the arab 'cultural awakening (nahda)

The Arab 'Cultural Awakening (Nahḍa)', 1870-1950, and the Classical TraditionAuthor(s): Peter E. PormannSource: International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Summer, 2006), pp. 3-20Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30222102 .

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The Arab 'Cultural Awakening (Nahda)', 1870-1950, and the Classical Tradition1

PETER E. PORMANN

Praesidi Sociisque Collegii Corporis Christi in Academia Oxoniensi

The Classical Tradition is often studied from a Eurocentric point of view. The present article argues that the Arab world is as much heir to the legacy of Greece as the 'West'. It does so by focusing on the reception of Classical Antiquity during the so-called Arabic 'Cultural Awakening' (Nahda), 1870-1950. It investigates more specifically 1) how Greek epic and dramatic poetry, which had not been part of the versions produced during the great translation movement in eighth- to tenth-century Baghdad, was rendered into Arabic; 2) how Greek drama inspired Arabic playwrights, with Taufiq al-Hakim urging his fellow countrymen to engage with the Classical heritage; and 3) how the greatest Arab intellectual of the twentieth century Taha IHusain, fought for Greek and Latin teaching in schools and university.

When defending the study of classical languages, literature, and civilisation, one often invokes the argument, at least outside academia, that 'our' Western culture is

firmly rooted in the Graeco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian traditions. Studying classics means discovering 'our own' history and heritage, thereby bringing us closer to ourselves. This question of cultural identity has wider repercussions and impinges on cur- rent political debates such as that about whether or not Turkey should be allowed to join the European Union. Some argue that an Islamic country cannot be part of Europe, since it does not share in the classical tradition which greatly helped to shape Western culture. Europe, so to speak, is construed as the heir of the two traditions just mentioned to the exclusion of the other, in this case that of Islamic Turkey.2 To be sure, the ancient Greeks

1. The original idea for this article was sparked by my reading J6rg Kraemer's book on cultural history (see below n. 10) as an undergraduate, and rekindled following conversations with Melinda Powers after a long and boozy night during which we enjoyed the pleasures of Mer- ton's High Table. It has profited immensely from the comments of colleagues and friends who read earlier drafts, namely Stephen Harrison, Melinda Powers, Simon Swain, and Oliver Ta- plin, as well as the editor of this journal and an anonymous referee. I would like to express my profound gratitude to all of them. This article is dedicated to the President and Fellows of Cor- pus Christi College, Oxford, who made me a member of their Senior Common Room during the academic year 2004-5, as a small token of my appreciation for their kindness.

2. An interesting and refreshing example both for the study of Classics explaining 'our' (Euro- pean) identity, but against the notion that Turkey does not belong to Europe is Boris Johnson's recent book The Dream of Rome (London: HarperCollins, 2006), based on a BBC documentary with the same title.

International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 13, No. 1, Summer 2006, pp. 3-20.



4 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / Summer 2006

already endeavoured to demarcate themselves from the construed other, the 'barbarians', but they did not have recourse to the notion of a European identity.3

This idea that the Greeks are 'our' Greeks, that there is a special link between Greek culture and Europe, is still prevalent in the study of the classical tradition. Survey courses of Western Culture have even been dubbed 'From Plato to NATO', thus suggesting a di- rect link between the Greek past and the European-or, in this case, North-American/ European-present.4 The influence of Greek thought is not, however, limited to Europe or the West. In a recent article, Robert Wisnovsky has argued that one could equally well speak of a tradition 'from Aristi to 'Abdt'-that is to say from Aristotle, called Arist in Arabic, to the great Egyptian reformer Muhammad 'Abdi (1849-1904)-because Greek thought influenced Arabo-Islamic philosophy not only in the Middle Ages, but has continued to do so until today.5

The present paper proposes to look at the influence of classical ideas on the so-called nahda (literally 'awakening'), the cultural and intellectual resurgence between 1870 and 1950 in Egypt and other Arab countries. This cultural revival coincided with political movements calling for an end to colonial tutelage, for social reforms, the liberation of women, and so on.6 The focus here will be on certain intellectual developments, which, to be sure, did not occur in a vacuum, namely 1) the translation of classical Greek poetry into Arabic; 2) the reception of Greek drama in the Arab world; and 3) Tihl H.usain's programme to add Latin and Greek to the curriculum of secondary and tertiary education in Egypt. These three examples will illustrate that the influence of the classical tradition transcends the confines of 'Europe' and 'European' culture even in the modern era.

1. Graeco-Arabic Translations

It is a well-known fact that virtually all scientific, medical and philosophical works available in late antique Alexandria were translated into Arabic in ninth- and tenth-century Baghdad.7 The Greek texts which became available in Arabic through the efforts of trans-

3. Cf. E. Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-definition through Tragedy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); G. Strohmaier, 'Die Griechen waren keine Europier', in: Politica Litteraria: Festschrift far Horst Heintze zum 75. Gerburtstag, ed. E. H6fner, F. P. Weber (Glienicke/Cam- bridge, Mass.: Galda + Wilch Verlag, 1998), 198-206; repr. in G. Strohmaier, Hellas im Islam, Diskurse der Arabistik 6 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), 1--6. See also A. Botros (ed.), Der Nahe Osten--ein Teil Europas? Reflektionen zu Raum- und Kulturkonzeptionen im modernen Nahen Osten, Ex Oriente Lux 6 (Wiirzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2006).

4. For a critique of this vision, see David Gress, From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents (New York: Free Press, 1998).

5. Robert Wisnovsky, 'The Nature and Scope of Arabic Philosophical Commentary in Post-classical (ca. 1100-1900 AD) Islamic Intellectual History: Some Preliminary Observations', in P. Adam- son, H. Baltussen, and M. W. F. Stone (eds.), Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, Supplement to the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 83/1-2, 2 vols. (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2004), ii. 149-91.

6. For a historical context of the literary trends described here, see the excellent introduction by J. L. Gelvin, The Modem Middle East: A History (New York, N.Y.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

7. Cf. D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (London: Routledge, 1997).



Pormann 5

lators provided the foundations not only for Arabic medicine, philosophy, mathematics, mechanics and other sciences, but also had an impact on Arabic philology and poetry, as well as on Islamic theology (kaltim) and jurisprudence (jiqh).8 There were, however, certain texts which were never translated. For instance, prose authors such as Thucydides and Demosthenes were known in medieval Islam only by name, and most Greek poetry, whether epic, dramatic or other, remained untranslated and hence unread. An exception is Menander's sententiae or monostichoi, which were gathered together in different collec- tions and sometimes circulated under the name of Homer.9 During the nahda, this situation changed. As Jorg Kraemer has persuasively argued, authors such as Sulaimin al- Bustini (1856-1921) and Tihai Husain (1889-1973) felt the need to translate some of those Greek works not yet available in Arabic in order to foster the cultural revival.10 They did so with astounding success.

