al-Maarik al-Adabiya
- Author died
- 1422 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Anjlū al-Miṣrīyah
al-Maarik al-Adabiya (The Literary Battles) is a book by the Egyptian writer and intellectual Anwar al-Jundi (d. 1422 AH / 2002 CE) that documents and analyzes the major intellectual, literary, and ideological polemics in twentieth-century modern Arabic literature.
Scope and Background
The work surveys literary and intellectual debates that unfolded across the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, concerning prose, poetry, the Arabic language, Arab nationalism, cultural definitions, and literary criticism. al-Jundi structures these conflicts around two main camps: the conservatives (al-muhafizun) and the modernizers (al-mujaddidun), as well as internal disputes between moderate and radical modernizers.
Key figures cited in the conservative camp include Ahmad Zaki Pasha, Muhammad Farid Wajdi, Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i, Muhammad Ahmad al-Ghamrawi, Shakib Arslan, and Rashid Rida. The modernist camp featured figures such as Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, Ibrahim Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini, Zaki Mubarak, Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Taha Husayn, and Salama Musa. al-Jundi traces the genesis of these ideological confrontations to Mansur Fahmi's 1914 Paris doctoral dissertation on the condition of women in Islamic traditions, supervised by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, which al-Jundi identifies as the opening of a "Westernization current" (tayyar al-taghrib) later joined by authors like Taha Husayn, Mahmud Azmi, Salama Musa, Ali Abd al-Raziq, Ismail Adham, Abd al-Aziz Fahmi, and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid.
Structure and Contents
The book is arranged thematically into parts and chapters covering distinct arenas of debate:
- Identity and Unity: Treats debates between Arab nationalism and regionalism, including confrontations over Arab unity involving Taha Husayn, Abd al-Rahman Azzam, and Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib; disputes over Egyptian versus Pharaonic identity between Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat and Uthman; and exchanges between Sati' al-Husri and Taha Husayn.
- Language Issues: Examines proposals to Egyptianize literary Arabic, debated between Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid; the mission and role of the Arabic Language Academy; and calls to adopt the Latin alphabet for Arabic script.
- Cultural Concepts: Covers ideological clashes over Eastern versus Western culture (such as Felix Fares against Ismail Adham), Latin versus Anglo-Saxon cultural orientations between al-Aqqad and Taha Husayn, Greek cultural tendencies, biography and history writing, translation, and debates on explicit literature (al-adab al-makshuf) between Tawfiq Diab and Salama Musa.
- Style and Content: Documents disagreements regarding literary form versus substance, such as the polemics between al-Rafi'i, Salama Musa, and Taha Husayn, alongside stylistic debates involving Shakib Arslan, Khalil al-Sakakini, and Muhammad Kurd Ali.
- Criticism and Literary Doctrines: Analyzes critical battles between subjective and objective criticism, debates over "art for art's sake" versus "art for all," and factional clashes between the supporters of al-Rafi'i and the supporters of al-Aqqad.
- Controversies over Specific Books: Dedicated chapters examine major controversies provoked by influential twentieth-century publications, including Mansur Fahmi's doctoral dissertation, Ali Abd al-Raziq's al-Islam wa-Usul al-Hukm (Islam and the Foundations of Governance), Taha Husayn's Fi al-Shi'r al-Jahili (On Pre-Islamic Poetry) and his Ma'a al-Mutanabbi (criticized by Mahmud Muhammad Shakir), Zaki Mubarak's al-Nathr al-Fanni (Artistic Prose), and al-Rafi'i's Awraq al-Ward (Rose Leaves).
- Internal and Generational Clashes: Documents polemics among the modernists themselves—including exchanges involving Tawfiq al-Hakim, Taha Husayn, al-Aqqad, Zaki Mubarak, and al-Mazini—as well as clashes between the younger generation of literary figures and established elders.
Character of the Polemics
al-Jundi highlights that four figures stood out as the most prominent and vitriolic critics of the era: al-Rafi'i, al-Aqqad, Zaki Mubarak, and Taha Husayn. The book observes that several major controversies were one-sided campaigns driven exclusively by opponents, such as the broad attacks against Taha Husayn over Fi al-Shi'r al-Jahili, alongside highly personalized disputes punctuated by sharp rhetorical exchanges between authors like Zaki Mubarak, Ahmad Amin, and Abd Allah Afifi.
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