The Poetics of Urban Space: Structures of...

1 For studies of this type cf. the surveys of Charles Vial, “Le Caire des romancierségyptiens”, Annales Islamologiques, 8 (1969), p. 151-165; M.M. Badawi, “The City inModern Egyptian Literature”, in: id., Modern Arabic Literature and the West, London 1985,p. 26-43; and Robin Ostle, “The City in Modern Arabic Literature”, BSOAS, 49 (1986),p. 193-202.

2 This role has been acknowledged, in a �rst step, by dedicating to it a conference

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1999 Arabica, tome XLVI

THE POETICS OF URBAN SPACE:STRUCTURES OF LITERARISING

EGYPTIAN METROPOLIS

by

STEPHAN GUTH

University of Berne, Switzerland

Preliminary remarks

This article is the outcome of a seminary held at Berne University

with students of the intermediate level of Arabic (3rd year). The

texts that we built upon were chosen mainly to meet pedagogical require-

ments (not too long, a translation preferably available, diVerent peri-

ods covered, etc.). I have however been careful to ensure a certain

degree of ‘typicality’, and therefore ‘generalisability’, with regard to

stylistic features and thematic aspects of the periods of 20th century

Egyptian literary history.

This study does not focus primarily on the phenomena listed and

marked by the authors as ‘urban’1 but rather stresses aspects of liter-

ary form. Our interest is not a sociological, but a genuinely literary one

(in the �rst place at least); metropolis serves just as a means to get

access into the writer’s workshop and watch the process of creative

writing in general, and of constructing literary space(s) in particular. As

such it is meant as a contribution to research, until now still rather rare,

in the �eld of literary technique, i.e. in the textual devices and strategies

used to give a phenomenon—in our case: urbanity—a certain mean-

ing. Among them, the organization of space plays an important role.2

Having in mind form rather than contents, we have considered it

irrelevant, for the time being at least, that our selection of texts does

not diVerentiate between narratives in which urban life is depicted more

or less only en passant (texts nos. 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10), and others in which

the description of life in Egyptian cities, or its comparison with other

modes of living, obviously is the author’s main interest (nos. 1, 4, 5,

7, 11).3

Description and analysis

In the following section, for each text four steps will be followed,

the �rst three preparing the ground for the forth, and main, step:

� the story’s contents will be shortly summarized (unless already done

elsewhere);

� its main thematic focus will be sketched (what is the whole story

about?);

� the elements mentioned by the author and conceived of as urban

will be extracted (as what do ‘the city’ and ‘urban life’ appear in the

texts?);

� the writer’s employment of spatial devices in the construction of lit-

erary urbanity and his instrumentalization of space for the overall

‘message’ of his text will be discussed (what does ‘space’ mean for

the creative writer? how do spatial elements form part of the whole?).

1) Muúammad al-Muwayliú“: chapter “al-’Umda f“ l-úad“qa”, from îad“Æ’ísˆ ibn HiÒˆm

Written and �rst published in Mi§bˆú al-Òarq in 1900.4 Text used here: Cairo: Kitˆbal-Óa’b, [n. d.], p. 135-141; English translation: “The ’Umda in the Garden”, in:Allen, A Period of Time, p. 289-297.

In îad“Æ ’ísˆ b. HiÒˆm—originally a number of sometimes only loosely connected

articles that appeared in Mi§bˆú al-Òarq from 1898 onwards—the narrator ’ísˆtogether with a Pasha from Muúammad ’Al“’s times who has resurrected from his

grave, undertake a tour through Cairo at the turn of the century. The story con-

sists mainly of the protagonists’ stoppings at various buildings and places or on

on La Poétique de l’espace dans la littérature arabe moderne—Méthodologies et approches, held inParis in April 1997.

3 Nadia Al-Bagdadi has shown most convincingly how deeply metropolis aVects alsothose texts which are not necessarily, or primarily, intended to be portraits of urbanexistence; cf. her article “Großstadtre�exionen” (see bibliography).

4 Cf. Allen, A Period of Time (see bibliography), p. 39-40.

the poetics of urban space 455

certain other occasions, the ‘adventures’ in which they get involved then, and theirconversations and commentaries on the places, persons, institutions etc. which they

happen to come across and watch during their tour through ‘modern’ Cairo, a

Cairo that has changed a lot since the Pasha’s times, a Cairo also under British

occupation.

In the chapter “al-’Umda f“ l-úad“qa”, e.g., the Pasha asks ’ísˆ to show him somemore places, because he “decided that he would like to do some more investigating

and study the character and temperament of a variety of people” (p. 135/p. tr.289).5

The narrator leads him to the Ezbekiyya Gardens, warning him that they would

witness there “all the varieties of �lth, corruption, lechery, and drunkenness” (ibid.).

But the Pasha is, at �rst at least, overwhelmed by, among other things, the beautyof these gardens and starts praising God and spirituality that allows men to know

Him in nature, at the same time criticising his compatriots for their materialism

which prevents them from making proper use of such places. When stopping at

an arti�cial grotto they notice three Egyptians—a ’umda, a playboy (¢al“ ’ ) and a

merchant (tˆ[ir)—who are on a lookout for women for amusement. They listen totheir conversation, and in the next chapters (chs. 25-32) also follow them to a

restaurant, a tavern, the dance hall, the Pyramids, the theatre, etc.

îad“Æ ’ísˆ b. HiÒˆm as a whole is a very critical, sometimes satirical, evaluation

of the rapid changes brought about by 19th century reformism, a careful weigh-

ing up of the Old against the New, of tradition versus modernity (including theinstitutions of the colonial system), a stocktaking of improvements and deteriorations,

never shrinking back from pointing out and deploring miserable conditions such

as the social injustice of the feudal system, superstition, bureaucracy, tafarnu[ (blind

imitation of everything European), materialistic thinking, etc.

The state of aVairs as shown by al-Muwayliú“ in this story is however notdescribed as being the result of what the author could have conceived of as an

essentially urban system. The city rather appears as an agglomeration of loci—of

which however only those are shown that can pass as manifestations of 19th cen-

tury innovations and upheavals: the police, the various courts, the religious en-

dowments (awqˆf ), places of learning, etc. In the ’umda-chapters, of which “The

’Umda in the Garden” is the �rst, the city is looked upon as a place of moral de-pravity, of sexual pleasures, drinking, dancing, gambling, cheating, and other ‘vices’

of the modern times unknown to the Pasha. Evil is however not brought about by

the space in which change has taken, and still takes, place but by Time. The sites

of al-Muwayliú“’s Cairo, therefore, are not seen as speci�cally urban sites but asmaterial manifestations of Time having passed and still passing by. Although essen-

tially a portrait of an end-19th century Egyptian metropolis, the author did not

think he was describing a big city but—as is evident from the title he had origi-

nally chosen for his series of articles, Fatra min al-zaman—“a period of time”, not

a speci�c kind of space!

Accordingly, space is not yet exploited by the author as a literary

category oVering vast possibilities for description, characterisation, cre-

5 In the following, the �rst number will always refer to the Arabic original, the sec-ond to the English translation. Where an English version was not available to me, trans-lations are my own.

456 stephan guth

ating atmosphere, structuring, generating its own level of meaning, etc.

With the exception of a few passages that give concrete details, e.g.,

of the Ezbekiyya Gardens, and praise their heavenly beauty, the spa-

tial aspects of his environment are of no special interest for the writer.

Urban space is rather the space of a thinker’s intellectual riúla, a “jour-

ney” through his own time; it consists of a number of places, only loosely

connected spatially through geographical vicinity but very closely tied

together through a common idea, the idea of a changing world and

of modernity. It is the totality of neuralgic spots where the intellectual

hero, ’ísˆ b. HiÒˆm, halts in order to deliver his úad“Æ, his commentary

on the present state, and as a commentary delivered by the protago-

nist at his halting places the úad“Æ quite naturally joins in the tradition

of the maqˆma. Thus, putting it a bit pointedly, we may say: space for

al-Muwayliú“ is maqˆm, and literarised space is maqˆma.

2) Muúammad Taym�r: êaVˆrat al-’ “d (1917)6

Text: in Mˆ tarˆhu l-’uy�n, available e.g. in al-A’mˆl al-kˆmila, ed. Maúm�d Taym�r,Cairo: Dˆr Alif, 1990 (reprint), 37-43.7

For the story’s contents see the detailed summary given by de Moor, in Oiseau,

158.

The theme of this story, according to de Moor, is

l’isolement de certains jeunes dans le groupe, ceux qui forment la brebis galeusedu troupeau. [. . .] Ce sont souvent surtout des raisons économiques et socialesqui mènent à un tel état. L’enfant pauvre n’a pas le droit de s’intégrer. L’insistancesur l’état d’orphelin laisse penser qu’un enfant sans parents a moins de chance dese maintenir dans le groupe.8

Although certainly not intended by the author as a description of speci�cally urban

conditions nor as a portrait of Cairo as a whole, the microcosm of one of the

city’s popular quarters in Taym�r’s narrative can, to a certain extent at least, rep-

resent also the macrocosm of the Egyptian metropolis around 1915 in general. Thescene is divided into a ’a� fa or úˆra, a narrow dead-end lane, and a big boulevard

(Òˆri’ ) onto which it opens.9 Whereas the Òˆri’ is shown as the world of the mun-

6 For a short analysis cf. de Moor, Oiseau, p. 165-167, and Hafez, Genesis, p. 167-169.

7 According to de Moor, Oiseau, p. 166, n. 6, there is also a French translation, whichI have however not been able to get, by René Khawam in his Nouvelles arabes, Paris1964, p. 179 V.

