Abdul Rahman Munif;
An Arabian Master of Literature
(published in IJAR issn 2278 - 7275 vol.4 issue 2 june 2014)
Abdul
Majeed.T
Assistant
professor,
Research
Department of Arabic, farook college.
Dr.
Abdul Majeed T.A.
Registrar,
University of Calcut.
Abstract
Abdul Rahman Munif, (1933
- 2004) was one of the greatest and most controversial Arab novelists, economist,
and remarkable figure of world literature. He was born in Jordan in 1933, to a
Saudi father and died of a heart attack January 24, 2004, in Syria. Munif
lived in Egypt, Yugoslavia, Iraq, France, and in Syria. In that sense, he could
be described an Arab Cosmopolitan. He used modernist narrative techniques
resembling magical realism, and promoted a new genre of fiction that reflected
the social, political and economic realities of modern Arab society. He devoted
most of his works to defending the freedom and dignity of the Arab individual,
regardless of his/her geographic location. He discussed Repression, Corruption,
Reverence for Bedouins and Crisis in the Arab World like Oil, Political Islam,
and Dictatorship, through his work.
He had been stripped of his Saudi nationality in 1963 for his
open identification with Marxist thought and for criticizing the regime. Many
of his books were banned in Saudi Arabia and he was excluded from the Saudi
Arab literature encyclopedia. His masterpiece of 15 novels is the “Cities of
Salt” quintet that follows the evolution of the Arabian Peninsula from land of
Bedouin nomads to a rich and powerful oil kingdom. All of his works explores
the theme that “Arabs have been the victims of their rulers and the foreigners
especially in the oil countries”. Another most celebrated of his novels, is
“East of the Mediterranean” (1975), he graphically condemns prisons, Arab
dictatorships and repression. The book was banned by many Arab countries. This
article provides a close reading of Munif’s profile and a wide of his works.
Key
words: Arab world, novel,
narrative techniques, politics.
Introduction
Abdul
Rahman Munif was one of the most important 20th century Arab novelists and a political activist for the nationalist
cause and a widely travelled oil economist.
He is most celebrated for promoting a new genre of fiction that closely reflecting the social, political and economic
realities of his day and modern Arab
society.
Munif
was born in Amman, Jordan in 1933 to a Saudi father and Iraqi mother. Soon
after Munif’s birth his father died but the family remained in Jordan and he
was brought up largely by his Iraqi grandmother. “He went first to a kuttab for
traditional learning of Quran, before being admitted to an elementary school
next to headquarters of Glubb Pasha, the British commander who largely ran the
Transjordanian state for the Hashemite dynasty under the mandate. Political
events, like the mysterious death of Gazi, king of Iraq, in 1939 and disastrous
Arab -Israeli war of 1948, pressed on the boy from the start”[1].
In 1952 he moved to Iraq to
study law at the University of Baghdad. “Munif’s intellectual and political
orientations were closer to those of the Communist Party at the time, but he
vehemently opposed of Israel, and slavish adherence to Moscow’s line. His
strong nationalist sentiments and views on Palestine led him to reject the
Communist Party and instead join the Ba’th, in which he was a critical and
radicalizing influence”[2].
While a student there Munif joined the
emerging Arab Ba’ath Party. His Saudi nationality gave him a strategic position
in the organization. In February 1955, Munif participated in protests against
the Baghdad Pact signed by Nuri al- Said’s regime with Britain, Turkey, Iran
and Pakistan. Due to his joining the protests as a political activist, he was
expelled from Iraq along with dozens of other Arab student activists, before
completing his university education. From Baghdad, Munif moved to Egypt where
he pursued his academic study 1956 and a year after he graduated in low, from
Cairo University. In 1958 he won a Ba’ath Party scholarship to Yugoslavia where
he got his Ph.D. in oil economics from Belgrade University in 1961.
He returned to Arab world,
Beirut, Lebanon and worked for the Ba’ath Party’s head office for a year. “In
1963, his political activities caused stripping of his Saudi nationality, when
he criticized the regime”[3]. In the same year, when the Ba’th came to
power in Iraq and Syria, Munif criticized brutality of Ba’th. As result of his
view the Salih al Sa’di’s government denied him entry to Iraq when he needed it
most. In 1964, he went Syria, where the party held on power, settled in
Damascus, for nearly a decade (1964 – 1973) and worked as an expert in the
Syrian Oil Ministry.