Sulaimin al-Bustani was a writer and politician hailing from a famous Lebanese family. His father Butrus (1819-83) was the instigator and editor-in-chief of the first modern Arabic Encyclopaedia," for which Sulaimin wrote a number of entries at different times of his life. Sulaiman's greatest contribution to Arabic letters, however, is his translation of the Iliad into Arabic, published by the Crescent Press (Matba'at al-Hilal) of Cairo in 1904.12 It is a relatively large (27 cm x 18 cm) volume of 1260 pages, containing, as its long title suggests, an introduction (pp. 5-200), the translation of Books 1-24 (pp. 201- 1151), and glossaries and indices (pp. 1153-1260). As al-Bustani himself explains in his preface, he decided to render the Iliad into Arabic verse, but was naturally faced with a

8. Cf. e.g. P. E. Pormann, E. Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, New Edinburgh Islamic Sur- veys (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007) [in press]; P. Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus (Duckworth: London, 2002); R. Rashed, R. Morelon, Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science (London: Routledge, 1996); K. Versteegh, Greek Elements in Arabic Linguistic Thinking, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1977); W. Heinrichs, Arabische Dichtung und griechische Poetik, Beiruter Texte und Studien 8 (Beirut, Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1969); J. van Ess, 60 Years after: Shlomo Pines's Beitriige and Half a Century of Research on Atomism and Islamic The- ology, Proceedings Akademyah ha-leumit ha-Yisraelit le-madaim 8.2 (Jerusalem: Israel Acad- emy of Sciences and Humanities, 2002). P. Bruns (ed.), Von Athen nach Bagdad: Zur Rezeption griechischer Philosophie von der Spiatantike bis zum Islam, Hereditas: Studien zur Alten Kirchen- geschichte 22 (Bonn: Borengisser, 2003), states: 'Die mittelalterliche Kultur der islamischen Welt ist jedenfalls ohne die durch das Christentum weitervermittelte griechische Philosophie undenkbar, dies gilt etwa ganz speziell fiir Staatstheorien wie auch den Einflufi der aristotelischen Philosophie auf die arabische Literatur and Theologie insgesamt.'

9. Cf. M. Ullmann, Die arabische Uiberlieferung der sogenannten Menander-Sentenzen, Abhandlungen fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes 34.1 (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1961); J. Kraemer, 'Arabische Homerverse', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenliindischen Gesellschaft 106 (1956) 259-316.

10. J. Kraemer, Das Problem der Islamischen Kulturgeschichte (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1959), 3-4.

11. Kitab da'irat al-ma'arif(Beirut: Matba'at al-ma'airif, 1876-1900). 12. Iliydat Hamrras, mu'arraba nazman wa-'alaiha Sarh ta'rihi adabi wa-hiya musaddara bi-muqaddima

ft Hamrras wa-Si'rihf wa-adab al-Yainan wa-l-'Arab wa-mudayyala bi-mu'~am 'amm wa-faharis (Homer's Iliad, translated into Arabic verse, with a historical and literary commentary; pref- aced with an introduction on Homer and his poetry, as well as the literature of the Greeks and the Arabs; and appended to it are a general lexicon and indices) (Cairo: Matba'at al-Hilal, 1904). Cf. M. Kreuz, 'Sulayman Al-BustanI's Arabische Ilias: Ein Beispiel fir Arabischen Phil- hellenismus im ausgehenden Osmanischen Reich', Die Welt des Islams 44 (2004) 155-94.




number of difficulties.'3 The greatest one is certainly the difference between Greek and Arabic metre. Like its Greek counterpart, Arabic metre is quantitative: a fixed sequence of short and long syllables constitutes each verse. However, it also requires the end of each verse (and sometimes in the case of the first verse, the end of each hemistich) to rhyme. Thus, what the Arabs call dararat aS-fi'r (metrical constraint) weighed heavily on him. Moreover, he had to arabise many of the Greek names, and transpose Greek poetic codes and conventions into Arabic. In order to illustrate how he approached these problems, let us look at his first three verses14:

Rabbata S-fi'ri 'an Ahtla bni Fila an'idina wa-rwr htida'man wabrla dka kaidun 'amma I-Aha'a balhha fa-kiramu n-nufasi alfat ufafla li-AdIsin unfidna munhadiratin wa-fara t-tairu wa-l-kilabu l-quyIla. Mistress of poetry, about Ahil, son of Filia, recite verses for us, and tell the burning wrath, disastrous.

This was a deceit [kaid], whose decay pervaded the Ahji'; then the noble souls found their descent.

To Adis they were conveyed, sinking down, while the birds and dogs cut the chiefs to pieces.

These three verses translate the first four and a half lines of the Iliad:

Milvtv Q6LE 8ad fnhk'idbweO 'AXXliog oihoplavrlyv, vpi' 'AXcatoig dkye' A'1KE

noXcdg; 6' i~08lioug puXv4g 'Ai'6t spotia ev ipWcWv, aczoig & SO)kptLa TeXE8 K0VEOOLV oWvoiol re CcOLt,...

These first three verses, as well as the next fifteen, are composed in the metre called hafif (literally 'the light (or nimble) one'), characterized by a sequence of what one might call iambic (v-v-) and trochaic (-v-v) elements.s'5 The rhyme (qdfiya) is -I, occurring in the first verse at the end of the first and second hemistich, and then at the end of each line. We see that Achilles becomes Ahfl, Peleus Ftla (maybe in order to rhyme with wabila), the Achaeans Aha' and Hades Adis. The names are thus converted into Arabised forms in which a certain influence of Modern Greek cannot be denied. In the notes to his translation, al-Bustani justifies his translation and explains the historical context, as well as the literary techniques and traditions. For instance, the first verse requires more than one page of notes. To illustrate the great care in all matters of arabisation and interpretation which al-Bustani takes, it is useful to translate part of his long note16:

[1] ihtidam wabil ('burning wrath, disastrous') means strong, inauspicious anger (gadab fadTd ma'Sin). [2] The poet begins by asking the goddess (Oea [sic in

13. ibid. pp. 77-89. 14. ibid. pp. 203-4. These verses have previously been discussed by Kadhim Jihad [Kazim Gi-

had], 'Al-Bustini, traducteur de I'lliade', Revue d'ltudes Palestiniennes 56 (ito 1995), 79-100, on pp. 89-90.

15. See W. Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, 2 vols. (3rd ed., Cambridge, 1896), ii. 367-8

(a 221). 16. al-Bustani, Iliyadat Hamiras (as in n. 12), pp. 203-4; in square brackets some explanations and

paragraph numbers are added for discussion's sake.



Pormann 7

Greek letters]) to recite verse; he refers to the goddess of poetry and genius. [3] He [sc. Homer] builds his poem on the fact that Achilles, son of Peleus, the bravest of all heroes, is deceived [kaid].

[4] The Greeks, in their 'Period of Ignorance (gahilfya)' [i.e. when they were pagans], worshipped piously and believed faithfully, so that they were inclined to solicit the help of their gods in any undertaking, and adhered strictly to prophecy and augury. For this reason the poet begins by asking the 'Mistress of Poetry (Rabbat aS-Ai'r)' for help, so that the spirit [rlah] of versification (nazm) and recitation (infad) be sent into him; however, he goes beyond this by making her recite poetry herself, as if she were owed the distinction [of having composed the poem], while he [sc. Homer] is only the transmitter who dictates what he has learnt from her overflowing spirit [faid rtzhiha]. We have here the utmost piety and the soundest faith. [...]. [5] Other Greek and Roman poets during the 'Period of Ignorance (gahilrya)' followed Homer's example, especially in their long epic poems such as the great Latin poet Virgil, who said: "Musa, mihi causas memora [in Latin letters; Aen. 1.8]". [. ..] [6] Similarly, [Torquato] Tasso said in the opening of his poem: "O Musa, tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori [in Latin letters; Gerusalemme Liberata, 1.1 and 8]", as does the English poet Milton in Paradise Lost: "Sing heavenly Muse". Both [poets] ask the mistress of songs [rabbat al-

agantr] to recite verse, and they address her as the heavenly reciter of verse, and so on.

[7] The Arabs, on the other hand, did not flatter the objects of their [sc. the Arabs'] worship, nor the female demons [ginniytt] of the poetry who, in their [sc. the Arabs'] opinion, gave them prophesies. [. . .]

