Law and Literature and the Novel

By islamiclawblog on November 28, 2024

This is the second in a two-part series on teaching law and literature. The first focused on the classical traditions of law and literature.

The relationship between Islamic law and classical Arabic literature can appear as more direct, if anything because of the stature of law. In the narrow social group of the elite that was literate, the pervasiveness of legal and legal-religious training provided a common ground of literacy and rhetorical form that pervaded other literary forms and genres, such as philosophy and literature. Mapping and exploring this rich relationship is one of the objectives of the first half of the course discussed in the first part of this series (maybe even the first two-thirds). In this second part, I will tackle the question of modern law and literature and how I go about it. On the surface, it is a bit more difficult. But the time spent on the pre-modern tradition allows for a textual discussion that is less obvious. And, as it turns out, there is no paucity of modern novels that benefit from a close reading using this lens.

First we tackle the broad question of the modern and colonial transformation. If Islamic law is unrecognizably transformed by colonial and modern state systems,[1] what happens to "literature," and to its relationship with the law and legal culture? It is difficult to argue against the basic truth of this assertion. But perhaps one of its problems (which at the same time, in the classroom, provides a kind of insight) is that one can say the same about "literature," that it is unrecognizably transformed from its pre-modern form and practice because of the radical transformation of the social and institutional context in which it is produced, performed, and transmitted. I like how the more counterintuitive question regarding the literary tradition can shed light on what looks like a more "social scientific" process, in the case law and politics. It also brings up the very intriguing question of how to think about and understand textual traditions that survive periods of radical social change. How is one to conceive of their continuities?

This crisis of continuity and disruption is thematized in modern literature. Two great novels that I have read productively with these issues in mind are Sinan Antoon's The Corpse Washer,[2] a 2014 novel set in Iraq under US occupation, and the classic Egyptian novel, Zayni Barakat,[3] a 1974 novel set in Mamluk Egypt on the eve of the Ottoman conquest. Both brilliantly explore the crisis of modern and colonial disruptions to Islamic legal traditions broadly conceived.

The Corpse Washer is a haunting novel following a kind of internal monologue of a young man who has taken up his father and family's occupation of preparing the body for funerary rites, as the country is engulfed in ever-deepening cycles of violence that rend apart the social fabric. The protagonist finds himself performing a series of rites and functions in the face of a world crumbling around him. These don't exactly provide solace, but still present themselves as the only viable means to exist in this broken world The novel offers an extended meditation on ritual meaning and form (as well as aesthetic vs. ritual practices), and provides grounds for discussing and thinking about ritual form (a central dimension of Islamic law) as a site for the production of meaning (including legal and religious meaning). It is a dark novel on a tragic subject. But, in my experience, students respond powerfully to its insights.

Ghamal al-Ghitani's classic 1974 novel, Zayni Barakat, likewise, may not seem to be squarely about law or its representation. But, in many ways, it is undeniably so. Among its many threads and subjects, Zayni Barakat is about the fate of Islamic principles in the service of government (and a Machiavellian one at that). It follows the career of a public administrator who takes the office of muḥtasib (or market inspector), during the final days of the Mamluk Sultanate and before it is overrun by the rising Ottoman Empire. The historical setting of political intrigue in the mediation of power between elite groups and popular demands for justice, in the shadow of imperial government, provides ample food for thought and analogy with modern colonial and post-colonial arrangements and appears to, quite squarely, question the integrity of government that pays lip-service to a set of shared principles while cynically manipulating public information and the interpretation of events in the exclusive interest of exercising power and holding onto it at all cost.

Bab Zuwayla, iconic landmark of Mameluke Cairo, the setting of Gamal al-Ghitani's Zayni Barakat. (Photo taken by the author.)

The novel invites discussion on three major points: (1) We can begin with the concept of al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar (enjoining the right and preventing the wrong) as a foundational Islamic concept at the intersection of public good and individual rights and duties. And this can be complemented with a discussion of the historic office of the ḥisba and the branches of enforcement and control, adjacent to the law but central to social and public performance. (2) The novel delights in playing with historical textual genres and their relationship to fact and truth and to the social arrangements they illustrate and negotiate. The novel mimics legal processes of investigation and adjudication and illustrates a complex social arrangement held in precarious balance. (3) Lastly, the novel poses the question of what is the role and fate of Islamic principles of justice in a state where these principles are overruled by the demands of power.

One of the high comic (and philosophical) moments of the novel comes in the form of a manifesto written on the occasion of the secret, first international convention of spies, in which they trade secrets, not so subtly pointing to the shared interests of political elites as they engineer their dystopian fantasies of radical visibility while crushing any possibility of autonomy amongst their subjects.

With its multiple points of view, created through a pastiche of historically inspired administrative texts and documents (spy reports, government edicts, mystical dreams), Zayni Barakat presents a wonderful means to engage a set of conversations that are central to a discussion of Islamic law in the present and its ongoing relationship to popular culture.

Notes:

[1] As, for example, put forth by Wael Hallaq in his An Introduction to Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2009).

[2] Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).

[3] Gamal al-Ghitani, Zayni Barakat, trans. Farouk Abdel Wahab (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2004).