A Dirty History of an Arab Marxist
Munif’s Ba’thist experience was
quit bitter. It is worth mentioning that Munif was against the historical
leadership of the Ba’th party. Another significant to mention that Munif rose
to senior positions in the Iraqi branch of Baath Party, but it were his
left-wing views which brought his downfall as they were at odds with Michel
Aflaq – the party founder.
Because of his questioning
intellectualism, he resigned from the Ba’th party in 1965. But he remained
committed to a revolutionary reformation of the Arab World. “He became an Arab Marxist, according to Mohammed Jamal Barout
in an article in the Lebanese daily Assafir. When Barout asked Munif to
write about his experience in the Baath Party during the 1960s, he replied,
“More than one friend asked me to write about my experience with the party, but
I am not enthusiastic about that at all.” Barout wrote in Al Hayat, I remember
his expression, literally and truthfully: ‘a dirty history.’[4] ”
Before
long, Munif left his job with the Syrian Oil Ministry. “In 1973, he moved to Beirut to work on editing
“Al-Balagh” cultural journal and left Beirut after outbreak of the
Lebanese civil war in 1975, settling once again in Baghdad. He worked as a
consultant for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and as
an editor-in-chief of the journal “Al-Nift Waa Al-Tanmiya” (Oil and
Development) in Baghdad. The Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988) pushed Munif to leave
Iraq for France, taking up residence in Boulogne near Paris, where he remained
until 1986. He then moved to Damascus, Syria where he settled down, devoting
himself to writing up until his death”[5].
Munif
lived in Syria since the late 1980s, and was granted Syrian citizenship. Very
soon, he became known for his souring parodies of Middle Eastern elites,
especially those of Saudi Arabia, a country which banned many of his books. He
began writing only in the 1970s after he had left his job with the ministry of
oil, quit the Ba'ath party, and as such he severed bonds with a regime he
opposed. He made the most of his knowledge of the oil industry to sail into
both the technical and political administration.
From economics to literature
Abdul Rahman Munif began his
career as a writer relatively late in life, after he was forty and he had left
his job with the ministry of oil, quit the Ba'ath party. Munif reveals his
motives to move to literature from oil economics in an interview published in alsafeer,
the Lebanese daily: “My great gamble was in politics, but after I experimented
with Political activism, it became apparent that the available political
methods were insufficient and unsatisfactory. As a result, I started the search
for a formula to connect with others and to express their concerns and the concerns of the historical period and the
generation. Given my hobby of reading, especially the novel, I thought that my
reading and command of expression would enable me to substitute one tool with
another. Instead of the political party or direct political action, it was
possible for the novel to be a means of expression. This is why I came to the
novel. As for economics, especially that of oil, it was useful background for
reading societies, mainly the powerful ones, at this current stage. Thus,
economics and other sciences could assist the novelist in reading and
understanding the factors that shape society. This places the novelist in a
better position as far as his narrative tools are concerned”.[6]
Munif believed that Books are an
effective vehicle for change. In his words “I am very much trying to work against
literature that tries to build up a relationship between a character and the
reader. What I am trying to do is to get the reader involved in drawing his own
calculation as to what is happening, rather than having preordained conclusions
drawn for him. I would compare what I am trying to do with Brecht’s theater, in
which the onlooker is made aware that he is watching a play. Similarly, I want
to make the reader aware that he is reading a work of fiction”[7].
Munif observes that "the
mission of literature is to increase awareness and receptiveness in an attempt
to create cases for renaissance and revival"[8].
He accepted the fiction as his best means of changing harsh realities and he
believed that the Arabic novel is the history of those who do not have a source
of historical reference. He envisioned the novel as a tool with a moral duty. The breadth of his experience enabled him to
create a richly imaginative body of work.
An Arab cosmopolitan stands for freedom
Munif defies classification in
terms of his nationality. “He has lived in Egypt,
Yugoslavia, Iraq, France, and in Syria. He could be described an Arab
Cosmopolitan in the sense that, while his cosmopolitanism is sophisticated, it
is not western-centered”[9]. His particular
target was injustice. Despite the oil revenue explosion, the Arab world had
been characterised by two contrasting and conflicting phenomena: the great
financial wealth of the ruling few and the poverty, deprivation, torture and
political oppression of the masses in the desert countries of the Middle East. His
works have variety of themes and structures and the main theme of works is
freedom of individual.
