Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-251) and index
Copyright; Contents; Series Editor's Foreword; Abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Ouverture; 1. Naguib Mahfouz: (En)chanting Justice; 2. Tayeb Salih: The Returns of the Saint; 3. Mahmud Al-Maʻadı: Witnessing Immortality; 4. The Survival of Gamal Al-Ghitany; 5. Ibrahim Al-Koni: Writing and Sacrifice; 6. Tahar Ouettar: The Saint and the Nightmare of History; Epilogue: Bahaa Taher, Solidarity and Idealism; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Sufi characters - saints, dervishes, wanderers - occur regularly in modern Arabic literature. A select group of novelists to interrogate Sufism as a system of thought and language. In the work of writers like Naguib Mahfouz, Gamal Al-Ghitany, Taher Ouettar, Ibrahim Al-Koni, Mahmud Al-Mas'adi and Tayeb Salih we see a strong intertextual relationship with the Sufi masters of the past, including Al-Hallaj, Ibn Arabi, Al-Niffari and Al-Suhrawardi. This relationship becomes a means of interrogating the limits of the creative self, individuality, rationality and the manifold possibilities offered by