The work has also been translated into French and Italian. 3

4

INTRODUCTION

popular of his works has not been the subject of a major critical study.3 Indeed, in European languages, there are no monographic studies devoted to individual works of modern Arabic literature.4 This is a significant point, since it is often only when a text receives monographic attention that its artistic range can be understood properly. My study will examine al-Ayydm as a classic of modern literature and not as a guide to the life of Taha Husayn. 5 What I will be discussing here is the literary text, al-Ayyam. I will not be con3. For the general bibliography on Taha Husayn, see as-Sakkut and Jones, Taha Husayn, pp. 281—548. Among recent works, attention should be called to Jabir 'Usfur, al-Maraya al-Mutajawira' Dirasa ft Naqd Taha Husayn (Cairo: alHay'a al-Misriyya al-'Amma lil-Kitab, 1983). Among the studies that discuss aspects of al-Ayyam, see Rashlda Mahran, Taha Husayn bayn as-Stra wat-Tarjama adh-Dhatiyya (Alexandria: al-Hay a al-Misriyya al-'Amma lil-Kitab, 1979); al-BadrawI Zahran, Vsliib Taha Husayn fiDaw'ad-Darsal-Lughawt alHadlth (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1982); Huda Wasfl, "al-Mashru' al-Fikrl waUsturat OdIb: Qira'a ft Fikr Taha Husayn (1889-1973)," Fusul 3, no. 1 (1983): 171-177. Pierre Cachia's much earlier Taha Husayn (London: Luzac and Co., 1956) evokes a number of issues of literary critical interest, but the work's scope, a complete biography and study of the Egyptian intellectual, did not permit a developed analysis of any of these points. Raymond Francis, Taha Hussein Romancier (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1945) contains two sections of relevance (pp. 13-57, : 5 I _ I ^ 3 ) : a n opening chapter on al-Ayyam (volumes 1 and 2 only) treated in what the author calls a "documentary" manner and concentrated on the portrait of Taha Husayn's milieu; and a short essay on Taha Husayn as literary artist. This last section adumbrates a number of important issues but does not develop them. See also Raymond Francis, Aspects de k lttterature arabe contemporaine (Beirut: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1963). 4. It is only in recent years that major attention has been devoted to monographs on individual authors. See, for example, S. Somekh, The Changing Rhythm: A Study ofNafib Mahfuz's Novels (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973); P. M. Kurpershoek, The Short Stories of Yusuf Idris, A Modern Egyptian Author (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981); Miriam Cooke, The Anatomy of an Egyptian Intellectual, Yahya Haqqi (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1984); Muhammad Siddiq, Man Is a Cause: Political Consciousness and the Fiction of' Ghassan KanafanJ (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984). 5. The latter approach has already produced numerous studies, of which the best is probably Cachia, Taha Husayn. See also Suhayr al-QalamawI, Dhikra Taha Husayn (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1974); Kama' al-Mallakh, Dr. Taha Husayn: Qahir az-Zalam (Cairo: Matabi' al-Ahram at-Tijanyya, 1973).

INTRODUCTION

5

cerned with verifying the truth of the statements in the autobiography. For example, when the narrator of al-Ayyam expresses his judgment of the character of traditional society or curative practices, when he explains the motivations of his hero or the significance of certain events, what is important is not whether these statements are true in a historical, non-textual sense, but what effect they have in the autobiography itself, what kind of a literary text they create. It would be piquant to criticize Taha Husayn's self-portrait from the perspective of other views of his life, but this would only prove the obvious: that, like every other autobiographer, he selected certain aspects of his life and personality (though the selection must be understood as unconscious as well as conscious) to the exclusion of others. We would not be greatly advanced as to why al-Ayyam is such a distinctive and popular work of literature. Similarly, it would be interesting to compare some of Taha Husayn's other statements with the record of his life and autobiography, as Pierre Cachia does when he notes the contradiction between the Egyptian's statements against marrying foreigners and his own marriage to a French woman.6 The problem with such approaches (besides the fact that most of what deserves to be said in this regard has already been noted by Cachia and others) is that they highlight the life and career of Taha Husayn, and not al-Ayyam. It is time that Taha Husayn's literary masterpiece came out from under the shadow of its author's career. It is only when al-Ayyam has been understood as a whole that it becomes profitable to compare its positions with those of other works in the Husaynian corpus. Al-Ayyam, of course, exists within a more general historical, cultural, and literary context. Like most other nations of Africa and Asia, Egypt has found itself in the grip of Western imperialism, an imperialism that has attacked its political independence, its economic autonomy, and its cultural integrity. The chal6. Pierre Cachia, "Introduction" to Hussein, An Egyptian.

6

INTRODUCTION

lenge of modernity, inextricably intertwined with the challenge of the West, has become for Egypt, as for so many other lands of ancient civilization, the central strain of its modern history. Taha Husayn not only lived across this drama but played a major role in it, helping to shape Egyptian attitudes to the West. He received a traditional education, first in his native village and then in the Azhar (the international Muslim citadel of traditional learning), then turned against this upbringing, eventually becoming one of the first graduates of the newly formed secular university in Cairo.7 Further education in Europe only accentuated this trend and placed Taha Husayn in that crucial group of Egyptian intellectuals who, since at-TahtawI, have returned from the West to mediate between its traditions and those of their own country.8 Taha Husayn's outlook was often more revolutionary and rebellious than that of most of his contemporaries. In a work that engendered endless controversy, he attacked the time-honored and quasi-sacred tradition of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry by calling its authenticity into question.9 For a time, he even argued that Egypt was essentially part of Western civilization, rather than Eastern. This proposition was based on the idea that the world contained two distinct civilizations, a Western one derived from the Greeks and Romans and subsequently Christianity, and an Eastern one derived ultimately from India. Egypt, in this schema, belonged to the West because its Pharaonic civilization had served as a basis for the later development of Western civilization and remained in contact with it. No more radical historiographical scheme for 7. The school, known successively as the Egyptian university, Fu'ad I University, and the University of Cairo, was founded in 1908. See Jean-Jacques Waardenburg, Les unwersites dans Ie monde arabe actuel, 2 vols. (Paris: Mouton, 1966), 1: 91-95, 223-227. 8. See, for example, Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1J9&1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970). 9. Taha Husayn, Flal-Adab al-JahilJ, in Taha Husayn, al-Majmii a al-Kamila li-Mu'allafat ad-Dukfiir Taha Husayn, 15 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnanl, 1973-1974), 5: 5-335. On the controversy this created, see Cachia, Taha Husayn, pp. 59-61.

INTRODUCTION

7

sundering modern Egypt from its Arabo-Islamic cultural heritage could easily be conceived.10 We further see in this idea (which was later dropped) a fundamental ambivalence in cultural identification. But it is perhaps in his contacts with the Ministry of Education that Taha Husayn's impact on Egyptian culture was greatest. First as advisor to the ministry and then as minister himself (from 1950 to 1952), he was able to implement educational reforms that expanded the state school system on all levels. Education was always of primary importance for Taha Husayn; he had, after all, spent much of his life studying and teaching in environments that varied from his native village to the French capital. Taha Husayn was born in 1889 in 'Izbat al-Kllu, a small village about a kilometer from Maghagha in Upper Egypt. The family was a large one. Medical attention of the modern type was virtually non-existent; thus it was that when Taha Husayn contracted ophthalmia as a young child, the village barber was called to effect a cure. This led instead to his blindness. From a traditional village education consisting mainly of the Qur'anic school, the young man in 1902 went on to Cairo and that bastion of traditionalism, the Azhar. But the appeal of secularism was greater for Taha Husayn than that of tradition, and he began studies at the newly founded secular university in Cairo, from which he received a doctorate in 1914." From there he proceeded to Europe to receive a Western education, something that would cement his cultural ideas and the appeal that the West had always had for him. He studied in Montpellier in 1915 and in Paris from 1915 to 1919, where he received a second doctorate. During his studies abroad, Taha Husayn met and married a 10. This was argued in Mustaqbalath-Thaqtifa ft Misr, in al-Majmu'a al-KStnila, vol. 9. See Hourani, Arabic Thought, pp. 330-331; Cachia, Taha Husayn, pp. 89-93. 11. The title of doctor was selected by the university at that time, though it did not represent the completion of studies normally associated with the doctorate, as was required later. See as-Sakkut and Jones, TaAa Husayn, pp. 12-13.

8

INTRODUCTION

French woman, and she returned to live with him in Egypt. However, she maintained her own religion, Catholicism. The couple, with their two children, spent much time abroad. Taha Husayn thus lived across two civilizations in his personal as well as his intellectual life. Taha Husayn was a prolific writer until his death in 1973. His collected works include novels and short stories as well as political articles and extended historical and critical studies. He also translated Western classics, ancient Greek and modern French alike, into Arabic.12 His most influential works include the aforementioned study of pre-Islamic poetry, Fl al-Adab al-Jahilt,n a number of studies of the famous blind medieval Arabic poet, Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri,' 4 and Mustaqbal ath-Thaqafa fi Misr ("The Future of Culture in Egypt").15 None of his many works of fiction has ever achieved either the popular success or the critical acclaim that have attended the autobiography, al-Ayydm. But this life story is also an example of social mobility in a Third World context. From a modest rural background, the young man grew up to conquer the West educationally, then returned to his homeland and reshaped its intellectual and cultural future. His is an Egyptian Horatio Alger story, and it has provided a role model for many an aspiring Egyptian.' 6 It is no wonder then that Taha Husayn has been revered in Egypt. But Egyptian attitudes toward this intellectual giant have gone through several stages. Taha Husayn first made his mark as a highly controversial figure, not only with his study on pre-Islamic poetry but also with his work on the future of culture in 12. Taha Husayn, al-Majmu 'a al-Kamila. 13. The work was originally published as Fi ash-Shi'r al-Jahili ("On Pre-Islamic Poetry") and then reprinted with changes as FT al-Adab al-Jahili. See Cachia, Taha Husayn, p. 60. 14. See Taha Husayn, Tajdld Dhikra Abi al-'Ala', Ma'a AbI al-'Ald' fi Sijnihi, and Sawt Abial- Ala ', all in al-Majmua al-Kdmila, vol. 10. 15. Taha Husayn, Mustaqbal ath-Thaqafa fi Mis/, in al-Majmu'a al-Kamila, vol. 9. 16. Several Egyptian scholars and intellectuals have expressed this to me.