The commentary first ([1]) deals with questions of translation and comprehension. The Arabic term ihtidi7m (literally: 'burning; being consumed by fire') in the sense of 'burning wrath' is relatively recherch6, and therefore needs explanation. He then goes on to explain who the 'Mistress of poetry (Rabbat al-Ai'r)' is ([2]). The slightly elliptical remark that Homer's epic is built on a kaid (deceit) refers to his being tricked out of the posses- sion of Briseis and hence angered ([3]).17 In the next paragraph ([4]), al-Bustini praises the Greeks for their piety, which explains why Homer invokes the goddess here, when beginning his poem. It is remarkable that al-Bustni;refers to the period of Greek pagan- ism as ahilrya, a term normally denoting more specifically pre-Islamic times, when the Arabs were still ignorant of Islam. There is some debate about what the term g,ahiltya originally meant, but it was generally understood as 'period of ignorance' from the eighth century onwards.18 In paragraph [7], al-Bustini contrasts the g;7hiltya of the Greeks with that of the Arabs, and this he does throughout his preface and notes. He also points out some parallels to Homer's opening in Greek and Roman literature, notably by quoting from Virgil's Aeneid ([5]), and later European literature in Italian (Tasso) and English (Milton) ([6]).

17. Kadhim Jihad, who also discusses these lines ('Al-Bustani traducteur' [as in n. 14], pp. 89-90), translates both ihtidam and kaid as 'col~re', but that is not really the meaning of the latter; see M. Ullmann, Widrterbuch der Klassischen Arabischen Sprache (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1957 ff.), s.v., i. 484b9-486a4.

18. Cf. B. Lewis et al., art. 'djahiliyya', Encyclopaedia of Islam, 11 vols. (2nd ed., Leiden etc.: Brill, 1960-2002), ii. 383-4.




Andras Hamori has discussed the quality of al-Bustani's translation with special reference to the sixth book,19 which is, according to one Arab critic, 'the most profound song of the Iliad, making the greatest impression on the soul, especially since it contains the description of the scene of Hector taking leave from his faithful wife Andromache and his only son'.20 He comes to the conclusion that al-Bust~ni often fails to render all the sub- tleties and poetic expressions of the Greek original into Arabic. For instance, stock phrases such as nera atEp6Evra atpooqiba6 ('he uttered winged words') are simply rendered as qula ('he said'). Likewise, al-Bustani employed Arabic cliches, which again, according to Hamori, do not convey the exact meaning of the original. Such criticism is certainly cor- rect, in the sense that al-Bustan1, operating under the constraints of metre, rhyme and Ara- bic diction, departs somewhat from his source. But what else could he have done? Any translation, especially one in verse, will have to transpose the text from one culture to another, and therefore have to compromise.21 Another critic of al-Bust~rni's translation is Kadhim Jihad, who, unlike Hamori, compared the Arabic translation not with the Greek original, but with a number of French translations.22 He rebukes al-Bustani for his often obscure vocabulary. In the case of ihtidam wabrl ('burning wrath, disastrous'), ufil ('descent'),fard ('cut to pieces') and quyal ('chiefs'), the diction is archaic and in need of explanation, provided in the notes.23 Kadhim Jihad makes these points, however, not to deni- grate al-Bustani--whom he admires greatly-, but rather to arrive at a better theory of verse translation. A poet himself, Jihad concludes his article by saying24:

Ce qui est manqud enfin dans ces traductions arabes des tpopies homdriques est, a notre sens, une occasion de fertiliser la langue et la podsie arabes par un <retour> radical (<retour amont>, dirait Char) ? une ancienne oeuvre universelle.

What is missed in these translations of Homer [sc. by al-Bustani and al- Halidi],25 in our view, is the opportunity to fertilise the Arab language and poetry by a radical 'return' (a 'return uphill', as [Ren6] Char would say) to an ancient and universal work.

19. Andras Hamori, 'Reality and Convention in Book Six of Bustani's "Iliad"', Journal of Semitic Studies 23 (1978), 95-101.

20. Mila'l Sawaya, Sulaiman al-Bustani: Ilivysdat Hiinmras (Sulaiman al-BustanI: the Iliad of Homer) (Beirut: Maktabat Sadir, n.d.), 86.

21. Cf. Lorna Hardwick, Translating Words, Translating Cultures (London: Duckworth, 2000). 22. 'Al-Bustmni traducteur' (as in n. 14), p. 88, he says: 'En comparant entre la traduction de L'Iliade

par al-Bustani et celle faite en frangais par Fridiric Mugler [Hombre, L'lliade (6d. La Diff6rence: Paris, 1989)], c'est-&-dire en prenant la dernikre comme traduction pilote, faute d'avoir accks a l'original grec (procidd dont nous avons signald, dans l'introduction de cette thise, les avantages et les limites et qui doit servir plutat de moyen de comparaison entre une traduction frangaise, prdfirie i~ d'autres traductions dans la mme langue pour ses qualitis poftiques, et la traduction arabe en question), nous pourrons avoir une idie de la pottique mobilisle par le traducteur libanais [sc. al-Bustani] et de la pro- ximitM ou non de son travail avec la texture rdelle de l'dpople.' His thesis, referred to here, from which his article is an extract, is entitled: 'La traduction po6tique chez les Arabes, XIXe et XXe si&cles: essai de podtique comparde', thbse de doctorat, Universit6 de la Sorbonne-Paris IV, D6partement d'dtudes arabes et islamiques (Paris, 1995).

23. 'Al-Bust~ni traducteur' (as in n. 14), pp. 89-90; see the notes in al-Bustanm, Iliyadat Haimtras (as in n. 12), e.g. p. 204, n. 2: 'quyal are leaders (zu'ama') and heroes (abtal)'.

24. Jihad, 'Al-Busti~ni traducteur' (as in n. 14), p. 99. 25. 'Anbara Salam al-Halidi, al-Iliyada (The Iliad) (Beirut: Dar al-'ilm li-l-malayin, 1979); id., Udtsa

(Odyssey) (Jerusalem: Maktabat Bait al-Muqaddas, 1980).



Pormann 9

This vision of Homer as a universal source capable of enriching different literatures and languages through translation is a point to which we shall return at the end of the article (below, p. 20). That Bustani's Iliad inspired interest and enjoyed popularity in the Arabic-speaking world is illustrated by the fact that it saw a number of reprints, and that Arabic scholars studied it closely. Joseph al-Haim, for instance, published a mono- graph entitled Sulaiman al-Bustant and the Iliad in 1956, in which he discusses al-Bustani's life and work, with special reference to his translation of the Iliad;26 and Mih'l1 Sawaya, already quoted above, devoted a book to the same subject.27 Both are full of admiration for al-Bustani's erudition and poetic qualities. Not only did al-Bustain immerse himself in scholarship about Homer and Greek poetry in general, as they recognise, but he also devoted a considerable amount of time to researching his own poetic tradition, the odes of Pre-Islamic Arabia, which were to serve as an inspiration for his verse. Moreover, he discusses some issues which were the concerns of his day; for example he compares the situation of women in the Iliad with that of the women in pre-Islamic Arabia, as al- H&im pointed out.28

Another translator of Greek verse during the nahda was Taha Husain, probably the most famous Arab intellectual of the twentieth century. Born into a family of modest means as the seventh child of thirteen and blinded at the age of two, he was sent to an Is- lamic school (kuttab), where he learnt the Qur'an by heart. Later he entered al-Azhar Uni- versity in Cairo, which then provided an extremely traditional education. Disappointed by its conservatism, he left to enroll in the newly founded secular University of Cairo, from which he was the first person to receive a doctorate. After studies at the Sorbonne where he obtained yet another doctorate, he returned home to take up the chair of Arabic literature at the University of Cairo. In 1926 he published a book on Pre-Islamic poetry (FT S-Si'r al-gahilr). In it he applied the methods of historical source criticism, which he had learnt in Paris, to the odes of Arabia allegedly composed in the so-called 'Time of Ignorance (gahiltya)'. He argued that many of the poems contained in anthologies and Qur'anic commentaries dating from the mid-eighth century onwards were in fact fabri- cations of later times, invented to explain certain verses of the Muslim Holy Writ. This stance won him little favour in the more conservative quarters of society, which declared him an apostate. Despite these trials and tribulations, he continued to write and teach, and, in 1950, even became Minister of Education for the short period of two years.

