Rubaiyats

I admit that I find the Rubaiyat beautiful poetry, though I know it partakes of stereotypes and repetitions about the Middle East, likely magnified by translators. The idea of a paradise of ease, sensuality, wine, and carelessness is just so alluring... The orientalist images from publications of the Rubiayat that we examined in class are especially troubling -- like the one I have included here by Arthur Szyk from the 1946 Heritage Press edition.

My poor efforts to write in the style of the Rubiayat are below. I apologize in advance!

Fitzgerald:

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flowr that once has blown for ever dies.

Webb:

Oh, come with Allen Webb, and leave the rest
To study, read and write, prepare the test
One thing is certain, they may pass
But do they really, truly enjoy the class?


A bolt of thunder, and dark skies
Sudden drops of rain around me fly.
I walk, I run, -- ahead the door is neigh
Yet I am soaking, sloshing wet, Oh my!

Arabian Nights and Oral Traditions

Tim Rimer notes, "The original Arabian Nights stories can be traced back to Indian, Persian, and Arab oral traditions which were passed down from generation to generation before they were eventually written down sometime between the ninth and fourteenth centuries."

Oral traditions of many peoples and languages often break the codes of proper conduct -- codes that in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions are associated with "the book." Oral traditions and village story telling are often surprisingly direct about matters of sexuality and daily life -- they have an immediate human vitality, are full of surprising events, tricksters, and direct humor.

Certainly one example is the story Heather told us about in class last week, "Three Unfortunate Lovers," where a woman dies for her love for another women. Homoerotic affection might have been unacceptable in the world of the book (the Torah, the Bible, the Koran) but is natural in these tales that arise from daily life.

The story "How Abu Hasan Brake Wind" is, believe it or not, a story about a man who becomes famous because of a huge fart he passed on his wedding day! Just the kind of course humor of oral traditions -- there are many Native American stories about the trickster Coyote that have a similar theme. "The King's Daughter and the Ape," about a Sultan's daughter who is so addicted to sex she has a relationship with a baboon has a "locker room" oral tradition sense to it.

Another feature of oral stories is the inclusion of verse and poetic passages, perhaps mixed in places where they might not be expected. A story, "Al-Amin and His Uncle," about a man who won't sleep with his uncle's slave girl because he thinks his uncle already had -- and so the uncle has the following verses sown onto her skirt,

• “No! I declare by Him to whom all bow,
• Of nothing ‘neath her petticoat I trow:
• Nor meddle with her mouth; nor aught did I
• But see and hear her, and it was enow!”

It doesn't surprise me that this kind of literature was suppressed in the name of religion, or propriety. How unfortunate!

Image of the African in The Arabian Nights

There is much that is fascinating in the famous 1001 Nights. Reading Richard Burton's late 19th Century translation (1885-1888) I found the representation of Africans troubling. For instance in the framing story of "King Shahryar and his Brother" there is a racist depiction of two Africans, "a big slobbering blackamoor" and a "black cook of loathsome aspect" both of whom appear as lovers or sexual partners of the wives of the sultans. Not only were the descriptions clearly racist, and the Africans described as deceitful and lustful (though the wives were certainly their willing partners!), but they are positioned in the text so that the very idea that the wife should "make love" with an African becomes especially abhorrent.

I wonder to what extent these portrayals are Burton's doing, and how much is in the original. I know that the Arabic and Turkish empires did take slaves from Africa for many centuries in the Arab slave trade, and that were at war with Africans from the subsahara for centuries. (Indeed, that kind of struggle could still be seen to be going on in Sudan and Darfur.) I am curious about these political relations of power play into the existence of the stereotyping... perhaps going back to the 15th Century when the tales were composed.

The Moor at a Distance

In his essay "Turning Turk in Othello" Daniel Vitkin talks extensively about English attitudes toward the Turks, black Africans, Muslims, and Moors. One thing that both confused and intrigued me in the essay was the living presence of Turks and Moors in actual relations with the English, and also a sense that the English were so distant from Middle East and North Africa that they frequently confused and conflated terms as different as "Turk" and "Moor," even linking Mohamed and the Pope as devilish enemies to good Protestant Christians.