INTRODUCTION

9

Egypt. From being a bitterly controversial figure, he was promoted to a stage of virtual secular sainthood, and much of the work written on him has been of an adulatory nature.17 It is perhaps only since the decade after his death that we can observe yet another shift in Egyptian attitudes to Taha Husayn. From saint, this thinker has moved to a stage where he and his works can be legitimately defined as objects of research, open to various analytical interpretations and methodologies.'8 The aura surrounding Taha Husayn has changed. He is now, like other writers, part of a tradition. Neither an enfant terrible nor a secular saint, Taha Husayn is now, quite simply, a modern Egyptian classic. It is to be expected that the autobiography of such a pivotal figure should be an important document. But more than that, alAyyam is a milestone in modern Arabic literature. Autobiography was a literary form well known to the medieval Arabs; examples include al-Ghazall's (d. 505/1 i n ) justly famed spiritual autobiography, al-Munqidh min ad-Dalal, the more thematically organized work of Usama ibn Munqidh (d. 584/1188), and the detailed historical autobiography of Ibn Khaldun (d. 809/1406). There is also an enormous literature of scholarly autobiography, of which the work of the noted Damascene scholar Shams ad-Din Muhammad ibn Tulun (d. 953/1546) is a good illustration.'9 17. See, for example, Tharwat Abaza, Dhikrayat Taha Husayn (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnanl, 1975); al-Mallakh, Qahir; al-QalamawI, Dhikra. 18. The outstanding recent example is 'Usfur, al-Maraya. 19. Al-Ghazall, al-Munqidh min ad-Dalal, ed. 'Abd al-Hallm Mahmud (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Hadltha, 1965); Usama ibn Munqidh, Kxtab al-l'ttbar (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Muthanna, 1964); Ibn Khaldun, at-Ta 'rlf bi-lbn Khaldun wa-Rihlatuhu Gharban wa-Sharqan, ed. Muhammad at-TanjI (Cairo: Lajnat at-Ta'llf wat-Tarjama wan-Nashr, 1951); Shams ad-Din Muhammad ibn Tulun, "al-Fulk al-Mashhun fl Ahwal Muhammad ibn Tulun," in Ibn Tulun, Rasa'il Ta'rlkhiyya (Damascus: Maktabat al-QudsI, 1930). On traditional Arabic autobiography, see Shawql Dayf, at-Tarjama ash-Shal^hsiyya (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1979); Ihsan 'Abbas, Fann as-Slra (Beirut: Dar ath-Thaqafa, 1956); Franz Rosenthal, "Die Arabische Autobiographic," Analecta Orientaha 14, Studio Arabica 1 (1937): 1-40. Edward Said's statement in Beginnings ([Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978], p. 81), "Thus even autobiography as a genre scarcely exists in Arabic literature. When it is to be found, the result

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INTRODUCTION

But there is a basic difference between classical and modern Arabic conceptions of literature that lies not in the forms of the genres—in the dropping off, for example, of the distinctive maqatna and the instituting of novels, or in the casting aside of the rules of metrics codified by al-Khalll (d. 175/791) and the adoption of free verse. Rather, there can be seen a totally transformed relationship between the individual and the work of art. The literary text ceases to be an expression of collective norms and becomes a personal work, expressing, and centering on, the individual.20 Nowhere is this shift from classical to modern more visible is wholly special," is misleading at best as regards classical Arabic literature, and wholly false as regards modern Arabic literature, in which autobiographical texts abound. By the same token, Gusdorf s limitation of autobiography to the Western cultural sphere is also completely erroneous. See Georges Gusdorf, "Conditions and Limits of Autobiography," trans. James Olney, in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 28-29. C"1 autobiography in cross-cultural perspective, see the excellent study by Vytautas Kavolis, "Histories of Selfhood, Maps of Sociability," in Designs of Selfhood, ed. Vytautas Kavolis (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984), pp. 15-103. 20. It has been argued, for example, by Tawfiq al-Haklm in his "Introduction to King Oedipus" (in Pfoys, Prefaces and Postscripts of Tawfiq al-Ha\tm, trans. W. M. Hutchins [Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1981], 1: 281) that modern Arabic literature is a direct continuation of classical literature and that its differences concern essentially "the form, appearance and dress." That modern Arabic literature has a fundamentally different spirit can be seen most clearly in those cases of recent writers who, wishing to break out of dominant Western forms like the novel, have modeled their texts on classical forms. The Mamluk imitations by Jamal al-Ghaytanl, such as az-Zaym Barakat (Cairo: Dar Ma'mun ht-Tiba'a, 1975) and "Hidayat AhI al-Wara li-Ba'd mimma Jara ft al-Maqshara" (in Jamal al-Ghaytani, Awraq Shdbb Asha mundhu AIf 'Am [Cairo: Maktabat Madbiill, n.d.], pp. 83-98), are the best examples of this. To anyone familiar with the classical literature, however, these works are strikingly modern and non-classical in their fundamental literary worldview. There have been works of modern Arabic literature, such as Layali Satlh of Hafiz Ibrahim, Shaytan Banta 'ur of Ahmad ShawqT, and the Hadlth 'lsa ibn Htsham of Muhammad al-Muwaylihl, which represent at once a continuation and a transformation of both the classical Arabic form and the classical worldview. See, for example, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, "al-Wahda an-Nassiyya ft Layali Satlh," Fusul 3, no. 2 (1983): 109-117, 380. For better or worse, however, this is not the road that modern Arabic literature has taken. See also note 25 below.

INTRODUCTION

II

than in autobiography. It is not coincidental that an autobiogra­ phy, al-Ayyam, should be both one of the foundations of modern Arabic literature and one of its most enduring monuments. Taha Husayn's is not, by any means, the only modern auto­ biography in Arabic.21 The nineteenth-century historian 'All Basha Mubarak wrote one. 22 In the twentieth century, many have given us accounts of their lives: Muhammad Kurd Άΐϊ in his Khitat ash-Sham; Ahmad AmIn in his Hayatt ("My Life"); Sa­ lama Musa in his Tarbiyat Salama Musa ("The Education of Sa­ lama Musa"), 'Abbas Mahmud al-'Aqqad in a number of auto­ biographical works, including Ana ("I"); and others. 23 Yet it is the work of Taha Husayn that has best withstood the test of time. Shawql Dayf, one of the leading literary historians of the Arab world, clearly showed the deep influence of al-Ayyam in his own autobiography, entitled Ma 'ϊ ("With Me"). 24 In this brief work, Dayf not only uses the Husaynian technique of calling the hero "the young man," "the youth," etc., but he also, like Taha Hu­ sayn, adopts third-person narration. Al-Ayyam has also played a crucial role in the evolution of modern Arabic letters, especially the novel. The pre-modern Ar­ abic literary tradition was rich in various prose forms, but there is consensus among critics that the novel was largely inspired by the Western genre. The first Arabic novel is generally considered to have been Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal. It appeared in 1912 or 1913,25 a mere thirteen years before the publication of 21. See Dayf, at-Tarjama, pp. I05ff. 22. See ibid., pp. 105-110. 23. Muhammad Kurd 'All, Kitdb Khitat ash-Sham (Damascus: Matba'at alMufld, 1928),6: 411-425; Ahmad AmTn, Hayati(Cairo: Maktabat an-Nahda alMisriyya, 1978); Salama Musa, Tarbiyat Salama Musa (Cairo: Salama Musa hnNashr wat-Tawzi', n.d.); the texts of 'Abbas Mahmud al-'Aqqad have been collected in al-Majmit'a al-Kdmila h-Mu'allafat al-Ustadh 'Abbas Mahmud alAqqad (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnanl, 1982), vols. 22 and 23. 24. Shawql Dayf, Ma Ί (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1981). 25. See, for example, Charles Vial, "Kissa," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 5 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), p. 188; Roger Allen, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press,

12

INTRODUCTION

the first volume of al-Ayyam in 1926. The latter's importance for the evolution of the novel has been such that, as Roger Allen points out, "almost every commentator on the modern Arabic novel includes some reference to this work."26 Moreover, it is the autobiography that has received attention with regard to the rise of the modern Arabic novel, not Taha Husayn's novels. Critics have considered some of the novels, such as AdIb and Shajarat al-Bu 's, to be autobiographical works.27 The author's wife, in her memoirs, disclaimed any such attributions, at least for AdIb.2* Even discounting her testimony, we would at most be dealing with autobiographical novels, in no real sense with autobiographies. Be that as it may, these novels have not had nearly the impact of the autobiography. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the fact that the novels do not possess the artistic force of the autobiography. H.A.R. Gibb's words about the first volume of al-Ayyam still hold true today, and could be applied to the entire work: "[al-Ayyam] has a good claim to be regarded as the finest work of art yet produced in modern Egyptian literature."29 Indeed, many of the technical aspects of al-Ayyam, like its creative use of third-person narration, establish it as a landmark in modern autobiography. But the extension of Gibb's appreciation to the three volumes 1982), pp. 15-18; H.A.R. Gibb, Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 286-303. For a divergent view of Zaynab's primacy, see Matti Moosa, The Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1983), p. 173. Allen (p. 31) gives 1913 as the date for Zaynab, while Moosa gives 1912, and Vial 1914· There is no question that in some of its spirit as well as certain narrative techniques, situations, and many a turn of phrase, the modern Arabic novel has drawn from the rich classical Arabic narrative tradition. By the same token, there is also really no question that as a formal genre with its own particular literary demands, the novel was a form borrowed and adapted from the West. 26. Allen, Arabic Novel, p. 36. 27. Cachia, Taha Husayn, pp. 193-194; Mahran, Taha Husayn, pp. 296-327. 28. Suzanne Taha Husayn, Ma 'a\, trans. Badr ad-Din 'Arudakl (Cairo: Dar al-Ma arif, 1982), p. 294. Badr ad-Din Arudakl, the translator, explained to me (July 23, 1987) that the original French manuscript was never published. 29. Gibb, Studies, p. 279.

