Red Pomegranates: Love, Beauty and Deceit: Arabic Poetry about, for, and by Women

328 Pages·2013·1.641 MB·English

by  Mishael M. Caspi, Bshara Marjiyah, Mohammad Jiyad

Caspi / Greene / Jiyad (eds.)
Red Pomegranates
ISLAMKUNDLICHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN • BAND 313
begründet
von Klaus Schwarz
herausgegeben
von Gerd Winkelhane
ISLAMKUNDLICHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN • BAND 313
Mishael M. Caspi / John T. Greene / Mohammad Jiyad (eds.)
with Bshara Marjiyah
Red Pomegranates:
Love, Beauty, and Deceit
Arabic Poetry about, for, and by Women
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliohek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication
in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data
are available in the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de

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© 2013 by Klaus Schwarz Verlag GmbH Berlin
First Edition
Editing: James McKeane / textintegration.de
Cover: J2P Berlin
Printed in Germany on chlorine-free bleached paper
ISBN 978-3-87997-420-7
Contents
Preliminary Remarks Concerning Poetry and Narrative
about Arab Women....................................................................................................7
General Introduction.................................................................................................9
A Flame of Love........................................................................................................19
Introduction.........................................................................................................19
Reflection on the Arab Woman:
A Socio-Cultural and Religious Perspective................................................24
The Arab Woman During the Jahiliyyah Period........................................26
The Arab Woman During the Islamic Period..............................................30
The Notion of Love in Love Poetry................................................................32
Al-Ghazal al-‘Udhri (Courteous Love)..........................................................35
The Characteristics of al-Ghazal al-‘Udhri in the Islamic Time.............42
Al-Ghazal al-Hissi: Sensual (Passionate) Love Poetry...............................49
The Image of the Woman in Early Arabic Poetry:
A Historical Perspective...................................................................................57
The Woman Between the Ideal and the Real..............................................65
Oral Poetry ................................................................................................................74
Women’s Deceit
A Qur’anic Perspective with Medieval Commentary ...................................103
Introduction.......................................................................................................103
Women’s Deceit...............................................................................................124
Poetry of Twenty Female Arab Poets................................................................281
African-American Female Poets: Establishing a Framework ...............281
“Western” Female Poets ................................................................................282
Arab Poetry by Women .................................................................................283
Twenty Contemporary Arab Women Poets..............................................287
5
Dedication
For Gila, my long life best friend, with love (MMC).
For Sarah Elizabeth Greene-Bates, Ivorie Merrill Greene-Moore, Vivian Kaye
Greene-Weatherspoon, and Carol Lynne Greene-Green, my sisters, all of
whom have helped their husbands “see red”.
In memory of Janice Dolores Greene, a complex human who experienced
death at too young an age (JTG).
In memory of my friend Dr. Ayad Haddad (MJ).
In memory of my parents; with my love to my brother Elias and to my broth-
ers and sisters. To my wife Rima, and to my children, Shadi, Fadi, and Lama
(BM).
6
Preliminary Remarks Concerning Poetry and Narrative
about Arab Women
The title of this book may be somewhat beguiling and misleading, but if
so, it can quite honestly be said to be excellent. The writers would dis-
claim immediately the fact that we were not engaging in politics, states-
manship, or promoting anything other than the poetry and opinions of
some the greatest Arab poets, who were moved by their reaction to and
praise of Arab women in general, or to a specific Arab woman, to cele-
brate her in poetry or to explicate her actions in narrative. This is all,
well... good – and did we mention honest?
However, caveat emptor! May the buyer beware! We discourse on nar-
rative and poetry, and poetry is a strange “animal”. One description of a
poet and his or her place in a given society is a person who is totally
anchored in that society, and who shares its fate, and will never abandon
it, but who, simultaneously, is a point of vocal and literary confluence in
that same society. They, in their daily lives, interact with fellow citizens. Ob-
servations of their triumphs, suffering, fears, foibles and peccadilloes, and
their dealings, articulate, as much for themselves as for others, exactly what
the complete society has been heard “saying”. To illustrate this point,
Richard Wagner, the great German composer, is said, after hearing one of
his famous operas performed, to have remarked: “O einziges, herrliches
Volk! Das hast Du gedichtet!”1
Poetry may be likened to a multi-layered cake. One would do well to
focus on the entire concoction, but at the same time, failure to realize that
each layer has its own existence and taste, which contributes to the over-
all flavor of the cake, would be a mistake: one would miss much.
Although the writers assume that a primarily Western readership will
be interested in this work, we, nevertheless, do not assume a knowledge
of the history of Western women to be a mirror to be held up to Arab
women for the purposes of comparison. Employing, therefore, the lan-
guage of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, here we study the Arab woman
an sich, that is for/in herself, as a woman in her own right and in her own
social sphere.
The authors also make a distinction between the Arab woman, women
in the Muslim world, women in Islam, and women who, as captured slaves,
especially from, but not limited to, East Africa, have a long history in Arabia.
1 Lehmkuhl, Josef, Der Kunst-Messias: Richard Wagners Vermächtnis in seinen Schrif-
ten. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2009, p. 129. “Oh unique, glorious
