Saturday, May 2, 2009

Someone once asked me how old I was, having seen my advanced age turing to grey at my temples and in the locks along my forehead.

I answered, "One hour. For verily, I count the time I have lived as nothing."

He replied, "What do you mean? Explain. Her is indeed the most moving of things."

I said, "One day, by surprise, I stole a kiss, a secret kiss, from her who has my heart. However many my days may number, I shall count only that brief moment, for it was truly my entire life."

Ibn Hazm
Andalusian writer (994-1064)
Tawq al Hamama (The Collar of the Dove)

this is the poem that got me interested in Arab culture.
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21 comments:

  1. YasminMay 2, 2009 at 3:36 PM

    Ehh.  I'm over romance.

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  2. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 3:54 PM

    You NEVER know!
    .

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  3. johnMay 2, 2009 at 4:04 PM

    oh is there such thing as 'arab culture'? the more i hear the word 'culture', the more i cringe. i am 'arab', supposedly, but don't like this type of writing. i never felt a sense of attachment, in a romantic sense, with anyone. sure i love my parents and relatives to death, but this type of writing? i can't empathise? so, here i am, an arab, supposedly, that doesn't get this 'culture'? so are cultural forms this generalisable sloth that we are mechanically determined to play its roles? or are we uniquely conditioned, with unique internal commentary?   
        
    discuss....(i am being devil advocate here)   
        
    btw, the book 'the collar of the dove' is indeed popular in the arab world, so are those awful poems of nizar qabani, that make me cringe.

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  4. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 4:15 PM

    so are those awful poems of nizar qabani, that make me cringe.
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    What exactly makes you cringe in Nizar's love poems?

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  5. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 4:36 PM

    oh is there such thing as 'arab culture'? 
    ------------ 
    Well yes! If culture is the full range of learned or aquired human behaviour patterns then applied to a specific group of people such as the Arabs then there is Arab culture. But culture can carry different meanings to different people. One can easily figure that a common tendency to appreciate a certain type of food, literature, music and art or to hold  certain  beliefs, religious or spiritual, a set of laws, morals, traditions and customs specific to a certain type of society then there is an Arab culture.
    .

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  6. johnMay 2, 2009 at 4:37 PM

    well, tgia, i believe you are saying that 'culture' is 'real', efficacious and does exist. it exists as 'acquired human behaviour' that is, at the same time, patterned.
     
    that is a good starting point...so you are being positive in its existence as 'out there'...
     
    but...
     
    it carries different meaning to different people...
     
    then how is stable, efficacious in defining taste, customs, laws and so on? 

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  7. johnMay 2, 2009 at 4:40 PM

    on a personal note...
     
    why does qabani make me cringe? well, romantic feel and sentimentality make me cringe...as all strong expression of emotions...that is my conditioning...but it is 'cheesy' as well:
     
    http://www.poemhunter.com/nizar-qabbani/ 
    eeek!

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  8. YasminMay 2, 2009 at 4:44 PM

    it's funny, tgia.  i'm sure my dad is thanking Allah now that his prayers were answered and I didn't marry a Christian. 

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  9. johnMay 2, 2009 at 4:46 PM

    on another note, the idea that arabs are sentimental, exagerate emotional expression and sensual, or obsessively sensual, is an orientalist essentalisation... 
      
    now molly viewing this as 'arab culture' and also liking the exotic feel of 'arab culture'...hmmmmm...it makes you think...maybe the common sense reading of the social situation is stronger than we think...

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  10. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 5:20 PM

    then how is stable, efficacious in defining taste, customs, laws and so on? 
    ---------- 
    I'm not sure I got that, but I think culture, like everything, is ever changing in its wider contours accommodating for adaptation,  absorption and integration of surrounding influences AS LONG as it doesn't constitute a threat to the survival of the human group adopting the general traits of a specific culture. I see culture as a mechanism or a tool of survival basically. Remove culture, if possible, and the human group would disintegrate, but this is a complex issue and I have to admit, I'm no anthropologist or expert but I can easily see how Arab culture, as vague and nebulous as it may seem as an area of a specific "shape" or "form" defined not only by the language we have in common and all means of communications we share but by a shared history or body of narratives.
    ..

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  11. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 5:23 PM

    Would he? Does he feel bitter about his failed marriage to a European?
    .

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  12. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 5:35 PM

    Qabbani is usually not my type of poetry but I have to admit that every time I read a poem of his I feel more"Arab" and I understand how perfectly his work fits in the puzzle that is "our" culture or society(not the same thing of course). I never felt that Adonis, though of a "higher order" investigation or probing into the creative process, is more interesting or "important". All my life I've been exposed to a western/European type of literary production yet I can still apprecciate Qabbani as more a poet of our own than Adonis or any other of similar westernised creators whether poets or artists.. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the laters but as an Arab I "feel" them less! I don't know if I'm making sense but hey, it's still the morning here and I'm having my first coffee! LOL.
    .
    .

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  13. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 6:29 PM

    Having said that, Molly, I believe 0.005% of Arab population read " Tawq ul Hamamah"(correct transliteration!)
    .

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  14. YasminMay 2, 2009 at 7:14 PM

    No, it's the social humiliation, imo.  Everyone will point and say 'that's the guy whose daughter married a Christian.'  Even the bawab will somehow know, although we would have lived on a different continent, somehow people talk and he would know. haha.

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  15. thankgodimatheistMay 2, 2009 at 7:46 PM

    Egypt MUST be different from Lebanon I guess. I only visited Egypt once for about a month. Is it really a sense of humiliation or just being the center on unwarranted attention?
    .

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  16. YasminMay 2, 2009 at 8:11 PM

    It is definitely socially humiliating.  Because it's illegal after all.

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  17. VAAMay 3, 2009 at 5:39 AM

    Yasmin
    <span style="color: #404040; font-size: 11px;">Because it's illegal after all.</span>
    -------------------------------
    I guess you're more informed than me on Law issues Especially Egypt,but I can't help asking if you're really really sure ?
    I've never heard of such things except in some of the Gulf countries.

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  18. YasminMay 3, 2009 at 6:21 AM

    VAA, that's what I've been told - that it's legal for a muslim man to marry a muslim woman, but not vice versa; you can go to a country that does recognize the marriage and then go back and live in egypt, but you will have bureaucratic and legal hassles like for instance inheritance issues with your children. 

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  19. vMay 3, 2009 at 7:05 AM

    Well, that does it than, the USA has to go back into Egypt and re-liberate them :)

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  20. ehhh...May 3, 2009 at 1:59 PM

    Qabbani's most radical poems.Worth a read IMHO.
     
    http://tribes.tribe.net/arabianlovepoems/thread/a8cbec48-b38e-45ef-bb25-55e20641bb15 
    http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/30730-Nizar-Qabbani-We-Are-Accused-Of-Terrorism

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  21. thankgodimatheistMay 3, 2009 at 7:14 PM

    Yes I've seen some very powerful statements.

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