1994/01/01 by Joël Beinin · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Islamic Studies and History #Islamic Finance and Banking Studies #Linguistic, Cultural, and Literary Studies
paper · doi:10.2307/1773164
openalex publication_date 1994/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
Zajal, colloquial Arabic poetry in strophic form, was primarily an oral art until it was appropriated by Egyptian nationalist literati in late nineteenth century. The work of Ya'qub Sannu' (1839-1912), 'Abd Allah al-Nadim (1844-1896), Mahmud Bayram al-Tunisi (1893-1961), and Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm (b. 1929) established genre as a literary form identified with populist Egyptian patriotism and comprising a poetic anti-canon which, through its language, subject matter, and mode of publication, constituted a discourse of popular opposition to hegemonic form of Egyptian national literary culture expressed in standard Arabic. By 1940s, expansion of large-scale industry and capitalist relations of production had made it possible for a distinctive class of urban wage laborers to emerge. Workers who composed zajal usually thought of themselves and their art as a component of political and cultural project. Most composers of zajal in this tradition and leftist intellectuals who encouraged them viewed form as a pristine expression of popular national sensibility. But zajal by and about workers reveals a range of poetic discourse that reflects evolving political debate over appropriate representation of workers and diverse political positions. While ideologically privileged image of workers in zajal is as nationalists, style and content of poems exhibit significant cosmopolitan-internationalist elements. Thus, zajal is not a primordial Marilyn Booth, Regenia Gagnier, Barbara Harlow, Susan Slyomovics, Sasson Somekh, and participants in workshop on Cultural Processes in Muslim and Arab Societies, where this essay was first presented, made helpful comments on an earlier version of it. Khalil Barhoum improved my translations of several of Arabic poems. Poetics Today 15:2 (Summer 1994). Copyright ? 1994 by The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. CCC 0333-5372/94/2.50. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.21 on Tue, 27 Sep 2016 04:58:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 192 Poetics Today 15:2 expression of essential character of Egyptian people. Like all popular culture, its historical evolution has been formed by a matrix of forces constituted by changing relations of production and consumption, political power, and cultural hegemony. In last third of nineteenth century, colloquial Egyptian Arabic began to appear regularly in plays and newspapers-literary forms associated with emergence of Egyptian nationalist movement. The elevation of a vernacular or a dialect into a national language has often been associated with emergence of nationalist politics and reformation of culture in popular-national terms. Tom Nairn (1977: 340), in explaining why nationalism invariably includes romantic cultural elements, proposed that the new middle class intelligentsia of nationalism had to invite masses into history; and invitation card had to be written in a language they understood. This observation is valid not only for content of nationalist culture, but also for its linguistic form. The establishment of a national language has been complicated in Egypt and Arab world because of contending political and religious claims of standard Arabic as opposed to several colloquial dialects. Colloquial Egyptian Arabic is only medium of expression for majority of illiterate Egyptians, who do not easily understand standard Arabic. Until distribution of Egyptian films became widespread throughout Arab world in 1930s and 1940s, it was commonly used only by inhabitants of Nile Valley, with some variations among Upper Egypt, Cairo, and Delta. Yet colloquial Egyptian Arabic is disparaged by Muslim scholars as a perversion of language of Koran and by Pan-Arab nationalists, who regard it as a threat to linguistic unity of Arab world. Consequently, decision to write in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, even if not so intended, has often been perceived as a political act associated with a nationalist program of populism, anticlericalism (though not irreligion), and local Egyptian patriotism (wataniyya), as opposed to Pan-Arabism (qawmiyya). Zajal, colloquial poetry in strophic form, was popularized by rise of Egyptian nationalist press. The genre originated in twelfthcentury Spain, if not earlier. Although early written examples exist, zajal was primarily an oral art until it was appropriated by Egyptian nationalist literati in late nineteenth century. Marilyn Booth (1990: 414 n. 3) and Kamal Abdel-Malek (1990: 5-6), authors of first two book-length studies in English of modern Egyptian zajal, suggest that careers of Ya'qub Sannu' (1839-1912), cAbd Allah al-Nadim (1844-1896), Mahmud Bayram al-Tunisi (1893-1961), and Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm (b. 1929) describe a trajectory for developThis content downloaded from 207.46.13.21 on Tue, 27 Sep 2016 04:58:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Beinin * Writing Class 193 ment of what I term national-popular political zajal. These are best-known of zajjals (poets) who established genre as a literary form identified with populist Egyptian patriotism. Their work comprises a poetic anti-canon which, through its language, subject matter, and mode of publication, constitutes a discourse of popular opposition to hegemonic form of Egyptian national literary culture expressed in standard Arabic. Working-class zajjals of 1940s and 1950s and leftist intellectuals who encouraged them recognized distinctive significance of zajal in modern Egypt and thought of themselves and their work as related to this political and cultural project. Since Bayram al-Tunisi was widely considered master of this genre, worker-poets consciously situated themselves under his literary shadow, legitimizing their political claims by expressing them in what was considered an authentic national form sanctioned by prior practice of a recognized cultural