LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

the nation speaksspirituality with nationalism in a thematic framework dominated by Palestine,although not all her poems about Palestine are cast in this mode. 31 Thisdirection brings Nazik closer to ÆAtika al-Khazraji and, particularly, to UmmNizar with whom we dealt earlier. Nazik signals this radical shift in ideologicaloutlook in one important way: she dates her poems in these two collectionsusing the Islamic calendar first and the Gregorian calendar second, whereasbefore she used the latter exclusively. This may look like a cosmetic matter, butit is not. It takes mental effort for an Arab accustomed to the Gregoriancalendar to match it with its Islamic counterpart. In fact, many Arabs, eventhose who would consider themselves ‘good’ Muslims, cannot always rememberthe correct Islamic month of the year outside Ramadan (the month of fasting)and, to a lesser extent, Dhu al-Hijja (the month of pilgrimage). Some find iteven difficult to name the correct Islamic year. Nazik’s use of the Islamiccalendar, therefore, requires a change in ingrained habits of thought andschooled practice in the marking of time. Her new time is the time of Islam, thetime of spirituality and the time of inner revolution in a different process ofnation building; hence, the use of sala (prayer) and thawra (revolution) in thetitle of one of her collections above.The mixing of spirituality/religiosity with nationalism represents a moveaway from Nazik’s earlier secularism. Here again, Nazik was in tune with thegeneral orientation of the time. The Arab defeat in 1967 at the hands of theIsraelis dealt a humiliating blow to the Arab nationalist idea, at least in itssecular form. 32 In the personal and collective stocktaking that followed, peoplelooked to Islam as a place of succour, a source of inspiration and as anauthenticating voice in acts of political revisionism. Literature itself, includingnationalist literature, became an arena for two competing ideologies: the secularnationalist and the Islamist. 33 Nazik straddled both. Understandably, she couldnot fully divest herself of the old nationalist idea in which she invested so muchpsychological, intellectual and literary capital. As a result, she was unable toaccept a full-blooded Islamism. Her answer, therefore, was to opt for spiritualityas a compromise between the national and the completely religious. Palestine,as we shall see below, proved to be the perfect poetic topos for her in effectingthis compromise.Nazik charts her new outlook purposefully. She tells her readers in li-l-Salawa-l-thawra that sala (prayer) is ‘the symbol of spirituality in actions’, and that itis like ‘a rose that grows in a man’s soul through contact with God’ (1978: 8).Thawra (revolution), on the other hand, represents the ‘total rejection of falsehood,corruption, servitude, evil, tyranny, ugliness and oppression in humanlife’ (ibid.: 9). Nazik then associates sala with thawra by saying that the genuineand sincere acceptance of the power of the former inevitably leads to realisingthe latter: ‘In fact,’ she says, ‘I believe that sala is the same as thawra’ (ibid.). She— 221 —www.taq.ir