8 De Moor, Oiseau, p. 166.-Fn. 7 also points out: “Hafez suggère que cette nouvelleest un plaidoyer pour l’amélioration des conditions sociales des orphelins”, referring toS. Hafez’s then still unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The Rise and Development of the Egyptian Short

Story, 1881-1970 , p. 83; this opinion is however not repeated in Hafez’s Genesis.9 De Moor, Oiseau, p. 167, remarks that “la description de la ruelle débouchant sur


dane capital (’ˆ§ima, 37), a world where the children like to play, where there islife, joy, singing, dancing, Bayram amusement—everything cheerful, merry, and

modern happens in this part of the city and comes in from there—, the ’a� fa is the

comparatively darker world of traditional ways of living, and considerably less attrac-

tive. The traditional popular quarter (úayy Òa’b“ ) is however shown not as a uni-

form cosmos, but as a place where several social groups are living together. Theauthor makes a point of populating his urban space with both rich and poor as

well as with representative �gures such as the pious visitors of the mausoleum of

a ‘holy’ sheikh (37), Umm Mill“m “the seller of �a’miyya, salad and leek” (37), a

eunuch (shown as one of the last remnants of an age that is now gone, cf. 37-38,

39), the ra"“s of the Naqshband“ order and a sweets seller (40) as well as Maúm�dthe Lion (M. al-sab’ ), the �tiwwa10 of the ’a�fa (41). Despite this great variety andalso the tensions, explicitly shown or simply hinted at, between diVerent groups,

the ’a�fa is depicted as a system that is still functioning more or less properly: it is

the children’s “only place of refuge” (mal[a", 39), in the �tiwwa it has an authority

of its own that ensures justice (Maúm�d the Lion supervises the children’s wrestlingand helps the orphan to get what he is entitled to, 42), and it is a place where

the miserable can retreat and �nd shelter (cf. the �nal image of the orphan sitting

“in the shadow of the tree” and leaning against its sˆq, the tree’s “stem” thus

replacing a mother’s “leg”, or lap, 42). However, in spite of these qualities and

although even a pasha did not want to leave the equable world of the úˆra becausehis ancestors lived here (37), the popular quarter as a whole seems to have lost its

attractivity, all aspirations are directed towards the ’̂ §ima, and besides being a mal[a"there is not much left for the ’a�fa than to be a �eld of loneliness and tristesse.

In êaVˆrat al-’“d, Muúammad Taym�r displays a clear awareness of

a writer’s possibilities of creating a literary space and instrumentalizing

spatial elements for the overall ‘message’. His considerable skill—almost

astonishing in this early stage of the development of the modern Arabic

short story—may certainly be the result of his theatrical experience.11

The in�uence of drama can already be observed in the opening scene

which seems to be shaped after the model of a stage direction descri-

bing what the spectator should see when the curtain opens, giving the

idea of a limited space with clear indications for an imagined stage

designer for what is to be placed where, how it looks like, what is in

the background, etc.:

la grande route convient tout à fait avec Darb as-Sa’âda où Taymûr était né. La mêmedescription se trouve aussi dans la nouvelle Al�toua [. . .] et dans Dars f î kuttâb”.

10 Vocalised thus by Badawi/Hinds, Dictionary, p. 641 (s.r. “f-t-w”). The word is usedhere in the sense of “neighbourhood strong-man and protector of local interests”, ameaning Badawi/Hinds already (1986) gives as “obsol[ete]”, having been replaced nowa-days by “bully, tough guy, hood” or simply “tough”.

11 Cf. de Moor, Oiseau, part 3, “Le discours théâtral”, p. 189 V.

458 stephan guth

The ’a�fa that we are talking about is long, narrow, and has no pavement. It beginswith a thick wall and ends at the great boulevard, where you see on its right sidea huge palace [. . .], and on its left the tomb of an imaginary sheikh in front ofwhich men and women recited the fˆtiúa [. . .]. (37)

The �rst appearances and �nal disappearances of the characters also

give the impression of the entries and exits of actors in the theatre.

The ‘stage’ is conceived of as re�ecting a certain milieu. This can

be seen from the fact that Taym�r in order to set the scene �lls the

space not only with material elements such as a “huge palace” for-

merly owned by a pasha, a “big tree”, or the “litter thrown away by

the passers-by” (all 37), but also with a number of characters who obvi-

ously serve as markers of the social environment in which the events

take place since they do not participate in the main plot (the mau-

soleum visitors, Umm Mill“m, the eunuch, the Naqshband“ chief, etc.).

The scene is divided into two opposing spaces the diVerence between

which is not only shown through description but also made felt by con-

trasting their basic spatial features: whereas the Òˆri’ is open, wide,

‘unlimited’, and �rmly �lled (life and joie de vivre; hope, change, future),

the úˆra is closed, has a dead end, is narrow and empty (despair, per-

sisting in the unchanging traditions of the past). The perspective takes

the úˆra as its centre, and the contrast between outside and inside the

úˆra is also, for the orphan, a contrast between participation in the life

of his surroundings on the one hand, and isolation, retreat into his

inner world on the other. The analogy between space and personality,

between the úˆra and the orphan, can even let us think of the two

forming a whole: úˆra and orphan as the one spatial-personal hero of

the story.

3) Yaúyˆ îaqq“: Qind“l Umm HˆÒim (1944)

Arabic text (and German translation) in: Yahya Hakki, Die Öllampe der Umm Haschim

= Qind“l Umm HˆÒim, ed./transl. Nagi Naguib, Berlin: Edition Orient, 1981. TheEnglish translation referred to is by M.M. Badawi, in: Yahya Haqqi, The Saint’s

Lamp and other stories, Leiden: Brill, 1973, 1-38.

For the story’s contents see the detailed summary given in Kindlers Neues Literatur

Lexikon, vol. 7, 282-283, and also Wielandt, Bild der Europäer, 386 V.

The story revolves around the problem of whether, and how, East and West

can come together in an Egyptian intellectual to form a stable identity. ‘Western’

stands mainly for ‘cool’ rational thinking, secular knowledge, and a rather arro-

gant, but also understandable sense of superiority towards the religious, often super-stitious ‘East’ against which it is polarised. ‘The East’ appears to be disinclined to

any form of change, it loves to stick to its traditions even at the price of remain-

ing in backwardness and stagnation. It has however something to oVer—the secret


powers of faith and a sense of togetherness and shared identity—without whichnothing ‘Western’ can ever be integrated. The acceptance of ‘Oriental’ traditions

is therefore a necessary complement as well as an indispensable prerequisite for

harmony, success and progress.12

Although again not intended as a portrait of urban conditions this story too

shows some of them en passant. As in Taym�r’s êaVˆrat al-’“d the author here alsoplaces a popular quarter in the centre of his interest. The city as a whole appears

as the aim at which the hopes of poor people of the r“f are directed in their search

to make a living, it is a place of possible social ascent (6/tr.1); it is also a hurly-

burly of a great variety of people and things: beggars, the tram, pubs, prostitutes,

retail trade, the religious centre of the Umm HˆÒim mosque, etc., as well as aplace where local tradition meets new ideas and is continuously broken with. The

maydˆn of the Sayyida Zaynab quarter ful�ls the special function of being the seat

of Egyptian collectivism, a sense of togetherness that îaqq“ depicts, according to

Wielandt’s analysis, as

eine durch lange historische Erfahrungen in die Erbmasse eingegangene kollektiveHaltung mit quasireligiösem Charakter.13

îaqq“’s mastership, already widely acknowledged and praised, becomes

evident also from the way he handles space in this novella. As with

Taym�r, the úayy Òa’b“ is shown as a limited world that opens on the

borders into other worlds which are however only seldom entered—

Ismˆ’“l in his youth does not leave the Sayyida quarter and square, his

longest walk taking him no farther than close-by al-Manyal (14/tr.5).

From the beginning of the story, movement is thus centred around and

directed at the maydˆn, in this way paralleling the ideological with the

spatial focus. This centre is endowed with the qualities of a home “pro-

tected by God and Umm HˆÒim” (14/tr.5), qualities which the hero

neglects only in the middle of the story when he has just returned from

England where he had been far away from the gravitational centre

(spatial distance equalling mental/emotional distance). When Ismˆ’“l issuVering from his crisis the story’s spatial-ideological centre exerts its

centripetal attraction and draws him back quasi-magically: he

12 For further reading see, e.g., M.M. Badawi, “The Lamp of Umm Hâshim: theEgyptian intellectual between East and West”, JAL 1 (1970), p. 145-161; S. Bencheneb,“Les rapports de l’Orient et de l’Occident vus par l’écrivain Yaúyâ îaqqî”, ROMM 20(1975), p. 7-33; S.A. Gohlman, “Women as cultural symbols in Yaúyâ îaqqî’s Saint’sLamp”, JAL 10 (1979), p. 117-127; Wielandt, Bild der Europäer, p. 386-398; Nagi Naguib,“Yahya Hakki—Zum Leben und Werk”, in: Y.H., Die Öllampe der Umm Haschim, Berlin1981, p. 111 V. (with further references on p. 140); Muhammad Siddiq, “‘Deconstructing’The Saint’s Lamp”, JAL 17 (1986), p. 126-145.