INTRODUCTION

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3

of al-Ayyam poses an important question. Are we justified in con­ sidering the three volumes, published with gaps of thirteen and fifteen years between them, as parts of the same work, especially given that the third volume was originally published under the title Mudhaffirat, or "Memoirs"? 3 0 According to Muhammad ad-Dusuql, Taha Husayn expressed himself very clearly on the matter, declaring that he considered these "Mudhakkirat" to be the third volume οϊ al-Ayyam.il Far more important, the continuities between these separate volumes are manifest. Not only does the story, in each case, pick up chron­ ologically where the earlier volume left off, but the distinctive style and narration (not always present in other works by the same author) is also continued. There is a clear thematic devel­ opment across the three volumes. Evident also is the trinary or­ ganization of the work as a whole: divided into three volumes, each with twenty chapters. To suggest that Taha Husayn was not consciously continuing his literary project with each new volume would be to give credence to an extraodinary set of coincidences. As for the title of the third volume, Mudhakfcrat, if we remember that, as Tzvetan Todorov notes, the names of genres (or titles) are not the same as the genres themselves, then it becomes immedi­ ately clear that the third volume of al-Ayyam is in every sense an autobiography, and not a memoir. 32 Al-Ayyam is an important example of Third World autobiog­ raphy. Not only does it articulate a vision of East and West but, more importantly, it shows the East as it comes into a special con30. Taha Husayn, Mudhaklfirat Taha Husayn (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, n.d.). 31. Muhammad ad-Dusuql, Ayyam ma a "Taha Husayn (Beirut: al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr, 1978), p. 108. 32. Tzvetan Todorov, "Genres litteraires," in Oswald Ducrot and Tzvetan Todorov, Dictionnaire encyclopedique des sciences du kngage (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972), p. 193. In addition, the usage of the term mudha/farat is not as re­ stricted as its translation by the generic term "memoir" would suggest. For ex­ ample, Nawal as-Sa'dawI's Mudhakliirat Tabiba (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1980) is a fictional autobiography (that is, a novel that adopts the form of an autobiog­ raphy). It displays none of the formal properties of a memoir.

M

INTRODUCTION

tact with the West. Understanding the articulation of these ideas in the work of Taha Husayn can help us to understand the same issues in other Third World autobiographies, or even in auto­ biographies of other intellectuals encountering what is, for them, an alien culture. Thus it is as applicable to Vladimir Nabokov's Spea\, Memory when he tells of his encounter with the West as it is for Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, WoIe Soyinka's AkJ: The Years of Childhood, or Ved Mehta's autobio­ graphical trilogy, all of which deal with these same issues.33 The drama of Taha Husayn's life was, of course, increased by his visual handicap. The Arabs themselves recognize this as a major characteristic of his saga, and for his superhuman achieve­ ments have dubbed him "the conqueror of darkness" (Qahir azZalam).^ Indeed, the heroic vision of the handicap overcome is an important part of the Egyptian image of Taha Husayn. 35 Of course, the blind intellectual and writer has long been a fa­ miliar figure in Egypt and the Arab East generally. There have been, and are, many famous blind poets, scholars, and preach­ ers. 36 For Taha Husayn himself, however, the visual handicap means that, in the words of Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo BioyCasares, "he carries with him everywhere the portable jail cell of 37 his blindness." And Taha Husayn himself exploited this very 33. Vladimir Nabokov, Speakj Memory (New York: Pyramid Books, 1966); Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (New York: Vintage Books, 1977); WoIe Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood (New York: Vintage Books, 1983); Ved Mehta, Vedi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Ved Mehta, The Ledge between the Streams (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1984); Ved Mehta, Sound-Shadows of the New World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985). 34. This is the title both of al-Mallakh's book and of a film directed by 'Atif Salim about the life of Taha Husayn. 35. This can be seen in the film mentioned above as well as in the book for children, Mahmud Ά wad, Taha Husayn (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1980). 36. The famous blind of the Middle Ages have been collected by as-Safadl in his biographical compendium, the Na\t al-HimyanβNu\at al-'Umydn, ed. Ah­ mad Zakl (Cairo: al-Matba'a al-Jamaliyya, 1911). 37. Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy-Casares, Six Problems for Don Isidro

INTRODUCTION

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5

image when he entitled his work on the famous medieval blind poet, With Abii al- Ala' in His Prison (Ma « AbT al- 'Ala' fi Sijnihi).^ The prison is, however, not only physical but social as well. After all, as we shall demonstrate in this book, it is by breaking through the social bars that Taha escapes from his prison of blindness. But what does it mean to be in the prison house of blindness? And how does this reflect itself in the autobiography? Any handicap is primarily a physical reality, but it is also a social one, dictating a social role. Yet the physical and social aspects of a handicap like blindness are not so simply related: the limitations in the social role of blindness are not necessarily a direct consequence of the physical reality of blindness. Society's conceptions of the blind will affect the roles allotted to the visually handicapped, and will, in turn, influence how an individual perceives his own blindness. There are therefore two distinct but interrelated conceptions of blindness: personal blindness and social blindness; and the dialogue between them forms one of the major lineaments of the autobiography. These points are central to our understanding of al-Ayyam and Parodi, trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1981), p. 12.

38. Taha Husayn, of course, did not invent the idea of AbO al-'Ala' living in a metaphorical prison. In a famous quote that Taha Husayn repeated in Ma 'a Abial-'AlafiSijnihi (among other places), the medieval blind poet characterized himself as residing in three prisons: his blindness, his home, and his body. The medieval biographer as-Safadi attributed two prisons to Abu al-'Ala': his blindness and his home. Taha Husayn discussed the poet's three prisons and their implications in Ma'a Abi al-'Ala'. It is significant, however, that in the book's title, Taha Husayn spoke of being with AbO al-'Ala' in his prison (in the singular). This formulation refers, therefore, not to any of the plurality of metaphorical prisons, but to their totality as a condition within which AbO al-'Ala' lived. That condition could best be defined as the poet's total experience of his handicap: physical, social, psychological, etc. It is noteworthy that neither the quote from Abu al-'Ala' nor the metaphor of blindness as a prison appears in al-Ayyam. See Taha Husayn, Ma'a AbI al-'Ala' fi Sijnihi, in al-Majmu'a alKamih, 10: 317-471, and especially pp. 329, 339ff; as-Safadi, Nafy, p. 103. See also Taha Husayn, Tajdld Dhikra AbTaI- 'Ala \ in al-Majmu 'a al-Kamila, p. 122.

ι6

INTRODUCTION

have become intertwined with the traditional/modern, East/ West themes present in that work. Blindness operates as a type of discourse (in the Foucaultian sense) through which the autobiog­ raphy is conceived and articulated. It is a special vision through which various aspects of the text manifest themselves. It affects the nature of the narrator, and is both central to the act of writing and operative in the creation of a special type of rhetoric. Blind­ ness even plays a role in the narrative techniques exploited in alAyydm, as well as in the entirety of the autobiographical project itself conceived through the all-important element of time. Understanding al-Ayydm, therefore, is more than understand­ ing the dramatic saga of a poor blind boy who became Egypt's (if not the Arab world's) leading intellectual. It is understanding how this heroic achievement was itself transmuted into one of the classics of world literature.

I BLINDNESS AND SOCIETY

ONE

BLINDNESS i : R E C O G N I T I O N

T

of al-Ayyam, especially one acquainted even superficially with the life of Taha Husayn, cannot help being aware that the author, and thus the central character, was blind. It is no surprise, therefore, that this physical handicap and conflicts surrounding it play an important role in the text. But when we speak about blindness, we should distinguish between different levels of the handicap. First, there is blindness as a physical defect, the absence of sight. We can thus speak about the personal viewpoint of the blind person regarding his handicap. How does a blind person conceive of himself as a man without sight? We have a second level, the social one, that deals with the view of society towards blindness. What are a given society's conceptions of blindness, and how does it articulate them—apropos of the social role of the blind, for example? We can therefore speak about blindness as personal reality—"personal blindness"—and as a social category—"social blindness." Society's own conceptions can exist outside the handicap itself, or outside the blind person's conceptions of his handicap. As a rule, however, social conceptions affect personal ones and vice versa, creating a dialectical relationship between the two. HE READER

One example will illustrate some of these points. The most common occupation for a blind individual throughout Islamic history was that of Qur 'an reciter.1 Yet, although there is a clear relationship between the physical reality of blindness and the soi. For social positions of the blind, see as-Safadl, Nakt. For traditional views of the blind, see Ahmad ash-SharabasT, Fl 'Alam al-Makfufin (Cairo, n.d.). See also Fedwa Malti-Douglas, "Mentalities and Marginality: Blindness and Islamic Civilization," in Historian of the Middle East: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lewis, ed. C. E. Bosworth, Charles Issawi, and A. L. Udovitch (Princeton: Darwin Press, forthcoming). !