Taha H.usain fervently believed in the need of Arabo-Islamic culture to reform by adopting and adapting Western culture, and by creating its own form of modernity. For him, this meant embracing a pan-Mediterranean culture, to which Egypt, as well as Greece and Rome, belonged. He insisted that the Egyptian mind ('aql, better rendered by German Geist) is not Eastern, but linked to that of the Greeks. In his influential book The Science of Education, he puts it in the following terms29:

Therefore, the ancient Egyptian mind is not Eastern, if one understands by 'the East' China, Japan, India, and other adjacent regions. The origin of the Egyptian

26. ~Czif al-HSim, Sulaiman al-Bustanr wa-l-Iliyada (2nd ed., Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnani, 1960). 27. See above, n. 20. 28. Cf. al-Halim, Sulaiman al-Bustanl wa-l-Iliyada (as in n. 26), 104-6. 29. Taha Husain, 'Ilm at-tarbrya (The Science of Education), al-maoama'a al-kamila li-mu'allafat ad-duktar

Tnha Husain (The Complete Collected Works of Dr T.ahaHusain), 16 vols (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al- Lubn~an, 1970-4), vol. 9; here, p. 24.




mind is in Egypt, yet influenced by natural and human conditions which sur- rounded it and helped shape it, so that it grew and developed, influencing other neighbouring peoples, and being influenced by them. The people who were first most influenced by the Egyptian mind, and then most influenced it, were the Greeks.

He therefore claimed Greek culture to be intimately linked to his own. We shall see in the last section of this contribution that he wanted to introduce Greek and Latin into the school and university curriculum, but first, let us look more closely at his efforts to bring those parts of Greek literature which had not been translated into Arabic in the ninth and tenth centuries closer to his fellow countrymen.

Thha Husain had studied Greek and Latin while in Paris. He translated all but one of Sophocles' extant plays, namely Electra, Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Philoctetes.30 To what extent he based his translations on the Greek original, and what commentaries or other versions he used, is a question which would merit further research. His concern with Greek drama, however, was not limited to Greek sources. He also translated a number of French plays, dealing with Greek mythological subjects such as Racine's Andromaque or Andr6 Gide's CEdipe and Thisle.31 He was moved to un- dertake the translation of the latter two plays after Gide had read them to him person- ally.32 His approach to translation is radically different from that adopted by al-BustanT. Whilst the latter used Arabic verse to express the meaning of the original, and supplied copious notes touching both historical and literary problems, Taha Husain is content with letting the text speak for itself. His only additions consist in minimal stage directions, which are obviously not based on the Greek source.33 Moreover, unlike al-Bust~ni, he uses prose, not verse, to convey the meaning of his source text. Let us look more closely at the beginning of the Antigone34:

Ayyatuha l-'azlzatu Ismrna, ayyatuha l-uhtu l-'azizatu ta'rifina 'adadal-alami wa-miqdara S-Aaqs'i Iladr auratanshu Uwrdfbasu wa-llad_ arada Zitsu an yungisa bihr .hayatana kullaha.

30. Min al-adab at-tamtrlf al-Yanant: Safiakirs (From Greek Drama: Sophocles), ibid., vol. 15, pp. 5- 290: Electra pp. 7-55; Ajax pp. 57-101; Antigone pp. 103-141; pp. Oedipus the King 143-194; Oedi- pus at Colonus pp. 195-250; Philoctetes pp. 251-290. He did not translate the Trachiniae for reasons which remain to be explored.

31. Racine, Andromaque, ibid., vol. 15, pp. 291-348; Gide, CEdipe, Thiske, ibid., pp. 451-574. 32. In his dedicatory letter to Gide, Taha Husain says: 'Mon Cher Andre Gide, / Pour vous avoir en-

tendu nous lire <CEdipe>> et <Thisle> je sais la particulibre tendresse que vous avez pour eux. / C'est pourquoi je leur appris l'arabe, afin qu'ils puissent aux lecteurs de l'Orient dire votre message, qui est confiance, courage, strcnitt. / Ils timoigneront aussi de cette grande admiration que j'ai pour vous, et qui, depuis notre rencontre, est devenue une si priciouse amitil / Taha Hussein / Le Caire, le 7 Octobre 1946', ibid. p. 453.

33. E.g. in Antigone, p. 105 (beginning): 'City of Thebes at sunset, in front of Creon's palace'; p. 111 (first appearance of the watchman, v. 223): 'a watchman, apparently confused, begins to speak after a long wavering'; p. 121 (before the second stasimon, v. 582): 'The servant leaves together with the two girls [sc. Antigone and Ismene]'; p. 122 (after the second stasimon, v. 626): 'Haemon enters from the middle door'; etc. These stage directions may provide an indication as to what secondary sources or translation Taha Husain may have used.

34. ibid.,p. 105.



Pormann 11

O beloved Ismins, oh beloved sister, Do you know the number of pains and the quantity of suffering which UwTdibls has bequeathed to us and with which Zis wants to spoil all our life.

Translating:

Q2 KOLVVb autid6X.ov

'IOfrv1T~l Kdpa, &p' 6o0' 6 t ZEi;g r6iv en' Ot&loou KCLK6V- a,

OcOov oiX Vov xt lOtWoLV teEt;

One feature of Taha Husain's style emerges immediately: the simplicity with which he renders complex Greek diction. For instance, the highly poetic expression 'KOLVbv ai6db&Eh ov 'Ioalt0vg Kdpa (literally: 'common, same-sisterly head of Ismene')', which Antigone uses, is put into a much more prosaic form: 'Ayyatuha l-'azfzatu Ismmn, ayyatuha l-uhtu l-'azrzatu (literally: 'Oh beloved Ismene, oh beloved sister')'. The image of the 'head (Kdpa)' is lacking, as is that of their bond (KOLv6v). He repeats the fairly common word 'azzza (beloved) twice, and arrives at a slightly more solemn tone by introducing the vocative with ayyatuha (oh), more formal than the normal yd (oh). This relatively free rendering which aims at comprehensibility and simplicity of expression is also visible in another famous passage, the beginning of the first stasimon35:

laqad mali'a l-'alamu bi-l-mu'gizsti wa-lakin l aaadda i'~azan mina l-insani

Truly, the world is full of miracles, but there is nothing more miraculous than man.

noXd Qd ew~Ld KOGibv dv- OpwiTou elv6TEpov T~XEL

First, Taha H.usain introduces the idea of the 'world being full (mali'a l-'alamu)', where the Greek merely has 'many are the ...'. His translation of &elv6g, a notoriously difficult term, is likewise quite interesting. It is rendered as mu'gizat (plural of mu'fiza), literally meaning 'miracles', but also related to the word i'az, a technical term to denote the inim- itable style of the Qur'in. This is important because for any speaker of Arabic, the terms mu'giza and i'faz used here would evoke a notion of something divine beyond the power of man. If therefore the chorus says that there is nothing afadda i'gazan (more extreme in i'gtaz) than man, then the conveyed meaning is extremely strong.

The two short passages make one thing plain: Taha Husain aims at producing a translation devoid of archaisms and highly poetical vocabulary, a translation which can easily be understood by the average Arabic reader or spectator. In this he might have been influenced by certain literary tendencies of the time in France; Privert, for example, who, despite his surrealism, used every-day language in his poetry, influenced Arabic writers such as Mahmtid Darwin. These stylistic preferences go hand in hand with the desire to let the text speak for itself, and are radically different from those of al-Bustani. Yet Taha Husain was by no means the only writer with an interest in Greek drama. On the contrary,

35. ibid., p. 114, corresponding to vv. 332-3.




the burgeoning Arabic theatre of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century produced many plays drawing on Greek and, to a lesser extent, Roman classical texts.

