Abstract
The formation of Arab identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is typically connected to the Nahdah (or revival) movement. While many leaders of this movement that advocated for reviving the Arab rich heritage are men, the fact that Arab women were central to this movement is something that is rarely discussed or studied. The goal of this paper, then, is to explore the invocation of women authors as key to this effort of forming Arab identity in this period. While my paper examines the specific case of invoking the Andalusī woman poet Buthaynah bint al-Muʿtamid, the daughter of the famed king and poet of Seville, al-Muʿtamid b. ʿAbbād (d. 487/1095), I also bring to the fore examples of other women who were invoked as well, including Walladah bint al-Mustakfi and others. Although we don’t know much about Buthaynah, the intention here is to explore how she is depicted in two major works: The first is Nafḥ al-ṭīb, which al-Maqqarī (d. 1041/1632) wrote to preserve the cultural memory of al-Andalus, and the second is Amīrat al-Andalus (The Princess of al-Andalus), which Egyptian poet Aḥmad Shawqī (d. 1932) wrote toward the end of his life as his only prose play. Against the backdrop of the lack of information and material about Buthaynah in the classical sources, this paper explores why these two authors were intrigued by her story and how they utilized that story to formulate a narrative about the formation of Arab identity.
Presenters
Majd Al-MallahProfessor, Modern Languages and Literatures, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Arab identity, Women Authors, Nahdah, Arab Women