9

20

B L I N D N E S S AND S O C I E T Y

cial role of Qur 'an reciter (reciting a memorized text can be done without vision), the social role is not a necessary deduction from the physical reality. It is independent of it. Despite this, the existence of this occupation as a possible social choice affects the personal conception of the blind individual, since he can either envision himself in the role of Qur an reciter or reject it. But one way or another he must define himself, and his nature as a blind man, in relation to this social role. The basic concern of this study is the literary text, not a theoretical assessment of the problems of blindness. Thus it is the literary manifestation of the two levels of blindness in the text of alAyyam itself that will occupy our attention. The phenomenon of blindness will be analyzed through individual passages in which the narrator discusses the handicap. Our analysis is not directed to the reality of the life of Taha Husayn, blind Egyptian intellectual, or to the elucidation of his biography, but rather to the workings of the literary text. Therefore, when I speak of Taha Husayn, I am speaking of the historical individual, the author of al-Ayyam. But when I speak of "the youth" or Taha, 2 1 am speaking of the central character of al-Ayyam. For an autobiography, al-Ayyam possesses a distinctive characteristic: it is narrated in the third person. I shall discuss the implications of this below. The third-person narrator usually refers to the hero as "the youth" (al-fata or as-sabt) or "our friend," or, less often, "our young man" {sahibund, sabiyyuna). The three parts of Taha Husayn's text represent a chronological development in the life of its central character. In general, the first vol2. I am here simply adopting a common literary critical usage that reserves the first name for the character and the full name for the author. The frequent reliance of al-Ayyam on expressions like "the youth" and its general avoidance of the hero's first name produce a stylistic situation that could easily be inelegant in English paraphrase or summary. When not quoting, therefore, I have freely employed either the first name (Taha) or a replacement (e.g., "the hero"). The unquoted use of such a term in paraphrase, summary, or analysis does not imply its presence in the original. The problem of proper names in al-Ayyam is discussed in Chapter 6.

ONE: RECOGNITION

21

ume deals with his upbringing in the countryside, the second with his experiences in the Azhar, the third with his university studies in Egypt and abroad.3 There is a clear progression from the childhood of the protagonist to his eventual appointment as a professor in the university. Al-Ayyam, however, focuses on specific issues, frequently dealing with them outside the normal chronological sequence of events. Blindness, of course, possesses a development in the text, but, as we shall see, this development is not necessarily chronological, but essentially thematic. When the narrator treats an incident related to blindness, he endows this incident with significance not only by choosing to present it, but also by choosing the place in the text in which to discuss it. There are therefore two important analytical criteria: first, the choice of an incident, and second, its textual location. By extension, we can speak about the arrangement of events in the text. The textual arrangement of specific events sheds light on the development of blindness across the three volumes of Taha Husayn's al-Ayyam. Ihsan 'Abbas, in his important work Fann as-Sira, calls alAyyam "a conscious picture of the conflict between man and his environment," a picture in which the author describes the various stages of his life, using it as "the best example of triumph over the environment." 4 'Abbas's perceptive comments are only directed to the first two volumes of al-Ayyam, since the third was published after Fann as-Sua. And yet, with certain exceptions, the third volume can also be seen in this light. This environmental conflict does operate in a general way, but for the most part it is the reflection of a far deeper and more specific conflict, that between personal and social blindness. And it is this conflict that guides the development of the work, especially its treatment of the visual handicap. 3. This chronological division has long been recognized by critics writing on al-Ayyam. See, for example, Mahran, Taha Husayn, p. 251. 4. 'Abbas, Fann as-Slra, pp. 142-143.

22

B L I N D N E S S AND S O C I E T Y

The first volume of al-Ayyam, as we said above, describes Taha's childhood in the village. But as far as blindness is concerned, this volume generally reflects a position in which the central character is not envisioned as a sightless person. This is not to say that the central character is endowed with physical vision. Rather, we are talking about the textual representation of the blindness of the central character. What will become evident from the analysis of the blindness-related incidents in the first volume is that, with a few exceptions, the hero's treatment as a blind person is equivocal. We will also see that the phenomenon of social blindness is not as well developed in the first as it is in the second and third volumes, and as a result, the conflict between personal and social blindness is relatively de-emphasized. On the opening page of al-Ayyam, the reader is told that the hero ignored "the reality of light and darkness" (1:3).5 As a n r s t indication of the nature of the central character, this reference is, to say the least, ambiguous. The reader cannot ascertain from it the precise state of the hero's vision. Someone with no previous knowledge of Taha Husayn's handicap would remain ignorant of it. The second reference tells us of the hero's "dark" eyes, into which his mother dropped a liquid, which caused him pain and did him no good (1:6). The issue is not much clarified until the differences between the central character and his siblings are enumerated. They are able to do things he cannot, and he himself heard them describing things of which he had no knowledge, so he knew that they saw what he could not see (1:18). This is the first textual indication of the blindness of the central character, or more correctly, of the fact that he differed from his siblings with respect to his vision. The narrator's perception here is more personal than social. There is, however, one extremely important passage in the first 5. All references to al-Ayyam are to the Dar al-Ma'arif edition (Cairo: 1971, 1971,1973). The volume and page numbers will be placed parenthetically in the text. All translations are my own. When my translations differ markedly from the published versions, this fact will be noted.

ONE: RECOGNITION

23

volume that involves both the social and the personal aspects of blindness. This is the incident that provides the central character with the means to identify himself with Abu al-'Ala' alMa a m , the medieval blind poet, an identification that persists throughout the three volumes oial-Ayydm. One day, while eating, the youth decided to take up a piece of food with both hands rather than with one. His brothers began laughing and his mother crying; his father, on the other hand, told him in a calm but sad voice that that was not the way one did things (1:19-20). Using this incident as a point of departure, the narrator then informs us that the youth began to deprive himself of various types of food, which he did not touch again until after he was twenty-five years old. The youth claims that the incident helped him to truly understand what the storytellers told about the poet AbQ al-'Ala' al-Ma'arn. Further, he repeats that he understood completely one of the conditions of Abti al-'Ala' (tawran min atwar Abi al- Ala *).6 But this in itself does not suffice, as he makes the point a third time about completely understanding these conditions in the life of AbQ al- c Ala' "because he saw himself in them." 7 Before the discussion is over, the narrator adds that, for this reason, the young man also went out of his way to eat by himself in Europe and did not cease this practice until his wife broke him of it (1:20-22).8 Textually, the full identification of the youth with Abu al'AIa' al-Ma'arrl has been made, since he states not only that he understood these conditions (and repeats it three times!) but that 6. The multiple implications of this important term will be discussed in Chapters 9 and 10 below. In this instance, while tawr could also be translated as "behavior," this would have to be understood as continual, virtually imposed behavior. Hence the use of the term "condition." 7. The significance of these repetitions will be discussed further in Chapter 9. 8. In fact, we are presented in volume 2 with occasions when Taha ate with others (e.g., 2:25, 51), but these examples take place in Egypt and not in, or on the way to, Europe. What is most important for our purposes, however, is that in the passage under discussion, the narrator called attention to Taha's avoidance of eating with others.

24

BLINDNESS AND SOCIETY

he saw himself in them. What is the importance of this identification? Three points are in order. The first concerns the location of this identification in the text. The incident with the food clearly took place during Taha's early childhood, at a time when the protagonist would have had no knowledge either of Abu al'AIa' al-Ma'arri or of the stages and conditions of his life.9 Biographically, to understand the blindness of the hero during his childhood, we would have to detach the reality of the incident (i.e., eating with both hands) from the commentary on that incident (i.e., the identification with Abu al-'Ala ), because this commentary reflects, chronologically speaking, an assimilation of later knowledge by the protagonist. Yet the narrator chose this exact location in the text to insert the discussion relative to Abu al-'Ala'. And interestingly enough, this falls in the fourth chapter, fairly early in the work. The reader, of course, cannot isolate himself from the commentary, and therefore must accept this identification. From this textual point onwards, a link persists between the youth and Abu al-'Ala', even if often only unconsciously. The second point about this passage is that the identification with Abu al-'Ala' carries significant resonances from the Arabic literary tradition. Al-Ma'arri was not only one of the greatest Arabic poets; he was also one of the most profoundly pessimistic, and his pessimism was clearly linked to his blindness. He was contemptuous of organized Islam, declaring about the gift of life: "My sire brought this on me, but I on none."10 The identification with al-Ma'arrl is a bitter one. But there are further resonances in this incident. The social sharing of food was a quasi-sacred rite in Arabic tradition; those 9. Cf. Mahran, Taha Husayn, p. 291. 10. R. A. Nicholson, Studies in hfomic Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 140. For a list of biographical sources on AbQ al- Ala , see Moustapha Saleh, "Abu'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arrl, bibhographie critique," Bulletin d'Etudes Orientales, 22 (1969): 133-204; 23 (1970): 197-274.

ONE: RECOGNITION

2

5

who ate alone could be suspected of miserliness." It was nevertheless recognized that the eating habits of the blind were not always appealing and that their techniques were necessarily more limited. The tenth/eleventh-century polyhistor ath-Tha'alibl reveals that after the seventh-century poet Hassan ibn Thabit became blind, he would ask his friends if this was "the food of one hand" or "the food of two hands" before reaching out to eat something.12 The Qur'an itself admonishes the faithful to eat with the blind.13 The third and final point concerning this passage relates to social blindness. The self-inflicted prohibition of certain foods and the subsequent eating alone in a special room both point to a social phenomenon. The protagonist places himself outside society with respect to eating. Furthermore, the identification with alMaWrI plays a social role in addition to its personal one for the youth, since Abu al- Ala possessed a role, distinguished from his literary one, as a figure known for his blindness. However, the identification with al-Ma'arrl, and by extension the assimilation into a given social category, that of the blind, does not dominate the first volume as a whole. Despite the discussion of Abu al-'Ala' and the protagonist's psychological relationship with him, Taha is not driven to identify with other blind characters, or to empathize with their condition. This can be seen in several passages in volume i: on the !{uttab teacher Sayyiduna, on a girl named Naflsa, on the hero's blind grandfather, and on Qur 'an reciters. 11. See Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Structures of Avarice: The Bufyala' in Medieval Arabic Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), pp. 80-81. 12. Ath-Tha'alibl, Thimdr al-Quliib ft al-Muddf wal-Mansub, ed. Muhammad AbQ al-Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo: Dar Nahdat Misr lit-Tab' wan-Nashr, 1965), pp. 608-609. 13. Al-Qur'an (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babl al-Halabl, 1966), Surat an-Nur, verse 61; A. J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted. 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974), 2: 54. For the commentary on this verse, see al-Qurtubl, alJami' h-Ahkam al-Qur'an (Cairo: Dar al-Kitab al-'Arabl ht-Tiba'a wanNashr, 1967), 12: 312-319.

