Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300-1900: A Handbook

297 Pages·2020·5.642 MB·English

by  Li Guo

Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300–1900
Handbook of Oriental Studies
Handbuch der Orientalistik
section one
The Near and Middle East
Edited by
Maribel Fierro (Madrid)
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu (Princeton)
Renata Holod (University of Pennsylvania)
Florian Schwarz (Vienna)
volume 143
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ho1
Arabic Shadow Theatre
1300–1900
A Handbook
By
Li Guo
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: A Boat on the Nile. Al-Menzaleh. Photo courtesy: Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung,
University of Köln.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Guo, Li, 1956- author.
Title: Arabic shadow theatre, 1300-1900 : a handbook / Li Guo.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2020. | Series: Handbook of Oriental
studies, Section 1, the Near and Middle East, 01699423 ; volume 143 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024563 (print) | LCCN 2020024564 (ebook) |
ISBN 9789004436145 (hardcover) | ISBN 9789004436152 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Shadow shows—Arab countries—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PN1979.S5 G85 2020 (print) | LCC PN1979.S5 (ebook) |
DDC 892.7/009—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024563
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024564
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 0169-9423
ISBN 978-90-04-43614-5 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-43615-2 (e-book)
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Contents
Preface ix
List of Figures xiv
part 1
Research
1 Arabic Shadow Theatre in Historical Sources 3
1 Late ʿAbbasid Accounts (c. 1000–1250) 3
2 Mamluk Accounts (c. 1250–1517) 7
3 Ottoman Accounts (c. 1517–1900) 10
4 Western Visitors’ Accounts (c. 1760–1900) 12
2 Early Modern Scholarship 18
1 Orientalism and Arab Shadow Theatre: c. 1890–1945 18
2 Early Arab Scholarship: c. 1900–1950 25
3 New Studies 30
1 Western Scholarship Since the 1950s 30
2 Arab Research Activities Since the 1950s 41
part 2
Resources
4 Primary Sources: Manuscripts and Artifacts 55
1 Manuscripts 55
2 Shadow Figures 76
5 Language, Style, and Terminology 83
1 Content and Language 83
2 Songs in the Shadow Play: Canonic and Non-Canonic Verses 85
3 Terminology 89
6 Performance 102
1 Scenes from Medieval Cairo 102
2 Shadow Theatre of the Ottoman Time 105
3 Scenes from the Early Modern Era 108
vi Contents
part 3
Repertoires
7 Medieval Arabic Shadow Plays: Ibn Dāniyāl and Others 119
1 Ibn Dāniyāl’s Three Plays 119
2 An Unconfirmed Mamluk Shadow Play 126
8 Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays 129
1 Sources 129
2 An Original Description of the Repertoire 131
3 Seven Early Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays 139
9 Late Ottoman and Early Modern Egyptian Plays 176
1 Four Egyptian Shadow Plays of Late Ottoman Time 176
2 Short Plays from Early Modern Egypt 184
10 Syrian and Levantine Plays 197
1 An Overview 197
2 Lebanon 199
3 Syria, Damascus 204
4 Syria, Aleppo 208
5 Syria, the Coastal Region 214
6 Other Syrian Plays 223
11 North African Plays 230
1 The Maghreb: Tunisia and Algeria 230
2 Libya 233
Epilogue: Notes from the Field
Arabic Shadow Theatre Today 240
Appendix 1: Arabic Shadow Plays: an Inventory 245
Appendix 2: Shadow Theatre in Premodern Arabic Poetry 252
1 The Prime Metaphor: God, Reality, and Shadow Play 252
2 Performance as Illusions Making and Performer as Illusionist 255
Appendix 3: The Cast 258
1 Egypt 258
2 Syria and the Levant 258
3 Tunisia and Algeria 259
4 Libya 259
Contents vii
Appendix 4: The Programme of a Layla Celebration 260
Appendix 5: Glossary (Arabic – English) 262
Bibliography 266
Index 280
figure 1 A lady on the camel. Aleppo
Preface
Shadow play is a performing art form with a long and rich history in world
civilizations. The Arab world is no exception. Variably known as khayāl al-ẓill,
karākūz (Turkish karagöz), or simply liʿb, Arabic shadow play has cast its spell
on mesmerized audiences of all walks of life, rich and poor, elderly and young,
men and women, urban and rural, literate and illiterate, elites and laymen. Like
Aladdin’s magic lamp that transforms the real world into a fantasy land, the
shadow master’s oil (or gasoline) lantern lights up the intricate, colorful, and
cartoonish figures made of camel skin or other material onto a white cotton
screen, projecting movable human characters, genies, and animals in fairy-
tales, comedies, and romances. They act out, fly, dance, and sing. Together, the
puppets on the screen and the shadow master behind it, who moves them with
long and thin sticks and gives them voices, tell fantastic tales in good humor