“All his novels have several
features in common, in particular the author’s passionate concern for the
freedom of the individual vis- a-vis an oppressive totalitarian regime”[10].
Munif was a fierce critic of Saddam Hussein and his
regime, but he was also utterly opposed to the American invasions of Iraq and other
Arab oil countries.
Fiction
1.
Trees And The
Assassination Of Marzooq “Al-ashjar wa-ightyal Marzuq”,1973, Beirut:
al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
2.
A Magian Love
Story “Qissat hubb majusiyya”,1974, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
3.
East of
Mediterraniean “Sharq al-Mutawassit”, 1975, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
4.
When we left the
bridge “Hina tarakna al-jisr”, 1976, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
5.
Endings
“An-nihayat”, 1977, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat
wan-Nashr. (Endings, translated by Rober Allen, 1988)
6.
Long Distance
Race “Sibaq al-masafat at-tawila”, 1979, Beirut: al-Muassasa
al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
7.
A World without
Maps “Alam bi-la kharait”, 1982, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr. (Munif, & Jabra Ibrahim Jabra)
8.
Cities of Salt
“Mudun al-milh”
a.
Vol.1:
The Wildness “Al-tih”, 1984, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr. (Cities of Salt, translated by Peter Theroux, 1987)
b.
Vol. 2:
The Trench “Al-ukhdud”, 1985, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat
wan-Nashr. (, translated by Peter Theroux, 1991)
c.
Vol. 3:
Variations on Night and Day “Taqasim al-layl wan-nahar”, 1989, Beirut:
al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr. (translated by Peter Theroux,
1993)
d.
Vol. 4: The
Upooted “Al-munbatt”, 1989, Beirut:
al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
e.
Vol. 5: The
Desert of Darkness “Badiyat az-zulmat”, 1989, Beirut: al-Muassasa
al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
9.
Here and now, or
east of Mediterranean again “Al-an… huna, aw sharq al-Mutawassit marra ukhra”,
1991, Beirut: al-Muassasa
al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
10.
Story of a City:
A Childhood in Amman “Sirat madina – Amman fi l-arba'inat”, 1994,
Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr. (translated by Samira
Kawar, 1996)
11.
The Land of Darkness
“Ard as-sawad” Vol. 1-3, 199, 9Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat
wan-Nashr.
12.
Mother of vows
“Umm an-nudhur”, 2005, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat
wan-Nashr.
13.
Pseudonyms “Asma'
musta'arah”, short stories, 2006, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
14.
The Open Door “Al-Bab
al-maftuh”, short stories, 2006, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
Non-Fiction
1.
Mabda
al-musharaka wa-tamin al-bitrul al-arabi , 1973, Beirut:
Dar al-awda.
2.
Al-bitrul
al-arabi, musharaka aw at-tamin, Beirut, 1975.
3.
Tamin al-bitrul
al-arabi, Baghdad, 1976.
4.
Al-katib
wal-manfa – Humum wa-afaq ar-riwaya al-arabiyya, 1992,
Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
5.
Ad-dimuqratiyya
awwilan ad-dimuqratiyya daiman, 1992, Beirut:
al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
6.
Bayn ath-thaqafa
was-siyasa, 1998, Casablanca: al-Markaz ath-Thaqafi
al-Arabi.
7.
Law'at
al-ghiyab, 1998, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
8.
Rihlat daw, 2001,
Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
9.
Dhakira
lil-mustaqbal, 2001, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
10.
Urwat al-Zaman
al-bahi, 1997, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat
wan-Nashr.
11.
Al-'Iraq:
hawamish min al-tarikh wa-al-muqawamah, 2003, , Beirut:
al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
12.
I'adat rasm
al-khara'it, 2007, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
Munif and oil
Oil and politics had filled his
life, and oil had been his first career; with a doctorate in oil economics, he
worked as director of crude oil marketing in the Syrian Oil Company and later
as editor in chief of the magazine Oil and Development in Baghdad. His
magnificent quintet, Cities of Salt, has been described by Edward Said as
"The only serious work of fiction that tries to show the effect of oil,
Americans and the local oligarchy on a Gulf country."[11] As a writer, Munif used oil to tell
Arab stories as well as the story of Anglo-American competition in Iran as in
his novel Long Distance Races.