26

B L I N D N E S S AND SOCIETY

It seems that the teacher Sayyiduna was blind (dartr), except that he could see a glimmer in one of his eyes, which permitted him to perceive blurred objects without being able to distinguish them. According to the narrator, Sayyiduna was quite happy with this, and "he used to deceive himself and think that he was among the sighted" (1:31). This assessment demonstrates not only an absence of sympathy towards Sayyiduna, another blind individual, but also a certain amount of contempt in the reference to deception. There is no association by the narrator or the hero with Sayyiduna's condition, but rather a distancing from it. In this passage, however, we hear not the views of the blind hero, but those of the narrator; and of course, because the work is narrated in the third person, the narrative voice and that of the hero are structurally distinct. Though the question of the relationship between the narrator and the hero will be treated in detail in Chapter 6, two points can be briefly adumbrated here. First, since the work as a whole falls within the autobiographical pact, the reader understands that there is a kind of identity between the narrator and the hero, and second, there is no indication in the text that the hero does not share the narrator's harsh judgment. Furthermore, this scorn towards the \uttab teacher is repeated by the school monitor. This pupil hated Sayyiduna and belittled him because, though blind, he feigned vision (1:49).1* One of the students in the /(uttab, Naflsa, was also blind. When the school monitor appointed Taha a monitor as well, thus bringing the blind girl under his authority, he treated her in the same manner that the monitor treated him, with exploitation and extortion (1:54-55). This example demonstrates the same distancing from a blind character noted with Sayyiduna. The reader glimpses no identification with, or empathy towards, the blind girl by the protagonist, despite the fact that her social position as a blind student in the kuttab was similar to his. 14. This does not, of course, exhaust the emotional implications of these assessments. They can be seen not only as an attempt to exclude oneself from the world of the blind, but also as a self-hating attack on the status of blindness.

ONE: RECOGNITION

2

7

A similar situation pertains with the hero's grandfather, the blind shaykh (1:26). He is mentioned only briefly, but the sentiments of the young man towards his blind relative are those of hatred, with no sympathy or empathy. This distancing from the visually handicapped is present in yet another passage, about blind Qur'an reciters who performed in various homes (1:86). In this case, these itinerant blind figures are slipped in between other similar social categories without any change in tone or any suggestion that they share a special condition with the hero of al-Ayyam. Contempt is added to this distancing when the narrator describes their knowledge of the holy book. "They understood it as they were able to, not as it is nor as it should be understood. They understood it as Sayyiduna understood i t . . . ; or they understood it as the young man's grandfather understood i t . . . " (1:86-87). These figures are all blind, and they have all misunderstood the central text of their culture. Those cases in which some connection, no matter how fine or elusive, is made between the protagonist and blindness deal almost exclusively with personal blindness. Even in the passage on AbQ al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri, the major impetus for the identification is personal, flowing from the youth himself. The protagonist understood the stages of Abu al-'Ala' "because he saw himself in them." No one else suggested this identification to him. This is not to say that the social level is missing from the first volume. In a discussion of the young Taha's affinity for magic and mysticism, the narrator notes that he was "driven to this" by his father, who would ask him to recite a certain passage of the Qur'an, believing it to be more efficacious coming from a blind youth (1:105). This passage is crucial to the development of the first volume of al-Ayyam for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we finally have a clear textual expression of the blindness of its hero. The word "blind" {mahfuf) is articulated for the first time with reference to the protagonist. Hence the quasi-euphemistic treatment of the young man's blindness comes to an end. Secondly, there is a clear social level in the role of the blind youth

28

B L I N D N E S S AND SOCIETY

as intermediary with the deity. The source of this role, of course, was the father—i.e., it came from outside the youth himself. But rather than reject this role, the young man conformed to it. As we shall see, this was not to be Taha's consistent reaction to the social roles offered him. But the significance of this passage transcends its subject matter. It acts as a marker in the text showing that a crucial line has been crossed, a taboo broken in the treatment of blindness in alAyydm. The attribution of the word "blind" to the protagonist seems to permit, from that point onwards in the text, unambiguous articulations of the blindness of its hero. It is, for example, only after this reference that we read about the onset of Taha's blindness, chronologically a much earlier event.15 In a section discussing the illness and eventual death of the young man's sister, the narrator inserts a brief passage that describes how Taha became blind: he was afflicted with ophthalmia. After a few days, the barber was called, and he gave Taha a treatment that brought about the loss of the use of his eyes (1:120). This incident is narrated in Chapter 18, near the end of the work; the significance of this cannot be overemphasized. It means that if a reader had had no previous knowledge of Taha Husayn's affliction, it would not be until he had nearly completed the first volume that he would fully comprehend Taha's situation. It is as if the writer had been evading the problem. Is it not odd that this event, so decisive in the life of Taha Husayn, should be presented so late in the narrative? But the author has done more than simply postpone the presentation of this matter. The reference to the onset of blindness is inserted in a discussion of the sister's fatal illness.'6 The brief discussion of blindness is preceded by the sister's sickness and an 15. Technically this is an analepsis, and as such will be discussed in Chapter 10 below. 16. For a detailed discussion of the composition of this passage, see Claude Audebert, "al-Lugha bayn ar-Ru'ya al-HadTtha war-Ru'ya an-NiyukilasIkiyya,'M/j/4 (1984): 55-70.

ONE: RECOGNITION

29

elaborate commentary on children's health problems, including the general neglect of children, especially in larger families, and mothers' ignorance about doctors. It is at this point that the blindness incident is recounted, and it is followed directly by a discussion of the sister's death (1:120-125). The same subject precedes and follows the loss of sight: the sister's fatal illness. The effect of this embedding is to permit an almost casual reference to the loss of vision. The reader is not left to dwell on the causes of Taha's blindness. He is taken by the hand and made to reenter the mental universe of the sister's sickness and death. The onset of blindness is subordinated.' 7 But the embedding also creates a kind of equivalence between death and the loss of vision, an association common among blind individuals.'8 The story of the onset of blindness, when taken together with the incident with the word makfilf, is important for the textual development. The central character has entered a new stage, the stage of textual blindness. Not only is the hero's handicap referred to without euphemism, he is now treated in a more consistently blind way. This helps us to understand the episode with Oedipus in the closing chapter of the first volume. We are told how the adult Taha was relating the story of Oedipus to his young daughter. His daughter cried, and the narrator explains that this was because, when she heard of Oedipus blinded and led about by his own daughter, she identified the tragic hero with her father. She saw Oedipus the King as "blind," like her father (1:147). Clearly, this incident contains an identification with Oedipus. But equally important, the identification is made with the use of the word "blind." Of course, this is not the first identification of 17. The embedding, and hence the subordination, goes even further, since the entire chapter in which this incident is related is devoted to the deaths of various family members. See Chapter 10 below. 18. Ved Mehta, for example, makes this association. See Mehta, Vedi, pp. 124217. See also Donald D. Kirtley, The Psychology of Blindness (Chicago: NelsonHall, 1975), pp. 35, 62, 80-89; P ' e r r e Henri, Les aveugles et la societe (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), p. 39.

30

B L I N D N E S S AND SOCIETY

Taha with another figure; that with al-Ma'arn has already been mentioned. Both al-Ma'arrl and Oedipus are figures from the past, not contemporaries. However, there is an important difference between these two identifications. That with Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arn was made without direct reference to the blindness of either al-Ma'arri or the hero. With Oedipus, we are told that the link is based on the fact that both individuals are blind. Educated Arab readers, Taha Husayn's primary audience, assuredly would already know that al-Ma'arn was blind, whereas they may not remember that Oedipus was blinded in the course of his life. Yet this knowledge can be seen as a pretext for the narrator, permitting him to avoid naming the handicap until that stage of the text in which such an overt reference was possible. But further, unlike al-Ma'arrl's, Oedipus's blindness has a clear moral significance. It is a punishment and a symbolic castration.'9 His identification with Taha, though attributed to other causes, carries with it a subliminal flavor of guilt.20 Taha identifies himself with al-Ma'arn, while it is his daughter who identifies him with Oedipus; and the way in which the latter identification is effected mirrors one of the key developments in the first volume. As the daughter hears the story of Oedipus, as the expression on her face changes and she begins to cry, she undergoes a process that deepens her awareness of her father's blindness and its implications, particularly for mobility and dependence. This deepened awareness is then transmitted to the other members of the family as we read that each, in turn, 19. See, for example, Kirtley, Psychology, p. 27. 20. This idea of guilt is not developed in al-Ayyam, but any identification with Oedipus brings along (whether consciously or unconsciously) certain elements, whether these are evoked or not. Wasft, in "al-MashruV argues that al-Ayyam as a whole follows the pattern of the Oedipus story (pp. 173-176). As the next several chapters will show, however, al-Ayyam follows none of the pattern of the Oedipus tragedy, since it involves, on the contrary, the successful defiance of what passes for fate in the life of Taha. Al-Ayyam is a story of triumph and the overcoming of obstacles. In general, identification with Oedipus is much less important than identification with al-Ma'arn.