13 = a collective attitude of a quasi-religious character that has, by way of long his-torical experience, become part of the [Egyptians’] genetic make-up: Wielandt, Bild der

Europäer, p. 392.

460 stephan guth

roam[ed] about in the streets from the morning to midnight. Every evening hefound himself—he did not know how [!]—wandering in the middle of SayyidaZaynab square (92/tr.33);

Ismail would then escape from the square and [. . .] spend the night thinkingof some device to escape back to Europe. Yet the following night he would �ndhimself back in his usual spot in the Sayyida square. (96/tr.34)

Prepared in this way also in spatial terms, the great relief for the hero

can come—in the laylat al-qadr14!—in form of the discovery that “[t]here

can be no science without faith” (lˆ ’ilma bi-lˆ “mˆn, 100/tr.36), the si-

milarity of which to receiving a divine revelation is again underlined

through spatial devices:

He raised his eyes, and behold!—the dome [of the Sayyida mosque] was �oodedwith light which emanated from something swinging inside it (100/tr.35),

spatial height symbolising spiritual grandeur here in the same manner

as already in the beginning, where “Ismail shivered, not knowing what

had touched his heart” when contemplating the lamp that “bestowed

its faint light on the Saint’s shrine”:

As for the chain from which the lamp was suspended it did not seem to exist.[. . .] Here was neither east nor west, neither day nor night, neither yesterday nortomorrow. (30/tr.10)

In the spatial height of the lamp and the dome (and in the sphere of

their protecting radiation where the maydˆn is) the earthly laws of Time

and Space are suspended in favour of the unchanging laws of eternity.

4) Y�suf Idr“s: MiÒwˆr (1953)

Text: in Ar¢a§ layˆl“, Cairo: Maktabat ýar“b, 1978 (?), 131-146; English translationby Wadida Wassef as “The Errand”, in: Yusuf Idris, The Cheapest Nights, and other

stories, Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Pr./London: Heinemann, 1978, 18-30.

With MiÒwˆr15 our selection enters the post-war period in which the dichotomy

between city and countryside becomes increasingly important for realist writers such

as Y. Idr“s and M. al-Sa’dan“, the author of story no. 5.

MiÒwˆr opens with the dream of al-Óabrˆw“, a policeman of a small provincial

town (balda) in the Nile Delta, of once again enjoying the pleasures of Cairo whichhe had known earlier when he had been a conscript. He is happy therefore to

become entrusted with the job of escorting Zubayda, a mentally disturbed village

14 This is the night of 27th Rama¶ˆn “in which according to ður"ˆn, XCVII [forLXXXVII which is not correct], 1, the ður"ˆn was sent down”: EI, vol. viii, s.v.“Rama¶ˆn” (M. Plessner).

15 For some information, though not extensive, on this story cf. Cohen-Mor, Yusuf

Idr“s, see “Index of Stories” s.v. “Mishwˆr”; and also Ryberg, Y�suf Idr“s, esp. p. 106 V.


woman, to the psychiatric sanatorium in the capital. In Cairo however they haveto endure a veritable odyssey since Zubayda’s imbecile behaviour incessantly pro-

duces embarrassing situations and because, when al-Óabrˆw“ cannot get rid of her

at the Governorate, they have to stay overnight somewhere but nobody wants to

shelter them. The next day, too, none of the oYcials is ready to take over respon-

sibility for Zubayda, not even at al-Qa§r al-’Ayn“ hospital. In the end she is putinto a straitjacket at the Governorate and driven away (where?) by an ambulance.

Now at least [. . .] he was �nally rid of her. When that moment arrived he hadpromised himself a feast in celebration. But [. . .] El Shabrawi stole away straightto the station. He had had enough of Cairo, and enough of the whole world.(146/tr.30)

The main developments of Idr“s’s MiÒwˆr are: �rst, a slow but steady deconstruc-tion of the rural hero’s dreams of the joys and pleasures of the capital; and sec-

ond, running parallel to the �rst, the hero’s discovery of a humanity that is to be

respected in insane Zubayda.

According to the structural dichotomy of ‘dream vs. reality’ the city in MiÒwˆr

�gures in two contrasting sets of features: In the villager’s imagination it appearsin nostalgic trans�guration as a place of pleasant gatherings with old friends, amuse-

ment in bars and cinemas, good food etc.—in short, a place where the ‘real’ life

is. During and through the “errand”, however, real Cairo becomes the locus of

disillusionment of false expectations: contrary to the hero’s experiences in the past,it turns out to be extremely inhospitable and unfriendly now, a maze of crowded

streets through which al-Óabrˆw“’s way is long and tortuous (cf. 137/tr.23), a place

of sensation-seeking masses molesting you “like �ies” (143/tr.28), of spies lying in

wait in cafés, of oYcials unwilling to take over responsibility, a place that lacks

warmth and security, where the hero has “no idea where to go” (139/tr.25) andwhere, again and again, “the streets contain [. . .] them once more” (140/tr.25). —

The city however also functions as a catalyst that eVects a fundamental change in

al-Óabrˆw“: it is only in the urban environment of inhumanity and disillusionment

that he starts to see in Zubayda a human being, not an animal. The turning point

where this inner puri�cation of the hero takes place is—like in îaqq“’s Qind“l !—the

mosque of Sayyida Zaynab, which here is set against modern Cairo (al-Óabrˆw“moves around almost exclusively in those parts of the city that were built from the

19th century onwards; ‘modernity’ is also marked by buildings like the train sta-

tion, the governorate, the hospital, the police stations etc., by the tram as means

of public transport and, of course, by phenomena of modern urbanity like man’sdeindividualisation in the crowd or the indiVerence towards one’s fellow human

beings). Within this roaring ocean hostile to man the Sayyida mosque proves to

be an island, though “swarming with the usual crowd of saintly idiots and half-

wits” (141/tr.26), of relaxation and rest, of blissful contentment, of security and

warmth, thus preparing the ground for the change in al-Óabrˆw“’s attitude towards

Zubayda:

Now for the �rst time El Shabrawi was able to contemplate her face. She wasn’tpretty, but her skin was fair and she was small. [. . .] The peaceful mask of herface now totally concealed her insanity. El Shabrawi noticed that her gown was

462 stephan guth

torn and her thigh was showing through. He covered her up and looked away.(142/tr.27)

In the end he not only respects her human dignity but

[t]he sight of her rolling and writhing on the ground [in a straitjacket] �lled himwith pity (145/tr.30),

and when she is about to be driven away

he darted forward like one stabbed in the heart and begged the driver to wait.He ran to the corner and bought her a loaf of French bread and a piece of helva,which he gave to the policeman escorting her. ‘Will you see that she eats them,’he pleaded, ‘and will you take good care of her? Please . . . for the sake of allyour departed ones. . . .’ (146/tr.30)

Y�suf Idr“s has chosen to let his hero’s inner development unfold accord-

ing to the old paradigm of a journey from which the one who under-

takes it emerges fundamentally changed (i.e., a passage). Except at

the Sayyida mosque, al-Óabrˆw“ is constantly moving around within the

story’s spaces: from the balda to Cairo, in Cairo from one place to the

next, and �nally back to the Delta, the processual nature of disillu-

sionment and shift in thinking and feeling thus being converted into

movement-through-space (cf. also the means of locomotion like the train,

the tram, the feet, etc.). Two main types of space (scenes) can be dis-

tinguished. First, the distance between the balda and the capital that is

covered by train: here, geographically approaching the ‘city of dreams’

equals an actual distancing from the goal. Al-Óabrˆw“’s belief in the

quick and easy attainability of the longed-for pleasures (“All he had to

do was board the train and he would be in the heart of Cairo”,

132/tr.19) is contrasted sharply with the train’s slowness (“After a long

wait [!] the Delta train came puYng in”, 133/tr.19; “After a long time

the loitering and meandering and interminable stops came to an end”,

but now we are only in al-Man§�ra where the train “crawled” in “like

a long caterpillar”, 133/tr.20) and with the embarrassing situations that

arise already at this stage of events: Because of Zubayda’s screaming

and trilling-cries “[t]he carriage was [. . .] in utter pandemonium”

(135/tr.21), and in a scuZe between Zubayda and the hero who tries

to calm her down she �ings his tarboosh out of the window, in this

way exposing him to “the indignity of remaining with his head unco-

vered” (136/tr.22). The transition from one stage (dreamt-of city) to the

other (real Cairo) is metonymically marked by the protagonist’s cros-

sing a bridge at al-Man§�ra when he has to change trains (133/tr.20).


