Should the One Thousand and One Nights be banned? A Cairo conference debates the issue
WATANI International
16 May 2010
Last month a number of Egyptian lawyers submitted to the public prosecutor an official complaint against the Culture Ministry, demanding that the most recent edition of the One Thousand and One Nights, published by the Culture Ministry, should be banned and copies on bookshelves should be recalled. The complaint comes as a hisba case, meaning cases in which a person or group of persons appoint themselves guardians of societal morals and give themselves the right to change what they deem inappropriate.
One Thousand and One Nights was published by the Culture Ministry within its Thakha’ir (Treasures) series. In charge of the series is Ahmed Megahed, head of the Public Authority for Cultural Palaces, and Gamal al-Ghitani who is chief editor of the series. Both are prominent, enlightened figures on the Egyptian literary field.
The complaint branded the sexually explicit heritage tale as “obscene”.
Reception at various levels
Most intellectuals condemned the complaint. “I totally support the publication of One Thousand and One Nights, and am against taking it off the bookshelves. We must respect our human heritage”, said Culture Minister Farouk Hosny.
The Egyptian Writers Union did not wait for the outcome of the complaint, but took the initiative to hold a conference under the title “One Thousand and One Nights; levels of reception” at its premises in Cairo. The primary session was very well-attended, with members from across the literary spectrum and media representatives on hand. Mr Ghitani opened the session by announcing his full and sole responsibility for the publication of the book which aroused so much controversy. “The attack against the book is nothing new”, he said. “Every now and then, one or another political movement which feigns religiosity attempts to fight free thought and intellectuals by claiming that some book or another is obscene. All this runs along the line of lending credence to their campaign for a religious State.” Mr Ghitani reminded of a court ruling issued in 1986 in favour of publishing the “Nights”—the fond Arabic shortcut used to denote the One Thousand and One Nights. The ruling testified to the fact that the Nights had inspired countless literary and artistic works the world over, and it described the person who sees nothing but lust in the “Nights” as a deranged ignoramus. In which case, the court ruling declared, “the critical assessment of such a person can be of no significant value”.
Theatrical move
Gaber Asfour, head of the National Project for Translation, lamented the current cultural state in Egypt. The book, he explained, was first printed in Egypt in the 19th century—the time of Egypt’s renaissance—and was revised by an Azhari sheikh—al-Azhar is the topmost Sunni Muslim authority. Dr Asfour said the “Nights” was a book that challenged the dominant macho culture in the Arab World.
The head of the Egyptian Writers’ Union, Mohamed Salamawi, called upon the members to present counter-complaints to the public prosecutor, to protest the lawyers self-appointed role as censors of the freedom of expression stipulated in Egypt’s Constitution.
In a theatrical move, the session ended with Mr Megahed and Mr Salamawy holding up, for the attendants to see, a copy of a new edition of the Nights. Amid cheers of triumph and jubilation, the move was seen as the practical response by the Cultural Palaces Authority to the challenge by the “forces of darkness” which sought to suppress free thought.
Reversing roles
The primary session over and the media gone, the in-depth discussions began in branch sessions. Sadly, only a few people stayed on to participate in the activities.
Professor of Literature at Cairo University Mohamed Hafez Diab spoke on the main point of controversy: “Sex and the ‘Nights’”. Dr Diab pointed out that sex had always figured highly in Arab Islamic heritage; in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and in the scheme of sharia (Islamic law). Dr Diab pointed out to the works of Imam Galal Eddin al-Soyouti, known as Ibn al-Kutub, a religious scholar and jurisprudence expert who has to his name some 60 books which explicitly depict all arts and types of sex. Not only Soyouti, explained the lecturer, but also dozens of Arab writers and intellectuals tackled sex in their works, including al-Jahiz, Avicenna, Ibn-Hazm and Ibn-Arabi. “How can one disregard all this heritage?” Dr Diab wondered. “Compared to such works, the “Nights” are but a tiny dot in a voluminous sea.”
The idea, Dr Diab insisted, was not about mere ‘sex’, but was about exposing the suppression/submission duality in society. “This is why”, he explained, “there are many tales of slaves who have relations with their mistresses in the “Nights”, implying the slaves is no longer a slave and the mistress is but a woman. The societal roles are reversed.”
The writer and novelist Qassem Mossaad Elewa expressed amazement at the claim that the explicitness of the “Nights” had taken anyone by surprise. The One Thousand and One Nights, he said, have been printed and reprinted many times, and are now on the Internet for anyone to read.
Comparative
Hoda Wasfy, who heads the Hanager Theatre, talked about the effect of the “Nights” on French literature since it was first translated by Galland. The first French version, she said, appeared during the cultural renaissance in France. She said she believed the “Nights” had helped connect the Arab World with the West and had fired French and European imagination. After thoroughly reading it fourteen times, she said, Voltaire wrote his infamous Candide.
On the same front, translator Dr Bahaa Abdel Meguid talked about its impact on English literature, and he named especially James Joyce and his landmark oeuvre Ulysses. Dr Hamed Abu-Ahmed, a critic, then made a comparison between the Nights and the emergence of magical reality in the Latin American literature.
The ending report of the conference called for teaching parts of the Nights within school curricula and named 2010 the year of the Nights.
The “Nights”
Through the ages, no book ever gained the fame that the One Thousand and One Nights has gained. It is a collection of folk tales compiled in Arabic during the golden age of the Islamic civilisation. What is common throughout all the editions of the Nights is the initial frame story that the slave woman named Scheherazade tells the tales to her master the King Shahryar, who had previously been deceived by his wife and had decided to daily marry one of his slaves, whom he would kill the following day of their marriage. Through her enthralling story telling, Scheherazade puts off her death for one thousand and one nights.
The book has a very distinct style in storytelling and intercession. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Pharaonic and Mesopotamian folklore and literature.