and enchanting spectacle. Since its inception to the present day, Arabic shad-
ow play has continued to entertain, enlighten, and enchant the audience, wide
and far (Fig. 1).
This handbook aims at an analytical documentation of all the known textual
remnants and the preserved artifacts of this long-lived, and still living, tradition –
from the earliest sightings in the tenth century to the twilight scenes at the turn
of the twentieth century, a theatric tradition that was witnessed all over the
Arabic speaking world – from North Africa to West Asia. The documentation is
based on manuscripts (largely unpublished), printed texts (scripts, excerpts),
academic studies (in Arabic and Western languages), journalist reportage, as
well as shadow play artifacts from collections worldwide – in museums, re-
search institutes, and private archives. For each play documented, a summary
of the storylines will be provided, to be accompanied by the resources for fu-
ture study. The performance records, if any, will be supplied as well.
The scope, in space and time, and the diversity, in origins and regional traits,
are dictated by the uneven nature of our primary sources. With regard to ge-
ography, apparently missing is Iraq. In respect of time, a gaping blank is the
period prior to the nineteenth century, with the exception of Egypt. The sole
reason for these lacunas is the lack of sources. In this connection, the case of
Iraq is peculiar: with the exception of some anecdotal accounts, such as that of
a twelfth-century actor known as “The Dancing Jaʿfar (Jaʿfar al-rāqiṣ),”1 virtu-
ally nothing can be found in premodern sources that can be used as references
1  Scholars still debate over the nature of his performance – whether it was shadow play or live
acting; see below, chapter 1.
x Preface
to shadow theatre in Iraq. In this regard, Egypt is perhaps better represented.
Cairo, known fondly as the “Mother of the World,” was the arena for the three
medieval shadow plays that have survived in entirety, all of which are attrib-
uted to Ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310), a Mosul-born and Cairo-based eye doctor and
playwright. It was also the home of major primary source reservoirs – the Paul
Kahle Collection (now in Turin, but with its origins in Cairo) and the Aḥmad
Taymūr Collection – that contain extensive shadow play material from the
Mamluk, Ottoman, and early modern times. Furthermore, Egyptian shadow
plays, especially Ibn Dāniyāl’s trilogy, have long attracted scholarly attention,
resulting in a substantial body of studies that has contributed to this Arab play-
wright’s gradual recognition as a major figure in medieval world drama. On the
other hand, our knowledge of shadow theatre in Syria (and the Levant) and
North Africa is confined to the documented materials dating to late Ottoman
time only.
The timelines, 1300–1900, set the scope of this handbook within a six-
century span, from the Mamluk period that saw the first documented shadow
play texts, to the turn of the twentieth century, when research and discovery
by Orientalists and their Arab counterparts began. However, this time param-
eter is by no means strictly marked. Given the uneven developments in various
parts of the Arab world and the resulting scarcity in reportage, the timeline
for coverage of certain regions such as North Africa would stretch a little fur-
ther. There is no dispute, though, that some plays might have been discovered
and published later, in the twentieth century, yet their originals evidently trace
back to the nineteenth century or earlier.
In preparation for this book, I have consulted all the known original manu-
scripts, alongside a nearly exhaustive list of academic studies, magazine ar-
ticles, performance reportage, and other related material. I also examined
samples of the premodern shadow play figures now housed in museums in
Germany and Egypt, attended, in Cairo, performances that featured contem-
porary adaptations of the “old plays,” and interviewed the performers, who
have continued to create and stage new work. The same, regrettably, cannot be
said of other parts of the Arab world, on account of the quality of, and acces-
sibility to, original research material. Circumstances have prevented me from
conducting fieldwork in Syria and Tunisia, the two locales that are representa-
tive for documentation (The Levant – Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan –
and North Africa, respectively). The inventories presented here therefore relied
mostly on library holdings. Of course, this “armchair” investigation does not
necessarily mean that the coverage of these countries was informed entirely by
secondhand material. In this respect, geographical boundaries are somehow
artificial. Egyptian manuscripts, for example, also shed light on non-Egyptian