The second main type of space—the real city itself—is a space in which

the odyssey-like being driven to and fro manifests itself literally as an

uncontrollable zigzagging between several spots, a permanent change

of scenery and forced leaving without rest because there is no room

left, the width of Cairo’s topographical extension contrasting sharply

with its roomlessness for human beings—except for the mosque of

Sayyida Zaynab where everything is marked by inversion: in these sur-

roundings, nothing Zubayda can do is going to appear odd;

[i]t was he, rather, who was feeling out of place and he longed to lose his rea-son too and join these carefree people in their bowers of lunatic bliss. (141/tr.26)

5) Maúm�d al-Sa’dan“: Ilˆ ÿimˆ (1955)

Text: in al-Samˆ" al-sawdˆ", Cairo: Dˆr al-kˆtib al-’arab“, 1967, 20-31; translatedby Mohamed Kaddal as “The Night Train Home”, in: Arabic Writing Today (seebibliography), 276-286.

Har“d“, a poor fallˆú, on his train journey back home to Upper Egypt, rememberswhat he has been through during the last year since he had come to Cairo from

his native village, ÿimˆ. He had worked hard, �rst on several building sites, then

for a team of foreign excavators digging in the desert for ancient Egyptian relics.

One day, only a week ago now, his pickaxe had opened a tomb, but in his sim-

ple-mindedness and ignorance he had not been able to grasp the sensational mean-ing of his discovery. Instead, he had feared to have done something wrong and

breathed a sigh of relief when he was left oV scot-free although the police and the

press had already come and started questioning him. They had even oVered him

a sum of 10 L.E., not less, if he would take his leave—i.e., as much as he had

managed to save up during a whole year! For Har“d“ it had been clear then thatthe others were absolute fools, and of course he hadn’t waited to be asked twice

and made a quick getaway with his booty. He had bought a melon, some rice

and some sugar—and taken the train home, “To ÿimˆ”.

The story is the portrait of a ‘typical’ labour migrant. With a mixture of strong

sympathy for the poor fellows coming from a rural background and, at the sametime, with an understanding smile for the sometimes odd-looking behaviour of the

uneducated fallˆú“n in an environment that is totally strange to them, the author

shows the migrants’ way of seeing the city and their attempts to live and survive

there in spite of their ‘false’ perception.

Intending to portray a êa ’“d“’s world of thought, al-Sa’dan“ shows everythingfrom Har“d“’s perspective. For him, Cairo appears as a place of luxury, wealth

and abundance, of ‘fullness’ in every respect (plenty of food, plenty of people,

rampantly growing building-sites everywhere with plenty of jobs, a labyrinth of

streets, etc.). He notices some phenomena of urban life such as the mad rush of

the crowds, their exhaustment, their tired-looking faces, but also their nice dressesand elegant, beautiful women, but he is also surprised to �nd the city-dwellers

indulging in apparently stupid things like taking a walk and promenading along in

parks while there is so much delicious and cheap food all around just waiting to

be eaten. He tries to arrange himself with the strange new environment, accept-

464 stephan guth

ing as given facts, or necessary evils, also unpleasant experiences such as beingrobbed and beaten half-dead by some criminals in a prostitution district. — For

the reader, the city emerges from this story as a place where clueless villagers like

Har“d“ become exploited by employment contractors, pimps, and even archaeo-

logists.

Space in Ilˆ ÿimˆ plays an important role and contributes substan-

tially to producing the story’s overall ‘message’. Al-Sa’dan“ does not

tell the events chronologically but starts with his hero taking the train

back to Upper Egypt, letting him pass in review during the journey

home what he has been through since he had left ÿimˆ. Thus, the

narrative starts where Har“d“’s Cairo experience ended (at the train

station), and what has happened to him in the big city is told only in

retrospective while the train is already constantly moving southwards.

Cairo in this way becomes a point of departure, the starting point of

a movement-away, of a distancing-from, the ‘�ight’ character of which

is underlined by the text’s insistence on the telegraph poles that “ran

hastily in the opposite direction like frightened children scampering for

shelter” ( f“ l-�ar“q al-mu¶ˆdd wa-ka-annahˆ a�fˆl maÅ’�ra ta[r“ muharwila f“�alab al-amˆn) (22/tr.277; cf. also 27/tr.282). Chronological condensa-

tion towards the end of the journey home as well as the Cairo plot

lets the story culminate in a structural equalling of departure from the

city with returning into the security of a familiar world. The recollec-

tion of Har“d“’s Cairo enterprise is made to end by the author with

the hero’s arrival in the South, i.e., at home, in security, which also

means that he has regained a kind of sovereignty:

Here it was, now—Tema station, where he would be getting oV. Nobody wasgoing to trample over him any more, for it was his turn to tread over those whowere still sitting there (wa-sa-yad�su huwa ay¶an ’alˆ l-ˆ¢ar“n) (31/tr.285).

6) Na[“b Maúf�½: al-]ˆmi’ f“ l-darb (1963)

Text: in Dunyˆ Allˆh, Cairo 1963, 62-78; English translation by Nadia Farag as“The Mosque in the Narrow Lane”, in: Arabic Writing Today, 117-128.16

A narrow lane situated in one of Cairo’s red-light districts during World War II.Pimps have the power in the quarter. A prostitute and a man who loves her are

killed on one of the pimps’ behest. The quarter mosque’s imˆm collaborates with

the corrupt royal authorities, several men are arrested in the ‘house of God’. Dur-

ing an air raid the inhabitants of the quarter seek shelter in the mosque. The imˆmbelieves that God has gathered them here in order to wipe out vice once and for

16 Translated also into German by W. Walther: “Die Moschee in der Gasse”, in:Arabische Erzählungen, ed. S. Tau�q, Munich 1991 (repr.), p. 11-22.


all, and �ees. But the mosque is not hit and everybody, including the murderouspimp, gets oV unscathed. The imˆm however is found dead after sunrise, a victim

of shrapnel.

It is diYcult to pin Na[“b Maúf�½ on a ‘message’ in this story. Evidently, it

belongs already to an artistic period in which he began to intertwine realist por-

trays and social criticism with more ‘philosophical’, more religious, and also moregenerally human issues. Thus, in al-]ˆmi’ f“ l-darb several such items are raised,

like ‘God’s law vs. state terror’, ‘human vs. divine justice’, ‘the corruptibility of men

of religion’, ‘murder vs. betrayal (of God and the believers)’.

As a concrete background for the discussion of these abstract questions the author

has chosen again the favourite milieu of his earlier writings, an old popular quar-ter most likely somewhere in Fatimid Cairo, an area quali�ed by sociologists as

belonging to the ‘traditional urban’17 strata of Egyptian society. In the speci�c dis-

trict singled out by Maúf�½ here the term ‘urban’ seems to be almost identical

with fasˆd, ‘decay’ or ‘corruption’. In the microcosm of the darb—perhaps an image

for Egypt as a whole—prevail sins, vice, depravity (alcohol, drugs, prostitution,pimping, organised gangs, brutality, murder) under the inhabitants, there is fasˆdamong the state powers (lots of intrigues, insidious siyˆsa, spying, controlling, force-

fully imposing opinions, restriction of freedom) as well as among the men of reli-

gion (hypocrisy, obsequiousness, political conformism).

Maúf�½ uses the possibilities of literary space creation very skilfully.

The embodiment of abstract ideas, philosophical questions, religious-

ethical problems in ‘real’, concrete everyday life is paralleled, with

regard to space, by a careful balancing between a certain detailedness

and concreteness in the description of the settings on the one hand

and, on the other, at the same time a refusal to give too much details,

preferring rough sketches that leave enough room for generalisation

and abstraction. Space then is no more just a milieu, but a space of

ideas. — The author also pays attention to the correspondence between

theme and the characteristics of space en miniature: When, e.g., the issue

of sensual pleasures is raised the lane is described in a way that appeals

to sense perception:

It had a strangely stirring eVect on the senses. At this time of day the districtseemed to wake up and stretch as if after a long sleep, and to prepare for theevening. [. . .] Brazen laughter echoed in the air; incense burned in hallways. Awoman could be heard crying [. . .]. A gruV voice was heard to say indignantly:[. . .]. Voices rehearsed an obscene song [. . .]. (63/tr.119)

17 Cf. Janet Abu-Lughod, “Varieties of Urban Existence: Contrast, coexistence andcoalescence in Cairo”, in: Middle Eastern Cities: a symposium on ancient, Islamic, and contem-

porary Middle Eastern urbanism, ed. by Ira M. Lapidus, Berkeley & Los Angeles 1969, p. 159-187.

466 stephan guth

As with other writers the spatial category of ‘above’ becomes func-

tionalised with Maúf�½, too. Overlooking comes to designate domination:

Where a photograph of the royal family looks down from above on the

imˆms in the “spacious oYce” of the Inspector General they are under the

king’s and his authorities’ thumb (64-5/tr.120). Where there is a pic-

ture of Sa’d Za©l�l, and be it in the room of a prostitute, true patriotism

prevails (73/tr.125). The dome of the mosque shelters those having gath-

ered under it; the dangerous bombs come from above, from the sky, etc. —

In addition, Maúf�½’ text correlates diVerent spaces so as to produce

relations of meaning. When, e.g., a prostitute entertains a new customer

in her room, the man already sitting on the bed and drinking brandy,

[t]he recitation of the Koran coming from the mosque reached his ear.“Why did they have to build a mosque here? Was there nowhere else?”“This place is as good as any other,” retorted Samara, nibbling at her cucumber.“Have you no fear of God, woman?” he asked.“May God forgive us all. .” she replied [. . .].

