(Ebook) Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel by Ziad Elmarsafy ISBN 9780748641406, 9780748655649, 9780748655656, 9780748655663, 0748641408, 0748655646, 0748655654, 0748655662

(Ebook) Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel by Ziad Elmarsafy ISBN 9780748641406, 9780748655649, 9780748655656, 9780748655663, 0748641408, 0748655646, 0748655654, 0748655662

Close readings of 9 contemporary Arab novelists who use Sufism as a literary strategy. Sufi characters - saints, dervishes, wanderers - occur regularly in modern Arabic literature. A select group of novelists interrogates Sufism as a system of thought and language. In the work of writers likeNaguib Mahfouz, Gamal Al-Ghitany, Taher Ouettar, Ibrahim Al-Koni, Mahmud Al-Mas'adi and Tayeb Salih we see a strong intertextual relationship with the Sufi masters of the past, including Al-Hallaj, Ibn Arabi, Al-Niffari and Al-Suhrawardi. This relationship interrogates the limits of the creative self, individuality, rationality and all the possibilities offered by literature. In thisand dialogue with the mystical heritage, these novelists seek a way of preserving a self under siege from the overwhelming forces of oppression andreaction that characterised the late 20th and early 21st centuries.