ONE: RECOGNITION

31

"understood." Hence, the Oedipus incident, so chronologically out of place, reflects the entire process of increasing awareness of blindness that marks the first volume. Since the encounter with Oedipus represents the culmination of this process in the first part of al-Ayyam, these two awakenings have become fused at the end of the story of Oedipus. Textually, blindness has come to the fore. But the hero's blind­ ness is still essentially personal, and his identification with the world of the blind is limited to historical and mythical figures. Thus, though the hero is now unquestionably blind, his mem­ bership in the social category is not accepted. Also in the last chapter, we are told how he hurried to the Azhar with his guide. Clearly, he is blind. But the narrator then declares that his face did not have the darkness that normally covers the faces of the blind (1:149).21 Although this may be seen on one level as the sign of the eagerness of the young student, its message about blindness is clear: the hero himself may be sightless, but he is not like the other visually handicapped. This view of the protagonist leads us to the problem of social blindness, and forms a prelude to the conflict between personal and social blindness more clearly articulated in the two later vol­ umes of al-Ayyam. But for much of the first volume, the blindness of the protagonist is problematic; although allusions abound, the subject lurks behind a textual screen. Only at the end of volume ι is the reality of his personal blindness unequivocally estab­ lished. Once this personal blindness has been clearly situated, however, the central problem of social blindness can be posed: the young man's identification with the social category and the social roles of the blind in Egypt. It is this problem that plays such an important role in the second volume of al-Ayyam. 21. In connection with Taha's separation from the other blind by virtue of his not looking like them, and not having the face or the eyes of the blind, cf. the discussion in Kirtley, Psychology, p. 73.

TWO

BLINDNESS III C O N F L I C T

T

volume of al-Ayyam ended with the young Taha in the Azhar, which is the chief location of the second volume; the Islamic university thus forms a textual bridge between the first two volumes of the autobiography. The second volume of al-Ayyam carries the problematics of personal and social blindness into new territories. Nevertheless, there are thematic echoes, reverberations from the second volume to the first. One such involves eating. The protagonist's shame in that function has already been noted. There is an echo of the same phenomenon in the second volume, when the narrator describes a dinner at which Taha was present. He was self-conscious and even more pained when he spilled gravy on his clothing (2:51). This spillage reminds the reader of the episode in the first volume that brought on the identification with Abu al-'Ala' and his spilled food. This passage also recalls a more recent incident, in the last chapter of the first volume, which mentions that the young man's shirt had taken on many colors from the variety of foods that had spilled on it (1:148). HE FIRST

Though certain subjects, like eating, are treated similarly in the two volumes, the textual attitude to blindness has changed. In effect, the second volume of al-Ayyam develops the conflict between social and personal blindness barely hinted at in the first. The textual articulation of blindness receives its full expression here. Consequently, references to the handicap and the conflicts it generates are legion. But despite their number and variety, the incidents generally fit under two major, though related, headings: references indicating a sense of helplessness and dependence on the part of the protagonist, and those expressing the conflicts between social and personal blindness. 32

TWO: CONFLICT

33

Of course, helplessness and dependence, once articulated, indicate blindness. This sense of helplessness is generated most directly by the protagonist's need to be physically guided (2:22, 31, 127). At the end of the first volume, in the identification with Oedipus, the problem of Taha's dependence is forcefully evoked. Later in the same chapter, we see him led around the Azhar. But it is in volume 2 that the implications of this dependence are made fully manifest. When Taha visits the village, we are told that he is guided to a seat by his father (2:127). References to mobility and guides are, by contrast, almost completely absent in the descriptions of Taha's life in the village in the first volume. Indeed, the entire second volume reflects a greater consciousness of the need for a guide. This humiliating dependence is emphasized when we learn that Taha's own brother has become tired of guiding him (2:104). We are also told how he was taken from one class to another: the guide would take him "without a word" and pull him coldly, then place him the way one sets down "merchandise" (mata') (2:22). Taha's dependence was not merely physical. He relied on his guide for information as well. His companion would describe to him things that he could not see (2:11).1 Such descriptions were not restricted to walks. At one point, Taha's cousin came to Cairo. The two would sit outside their room and watch passersby. "One of them would hear, and the other see and explain to his friend what he could not see" (2:110). Though the protagonist's visual dependence is evident in this passage, his participation in the activity is singled out as we read, "One of them would hear." It is doubtful that his cousin was deaf. This passage therefore represents more than simply a transfer of information from the i. There is, of course, a potential contradiction between this passage and the one above explaining that Taha was guided without being spoken to. In neither case is the identity of the guide specified. It is important to remember that what we are dealing with in al-Ayyam is not a transcription of a historical reality but the artistic recreation of a number of subjective impressions. Therefore, both realities are "true" for the hero of al-Ayyam, and also for the text as a whole, since the narrator in no way distances himself from these appreciations.

34

B L I N D N E S S AND S O C I E T Y

young man to his cousin; it attempts to place the blind protagonist on an equal footing with his sighted cousin. This is in part a protest on the part of the narrator, and a demonstration of the desire to see Taha equal to others, despite his handicap. From a literary point of view, his hearing parallels his cousin's sight. The protagonist's sense of helplessness and dependence is accentuated in the second volume by his presence in an effectively alien environment. The narrator notes his feeling of separation ighurba) from the village when he was in his room in the Azhar quarter. Here, he did not live the same way that he had in his home, whose rooms he knew intimately. He did not know the objects and furniture in the new room, except for those near him (2:15). Needless to say, this contributes to Taha's sense of isolation. This comparison between the room in Cairo and the village is a motif that appears again in the second volume, leading to a long discussion contrasting the two. When Taha was sitting alone in his room, listening to the tea being prepared outside, he felt unable to leave the room, not because of his ignorance of the way, but because of his shame that someone might surprise him with his unsure footing. This contrasted with the way he moved around the village. There, he would walk along the walls of the house until he reached a specific point, where he would turn right, and then take a few steps to a certain shop, where he would sit and listen and talk to people (2:32-36). Lack of mobility and social isolation go together, and both are tied to blindness. Most interesting in terms of the development of al-Ayyam is the literary contrast between Cairo and the village. This discussion, and the sentiments it generates, takes place in Cairo, but it conveys as much about the village as it does about life in the Azhar. Taha's ability to circulate around the village was never explained in the first volume. Its evocation here extends the text's (and our) consciousness of the handicap. Thematic development takes precedence over chronology. Helplessness and anxiety generated by unfamiliarity with new

TWO: CONFLICT

35

places and an inability to circulate in them also reappear in the second volume. When Taha's family moved from one city to another, he felt uncomfortable at first in the new one, because he could not move around in it (2:177). Such incidents shed light on blindness as a handicap hampering the central character, both emotionally and physically. But the second volume goes further, fully articulating the more complicated conflict between social and personal blindness. Alone in his room, the young man knew, from the muezzin's call, that night had fallen. The darkness surrounded him, and he felt that if a sighted person were in the room, the lamp would have been lit, eliminating the darkness. "But he was alone, without any need for the lamp, according to what the sighted ones believed, even though he himself found them mistaken in this supposition" (2:38). This small passage illustrates admirably the conflict between social and personal blindness. Social blindness reflects society's sentiments toward the handicap—in this instance, the assumption that the blind do not need a lamp in the dark. Personal blindness—how the blind feel about themselves as individuals without sight—is represented by the protagonist's need for the lamp. Society's ideas or concepts, of course, do not necessarily mirror the concepts of personal blindness. Here, a conflict results because the sighted believe one thing about the blind, while a blind individual himself believes something else. The two opposing sets of conceptions about blindness are aggravated by the fact that the blind character does not wish to conform to the social idea and accept that he has no need of a lamp. Conformity means the acceptance of a social role; conflict is created by the blind hero's refusal of it. When the young man presented himself for a set of examinations at the Azhar, one of the examiners called him with a phrase that had the "worst possible" effect on him: "Approach, O blind one! (a'md)" (2:101). The narrator explains that had the hero's brother not pulled him along, he would not have believed that the phrase had been addressed to him. This is followed by a dis-

36

BLINDNESS AND SOCIETY

cussion of how his family had always treated him kindly, though he himself had never forgotten his disability. After the examina­ tion is completed, he is dismissed by an examiner with the same appellation (yd a'ma) (2:102). The protagonist is here addressed in a less than fully respectful manner. In modern Arabic usage, the term a 'ma is not considered a polite or proper expression for a blind individual. Other terms, like makfuf or dartr, are pre­ ferred.2 More significant is our hero's reaction to this appellation. His first response is not anger but disbelief—a refusal to accept his social role as a blind character. Once, when Taha had to be taken for a medical examination, he was afraid that the physician would address him as the ex­ aminer had in the Azhar. "But the doctor did not address him because he was simply not addressing anyone" (2:103). Though Taha's fears were unjustified in this instance, this episode echoes the two other textually recent occasions in which his blindness had been so rudely pointed out to him. Later in the text, we have a similar anecdote that also exploits the motif of appellation. The young man was one day arguing with one of his shayfths over something the latter had said. After this had gone on for some time, the shaykh became angry and said to him in a sarcastic tone of voice: "Shut up, O blind one (ya a'ma), what do you know about that?" (2:152-153). The young man became angry and never returned to that shaykh's classes. Clearly, this passage echoes the earlier ones, with the sarcastic tone of the shaykh and his insulting words reinforcing the nega­ tivity of the association with the blind inherent in the appellation a'ma. The young man's response, quitting the class, is another rejection of his demeaning social category. The hero's resistance to, or refusal of, a social role sometimes appears in a much less vehement, almost submissive manner in the second volume. When he contemplates his Azharite educa2. Cf. ash-SharabasI, Ft 'Alam, p. 18. For classical usages, see Fedwa MaltiDouglas, "Pour une rhetorique onomastique: les noms des aveugles chez as-Safadl," Cahters d'Onomastique Arabe ι (1979): 7-19·