Abdu Rabbuh [i.e. the imˆm] was now delivering his sermon. Samara’s customerfollowed the words, [. . .] and then began to smile sarcastically:

“Old hypocrite!” he said, “listen to what he’s saying!” (72/tr.124-5)

Connecting one space of fasˆd (prostitution) with the other (hypocrisy,

collaboration) raises the central question: Which fasˆd is worse? Which

is a greater evil in the eyes of God?

7) Y�suf al-Óˆr�n“: al-Ziúˆm (1963)

Text: in Mu¢tˆrˆt: Qi§a§, London & Limassol: Riad el-Rayyes, 1992, 37-58; Englishtranslation by Nadia Farag as “The Crowd”, in: Arabic Writing Today, 328-342.

Waiting at a bus stop for the bus to come, a �rst person narrator (Fatú“ ’Abdar-

ras�l) recalls his life: leaving his native village (“Kom Ghorab in the markaz ofWasta, Province of Beni Suef”, 40/tr.329) for Cairo as a child, school, several jobs,

now bus conductor; his love for ’Awˆ�if (his deceased father’s young and beauti-

ful second wife); his gradual becoming crazy because of the overall crowdedness,

the ziúˆm. From the �nal passage it becomes clear that the narrator is telling his

story (including the ‘initial’ waiting for the bus) from within a sanatorium for men-tal diseases where he eventually has found his rest and peace of mind.

From all the texts studied in this article al-Óˆr�n“’s “Crowd”18 certainly is the

one which is meant most directly to be a portrait of life in the modern Egyptian

metropolis.19 More speci�cally, it shows the ‘madness’ of that life (perhaps also the

absurdity of human existence in general?).

18 I am most grateful to Kathrin Lötscher, to whose paper I owe some importantideas for the analysis of this story.

19 Another one is of course Y�suf Idr“s’s Qˆ’ al-mad“na (1956) which is omitted here


Cairo again appears as the �nal destination of villagers in search of a livelihood.They use to settle in quarters of the lower middle classes like the one which is the

main setting also of this story. There, everything is governed by the density of pop-

ulation and the lack of space: too many people too tightly packed in the cramped

�ats of huge uniform blocks—conditions that almost automatically produce an

atmosphere of distress and aggressiveness, a situation where a private sphere doesnot exist, neither for the individual (because even large families often have to share

one single room), nor for a family (because “the walls have ears”, 52/tr.338).

Together with the crowdedness and the mad rush of the rest of the city, al-Óˆr�n“’shero experiences these conditions as a “war” (al-zaúma úarb, 48/tr.335) that makes

him face the danger of loosing his identity, of dissolving in the masses, of ani-malisation (since it seems impossible to satisfy basic needs without giving up human

behaviour), and all this throws him into loneliness, isolation, depression. Fatú“’Abdarras�l cannot stand these circumstances and eventually goes mad: life in the

big city for him no longer makes any sense.

Everything in al-Ziúˆm is shown by the author to result from spa-

tial factors, more strictly speaking: the scarcity of space. Accordingly,

al-Óˆr�n“ heavily dwells on contrasting semantic �elds related to space

such as ‘wide/narrow’ or ‘thick/thin’ (cf., e.g., as the opposite of the

city’s ziúˆm the ¢alˆ" and fa¶ˆ" of the countryside with its horizon

stretching úattˆ nihˆyat al-ba§ar, 39 and 40); he emphasises the lack of

space not only by using verbs like talˆ§aqa, ta§ˆdama, talˆmasa in describ-

ing how the rooms in the hero’s place border on each other (42), or

like tazˆúama, ta¶ˆraba, tadˆfa’a for the people who crowd the groceries

at the beginning of every month (44), but he also lets even the moon-

light be “strangled by the clustered houses” ( ya¢taniqu taúta zaúmat

al-buy�t, 54/tr.339), or equates living in the hero’s �at with being half-

buried by situating “half of it above and half of it under ground” (41,

cf. tr.330):

A dim light penetrated through barred windows, like those of prison cells. But nosunshine. We lived in a cold, damp, grey twilight. (ibid.)

Fatú“’s gradual becoming crazy is also expressed in terms of space.

‘Real’ and ‘imagined’ spaces gradually become intermingled, the scene

of the hero’s quarrelling with ’Awˆ�if (the shop) mutates, with all tran-

sition markers deleted, into the next scene which unfolds in a public

because it has already been studied suYciently. — Cf. Mona Mikhail, “The City asMetaphor in selected short stories of Y�suf Idr“s”, Al-Nashra, 7, i (1974), p. 3-14; CatherineCobham, “Sex and Society in Y�suf Idr“s’ Qˆ’ al-mad“na”, JAL, vi (1975), p. 78-88;Cohen-Mor, Y�suf Idr“s, esp. p. 144 V.; Ryberg, Y�suf Idr“s, passim (cf. “Qˆ’ al-mad“na”in the index, p. 216).

468 stephan guth

bus (cf. 55/tr.340), and in the end we cannot decide any more from

where the narrator is speaking—with the coherence of meaning also

the spatial localizability has been lost, and vice versa: what does he mean

when he says “here”—still the bus stop from where he spoke in the

beginning?, the bus which had been the last scene?, the sanatorium?

Every ‘here’ and ‘there’ is melted into one single ‘zaúma space’ which

obeys its own rules.

8) Yaúyˆ al-ÿˆhir ’Abdall̂ h: U©niyyat al-’ˆÒiq íliyyˆ (ca. 1975)

Text: in al-Kitˆbˆt al-kˆmila, Cairo & Beirut: Dˆr al-Mustaqbal al-’Arab“, 2nd ed.,1994, 183-192; no English or French translation has come to my knowledge so far.20

In this story, Yaúyˆ al-ÿˆhir ’Abdallˆh lets a small employee stroll by night through

a main cinema boulevard and some side streets of Cairo, all the time thinking of

his beloved, Sˆmiya, who has had to leave the capital—and him—, following herfather who has been transferred to the êa ’“d.

’Abdallˆh, like al-Sa’dan“, devotes his interest to the lower and lowest classes of

Egyptian society. The hero whose world of thinking and feeling he wants to por-

tray is however not a villager but an ordinary urban citizen. The setting in whichthis small ‘man in the street’ experiences the joys and sorrows of love which the

reader is made to share is the Cairo of the early 1970s, of the consumerism that

swept over Egyptian society as a result of Sadat’s ‘open door’ (in�tˆú) policy.21

Accordingly, “loving íliyyˆ’s song” is set against a modern urban background

full of posters, advertising, neon lights, a Cairo packed brimful with shoes, per-

fumes, watches, lighters, radios, TVs, fridges, and other consumer articles displayedin the windows and bought mostly for gain in prestige (cf. 184). It is a world also

of—and like—cinema, a glittering dream world of prefabricated images of happi-

ness and emotions in general. In these surroundings the average citizen íliyyˆ has

to assert himself as an individual against the ubiquitous masses, against drowning

in the anonymity of the crowd. The only way for him to maintain his singularityis to love and, after the loss of Sˆmiya, to keep loving her and cultivate his lone-

liness and grief. But the author is eager to show íliyyˆ’s ‘tragic’: Even in his

attempts to escape deindividualisation he has already become its victim, because

his feelings are not individual feelings anymore, they are pervaded since long by the

clichés and kitsch from the assembly-line of in�tˆú’s dream production: love meansto go to the cinema together, to have a beer and a lemonade or an ice-cream in

a place with a glass front, to spend money (cf. 188), to stylise oneself as an ’ˆÒiq,

20 German translation by E. Pabst: (Yachya al-Tahir Abdallah), “Das Lied des Lieben-den Ilya”, in: Erkundungen: 32 ägyptische Erzähler, ed. Doris Kilias, Berlin 1989, p. 215-225.

21 For a detailed study of the literary echoes of this policy and the changes in soci-ety brought about by it see my Zeugen einer Endzeit: Fünf Schriftsteller zum Umbruch in der

ägyptischen Gesellschaft nach 1970, Berlin 1992.


whose mourning of course unfolds only in the ready-made stereotypes of melo-dramatic songs and sighs known from cinema, TV, etc.

