LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

introductionof this, critical discussions of how the novel promoted the nationalist idea in theArab Middle East are sketchy. This is partly because of the lack of data on the‘circulation’ of the novel, the ‘constitution of reading publics’ (p. 130) and theway literary expressions of the nationalist idea, whether cultural or territorial incharacter, are interpreted and internalised by individuals as socio-politicalagents.These difficulties notwithstanding, Jeff Shalan investigates how MuhammadHusayn Haykal’s Zainab and Tawfiq al-Hakim’s ÆAwdat al-ruh (Return of theSpirit), two of the most important novels in the canon of Egyptian nationalliterature, offered a vision of Egypt in which the participation of the peasantryin constructing the nation is problematised at the level of national discourse. InZainab, this participation is circumscribed in two ways. On the one hand, thepeasantry are said to be able to contribute to constructing the nation to theextent that their contribution responds to the needs of the community. On theother hand, the peasantry can do this only if they yield their agency to an eliteclass whose ethos is definitely male-oriented. This analysis in the novel applieswith equal force to the participation of women in nation building, who are saidto be ‘doomed to tradition’, and therefore pre-modernity, ‘without the leadershipof a male intellectual elite’ (p. 143). In ÆAwdat al-ruh, Tawfiq al-Hakimtackles the concepts of solidarity and national unity and focuses them aroundthe notion of an Egyptian territorial nationalism that is rooted in the ancientpast, with the peasantry as its objectified symbol: ‘If the towns and cities ofEgypt are to unite in the name of a single nation, they must seek to reclaim that“pure heart”, the ancient Egyptian spirit of solidarity that resides … with thepeasantry’ (p. 152). Tawfiq al-Hakim further believes that for national unity tobe realised, the Egyptians must oppose ‘the remnants of Ottomanism, theencroachment of European values, and deleterious effects of wealth on thecommunity’ (p. 150). Clearly, al-Hakim offers a more optimistic, albeit morepopulist, vision of the Egyptian nation than does Haykal. Jeff Shalan concludeshis consideration of Zainab and ÆAwdat al-ruh by saying that ‘these two texts notonly represent the dominant focus and trajectory of the nationalist thought ofthe period; they also provide valuable insight into the rhetorical appeal as wellas the ideological limits and contradictions, of the territorialists’ nation buildingproject’ (see Suleiman 2003 for a discussion of Egyptian nationalism).Nationalism is based on ideas of solidarity and unity. By the same token,nationalism does not encourage diversity and heterogeneity. These impulses innationalism operate in politics as they do in the cultural arena. In the MiddleEast, the rise of Arab nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centurieshad an ecological impact on existing cultures and their expressions in literature.Thus, the diversity that once existed in the Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds,with their rich tapestries of languages and ethnicities, gave way to homogenising— 13 —www.taq.ir