2. Arabic Drama and the Classical Tradition

A perusal of the List of Plays in Arabic or Translated into Arabic in the National Library in Cairo, published in 1960, shows that some are based on Greek myth, including":

Telemachus, by Sa'd Allah al-Bustani, Cairo, 1897.37 Andromache. A Stage Drama, by Adib Ishaiq, Cairo, 1898.38 The Downfall of Cleopatra, by AhImad Sauqi [1868-1932], Cairo, 1932.39 Pygmalion, by Taufiq Hakim [1898-1987], Cairo, 1944.40 Oedipus the King, by Taufiq Hakim [1898-1987], Cairo, 1949.41 The Tragedy of Oedipus. A New Staging of Sophocles' Immortal Play, by Ahmad B~ikatir [1910-69], Cairo, 1949.42

To be sure, they are all Cairo printings, some of which came out after the play in question was originally performed or published, but they show that classical subjects enjoyed some fame and favour in the late 1890s and 1930s and 1940s. They also allow us to make a number of points about the influence of the classical tradition on Arabic dramatic writ- ing. Space does not allow a detailed discussion of the various plays based on classical themes, or a sophisticated analysis of sources on which the authors drew, whether in the original or in translation; it is, however, worth highlighting a number of salient features and individuals. For this purpose, two studies by Arab critics are particularly useful: the first entitled Myth in Contemporary Egyptian Theatre 1933-1970---Book One: Mythological Sources in Theatre43 and the second Greek, European and Arabic Theatrical Attempts: From [MMaran] an-NaqqaS [(1817-55] to [Taufq] al-HIakrm.44

36. DAr al-Kutub, Qism al-IruAd (National Library [of Egypt], Information Department), Qa'ima 'an at-tamtilTynt al-'arabtya wa-l-mu'arraba (A List of Plays in Arabic or Translated into Arabic) (Cairo: Matba'at Dar al-kutub al-Misriya, 1960).

37. Tilrmak ta'lrfSa'd Allah al-Bustantl (Cairo: Matba'a Hindiya, 1897). This member of the al-Bustani family could not be traced. This is most likely a misprint, and the name should read 'Abd Allah al-Bustani (1854-1930); cf. J. Abdel-Nour, art. 'al-Bustani', EI2 (as in n. 18), supplement p. 159.

38. Andramak-riwaya tagthrsTya, ta'lIf Adib Ishhaq (Cairo: Matba'at Salm, 1898). 39. Masra' Klfyabatra ta'lifAh.mad auqi (Cairo: Matba'at Misr, 1932). 40. Bigmaliyan ta'lijf Taufiq H.akrm (Cairo: Matba'at at-Tawakkul, 1944). 41. AI-Malik ldrb, ta'lf Tauftq al-H.akim (Cairo: al-Matba'a an-Namdagriya, 1949). English transla-

tion by William M. Hutchins, Plays, Prefaces, & Postscripts of Tawfiq al-Hakim, 2 vols., UNESCO Collection of Representative Works: Contemporary Arab Authors Series (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1981-84), pp. 81-129.

42. Ma'sat Udrb,'arad gadrd li-tamlrltyat Safaklts al-halida ta'lrf 'Alt Bakatfrr (Cairo: Matabi' al-kitab al- 'ArabT, 1949).

43. Ahmad Sams ad-Din al-Hagaii, Al-ustara ft al-masrah al-Misri al-mu''sir 1933-1970---al-Kitib al-awwal: masadir al-ustara fr al-masrah (Myth in Contemporary Egyptian Theatre 1933-1970-- Book One: Mythological Sources in Theatre) (Cairo: Dar at-Taqafa li-t-tiba'a wa-n-na r, 1975?).

44. 'Abd ar-Rahman Yagi, Fi 1-guhad al-masrah.ya al-Igriqrya, al-Urabrya, al-'Arabrya min an-Naqq(i ila l-Hakfm (Greek, European and Arabic Theatrical Attempts. From an-Naqq3 to al-Hakim) (Beirut: al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiya li-d-dirasat wa-n-nagr, 1980).



Pormann 13

Arabic drama in general evolved out of the contact with European theatre during the ninteenth century, when, after Napoleon's expedition to Egypt (1798-1801), the cultural interchange between the two shores of the Mediterranean increased considerably.4s Al- though there are some indigenous Arabic literary forms such as the shadow play (hayil az-zill), modern Arabic theatre developed under the influence of European-mostly Ital- ian and French, and, to a lesser extent English-drama and opera. Many early plays drew on French sources such as Molibre, Racine and Corneille.46 It is therefore not surprising that the first two plays on the short list above are inspired by F4ndlon's Telhmaque and Racine's Andromaque respectively.

Ahmad Sauqi (1868-1932), the next author on the list, was equally influenced by French drama.47 Having studied in Montpellier and Paris from 1887 to 1891, he was exposed to such classical dramatists as Racine, Corneille and Shakespeare, which were often performed on the French stage. He was a versatile author and poet, who, by beginning to write plays for the theatre when he had already won acclaim on the Arabic literary scene, lent the dramatic art a veneer of respectability which it had hitherto lacked. He composed seven plays in total, of which the Downfall of Cleopatra deals specifically with a famous episode from classical history. Unlike Plutarch and Shakespeare, his most prominent sources, he does not depict Cleopatra as a man-eating, attention-seeking dangerous woman, but rather as a heroine who has the interest of her country, Egypt, at heart. Even her suicide appears in this light: it is her ultimate sacrifice for her homeland, whose freedom she is not willing to sacrifice. Mark Antony is also characterized in more positive terms. These charac- terisations are clearly influenced by a certain Egyptian nationalism, en vogue at the time.

While Ahmad Sauqi paved the way for Arabic theatre, it is certainly Taufiq al-Hakim (1898-1987) who put drama firmly on the map in the Arab world.4Y Like Sauqi, al-Hakim studied law in the French capital in the 1920s, but instead of getting his degree by avidly reading the manuals of jurisprudence, he spent a great deal of his time in the theatre, and was marked forever by the great performances of the classics on the Parisian stage. He was a prolific writer with 46 books, mostly plays, to his name.49 A friend of

T.hhi Husain, he

shared his view that contemporary Egyptian culture, and especially the theatre, was in need of a return to the classics. He puts his opinion most eloquently in the preface to his Oedipus The King, first published in 1949, from which it is worth quoting more extensively50:

If only a literary figure had risen among us during the last century or two to cry out questioningly: "O Arabic literature, from ancient times there have been between you and Greek thought close ties and bonds. You have, however, turned

45. For a brief history of Arabic drama, see Muhammad M. Badawi, 'Arabic Drama: Early Devel- opments', in: id., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Modemrn Arabic Literature (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 329-57; and Ali al-Ra'i, 'Arabic Drama since the Thirties', in ibid., 358-403; for a general discussion of the impact of Napoleon's expedition on the Arab world, see Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (London: Phoenix, 1994).

46. Cf. Atia Abul Naga, Les sources frangaises du theatre igyptien (1870-1939) (Alger: Socidtd Na- tional d'tdition et de Diffusion, n.d.).

47. See ibid. pp. 269-275; al-Ra'i, 'Arabic Drama since the Thirties' (as in n. 45), 358-9. 48. Cf. Richard Long, Tawfiq al Hakim, Playwright of Egypt (London: Ithaca Press, 1979). 49. See the list of his works in Arabic and translation at the beginning of Taufiq al-Hakim, Al-

masrah al-munawwa' 1923-1966 (Miscellaneous Theatre 1923-1966) (Cairo: Al-Matba'a an- namidagiya, 1968?), iii-v.