Like al-Óˆr�n“ in al-Ziúˆm, ’Abdallˆh too �lls the urban space to the

utmost (with people and goods). By textually stereotypifying íliyyˆ’s

beloved as the one who “is not walking besides him now” (183 and

passim) and taking up this formula in an expression like “the masses of

people (al-kaÆra min al-nˆs) who are walking with íliyyˆ in the same

street” (184) he connects the beloved and the crowds and demonstrates

that her place has immediately been �lled with people and thus become

anonymised. That, as a result, life is now without meaning for íliyyˆis expressed through the unstructuredness of narrated space: the hero

is strolling around aimlessly. Letting the hero ‘sing’ his u©niyya within

this unstructured space crammed full with consumer goods shows his

emotions as governed by the rules that pervade this space, signalling

that íliyyˆ’s feelings are willy-nilly moulded according to the imper-

sonal, standardised shapes of mass production. — The ‘tragic’ reality,

which íliyyˆ intuitively grasps somehow but cannot oversee in its dimen-

sions, is located ‘below’, while a better dream world can only be estab-

lished in the free uncrowded and uncrammed space ‘above’ the real

world: it is there that íliyyˆ takes Sˆmiya by her hand and they start

“�ying above the heads [of the crowd] like angels do on pictures and

drawings” (189-90).

9) ]amˆl al-ý“�ˆn“: ÿan“n (1970/1972/1976?22)

Text: in al-A’mˆl al-qi§a§iyya, vol. 2, Cairo: al-Hay"a al-Mi§riyya al-’ˆmma li-l-kitˆb,1991, 292-300; translated by Amira Nowaira as “Buzzing”, in: Egyptian Tales and

Short Stories of the 1970s and 1980s, ed. William M. Hutchins, Cairo: AUC Press,1987, 151-157.

“Buzzing” is not set in Cairo, but in post-1967 Port Said. Like in Ilˆ ÿimˆ and

al-Ziúˆm, two levels of events are overlapping here, too. The story’s ‘present’ almost

passes without any events: a 70 year old physician is sitting in the garden of his

house trying to defend the terrain against the �ies (or mosquitoes) whose buzzing �lls

the air. Between their ‘attacks’, he recalls how life has been before the June War.The aftermath of 1967 is embodied here in the exemplary portrait of a small

town on the Suez Canal as well as of the hero’s personality (free indirect speech

22 According to Hutchins (ed.), Egyptian Tales . . ., p. 185, “Buzzing was originally pub-lished [. . .] in al Iza’a wal Tilivizion in 1970”. Is he right? At the end of the story inal-A’mˆl al-qi§a§iyya, p. 300, the year “1972” is given, indicating most probably the yearin which the story was written. In al-A’mˆl al-qi§a§iyya the story appears as one from thecollection îikˆyˆt al-©ar“b which was �rst published in 1976.

470 stephan guth

is used). The reader is made to sense the dimensions of the disaster in the tragicirony of the situation of an old patriot who holds out in the city even after the

defeat because he feels so deeply rooted in this place: defending one’s honour, we

understand, will consist of nothing more now but of lying in wait for buzzing in-

sects and raising the �y swatter for the ‘�nal blow’.

The whole plot is built on the contrast between past and present. The pictureof Port Said is drawn here metonymically, it serves as pars pro toto to illustrate the

state of aVairs in pre- and post-war Egypt in general. Whereas the present (deserted

Port Said) is characterised by slow dying, by boredom and senselessness, by death

itself, the elements of the town’s formerly functioning urbanity are without excep-

tion to be subsumed under the category of ‘life’: remembered Port Said is a cityof variety and entertaining change, of vitality and cheerfulness, of trade and for-

eign ties, cosmopolitanism and open-mindedness, a city of ‘sweet’ life (ice cream,

birthday cakes, and other sweet memories), but also of a heroic past to be proud

of (cf. its role in the so-called ’udwˆn ÆulˆÆ“, the “Tripartite Aggression”, of the Suez

Crisis, 1956).

Space in al-ý“�ˆn“’s story is given, �rst of all, the basic quality of a

‘home’ which you belong and are inseparably bound to. This is achieved

by creating the narrative space as a composite of a number of spots

in the city each of which is connected in the hero’s memory with some

personal experience or old habit that show his rootedness. When tou-

ring the city together with a young engineer he is a perfect guide because

“[e]very inch in this place was part of his life” (298/tr.156). The one

basic space (the ‘essence’, so to speak) has however diVerent aspects: it

appears in a past and a present form, either shaped—in accordance

with the temporal opposition between present and remembered events—

as the exact contrary of the other. A tabular comparison shows the

diVerences:

basic space: Port Said (& Egypt), the ‘home’

past present

full empty

(plenty of people, traYc, goods, etc., (almost deserted by former inhabitants,

lots of memories: stories, history) few cars, nothing happens)

life dying, death(“They stopped before Patisserie (“The houses [. . .] lie there, peaceful

Gianolla. [. . .] ‘Here, in the and quiet, exhaling the damp and

evening,’ he said, ‘I used to sit sinking under the weight of desolation.

with my wife [. . .]’.” 297-8/tr.155; No meals are cooked in them, and no

cf. also the lam ya’ud . . . passages children’s voices resound”, 293/tr.152)on p. 293 describing aspects of

former life that “no longer” exist)


(cont.)

human civilisation nature, hostile to man, regains terrain

(cf., e.g., “the Canal Authority (the �ies; “The grass, which looked like

building with its white domes, [. . .] an unkempt green beard in need of the radio aerials, the [. . .] anchored a trim, had grown so wild it almost

ships, the small boats, the customs covered the walls [of the garden]”,

oYcials, [. . .] the Maritime Arsenal, 292/tr.151)

[. . .] the Port Fouad ferry”, 293/

tr.151)

open closed, limited

(the sea, the port = window to the (the garden where the hero is sitting

world, Greek friend Dimitri, the has walls on every side)

hero strolling around everywhere in

the city)

freedom imprisonment

(the streets’ “emptiness seems as starkas prison walls”, úˆdd ka-aswˆr si[n,

293/tr.152)

the enemy’s aeroplanes droning the �ies buzzing, the hero defending

during the war, the hero holding the terrain with a �y-swatter

out in patriotism

meaningful totality of life senseless vegetating away

10) Maúm�d al-Wardˆn“: Ba’da an tawaqqafa l-ma�ar (1981)

Text: in al-Nu[�m al-’ˆliya, Cairo: al-Hay"a . . ., 1985, 55-57.23

With only three pages in length, al-Wardˆn“’s narrative belongs to the genre of

‘short short stories’. It is a snapshot of an extremely dense texture in which everyword matters. Set early in the morning “after it has stopped raining”, close to

Cairo’s citadel, the main ‘event’ of this story is the encounter of a poor, shabbily

dressed boy shivering with cold, with a carriage horse that is running down the

street, looses control, falls, and dies on the spot.

This rather strange plot probably raises more questions than it answers. Yet itis clear that it unfolds in the framework of extreme poverty and social marginali-

sation, its major themes being fear, isolation, loss of security, loneliness, and the

question of a possible relief from suVering.

23 German translation by H. Fähndrich: “Als der Regen aufgehört hatte”, in: Pappschachtel-

stadt, Basel 1991, p. 175-176.

472 stephan guth

In spite of the text’s brevity the urbanity of the scene is distinctly marked: thereare the “Western Mountains” (al-[abal al-©arb“ ) and the “Citadel prison” (si[n al-qal ’a) as speci�cally Cairene locations, and there is an accumulation of phenomena

which, combined as they are here, stand for a big city (in a developing country

like Egypt at least): a broad street with pavements, the smell of high mountains of

rubbish, an asphalted slope, a long street lamp, etc.—in short, the achievementsof modern civilisation (traYc, consumerism, unsolved waste problems, electricity),

of which however only the most negative aspects are underlined: Cairo emerges

from al-Wardˆn“’s story as a place of acrid, stinking smoke rising from vast areas

of consumer waste and animal carcasses, a place which despite being the product

of human activity and in spite of being densely populated by humans is hostile toman (the prison, barriers, high walls!), a place where the hero is totally alone (except

for the carriage driver who is however mentioned only marginally). The text empha-

sises the emptiness of the area, repeats the word waú“d “single, alone” several times,

insists on adjectives such as “cold”, “wet” “severe, harsh”, “biting” for the climate,

“mouldy”, “heavy”, “disgusting”, “repulsive”, “penetrating” for the smell in the air,describes the light as “faint, dim”, characterises the appearance of the horse car-

riage as a Òabaú, the general atmosphere thus becoming “ghostly”, “uncanny”,

“eery” and lets the boy be prepared to run away at the slightest indication of

danger.

For the interpretation of the encounter with the galloping horse

within this empty, depressive, hostile space the distinction between the

two ‘realms’ of ‘above’ and ‘below’ can be helpful. In the begin-

ning, the boy is on his way from somewhere down the hill heading for

the citadel. Having reached an elevated position he stops to take a

breath (has he stolen the orange down there in the city and run away

from some pursuer?). In the area up here he seems to feel save for the

moment, and it is here that he notices the horse approaching. The

horse appears to have lost contact with the ‘lower’ world:

It was a dark horse that actually was �ying ( ya�“r bi-l-�’l ), and its ghostly sha-dow (Òabaú) traversed ( ya¢tariq) the cold, wide space. [. . .] Its hoofs almost did nottouch (lˆ takˆd talmis) the sloping ground, its mane was streaming (ta�ˆyarat) in thewind. (56)

The animal ‘messenger’ that approaches the boy like a vision of free-

dom and a possible conquest of the lower world’s gravitation is how-

ever itself moving down-hill, and there it stumbles, falls, tries to “pull

itself together” (lamm a’¶ˆ"ih, 57) once again, but is unable to get up

and eventually gives up, resigning itself to death. When the boy watches

it do so he seems to realise that he too has no chance to escape the

lower world, the realm which makes itself felt through the stinking

smoke which penetrates the upper world from down there. So why

clasp the orange—which he probably has stolen out of hunger, i.e. in

order to survive—any longer?


