What Is ibn Hishm Told Us

With What Is ibn Hishm Told Us, the Library of Arabic Literature brings readers an acknowledged masterpiece of early twentieth-century Arabic prose. Penned by the Egyptian journalist Muammad al-Muwayli, this exceptional title was first introduced in serialized form in his family's pioneering newspaper Mib al-Sharq (Light of the East), on which this edition is based, and later published in book form in 1907. Widely hailed for its erudition and its mordant wit, What Is ibn Hishm Told Us was embraced by Egypt's burgeoning reading public and soon became required reading for generations of Egyptian school students.

Bridging classical genres and the emerging tradition of modern Arabic fiction, What Is ibn Hishm Told Us is divided into two parts, the second of which was only added to the text with the fourth edition of 1927. Sarcastic in tone and critical in outlook, the book relates the excursions of its narrator Is ibn Hishm
and his companion, the Pasha, through a rapidly Westernized Cairo at the height of British occupation, providing vivid commentary of a society negotiatinghowever imperfectlythe clash of imported cultural values and traditional norms of conduct, law, and education. The "Second Journey" takes the narrator to Paris to visit the Exposition Universelle of 1900, where al-Muwayli casts the same relentlessly critical eye on European society, modernity, and the role of Western imperialism as it ripples across the globe.

Paving the way for the modern Arabic novel, What Is ibn Hishm Told Us is invaluable both for its sociological insight into colonial Egypt and its pioneering role in Arabic literary history.

A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

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