TWO: CONFLICT

37

tion and its relationship to literature, Taha remembers that he was sent to the Azhar to receive a degree and become a teacher there. This was what his father hoped for, what his brother wanted, what he wanted also. After all, he muses, what else could he expect, given that life had imposed on blind people {makfufin) like him two choices if they wished to live a tolerable existence: either study in the Azhar and get a degree, and then receive the monthly salary according to their rank, or "trade" (yattajir) in the Qur'an and recite it at funerals and in homes. His father, he remembers, had threatened him with this earlier (2:143-144). This passage shows the two social roles open to the blind, or at least, what the blind protagonist conceives as these roles. Both choices represent traditional careers—traditional for the blind and traditional in terms of the Egyptian society of the time. The description of these possibilities, however, makes them seem less than ideal. The tone is one of resignation at best. And one hears, behind the implicit comparison with literature, the first rumblings of revolt. The protagonist's sense of having a social role imposed on him finds expression again in a passage in which Taha meditates on the death of the great Muslim religious reformer Muhammad 'Abduh. The young man felt that those who really mourned Muhammad 'Abduh sincerely were not the people wearing turbans (the clerics) but rather those wearing tarbooshes (the secular). He consequently felt a secret attraction to them and a desire to be with them. But then he asked himself what this had to do with him, since he was a "blind youth, upon whom the Azhan life had been imposed," and from which he saw no escape (2:147). The train incident, perhaps the most dramatic section in the second volume, brings together the two major themes of the blindness-related incidents—the helplessness and dependence of the protagonist, and the conflict between social and personal blindness. The narrator recounts the event as follows: While Taha was still in the Azhar, his father moved to another town to work. After settling in, he arranged for his family to join him. It

3»

B L I N D N E S S AND SOCIETY

so happened that this coincided with our hero's summer vacation; so when the family moved, they took Taha along with them. The train only stopped in the town in which the father had settled for "one minute," and the party was a large one, with women and children and many household effects. So as the train approached the station, the older members of the party arranged everything and everyone by the door, and when the train stopped, they pushed everything onto the ground and jumped after it. The train left, "and they forgot nothing in it but this blind brother of theirs." The young man was frightened to find himself alone, and helpless. But some travelers led him off at the next station to the telegraph office. Taha later learned that his family had arrived in their new home, begun to visit it, and put everything in its place. Then the father sat down and began to talk to his various sons and daughters. After a "not short" time, they remembered their missing brother. The family was alarmed, and the young men ran to the telegraph office, only to find a message that Taha was at the next station waiting for someone to come and get him. So he was brought on the back of a mule, who would at times amble with an even easy-going gait and at times halt. This only increased Taha's fright. The narrator continues by telling us that the young man never forgot his meeting with the telegraph man and a group of station employees. They were quite nice to the young man. When they saw the "blind shay\h" they had no doubt that he could recite the Qur an or sing well. So they asked him to sing something. And when he swore that he could not sing well, they asked him to recite something from the Qur'an. And when he swore that he could not recite the Qur 'an well, they insisted. So he was forced to recite the Qur'an, ashamed, embarrassed, and cursing his fate. His voice was caught in his throat and tears began flowing down his cheeks, so that people were nice to him and left him alone. The narrator concludes, "This story hurt him a great deal" (2:177-179).

TWO: CONFLICT

39

This incident, which is the last blindness-related element in the second volume, is composed of four parts: (i) the train ride, (2) the settling in of the family, (3) the retrieval of the protagonist, and (4) the episode in the telegraph office. Our hero experiences fear and helplessness brought on by his blindness, after being left on the train. When we are subsequently told at length about the settling in of the family, this adds to the shock of the first part. We would have expected his relatives to become aware more quickly that the young man was missing. Then the narrator describes the ride home on muleback and how it frightened the young man. The word here for "fright," dhu'r, is the same one that had expressed the young man's alarm at finding himself alone in the train. This links the two incidents, highlighting the theme of helplessness and dependence. The last part of this story takes place in the telegraph office, where the narrator brings into sharp focus the conflict between social and personal blindness. The social attitudes are reflected by the station employees who assumed that a blind person would be proficient in singing and Qur'anic recitation. Object as he might to these conceptions, the protagonist could not alter them, at least as far as the station employees were concerned. The social role or, more properly, the social image of the blind that existed for them was that of Qur'an reciter or singer. The protagonist did finally conform to this role and recite the Qur'an, but only after resisting. We see here both elements of the conflict: the resistance to the role, and the negative valuation of that role, shown by the fact that it humiliated him and he only accomplished it in tears. The hero has been forced into this unwelcome position (that of being unable to evade the social role of the blind) by another result of his handicap, his dependence. Were it not for the physical realities of blindness, he could have better evaded the social ones. The whole story radiates a bitterness about Taha's condition, an unhappiness with his prison constructed of physical and social limitations. Even the grammatical constructions are highly charged. The text states: "They forgot nothing in it but this blind

4o

B L I N D N E S S AND S O C I E T Y

brother of theirs"; and they discovered him after a "not short time." The irony in these constructions reflects on the entire condition of blindness. Thus the train incident combines and incarnates the two directions that the handicap took in the second volume: the dependence, and the conflicts between social and personal blindness. In the second volume, a different treatment of other blind individuals parallels this new development of the hero's blindness. The distancing of the protagonist from other blind individuals noted in the first volume relaxes, as a more positive attitude is taken toward the blind. For example, when we read about a blind shayhh in the Azhar, his various virtues are enumerated, including his sharp intelligence and his visible superiority (2:136). Alone, such descriptives are not overly significant. But when compared with the attitudes in the first volume, they mark a change in the status of blindness. This assessment of the shaykh stands like a lone positive in the generally negative associations with blindness in the second volume. Yet in the first volume, the negative descriptions of other blind individuals coexisted with a separation of the hero from these sightless individuals, whereas in the second volume, a clearer identification with the blind permits a more positive evaluation of them as individuals. This, in turn, suggests that the problems of blindness are inherent in conditions and not individuals. The second volume of al-Ayyam continues and strengthens the consciousness of blindness achieved in the first, using this awareness as the basis for the forceful presentation of the conflict between social and personal blindness. In a work of literature, conflict implies resolution. We shall see the degree to which such a resolution is achieved in the third volume.

THREE

BLINDNESS I I I ! RESOLUTION

T

volume of a I-Ayyam documents the hero's university life in Egypt and abroad. At its conclusion, he returns to teach at the new university in Cairo. Thus the volume contains two environments, the East and the West. The Eastern environment continues many of the same issues, and resolves some of the questions of social roles, formulated in the second volume. But when the protagonist traveled to Europe, he faced a different situation. New problems result from the different social roles and conceptions of blindness there. As we shall see, this is not simply a practical issue. It touches the hero personally and brings about a reworking of his identification with AbO al-'Ala' al-Ma'arrl. It is therefore only after Taha's return to Egypt, after his European experience, that we find a practical resolution of the conflicts mal-Ayydm. HE THIRD

BLINDNESS IN THE EAST

It should come as no surprise that in the blindness-related incidents that take place in Egypt, or before Taha's travels to Europe, we encounter echoes of the subjects present in the earlier volumes, or that the first of these incidents concerns eating. When the young man had to accept a prize from HwT Pasha, he was invited to a dinner party at the Pasha's house. The eating utensils were placed in front of him, and he had barely touched them when he was assailed with great fright (again dhu V). How would he use them? Would it not be better for him to simply sit in his place and not expose himself to ridicule and pity? (3:68). So he did not eat. This familiar reaction occurs because the protagonist is at someone else's table, not in his own environment where he eats by himself. Compounded with his usual aversion to eating in 41

42

B L I N D N E S S AND SOCIETY

public is the fear created by his ignorance of what to do with the utensils. Another echo in the first part of the third volume concerns dependence. We are told that the hero is led by the hand (3:23, 24, 65). But he becomes more dependent in the educational process itself as well. For example, he had a friend who met him in Littmann's classes and would write down what the Orientalist said. Later on, Taha would meet this friend alone, and they would review the lesson (3:54). The young man also had another friend who read to him the works of Abu al-'Ala' and who wrote down his dissertation on the blind poet as he dictated it (3:56).1 Thus Al-Ma'arri also reappears. The editor of the newspaper al-Jartda, Lutfi as-Sayyid, used to encourage our hero, telling him that he would be the Voltaire of Egypt.2 At other times, he would tell him: "You are our Abu al-'Ala " (3:22). Again there is an identification with Abu al-'Ala'; but this time made not by Taha himself, as in the first volume, but by a third party, extending the identification beyond the hero into a wider, social realm. Thinking about an unpleasant experience at the university, Taha ponders a line of poetry from al-Ma'arrl, stating that man cannot escape God's rule (3:32). It becomes clear that for him, as for alMa'arri, this means that he cannot escape his blindness. And, of course, by quoting the verse from the 'Abbasid poet, he reinforces the link between himself and his blind predecessor. Abu al-'Ala' was the subject of Taha's dissertation in Egypt, and his extensive study of the poet's works only deepened the identification. The young man becomes certain that "that life of Abu al'AIa was the life he had to live" (3:56). The part of the third volume concerned with Egypt also deals i. The dissertation was entitled "Dhikra AbI al-'Ala"' and was later published under the title Tajdld Dhikra Abial-'Ala'; see as-Sakkflt and Jones, Taha Husayn, p. 83, and for the text, Taha Husayn,al-Majmu'a al-Kamila, 10: 7-315· 2. Ahmad Lutfi as-Sayyid was one of the most important journalists and politicians between the wars. See, for example, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot,Egy/> III- > fifst person, 109110; Gertrude Stein's use of, 94; multiplicity of, in al-Ayyam, 98100; reader as involved party, 9899, 109; sighted narrator in al-