He threw the orange away with all his might. Then he ran down (ilˆ asfal ) [!]alone. (57)

The overall development being a movement from above to below, the

author seems to be very pessimistic as for the situation of the margin-

alised. Or of Egypt as a whole? Or all mankind?

11) Idwˆr al-Ýarrˆ�: Turˆbuhˆ za’farˆn (1985)

Text: Turˆbuhˆ za’farˆn: nu§�§ iskandarˆniyya, Beirut: Dˆr al-Ëdˆb, 2nd ed., 1991;English translation by F. Liardet as City of SaVron, London, 1989.24

Turˆbuhˆ za’farˆn is the narrator’s recollection, not without nostalgia, of his child-

hood and youth in Alexandria. Going beyond the scope of a ‘classical’ auto-biography in that it refuses to be a ‘simple’ record of past life, it is a ‘text’25

which combines many diVerent elements: an associative moving through the past,

an attempt to come closer to the various “I”s who are the central character (some-

times the narrator can also speak of his hero, i.e., of himself, only in the third

person), an overlapping of past and present, including fantasies, dreams, visions of

death, etc.; the text also abounds with inter- and intratextual relations.The whole narrative revolves round fundamental questions such as identity (who

am I?; what is this “I”?—it’s one, but at the same time often diVerent from itself )

and the structure of the human mind (consciousness, subconsciousness, the unconscious).

Life is seen as a permanent loss (of persons, experiences, memories, the I, of life

itself ), and it is only the process of recollecting memories that enables man to resistthe transitoriness of his existence and to overcome death as its de�nite ending.26

Although al-Ýarrˆ�’s text does not oscillate between past and pre-

sent as much as al-ý“�ˆn“’s ÿan“n, it nevertheless parallels it in that the

city in both cases appears primarily as a remembered city, including

recollected sensations, wishes, fears, etc. And like ÿan“n, Turˆbuhˆ za’-farˆn too is an author’s hymn on a beloved city. Unlike al-ý“�ˆn“ how-

ever, al-Ýarrˆ� questions the realness of what is told, making clear that

in the process of recollection the city always is also created anew, is a

product of fantasy. The author also makes more use than his colleague

of the symbolic potential inherent in the city’s peculiar location: whereas

24 German translation by H. Fähndrich: Edwar al-Charrat, Safranerde, Basel, 1990.25 Cf. the subtitle: nu§�§ iskandarˆniyya “Alexandrian texts”, and the initial negation:

laysat hˆÅihi l-nu§�§ s“ratan Åˆtiyya, wa-lˆ Òay"an qar“ban minhˆ “These texts are not an auto-biography, nor anything close to it” (5).

26 For this and the following paragraphs I am largely indebted to Magda al-Nowaihi,“Memory and Imagination in Edwar al-Kharrˆ�’s Turˆbuhˆ za’farˆn”, JAL 25 (1994), p. 34-57; and Andreas P�itsch, “Narration against Transitoriness and Temporality: myth-ical time-structure in Idwˆr al-Kharrˆ�’s Turˆbuhˆ za’farˆn”, forthcoming in the pro-ceedings of the conference on Myths, Historical Archetypes and Symbolic Figures in Arabic

Literature, Beirut, June 1996.

474 stephan guth

Port Said stands only for a certain cosmopolitanism and an ‘openness’

(of space, hence of mind) in general (at least before the 1967 war)

Alexandria’s position on the shore of the Mediterranean, between land

and water, is functionalised by al-Ýarrˆ� as a metaphor for the narra-

tor’s (and humanity’s) being suspended between being and nothingness,

the permanent confrontation with death. The city represents life itself:

it is limited, easily vulnerable and destroyable, but extremely colourful

and rich in variety; the sea is death: a threat, a danger, but also some-

how magically attractive, the object of longing, a mystery of inexplic-

able beauty, etc.

As a remembered ‘home’, the space of Turˆbuhˆ za’farˆn is even

more �lled up than ÿan“n’s with an almost incredibly vast amount of

details: the horror vacui results from the desire to prevent life from sim-

ply fading away. — The space of ‘reality’ is also often transcended to

reach spaces of fantasy. The narrative thus gets access to the various

dimensions of the mind. At the same time such leaps are like attempts

to escape the limitedness of life for in�nity and immortality. They func-

tion in a way similar to the associative switches between diVerent (times

and) spaces: the borders are blurred in order to overcome limitedness

and �niteness as well as to fuse the various spaces into a subjective

space, the space of the one and manifold “I” which is constantly cre-

ated anew. As space is used to express fundamentals of human exist-

ence the author also explores the contrast between spatial categories

like narrow/wide, closed/open, �nite/in�nite, deep/high, and especially

also below/above (lower life/freedom, immortality, . . .).

Conclusion and perspectives

The above pages surely have made evident the great variety of aspects

of both urbanity and the organisation of literary space in modern

Egyptian �ction. As for the �rst, it has neither been our aim to pre-

sent an overview over what Cairo and living in big cities in general

meant and means for Egyptian writers, nor are results from the fore-

going to be summarized now—the material basis for such a survey

would still be too thin—although our short inquiries have brought no-

thing to the surface that seems to run contrary to developments already

observed in other surveys.27 As for literary space, our choice of texts

has hopefully been suYcient to show that, with the artistic skills quickly

27 A short synopsis is to be found in Al-Bagdadi, “Großstadtre�exionen”, p. 24-27,as well as in the studies mentioned in fn. 1.


developing since the early 20th century, Egyptian writers became aware

of space as a literary category already at an early stage and since then

have continuously kept experimenting with it and employing it in the

act of creating meaning.

The techniques themselves which they apply in building and organ-

ising the spaces of their stories can be summed up here in a prelimi-

nary and rather rough form only. The material we have analysed shows

the following basic patterns:

� The journey pattern — It is used whenever the writer wants to cover

somehow a spatial totality. The totality is represented then through

a multitude of single spots which the hero tours. The journey pat-

tern is used to give a panorama (of the city, of society, the whole of

a quarter etc.—esp. texts nos. 1, 4, 5) and/or to accompany processes

of experiencing, learning, maturing, etc., i.e. processes of passing from

one mental or emotional state to another (nos. 4, 5).

� The stage pattern — Space is primarily conceived of as a background,

a scene, or a social milieu in which the events take place. According

to this environment’s importance for the events it is either described

in detail or only roughly sketched. Taym�r, for instance, �lls the úˆra

with a number of things and characters that do not participate in

the story’s central events but for him are necessary as milieu mark-

ers (no. 2). For Maúf�½, not so much the social aspects of the darb

matter but rather its moral atmosphere; therefore only few concrete

details are given in order to let his rather abstract considerations un-

fold in a still ‘real’ stage-world (no. 6).

� The gravitation pattern — Space is organised as having a centre around

which everything revolves and which exerts centripetal forces (îaqq“’smaydˆn, no. 3).

� The pattern of contrasting spaces — This is one of the favourite means

to structure a story’s space, obviously because it serves the purpose

of increasing clarity and distinctness by not only giving a thesis but

at the same time confronting it with its antithesis. The ’a�fa/Òˆri’opposition (no. 2), the contrast of train home/Cairo (no. 5), coun-

tryside/town (nos. 4, 5, 7), mosque/brothel (no. 6), before/after (no.

9), above/below (nos. 6, 8, 9, 10), land/sea (no. 11), space/no-space

(nos. 4, 7, 8), etc. equally illustrate the essentiality of this pattern as

well as its variability (see also below).

� The pattern of confused spaces — This scheme is applied either to express

mental confusion, the suspension of reason (no. 7), or to depict the

476 stephan guth

merging, and essential one-ness, of reality and fantasy/imagination,

the blurring of formerly clear-cut demarcation lines (no. 11).

Space being an unchanging constant of our perception (a Kantian

“Kategorie”), our mind cannot but generate spatial images when hear-

ing or reading verbal signs. The spatial structure of a text therefore

becomes a model for the structure of the whole world,28 spatial data

become loaded in their context with social, religious, political or ethi-

cal features and values. These can be conceived of in semantic oppo-

sitions where spatial coordinates have been translated into ideological

ones.29

Spatial relations thus being a most essential, since necessary means

of interpreting the world around us, it is interesting to see which fea-

tures Egyptian writers attribute to which spatial sub-categories. Our

survey gives the following results:

� Open can represent the modern, including scienti�c knowledge, the

mundane, the cosmopolitan, as well as freedom, change and future

horizons, in�nity, immortality, whereas closed will be identi�ed with

the traditional, popular, mostly out-dated, a certain narrow-minded-

ness (e.g. superstition), stagnation, unfreedom, hostility, �niteness,

death. What is good and attractive because of its width here (the

open) can however also be viewed as a danger in some cases: e.g.,

the open world outside the maydˆn (no. 3) or the vast topographical

extension of the city (nos. 4, 5, 7, 10); closed spaces then become

upvalued and signify silence, safety, security, emotional warmth, the

protection of a home, the proven autarchy of a self-suYcient system.