Vitkin describes the expanding Turkish empire as a threat to Europe and to England, one that the English were very much concerned about. In fact, Vitkin quotes sources to argue that the Turks regularly captured British ships and even directly raided the English coast line, in part in order to capture Englishmen (and women, I suppose) to enslave them, make them work on their ships, and so on. Apparently, these captured Christians would sometimes convert, either to save their lives or to be able to enter into commerce with the Muslims. Sermons were regularly preached in English against this type of "conversion." Apparently there was a group of Moorish ambassadors who visited and were well received in England only a couple of years before Othello was written -- so not all contacts with Islamic people were negative.

In contrast, or in addition to, these "real" contacts there was a great deal of myth making about Islamic, African, Turkish, and/or Moorish people in 17th Century England. Lumped together they were stereotyped as "violent," "cruel," "lustful," "sensual," "arbitrary," and "deceitful." And I wonder how much Othello bears these out... And, hmmm.... These terms sound a bit familiar. Consider the comments on the website Islam and the Western Media

• This ignorance that the West accumulates from the media leads them into making stereotypes about Islam and associating all Muslims and Arabs together. The West often times views Islam as "fundamental" "extremist" or "discriminatory", but all of these terms have be manipulated, purposely because of biased feelings and accidentally because of ignorance, by the media to present a negative image about Islam.

Othello and Images of the Orient in England

Along with reading Othello, I have been looking into some of the scholarship on the representation of Moors and Turks in English literature of the period. One book I looked at, The Moor in English Renaissance Drama, describes a rich and complex historical relationship between Moors and the English. An essay "Ethiops Washed White: Moors of the Nonvillainous Type" strongly emphasized the sexualizing of men of African background in English discourse and how that effects the portrayal of Othello. Reading this essay I wondered how modern stereotypes might be affecting the argument. An essay that seemed more careful to me was "Turning Turk in Othello" by Daniel Vitkus -- this essay we will all read for Monday. One thing I found fascinating in the essay was the fact that the Turks were seen as a threatening empire and that the English would understand the urgency that the Duke of Venice and the other Venetian characters express to defeat the Turkish threat and, thus, their turning to Othello to protect them. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the history of the Turkish empire and the threat it posed to Europe. Memhid II conquered Constantinople in 1453 and made it the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. That's Mr. Mehmid II himself pictured above.

Rashidun Empire

I knew that there was a large Islamic empire that included North Africa and the Middle East, but when I started researching it, I wanted to know more and get the specifics. I read a long article about the Rashidun Empire on Wikipedia that told an amazing story about the expansion of Islam after the death of Mohamed (632 AD). Within 24 years the successors of his religion had conquered an enormous territory, from what is now Afghanistan, across the Middle East to North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea and Spain. (Click on the map image -- it will get bigger and you can see how truly enormous this empire was!) This was all the more remarkable because there was, apparently, a great deal of dissent and disagreement about who should be the leader of the faith after Mohammad. One the one side, the Sunni's believed that the Caliph should be elected and they selected Abu Bakr. On the other side the Shi'a's believed Mohamed's son-in-law Ali ibn Abu Talib should be the leader -- setting the stage for a disagreement that has lasted to this day. The Islamic Arabs defeated other empires, notably the Byzantine, Persian, and North African empires in a series of battles. They taxed the people they conquered, but, apparently at a lower rate then their former colonial masters, and they had some legal protections for citizens, especially if they agreed to become Islamic. These measures, along with a carefully organized administration and military force, allowed them to set up and establish their long lasting rule. Other interesting sources on the Rashidun Caliphate include The Encyclopedia of World History and the Encyclopedia of the Orient, which claims that, "Modern Islamism as headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Osama bin Laden and others have contented that the reestablishment of the Caliphate is the ultimate goal for their struggle against secularism and Western societies."

The Decameron, 10th day, novel 9: There is much to notice in this story of encounters between an Italian noble, Torello, and the leader of the Islamic leader of Babylon, Saladin, at the time of the crusades. I was especially charmed by the vivid scenes of banquets, night-time torch parades, and hawking. I loved the feeling of entering into this world of 800 years ago! I am really curious about what students found of interest.

Welcome to Oriental Interpretations

This academic blog will reflect and record the experience of a team of highly motivated literature students at Western Michigan University as we examine representations of the Middle East in classical and contemporary literature and film, and as we reflect on American understanding and involvement in this crucial area of the world.