50. Taufiq al-Hakim, AI-Malik ldrb (Oedipus the King), Maktabat Taufiq al-Hakim a-a'biya (Taufiq al-Hakim's Popular Library) 15 (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-LubnAnin, n.d.), pp. 13-14; 30-32;




your face away from the poetry it has. How far will this rupture go? When will a reconciliation (sulh) be achieved between you and Greek poetry? Consider it a bit. Allow it to be translated and researched. Perhaps you will find in it something to reinforce your heritage (turit) and to augment your legacy (mira_) to future generations." This voice was not raised during the past centuries. [.. .]

For all these reasons, the reconciliation between the two ancient ('arfq) literatures is incumbent upon us. [.. .] Here we approach the great question: how can this reconciliation be achieved? Is it sufficient to be, with care and concern, devoted to Greek dramatic literature, transmitting all of it to our Arabic language? This is obviously necessary, and most of that has been accomplished. Indeed, Oedipus the King by Sophocles was performed for all to see on the Arab stage more than a third of a century ago.

But the mere transmission of Greek dramatic literature to the Arabic lan-

guage does not achieve for us the establishment of a dramatic literature in Ara- bic. Similarly, the mere transmission of Greek philosophy did not create an Arab or Islamic philosophy. Translation is only a tool which must carry us to a further goal. This goal is to draw water from the spring, then to swallow it, digest it, and assimilate it, so that we can bring it forth to the people once again dyed with the colour of our thought and imprinted with the stamp of our beliefs. This was the way the Arab philosophers proceeded when they took on the works of Plato and Aristotle. We must proceed in that same way with Greek tragedy. We must dedicate ourselves to its study with patience and endurance and then look at it afterwards with Arab eyes. [.. .]

That is the way to the reconciliation, indeed the marriage, between the two spirits [rah] and the two literatures. There must occur a marriage between Greek literature and Arabic literature with respect to tragedy comparable to the mar- riages that took place between Greek philosophy and Arab thought and between French literature and Greek literature.

Taufiq al-.Hakim clearly states that he considers a return to Greek sources necessary in order to breath new life into Arabic literature, and allow it to gain equality with French literature. Such aspirations should, of course, be seen in the context of intense political debate and struggle to gain independence in Egypt, which succeeded in 1952. According to al-Hakim, this literary manumission cannot be achieved merely by translating Greek texts; rather, one also needs to engage with them critically and creatively, in order to incorporate them into the Arabic tradition. In the case of Oedipus the King, he does this extremely successfully, as we shall see shortly It is useful, however, to mention just two performances of Oedipus the King before Taufiq al-Hakim's play. The first, to which he al- ludes in the extract quoted above, isthe staging of Sophocles' masterpiece in 1912. The play was translated by Farahl An~n (1874-1922), and the most famous Egyptian actor of the period, George Abyad, had his artistic breakthrough with this performance.5s When

English translation (with slight alterations) by Hutchins, Plays, Prefaces & Postscripts of Tawfiq al-Hakim (as in n. 41), i. 274-5; 280-1. The actual play is translated on i. 81-129; there is also a French version (without the preface) in A. Khedry, N. Costandi (trs.), Tewfik el Hakim: Thatre arabe (Paris: Nouvelles editions Latines, 1950), 153-216.

51. Cf. al-Hagg~gi, Al-us itra (Myth) (as in n. 43), 114.



Pormann 15

in 1926 Abyad took his troupe on a tour and put Oedipus the King on stage in the two Iraqi cities of Basra and Baghdad, one of the players, Haqqi a -SiblI, was so overwhelmed by the experience that he afterwards founded the first Iraqi theatrical company, consisting of both Egyptian and Iraqi actors. He himself later became a famous actor and theatre coach, and set up a drama department within the Iraqi Academy of Arts in 1939.52

In keeping with his own beliefs, Taufiq al-Hakim drew on the Greek sources of the myth, notably Sophocles' play, but transformed the plot so as to make it more relevant to his audience and to bring it in harmony with his own philosophy. One of the main ideas in Sophocles' play is the immutability of fate: Oedipus is condemned to kill his father and subsequently marry his mother. Despite all efforts to avoid this outcome, for instance by his parents abandoning the new-born Oedipus, fate inextricably takes its course, whatever the intentions of the human actors in the play may be. In al-Hakim's plot, however, Tiresias, who is more of an ambitious politician than a clairvoyant seer, is the origin of the tragedy: he sets the wheels in motion by persuading Laius that his son would kill him, and by showing Oedipus how to solve the riddle, which leads to his becoming king of Thebes and marrying his mother Jocasta. Thus human action, not an oracle foretelling the inevitable future, triggers the events which will lead to the tragic outcome. As al-Ra'i put it5":

Al-Hakim would not have the gods work against man, and has to put the blame for the downfall of Oedipus on Tiresias, in the first place, and on Oedipus's in- sistent search for the truth. As an Oriental, he [sc. al-Hakim] says, he cannot see man as the only power in the universe, as his own god. The gods are just: they give us what we deserve.

Al-Hakim also dispenses with some of the more pagan aspects of the myth-for instance, he replaces the sphinx with a fierce lion-since, as he himself says4: 'I had to strip the story of some of the superstitious beliefs (mu'taqadat hurifrya) that the Arab or Islamic mentality would scorn.'

There are three other plays in which Taufiq al-Hakim draws specifically on Greek sources: Praxa I (1939); Pygmalion (1942) and Isis (1955). In the last, he uses Plutarch's On Isis and Osiris as his principal source of inspiration.55 Praxa I is a play about women taking their war-mongering husbands to task, inspired by the first half of Aristophanes' Lysistrata.6 Al-H.akim dedicates his work 'to Aristophanes, master (rabb) of Greek com- edy', and in his preface, he urges his audience to refer to the original before approaching his own work.57 In 1954, after the revolution and the deposition of the monarch, al- Hakim published a second part (Praxa II) which deals with more contemporary issues. The last of the three works just mentioned, Pygmalion, is the most interesting in many re- spects and therefore deserves a more thorough discussion.

52. Cf. al-Ra'i, 'Arabic Drama since the Thirties' (as in n. 45), 394. 53. ibid. 375. 54. Al-Hakim, Al-Malik Udrb (Oedipus the King) (as inn. 41), p. 53; tr. Hutchins (as inn. 41), p. 288. 55. Cf. al-.Haaigi, Al-us tra (Myth) (as in n. 43), 35-55. 56. Cf. al-Ra'i, 'Arabic Drama since the Thirties' (as in n. 45), 372-3. 57. Taufiq al-Hakim, Praxa au mulkilat al-hukm (Praxa or the Problem of Government) (Maktabat

al-'Arab: Cairo, 1960); on p. 5, the dedication reads: 'To Aristophanes, the master of Greek com- edy, I offer my misdeed and ask forgiveness (Il~ Aristafain /, rabbi l-kamTdrya l-igrTqfya / uqaddimu danbr/ zoa-atlubu l-cufran)'; preface on pp. 8-9.