As a political thinker, it
maddened him that oil wealth, instead of modernizing Arabian society, enthroned
and perpetuated backward monarchies allied with primitive religious
establishments as well as Western governments, and who, incidentally, stole
huge amounts of that wealth. With his typical understated tact, Munif asked in
an op-ed in London’s Guardian in 1990, “Aren’t we obliged to ask why it
is assumed that more modern governments would necessarily be inimical to the
interests of the West?”[12]
As an economist, Munif had a vision theme
that the Oil is our one and only chance to build a future, and the regimes are
ruining it, and Oil, provides the sole and final opportunity for the region to
develop itself rather than depend upon others as was the case in the past and
as may happen in the future if the present misuse of oil wealth continues. He
told Seattle writer Michael Upchurch in an interview for Glimmer Train
in 1994: "This is really our one resource. This is our chance to use it to
build a country that has something to do with these times. Unfortunately, over
the last fifty years, all of this money has been spent wrongly."[13]
Cities of salt
Munif's magnum opus is the Mudun
Al-Milh (Cities of Salt). It is the longest novel in
modern Arabic literature, which took more than six years to be written at 2,500
pages and was banned in several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi
Arabia. It followed the evolution of the Arabian
Peninsula. Daniel Burt, in his The Novel 100, ranked
the quintet as the 71st greatest novel of all time.[14]
The
five-part novel the (1984-89) registers the history of Arab life through the
critical eye of an insider. Each of its five volumes has a different plot and
are unified with a distinctive tone. The first volume, “Al-Teeh” (The
Wilderness, 1984), covers the years from 1933 to 1953. The second volume,
“Al-Ukhdood” (The Trench, 1985), deals with historical events between 1953 and
1958. The third volume, “Taqaseem Al-Layl Waa Al-Nahar” (Variations on Day and
Night, 1989), moves backward to the period between 1891 and 1930. The fourth,
“Al-Munbatt” (The Uprooted, 1989), moves forward to the years between 1964 and
1969. The fifth, “Badiyat Al-Dhulumat” (Desert of Darkness, 1989), which is
divided into two parts, first returns to 1920-35, and then moves to 1964-75 [15].
It’s
a work in symbolism and magical realism; its message can be applied to any and
each city in the Arab oil countries, where “Arabs have been the victims of
their rulers and the foreigners”[16].
This was the central theme of his writing, particularly the most celebrated of
his 15 novels, East of the Mediterranean (1975), in which he revealed, in
graphic detail, the torture and abuse that prisoners suffered in Arab prisons
and detention centers and of which he had personal experience. It highlighted
the fact that "a human being in the lands east of the Mediterranean is
cheaper than anything and a cigarette stub has more value than him"[17].
Conclusion
Munif lived in Egypt, Yugoslavia, Iraq, France, and in Syria. In
that sense, he could be described an Arab Cosmopolitan. He
criticized Arab nations because of their stands against Israeli violence on
Palestine. His
literary works were translated into over 10 languages and during his lifetime, Munif received a number of awards.
“He won the Al-Uwais Cultural Award the Arab equivalent of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1989. He also received the
most prestigious of which was the Cairo Award for Creative Narration in 1998.
He was rumored to have been on the short list for the Nobel prize the year that
Naguib Mahfouz won”[18].
Munif
passed away on January 24, 2004 after a prolonged sickness while living in
exile in Syria. Munif has not been awarded the recognition he deserves, especially
in the English language, but he will be remembered as the Arab novelist who
enriched Arabic culture through his literary prose. ”According to Ibrahim
Nasrullah, Jordanian Novelist, Munif was one of the most courageous and noble
wrier in the Arab world”[19].
References
In
Arabic
§ Cities
of Salt “Mudun al-milh” Vol.1: The Wildness “Al-tih”, 1984,
Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr. (Cities of Salt,
translated by Peter Theroux, 1987)
§ East
of Mediterraniean “Sharq al-Mutawassit”, 1975, Beirut: al-Muassasa
al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
§ Story
of a City: A Childhood in Amman “Sirat madina – Amman fi l-arba'inat”, 1994,
Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr.