� Empty spaces mostly are something negative: a lack of �lling is ge-

nerally equalled with poverty and scarcity, isolation, loneliness, tristesse,

stagnation, despair, senselessness, wilderness, or death, while fullness

signi�es richness, abundance, luxury, growth, joy, amusement, civili-

sation, a meaningful life, a victory over life’s transitoriness. The rich-

ness in details very often stands for the warm familiarity of a home.

If fullness however reaches a certain degree everything may be turned

round: in the crowdedness of the city the individual lacks a home,

gets confused in the maze of its streets; the density of the space then

28 Jurij M. Lotman, Die Struktur literarischer Texte, Munich 1972, p. 312.29 Cf. Arbeitsbuch Romananalyse, ed. Hans-Werner Ludwig, Darmstadt 1985, p. 174,

summarizing Lotman, op. cit., p. 313.


causes distress, a climate of “war”, feelings of imprisonment, of suVoca-

tion, of being drowned in an endless ocean, the loss of one’s human

nature, a loss of privacy, of identity, of individuality; it leads to mad-

dening or death. Accordingly wide empty spaces are in these cases

identi�ed with peace of mind, freedom, life, etc. — With Maúf�½the balance between detailedness and economy in the use of spatial

‘ingredients’ is exploited to establish a harmony between concreteness

and abstraction.

� Nearness and distance are valued according to the quality of their points

of reference. Thus, remaining close to a positive centre like the may-

dˆn means more security and protectedness while distancing from

it, i.e. from the roots, implies the danger of loosing one’s identity

(no. 3). Approaching the city can run parallel to a distancing from

false illusions about it and its nostalgic trans�guration, thus slowly

approximating a more realistic view (no. 4). Leaving the city after a

number of unpleasant experiences may be characterised as a happy

escape, a relief and a regaining of sovereignty (no. 5).

� Above is the position of power, sovereignty, superiority. From here

either protection is given and revelations are sent or people are gov-

erned, oppressed and threatened, but also inspired. Living on top of

somewhere means (or is believed to mean) enjoying security and free-

dom, detached from all earthly concerns, or living in a beautiful

dream world. Below is accordingly the space of reality, of need and

misery, unfreedom, imprisonment, a space where you are in need

for, or actually get, protection, where you are pursued and have to

be defended, a world of powerless inferiority. It can also have the

character of a moral inferiority on which the powers above pass their

sentence, or be the earthly world of human laws and human aber-

rations against which the higher realm of divine order, eternal val-

ues, time- and spacelessness is set.

* * *

With this recollection and categorical grouping of the spatial data

that we have been able to extract from the texts the demonstration of

our approach has already almost exceeded the limits prescribed for the

contributions of the present volume.

It should be clear, however, that with the �rst steps that we have

undertaken so far we have now also reached a base camp from which

we can set oV for farther excursions into higher regions. Our approach

478 stephan guth

has produced results that are valuable in themselves—a disclosure of

literary techniques and spatial categories and patterns used in 20th cen-

tury Egyptian writings on urban life—, but as such also represents a

�rm basis where the path forks oV into various new routes of subse-

quent investigation, each route heading for another destination and

each excursion equally in need of adequate methodological equipment.

One such exploration could of course take as its point of departure

the question whether or not there is a historical development in the writ-

ers’ assignment of certain ideas to certain spatial categories or in their

usage of certain patterns for the enactment of certain ‘stories of urban-

ity’. Naturally, the textual basis for such an inquiry has to be enlarged

considerably, but, as a �rst step, we could restrict it by concentrating

on a single period only, asking e.g. if, under the speci�c conditions

given in the 1930s, or 1940s etc., a predilection for the ‘stage’ pattern,

or the pattern of ‘contrasting’, or ‘confused spaces’ can be detected, or

if there are periods in which certain spatial categories are favoured by

the authors. A period would then perhaps be describable as a period

of ‘openness’, or of ‘height’, or as one of polarization in which think-

ing in contradictory extremes prevails and spatial oppositions express

a climate of tension or aggressiveness.30 — Another study taking account

of the historical dimension could try to trace changes in the �llings that

one and the same pattern or category underwent in the course of time.

Was or is there, for instance, before or after îaqq“’s Qind“l, a period

in which the ‘gravitation’ pattern was already, or is being, made use

of, but in which the centre of gravitation has not yet acquired, or

meanwhile lost, its quasi-religious character, or taken on a more dan-

gerous, or also more concrete outlook than in îaqq“’s times? And

which are the urban localities that writers in the past decided to endow

with the quality of a center of gravitation, and which other localities

replaced the maydˆn as a speci�c �lling?

Besides these kinds of diachronic investigations, synchronic evalua-

tions are equally possible and interesting. What does it mean, for

instance, when, during a certain period of time, the “spatialization of

ideas”31 produces nothing of the ‘stage pattern’ type—is such an absence

to be interpreted as expressing a Weltanschauung that no longer allows

to look at life as if it were a play performed by actors in a theater,

and attended by a spectator who watches events from a distance (but

30 Cf. Bachelard, Poetik des Raumes, p. 212.31 Ibid., p. 211.


not necessarily an elevated position)? Or what can be said about a time

in which vertical categories are more prominent than horizontal ones?

Does the fact that among our stories not a single narrative operates

with the ‘right/left’ antagonism, but in most of them the ‘above/below’

opposition is somehow functionalized—does this fact testify to a think-

ing in hierarchies, i.e. power relations, and suggest the conclusion that

urban life in Egypt throughout the 20th century has not yet been per-

ceived by authors as taking place horizontally, i.e. on a level of (social,

political, religious, ideological, moral, . . .) equality?

Another expedition of the synchronic type could try to draw con-

clusions from a closer look at the various, and sometimes astonishingly

contradictory, �llings of a pattern or a category that are possible in a

certain historical situation. What is to be said, e.g., about an urban

society and culture whose authors let the ‘above’ category be occupied

by notions of power, violence, danger and, at the same time, freedom,

happiness, or divinity? Can happiness be reached only in connection

with violence, or is the source of divine inspiration located on the same

level as that of political oppression? What will be the signi�cance of

an overlapping, within the realm of ‘closed’ space, of semantic �elds

like ‘home’, ‘security’, ‘protectedness’ on the one hand, and ‘narrow-

mindedness’, ‘stagnation’, or ‘death’ on the other?

The results of several similar synchronic inquiries from diVerent peri-

ods can, as soon as they become interrelated, of course be made to

bear fruits again for diachronic surveys. They could however also be

used for intercultural comparisons like those Lotman had in mind. The

danger of falling prey to cultural essentialism is, of course, great in this

case. But it can be controlled. It is certainly true that, e.g., spatial rela-

tions such as the ‘inside/outside’ dichotomy have the archetypical qual-

ity of a myth32 and are comparable in so far to genetic essentials. But

it is also clear that each genetic �ngerprint is taken at a certain point

of time and testi�es to a very speci�c and individual stage of evolution

just as archetypes and spatial ‘myths’ are �lled diVerently and indivi-

dually through the ages.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Roger: A Period of Time. A study and translation of îad“th ’ísˆ ibn Hishˆm by

Muúammad al-Muwayliú“. Reading 1992.Arabic Writing Today—The Short Story, ed. Mahmoud Manzalaoui. Cairo, 1968.

480 stephan guth

32 Cf. ibid., p. 211.

Bachelard, Gaston: Poetik des Raumes [La poétique de l’espace]. Frankfurt/M., 1987.Badawi, El-Said/Hinds, Martin: A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. Arabic-English. Beirut, 1986.Al-Bagdadi, Nadia: “Großstadtre�exionen in der Nasser-Ära: Metropolis und Verbrechen

in Na[“b Maúf�½" al-Li§§ wa’l-kil̂ b”. In: WI, 34 (1994), 21-47.Cohen-Mor, Dalya: Y�suf Idr“s: Changing visions. Potomac, MD, 1992.Hafez, Sabry: The Genesis of Arabic Narrative Discourse. A study in the sociology of modern Arabic

literature. London, 1993.Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon, hrsg. von Walter Jens. Studienausgabe der Originalausgabe

1988-92. Munich [n. d.].de Moor, Ed. C.M.: Un Oiseau en cage. Le discours littéraire de Muúammad Taym�r (1892-

1921). Amsterdam & Atlanta, 1991.Ryberg, Birgitta: Y�suf Idr“s (1927-1991) . Identitätskrise und gesellschaftlicher Umbruch. Beirut/

Stuttgart, 1992.Wielandt, Rotraud: Das Bild der Europäer in der modernen arabischen Erzähl- und Theaterliteratur.

Beirut/Wiesbaden, 1980.


The Poetics of Urban Space: Structures of...

Documents

Transcript of The Poetics of Urban Space: Structures of...