For this play, al-Hakim draws on two myths narrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses, namely that of Pygmalion (Ov. Met. 10. 243-97) and of Narcissus (Ov. Met. 3. 316-510). The plot in al-HIakim's play is the following.5s In Pygmalion's house, Narcissus, his friend, watches over the statue of Galatea, the most beautiful and perfect creation of the former. It is the festival of Venus, and Pygmalion has gone to the temple to bring offer- ings to the goddess. There is a chorus of nine young women, visible through a window, who dance and tease Narcissus. Ismene, a young woman in love with Narcissus, arrives and tries to persuade him to come with her to the temple. After some resistance, Narcis- sus is persuaded and leaves with Ismene. Enter Apollo and Venus, two rival deities, who, throughout the play, do not cease to mock and tease each other. Pygmalion approaches, yearning for his statue to come to life, a wish which Venus grants him after some discussion with Apollo. He is extremely joyful, but Galatea does not yet know that she is his creation. At the beginning of Act Two, we see Pygmalion sitting in sadness, because Galatea has eloped with Narcissus. Ismene comes and tries to stir Pygmalion into action, and the situation is eventually resolved by Apollo's giving Galatea greater insight into who she is, all the while inspiring a profound love in her for Pygmalion. She returns, but after a time, Pygmalion finds her too ordinary: he does not want her to be mortal, to age, to defile herself by doing housework. It is again the gods who fix the situation, by grant- ing Pygmalion his wish that Galatea be a statue again. Upon reflection, however, Pyg- malion realises that he misses the living Galatea. Consumed by sorrow, and frustrated by his fate, he destroys the statue, and shortly afterwards dies.

Towards the end of the play, al-Hakim shows how he intends to bring the two myths together. When Narcissus wants to protect and comfort his friend Pygmalion, who is already physically ill from his sorrows, the latter shouts at him59:

O you scoundrel, you scoundrel! How can I get rid of you? It is always you I see appearing before my face. When I bend over the stagnant pool in the caverns of my soul in order to see an image of myself, I only see your image. Yes, I see you, in your futile beauty, pride, stupidity, and blindness. You are the beautiful, yet sterile part of my soul. You are the sin the burden of which each artist (fanndin), as is pre- ordained, has to carry: to be infatuated (iftittin) with oneself, with one's identity.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, both Narcissus and Pygmalion are uninterested in real mem- bers of the other sex. The former is consumed by self-love, and the latter by the love for his creation. The point which al-HI.akim makes here is that love for one's creation is basi- cally and fundamentally just love for oneself in a slightly different form.60 He might have been inspired to link the two myths by the Roman de la Rose, where Pygmalion appears, bent over the fountain, admiring his image.61 Independently, Gainpiero Rosati has studied the two Ovidian tales of Narcissus and Pygmalion in their intertextual context.62

58. Taufiq al-Hakim, Pi,malyfn (Pygmalion), Maktabat Taufiq al-.Hakim aS-Ma'blya (Taufiq al- IHakim's Popular Library) 16 (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnani, n.d.); tr. Khedry, Costandi (trs.), Thatre arabe (as in n. 50), 294-359.

59. ibid., 141 (text); 351 (tr.). 60. Al-Haggagi, Al-usftiTra (Myth) (as in n. 43), 93-111, has provided a detailed and admirable

analysis of the relationship between the two accounts by Ovid and al-I.akim's version. 61. Herman Braet, 'Narcisse et Pygmalion: mythe et intertexte dans le "Roman de la rose"' in: id.

et al. (eds.), Mediaeval Antiquity (Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1994), 203-221. 62. Gianpiero Rosati, Narciso e Pigmalione: illusione e spettacolo nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio (Florence:

Sansoni, ca. 1983).



Pormann 17

At the end of this section, let us briefly turn to the sixth title in the list, the Oedipus by Ahmad Bakatir. Bakatir wrote two plays, The Tragedy of Oedipus (1949) and Osiris (1955), shortly after Taufiq al-Hakim had published his plays on the same subjects. Al-Haggagi has shown that, for the most part, the Bakatir used al-Hakim as his main source of inspiration.63 Even if Bakatir's contribution is not as original as that of al-Hakim, he still helped to give the myth of Oedipus and that of Isis and Osiris greater circulation, and thereby exposed even more people to the classical tradition.64

It is not possible here to analyse al-Hakim's Oedipus, its relation to the sources and its impact on the subsequent Arabic dramatic tradition in great detail or depth. Nor can we do justice to the other plays mentioned or briefly alluded to, here, let alone broach the question of how these plays, inspired by Greek myth and classical sources, were performed or received by the audiences.65 The important point for my argument, however, should now be evidently clear: not only did Arabic intellectuals endeavour to translate Greek poetry into their language during the nahda, but Greek and Roman writers also served as sources of inspiration for some of the greatest dramatists in the Arab world such as Ahmad Sauqi, Taufiq al-Hakim, and 'All Ahmad Bakatir.

In the last section of this paper, we shall briefly look at how the future minister of education Taha Husain fought for the introduction of Greek and Latin into the school and university curriculum.

3. Teaching Greek and Latin in School and University in Egypt: Ta-hiilusain against the Philistines

As a member of the faculty of Arts at the University of Cairo, where he held the chair of Arabic literature, Taha HIusain was extremely anxious that Greek and Latin be taught there. In his famous and influential work The Future of Culture in Egypt, first published in 1938, and later incorporated into his larger work The Science of Education, he gives a lively account of the debates and difficulties he faced in persuading not only his Egyptian, but also his European colleagues to teach Latin and Greek.66 For instance, some left-leaning French scholars in Cairo were vigorously opposed to the Department of Classics at the University, and a Liverpool professor of Medieval history objected to it, because he thought that Egypt was not yet ready for studying Latin and Greek.67 Despite all these

63. Al-Hagg~ai, Al-ustiora (Myth) (as in n. 43), pp. 35,115; he says on p. 115: 'Bakati-r was influenced by it [sc. al-Hakim's Oedipus] to a great extent. His play is very close to that of al-Hakim [.. .]'.

64. A somewhat different aspect of the classical tradition is represented by the works Hannibal by Ahlmad TaufTq al-Madani and Jugurtha by 'Abd ar-Rahman al-Madawi, two Algerian playwrights active in the 1950s and 1960s. They both explore, in different ways, contemporary issues by linking them to a classical past: the resistance of the great North-African commanders Hannibal and Jugurtha against Rome is a simile of their own struggle against their European overlords. Cf. Abdallah El Rukaibi, 'Algeria', in: The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary The- atre: Volume 4: The Arab World, ed. Don Rubin (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 50.

65. Cf. Nevill Barbour, 'The Arabic Theatre in Egypt', Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, Uni- versity of London, 8 (1935), 173-87.

66. Husain, 'Ilm at-tarbtya (The Science of Education) (as in n. 29), vol. 9; there is an English translation of Mustaqbal at-taqAfaft Misr (The Future of Culture in Egypt) by Sidney Glazer, The Future of Culture in Egypt (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954). The relevant chapters are 34 and 35.

67. ibid. 264-5 (text); 74-5 (tr.).




obstacles, Taha HIusain fought valiantly to keep the Department of Classics as well as some Latin and Greek language courses open to all Arts students. In order to illustrate how important the study of Latin is not only for classicists, but also for many other students, he takes the example of the Faculty of Law, whose students, Taha Husain is convinced, ought to know Latin. The requirement to do so, however, was already dropped in 1908 (only a year after the faculty was set up), and he qualifies the outcome in the following terms68:

One of the sure results is that Egypt has become a laughing-stock in the eyes of foreigners because it is quite possible to find in the Egyptian University Law School, the most advanced and modern in the East, professors of Roman Law, civil law, and legal history unable to read even a simple text in Latin.