Ayyam, h i , 1 1 2 ; third-person narrative form, 12, 20, 93-94, 1 1 2 ; TH(c)'s name in text, 107-108; time references and, 177-78; Vedi compared to al-Ayyam, 116 narrator. See narrative voice neutral humor, 126 neutral writing, 1 1 7 ; definition, 1 1 5 non-visual humor. See blind humor occupations of blind people: Quran reciters, 19-20, 45, 77; teachers at the Azhar, 37, 45 Oedipus story: as an example of narrative voice, 100-102; identification of TH(c) with Oedipus, 29-31 onomastics: of blindness, 35-36; onomastic features of al-Ayyam, 105108, 1 1 1 - 1 2 Orientalists: Nallino's pronunciation, 82, 141; Santillana, 69, 138-39, ! 4 I _ 42; TH(c)'s relationship with, 69, 81-82 Le pacte autobiographique (Lejeune), 95 personal blindness, 15, 19-20, 27, 3 1 ; conflict between social blindness and, 2 1 - 2 3 , 3 1 , 32> 35-4°. 43. J 7 2 ; definition, 19, 35; resolution of TH(c)'s conflict with, 48, 55, 59, 64-65 Petit, Odette: Cahiers d'Etudes Arabes et Islamiques, 94n physical handicap of blindness, 17172. See also dependence of TH(c) poetry scanning anecdote: as source of humor, 130-32 power, 66-74. authority relationships of TH(c) praying voice, 127-29

INDEX prison: blindness as, 14-15; ignorance of French language as, 82-83; metaphor for TH(a)'s and TH(c)'s relationship with AbO al-'Ala', 83; metaphor for TH(c)'s relationship with Abu al-'Ala', 90 prolepses, 163, 173-75· See also analepses; chronological intrusions pronunciation. See linguistic problems Propp, Vladimir, 149 Proust, Marcel: A la recherche du temps perdu, 175, 177 Qahtr az-Zalam, 14 quest romance: al-Ayyam as, 89 Qur 'an: literary constructions echoed in al-Ayyam, 155-56, 165; references to the blind, 25, 155 Qur'an reciters, 19-20, 27, 45, 77; attitude of TH(c) toward, 25, 27; example of stylistic repetition, 16466; TH(c) as a reciter, 27, 38-39, 154 Qur'anic recitation: effectiveness of, 27; as example of narrative repetition, 153-54 Qur'anic repetition, 154-56 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (Nabokov), 89-90 rebirth of TH(c): acceptance by future wife and, 58; elimination of AbG al-'Ala' as role model, 54 A la recherche du temps perdu (Proust), !75. 177 repetition: as a humorous element, 129-32 repetition, narrative: death incidents, 148-53; distancing technique, 15052; eating incident as example,

I99

157-61; multiple narrative repetitions of an event that occurred once, 157-63; paradigmatic structure, 148; Qur'anic construction and, 154-56; Qur'anic recitation example, 153-54; syntagmatic structure, 148; tawr as an example of, 162; trinary structures, 160; types of, 147 repetition, stylistic: canal story, 16466; distancing effect, 167; food incidents as examples, 169-70; Qur'anic construction and, 165; reality of TH(c)'s handicap revealed by, 170-71; time references, 167-68 role of the blind. See social role of the blind role reversal: as humorous element, 133-35 as-Safadl: Na\t al-Himyan fi Nu\at al-'Umyan, 44, 64 Said, Edward, 9-ion, 154-55 Santillana (Orientalist): in the Azhar with TH(c), 69; as source of humor, 138-39 Sartre, Jean-Paul: Les mots, 95-96 as-Sayyid, Lutfl, 42, 54 Sayyiduna (blind teacher in the kuttab): TH(c)'s scorn toward, 25-26, 27, 66-67, 87 Schadenfreude: as a humorous element, 128, 131, 133. See also victimization secular university: authority relationships of TH(c) and, 69; Greek history class presentation of TH(c), 60-61; social blindness and, 45; student card episode, 43-45; TH(a) receives doctorate from, 7

200

INDEX

self-concept of TH(c), 22; dissocia­ tion from blind people, 25-27, 31; identification with AbO al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri, 23-25, 27, 30, 42, 52-54, 56-59, 159-61; identification with Oedipus, 29-31; need for equality with others, 33-34· See also social role of the blind senses used in writing. See blind writing sequence of narrative. See chronolog­ ical intrusions Shajarat al-Bu's (Husayn), 12 shameful implications of blindness, 32,56-57,88 ash-Shinqltl, Shay/φ, 132-33 Shuiskii, Sergei A., 96, 178η sister of TH(c), 28-29, 147 social blindness, 15, 19-20, 27, 31; conflict between personal blind­ ness and, 21-23, 3 1 ' 3 2 , 35"4°> 43' 172; conflict between tradition and modernity, 77; definition, 19, 35; resolution of TH(c)'s conflict with, 48, 55, 59, 61, 64-65; secular uni­ versity and, 45; society's attitude toward the blind, 19, 35-36. See also eating and blindness social role of the blind: Azharite teachers, 37, 45; as a conflict be­ tween tradition and modernity, 77; in Europe, 51-52, 57; intermediary with the deity, 28; Qur'an reciters, 19-20, 45, 77; TH(c) breaks away from, 45-48, 61-65, 78-79, 9°; TH(c)'s refusal to conform with, 35-37, i9, 77-78 Sorbonne. See France Soyinka, WoIe: Ake: The Years of Childhood, 14 Spea\ Memory (Nabokov), 14, 104

Stein, Gertrude: TAi? Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 94 story: definition, 144 student card episode, 43-45, 72 synchrony. See diachronic and syn­ chronic narrative units synecdoche: in blind rhetoric, 121-22

Taha Hussein Romancier (Francis), 4η, 94η, 99η Taj al-'Arus (az-Zabldi), 72 Tarbiyat Salama Musa (Musa), 11 tawr: example of narrative repetition, 162; related to time references, 183-84 temporal intrusions. See chronologi­ cal intrusions temporal references. See time refer­ ences terminology for blindness. See onomastics, of blindness textual development in al-Ayyam: conference on the blind, 63; educa­ tional career of TH(c), ending of, 71; elimination of al-Ma'arri as model for TH(c), 53; mobility and dependence problems, 57-58; movement from East to West, 75; psychological relationship of TH(c) with blindness, 56; rebirth of TH(c), 54, 58-59; representation of blindness, 22, 31, 32; revelation of TH(c)'s blindness, 22, 28-29, 147; thematic nature of, 21; tradi­ tion vs. modernity, 75. See also chronological intrusions ath-Tha'alibl: on eating and blind­ ness, 25 Tharwat, 'Abd al-Khaliq, 60, 61. See also geography lesson incident

INDEX third-person narrative form. See nar­ rative voice time references: diachronic and syn­ chronic narrative units, 179-83; as example of stylistic repetition, 16768; relationship between narrator and narrative process, 177-78; specificity and frequency, 175-78; tawr in relation to, 183-84. See also analepses; chronological intru­ sions; prolepses Todorov, Tzvetan, 13 touch: in blind writing, 117-18, 120-

201

victimization: as humorous element, 139. See also Schadenfreude village of TH(c): contrasted with Cairo, 34; TH(c)'s family moves from, 35, 38-40 visual humor, 125-26 visual writing, 116-17; definition, 115 voices, 108, 120; synecdochal nature of, 121-22; of TH(c)'s future wife, 52-54 voleur/vole syndrome, in humor, 13334 Voltaire of Egypt, TH(c) as, 42, 79

21

tradition vs. modernity: Azhar com­ pared to secular university, 78-79; as cause of TH(c)'s blindness, 7576; humor directed against tradi­ tion, 137, 139-41; modernity's at­ traction for TH(c), 77; textual de­ velopment of, 75; women associated with tradition, 76-77. See aho East vs. West train incident: as example of stylistic repetition, 169; as illustration of TH(c)'s dependence, 37-40; narra­ tive sequence of, 144-45

Wasfl, Huda, 30η, 119η West. See East vs. West wifeofTH(a), 7 -8 wife of TH(c): acceptance of TH(c) by, 58; assists TH(c) with Greek geography, 60-61; becomes eyes of TH(c), 54; defined in opposition to Eastern culture, 80-81; as a voice, 5 2 '54 Wilde, Oscar, 94η The Woman Warrior (Hong King­ ston), 14 women: associated with tradition, 76-

travel difficulties: on ship to Europe, 48-49; steamship ticket to Europe, 52, 72; storm incident, as source of humor, 126

77 writing. See blind writing; neutral writing; visual writing

tnnary structures mal-Ayyam, 13, 160

az-Zabldl: Taj al-'Arus, 72 Zakl, Ahmad: conference on the blind and, 61-64; Dictionnaire des aveugles illustres de !'Orient, 45; edi­ tor oiNa\t al-Himyan ft Nu\at al'Umydn, 44; student card episode and TH(c), 43-44 Zaynab (Haykal): first Arabic novel,

university at Cairo. See secular uni­ versity Vedt (Mehta), 105, 116; as blind writ­ ing, 113-14, 116 verbal humor. See blind humor

Library of Congress Cataloging-tn-Pubhcation Data Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Blindness & autobiography : Al-Ayyam of Taha Husayn / Fedwa Malti-Douglas. p. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. I S B N 0-691-06733-3 (alk. paper) 1. Husayn, Taha, 1889-1973. Ayyam. 2. Husayn, Taha, 18891973—Criticism and interpretation. 3. Blindness in literature. 4. Blindness—Psychological aspects. I. Title. II. Title: Blindness and autobiography. PJ7832.U7125Z46335 1988 892'.78509—dci 9 87-29095

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