§ Abdul
Rahman Munif 2008, 2009, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya
lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr,ISBN: 978- 9953- 68- 362- X.
§ Attajreebiyyah
Fi Riwayathi Abdul Rahman Munif, By
Noora Alussa’d. 2005, National Council For Culture And Arts, Doha.
§ Dirasathu
naqdiyya fi al riwaya alarabiyya, Dr. sahr hussain shareef, aldarul ma’rifa
aljamieyya, Egypt, 2011.
In
English
§ A
short history of modern Arabic literature, M M BADAWI, Oxford University Press,
New York, 1993,ISBN: 0-19 826542-5
§ Munif
a bio – history, sabry hafez, New Left Review 37, January – February 2006.
§ Abdul
Rahman Munif 2008, Arabic cultural center for publishing and distribution.
ISBN:978- 9953- 68- 362- x.
§ The
Guardian, Thursday, 5 February,2004. Obituary.
§ Bidding
Farewell to Munif: Novelist Bears Witness to Repression, Corruption, Reverence
for Common Folk BY JUDITH GABRIEL, ALJADID; A review and record of Arab culture
and arts, VOL. 9 No. 45 FALL 2003.
§ “The
prolific and renowned Arabic novelist of our time” Prepared by: Eyad N. Al
Samman Published on http://www.yementimes.com
:27-08-2007.
§ Burt, Daniel S.;
(2004). The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time. New
York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 0-8160-4558-5.
§ The
experimental Arabic novel, Postcolonial
Literary Modernism In The Levant, Stefan G.Meyer, sate university of new york
press.
Internet
§ www.yementimes.com:27-08-2007
§ http://wordswithoutborders.org/article/
-munif-and-the-uses-of-oil, 5/06/13, 5 pm
¶¶¶
[1] Munif
a bio – history, sabry hafez, New Left Review 37, January – February 2006.
[2] Abdul
Rahman Munif 2008, Arabic cultural center for publishing and distribution.
ISBN:978- 9953- 68- 362- x, foot note 2, page no:57.
[3] The
Guardian, Thursday, 5 February,2004. obituary, www.theguardian.com
[4] Bidding
Farewell to Munif: Novelist Bears Witness to Repression, Corruption, Reverence
for Common Folk BY JUDITH GABRIEL, ALJADID; A review and record of Arab culture
and arts, VOL. 9 No. 45 FALL 2003.
[5] “The
prolific and renowned Arabic novelist of our time” Prepared by: Eyad N. Al
Samman Published on http://www.yementimes.com
:27-08-2007.
[6] Iskandar
Habash, Unpublished Munif Interview: Crisis in the Arab World – Oil,
Political Islam, and Dictatorship,
ALJADID; A review and record of Arab culture and arts, VOL. 9 No. 45 FALL 2003.
[7] The
experimental Arabic novel, Postcolonial
Literary Modernism In The Levant, Stefan G.Meyer, sate university of new york
press, Page: 71
[8] The
Guardian, Thursday, 5 February,2004. (obituary, www.theguardian.com
[9] The
experimental Arabic novel, Postcolonial
Literary Modernism In The Levant, Stefan G.Meyer, sate university of new york
press.
[10] A
short history of modern Arabic literature, M M BADAWI, Oxford University Press,
New York, 1993,ISBN: 0-19-826542-5
[11] www.al-bab.com/arab/literature/munif.htm
on 02/12/2013
[14] Burt, Daniel S.; (2004). The Novel 100: A Ranking
of the Greatest Novels of All Time. New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 0-8160-4558-5.
[15] Mudnul
milh, abdul Rahman Munif, Vol. 1-5, Beirut: al-Muassasa al-Arabiyya lid-Dirasat
wan-Nashr.
[16] The
Guardian, Thursday, 5 February,2004. (obituary, www.theguardian.com
[17] ibid
[18]
Bidding Farewell to Munif:
Novelist Bears Witness to Repression, Corruption, Reverence for Common Folk BY
JUDITH GABRIEL, ALJADID; A review and record of Arab culture and arts, VOL. 9
No. 45 FALL 2003.
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