He contends that Greek and Latin are absolutely necessary for Egyptians to study their own history, and summarises the conclusions in an unequivocal way69:

The practical conclusions to be drawn from my remarks are as follow: (1) the Faculty of Arts must have a strong Department of Greek and Latin Studies

(dirasat Yananrya wa-Latrntya) offering the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees, staffed with competent teachers. Students must be prepared for this in general schools; (2) Latin, and in some cases Greek, should be prerequisite for would-be majors in the humanities; again, students must be prepared for this in the general schools; (3) our national pride and interest demands that we train Egyptians to take over certain of our basic institutions that have been directed by non- Egyptians since the beginning of our modern renaissance (nahda), e.g. the Egyp- tian service of antiquities, which will doubtless have to remain under their present management until there are Egyptians who know Latin and Greek very well before starting to specialize in the field. [. . .] Egyptian history, except for the modem phase, has been largely written by foreigners without any fruitful participation by Egyptians. We are still beginners in our ancient, Greco-Roman, and Islamic periods. Those who call for Egyptian historical studies, if they are serious, should at the same time advocate the use of such logical and indispens- able tools as Latin and Greek. It is shameful to have to repeat over and over again the elementary facts that the relation between Egypt and Greece is very old, that the Greeks fashioned this relation through their writings and other cre- ative works, that Egypt was subject to Greco-Roman authority and institutions for ten centuries, an indelible part of our national history (the source material for which is in Greek and Latin), and that Egypt was linked during the Islamic period both to Byzantium and western Europe (the source material for which is also in Latin and Greek). The objectors to Latin and Greek should re-examine their position; for they are virtually condemning us to ignorance of our history except for what we can learn from foreigners. I cannot conceive of any proponent of Egyptian nationalism being happy about this patently disgraceful situation.

Taha Husain thus is adamant that Greek and Latin need to be studied in school and university. He does, however, recognise the fact that one ought to lighten the burden on stu-

68. ibid. 264 (text)/73-4 (tr.). 69. ibid. 279-80 (text)/80-1 (tr.).



Pormann 19

dents in learning the two classical languages when they already face a crowded curriculum. This is best achieved in his own opinion by introducing Latin and Greek in secondary schools; not in all of them, to be sure, but in a select number of specialist ones so that the future university students can fully benefit from their tertiary education.

It would be wrong to imagine that TahA H.usain represented the view of the majority of Egypt's intellectuals. Many, if not most, within the ruling elite favoured sciences and 'useful skills' such as fluency in modern languages, and had little or no regard for what they considered to be dead languages. Consequently, even if Tiha Husain succeeded in persuading his colleagues not to abolish the Department of Classics and to have some Greek and Latin language courses, his vision of Egyptians having access to free state schools where Greek and Latin, as well as English, French, German and Italian were taught, has not come true. Despite this, he was successful in introducing free basic schooling in 1950, when he became Minister of Education. His vision, however, remains a potent testimony to the value which he attached to a classical education in particular, and Greek and Roman culture in general. What is more, the voice of arguably the most renowned Arab intellectual of the first half of the twentieth century, urging his countrymen to engage with the classical tradition, was heard throughout the Arab world, be it in coffee-houses or colleges, where his ideas were hotly debated.

Conclusions

Some of the most influential Arab intellectuals such as Taufiq al-HIIakim and T~ah Husain favoured a return to the Greek sources-whether in the original or through translation-, and to the poetry which had not been rendered into Arabic yet. They both claimed Greek culture as theirs, as part of the Arabic heritage. Taha Husain achieved this by pointing to the fact that Greek thought in general was heavily influenced by Egyptian ideas, saying: 'The people who were first most influenced by the Egyptian mind, and then most influenced it, were the Greeks.'70 Like Tha H.usain, Muslim authors in the Middle Ages endeavoured to establish a link between Greek culture and their own. The 'Abbasids did this by having recourse to a mythical account, claiming that Alexander the Great had ran- sacked Persian libraries, had the wisdom of the Sasanians-as whose successors they saw themselves-translated into Greek and then destroyed the originals. Therefore, Greek culture is, in essence, Sasanian, and by sponsoring the translation movement, the

70. See above p. 10 and n. 28. Ever since the publication of M. Bernal's influential Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, 2 vols. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press/ London: Free Associated Books, 1987-1991), there has been intense debate about the African and Asian elements in Greek culture and literature; cf. M. R. Lefkowitz, G. Maclean Rogers (eds), Black Athena Revisited (Chapel Hill, London: University of North Carolina Press, 1996) and M. Bernal, Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics, ed. D. Chioni Moore (Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2001) [reviewed in this journal by Mary R. Lefkowitz, "Black Athena: the Sequel (Part 1)," IJCT 9 (2002-2003), pp. 598-603- W.H.]. W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, tr. M. E. Pinder and W. Burkert (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1992), and M. West, The Eastern Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Early Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), also have discussed 'Eastern' influences on Greek literature and art.




'Abbasids effect a return to their own heritage.7' Another Arab author of a later age, Ibn Halden (1332-1406), the social historian and philosopher, constructed a connection between the Greek and Islamic cultures in geographical terms: because the two (as well as other civilisations such as the Indian and the Chinese) lived in adjacent Ptolemaic climes where the conditions are optimal, the arts and sciences were able to flourish.72 Therefore, both medieval and modern Arabic thinkers made the Greeks theirs when striving to incorporate the classical heritage into their own tradition.

For T~ha IHIusain and Taufiq al-Hakim, it was not enough simply to make available Greek drama and poetry in translation. They wanted more: al-Hakim transformed Greek myth into a version acceptable and relevant to his own mostly Islamic audience. Tahi Husain, on the other hand, was convinced that Arabic cultural liberation and emancipa- tion had to emerge via the active mastery of the classical languages. For, as he argues, only when Egyptians themselves have access to the Greek and Latin sources, will they be able to write their own history, thereby throwing off the yoke of colonisation. It is ironic that among those who helped thwart Husain's attempts to escape the intellectual tutelage of the colonial overlord, we find self-professed leftist intellectuals.

The modern Iraqi poet and critic Kadhim Jihad declares that even nowadays it is still necessary to return to Homeric poetry, or, as he puts it 'to an ancient and universal work (' une ancienne oruvre universelle)'."73 For him, Homer does not belong just to European culture, but rather to a much wider, a universal, a world heritage. Therefore, when we study the classics, we should not forget that they belong not exclusively to 'the West'. The classical tradition blossoms and thrives not only in countries and cultures where English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish are spoken, but reaches far beyond the confines of Eu- ropean borders, wherever one wants to draw them. When defending the concept of a classical education, which fosters the engagement with the classical tradition, one ought to re- sort to a much stronger argument than the one evoked at the beginning of this article: the classical tradition is part of world heritage and influenced many different cultures, not least those of the Arabs and Islam, throughout the ages, from antiquity until today.

P.S. During a recent visit to Paris, I came across two new books containing translations of the Iliad. The first was a reprint with new preface of Bustani's version discussed above [Al-Iliyada (The Iliad), al-MaSrf' al-qaumi li-t- targama (The National Translation Project) 712--MirAt at-targama (Translation Heritage) 1 (Cairo: al-Maglis al- A'la li-t-taqAfa, 2004)]. The second, however, contained a new translation, prepared under the general editor- ship of Ahmad 'Utmin

[Al-Iliy-_a (The Iliad), al-MaSrO' al-qaumi li-t-targama (The National Translation Project)

750 (Cairo: al-Maglis al-A'la li-t-taqAfa, 2004)]. 'Utman has also just published the proceedings-which I have not yet seen--of the conference organised by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Culture (al-Maglis al-A'l5 li-t- taqafa) in 2004 [The Iliad through the Ages (Al-lliyda 'abr al-'us1r) (Cairo: al-Maglis al-A'la li-t-taqafa, 2006)]. Moreover, Kadhim Jihad, the Iraqi poet, critic, and academic quoted in this article, told me that he had a detailed study on the importance of translation for Arabic literature forthcoming next year. Thus the interest in classical literature continues unabated in the Arab world.

71. Cf. Gutas, Greek Thought (as in n. 7), pp. 36-40. 72. F. Rosenthal (tr.), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, 3 vols (London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1958), i. 61. 73. See above p. 8, n. 24.



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