people, you composed that (collectively)!”
7
While the focus has been on discrimination against her, especially in
the areas of personal restrictions and human rights, interest in these areas
alone does not warrant the study undertaken herein: one could study the
history of women the world over, and, with the exception of the history of
Amazonianism, find the same story. It would be equally true. It would like-
wise be true that Amazonian society did not enjoy a flawless polity either.
There exists no paucity of literature that studies adroitly the veracity
of the preceding issues. There is also no paucity of literature that points to
improvements, major in some parts of the Arab world, and minor, espe-
cially in the greater Muslim world, as with the Taliban – but here the fo-
cus is not just on women – in others. These studies (while not ignoring
her former status) focus, as they should, on what has happened to the
Arab woman since the advent of Islam: reforms to improve her position/
condition – early and late; employment; education; politics; women’s suf-
frage; travel opportunities; economic role; and most recently the issue of
how both the Arab and the Muslim woman should dress, especially in
public, both at home and abroad.
The Western reader may find it ironic, and spend numerous hours
pondering exactly what he meant and how sincere he was, but from the
mouth of no less than the late, defunct dictator of Iraq we read:
The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held
them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance,
is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one
half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains
unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated...2
The reader will no doubt observe that the contributing and opining poets
cited and quoted herein form no literary, solid wall against the issues
stated above as not being the focus of this work. Once we delve into them,
we notice that they are easily divisible into a number of “schools” of poet-
ic opinion concerning the Arab woman. But this is as one should expect it
to be: no two men react to any one woman in exactly the same way. Giv-
en the fact that we are all the sum total of our life experiences, we can all
be expected to be different; and this is just for this encounter; an hour
later it will be a quite different “we” than an hour earlier. This flux of po-
etic emotion, and how poets deal with it, are explored in depth below. A
unique feature of this book, however, is that it includes studies of women
by women. It thus breaks free from the restrictions of a view of women
refracted through a solely male “prism.”
2 1981; cf. Al-Ali, N.S., Iraqi Women. London: Zedbooks, 2007, p. 131.
8
General Introduction
In our search for poetry that expresses images of beauty and love, we
found many poems dealing with descriptions of a lover’s physical attri-
butes. In the male-dominated written tradition, a woman’s body needs to
have “mathematical proportions” to be considered beautiful.
The wise said the following increase the beauty of a woman,
Blackness in four; eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes and hair.
Whiteness in four; teeth, skin, the parting of hair and alba.
Redness in four; tongue, lips, cheeks and buttocks.
Roundness in four; face, head, knees and heels.
Length in four; height, eyebrows, neck and hair.
Fragrance in four; mouth, nose, underarm and vagina.
Width in four; forehead, breast, eyes and hips.
Narrowness in four; ears, nostrils, navel and vagina.
Smallness in four; palms, mouth, teeth and feet.3
From women’s oral poetry, the images of beauty and love concern a man’s
intellect and the relationship between the lover and the beloved:
My beloved,
Love has overtures and manners.
Love is tender
Sessions and sweet pleasure…
My beloved,
Love has wisdom and cunning tricks
Like the oil
Absorbed by the wick…
My beloved,
Love, like a match, lights the flame
Love can do the same
With the glance of the eyes…
Love is a venture,
Even for the wise.
Sometimes it brings pleasure
And sometimes otherwise…
3 Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti, in: Ahmad b. al-Amin al-Shanqiti, ad-Durar al-lawami‘ ‘ala
ham‘ al-hawami‘. Cairo 1328 h.
9
Other expressions of love and beauty in classical Arabic poetry embrace
motifs of remembrance and similes of certain body parts, like in his
Mu‘allaqa (Stay, Let Us Weep):
Her coal-black hair falls on her back,
long and thick like clustered dates on a palm tree.
Its locks twisted beautifully above her head,
disheveled and tied with silk ribbon.
Her waist tapers like a twisted cord,
her legs tender like a watered palm tree.
She dispenses with soft and delicate fingers like the
white crimson worm of Dabia or dentifrice of Ishalwood.
She lights the darkness of the evening,
like a minaret for a devout hermit.4
The shift from classical Arabic poetry to modern Arabic verse spans four
centuries. Between both poetic traditions, the period of neo-classical Ara-
bic poetry in the second half of the nineteenth century was a time when
Arabs, after the centuries of Ottoman domination, began to communicate
a determination to revive and catch up with the rest of the world. The
reawakening of Arab creativity touched the art of poetry so deeply that
Arab poets found themselves, instead of moving forward with innovation,
falling into the spells of nostalgia and cultural pride. As a result, their po-
etic achievement was molded by the classical techniques and rhythms by
which they could evoke the spirit of grandeur which they had lost.
The images of beauty and love in Arabic poetry create a picture of the
Arab woman at the time of composition. We note from the poetry that the
Arab woman, during the Jahiliyyah period, became associated with the
whiteness of angels. Angelic images are contemporary with images of
women capable of lighting the flame of anger and passion.
The images of women in early Arabic poetry portrayed women as sa-
cred beings, since they were thought to be the only ones responsible for
procreation. Even after society realized that men contributed to procre-
ation, they continued to think of women as holy. Although the early Ar-
abs were not an agrarian society, unlike the ancient Greeks, who associ-
ated fertility with the soil, nevertheless, Arabs looked to the sun (in Ara-
bic, the sun takes a feminine form). Imru’ al-Qays sings:
Shining like the sun on a bright day
She lights the room of dusky night…
4 Imru’ al-Qays, Diwan. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 2006.
10