Islamic Literatures: Texts and Studies – serie

While in exile in Gabon (1895–1902), Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba marked a historic moment with his poetry of resilience, pivotal to the cultural and religious transformation of the Murīds of Senegal. The qaṣāʾid (poems) included in this annotated edition, most of them hymns of praise to the qualities of Allāh and the Prophet Muḥammad, and professions of faith that demonstrate how to realize the precepts found in the Qur’ān, display the underlying elements of Sheikh Ahmadu Bamba’s imaginative energy and poetic vision. They reveal a unifying poetic purpose and exemplify Ṣūfī literary traditions in subject matter, form, and versification and aim to explore the deepest regions of mysticism in search of the divine truth.

Adab is a concept situated at the heart of Arabic and Islamic civilisation. Adab is etiquette, ethics, and literature. It is also a creative synthesis, a relationship within a configuration. What became of it, towards modernity ? The question of the "civilising process" (Norbert Elias) helps us reflect on this story. During the modern period, maintaining one's identity while entering into what was termed "civilisation" (al-tamaddun) soon became a leitmotiv. A debate on what was or what should be culture, ethics, and norms in Middle Eastern societies accompanied this evolution. The resilient notion of adab has been in competition with the Salafist focus on mores (akhlāq). Still, humanism, poetry, and transgression are constants in the history of adab. Contributors: Francesca Bellino, Elisabetta Benigni, Michel Boivin, Olivier Bouquet, Francesco Chiabotti, Stéphane Dudoignon, Anne-Laure Dupont, Stephan Guth, Albrecht Hofheinz, Katharina Ivanyi, Felix Konrad, Corinne Lefevre, Cathérine Mayeur-Jaouen, Astrid Meier, Nabil Mouline, Samuela Pagani, Luca Patrizi, Stefan Reichmuth, Iris Seri-Hersch, Chantal Verdeil, Anne-Sophie Vivier-Muresan.

The notion of adab is at the very heart of the Islamicate cultures. Born in the crucible of the Arabic and Persian civilisations of the Late Antiquity period, nourished by Greek, Syriac and Indian influences, this polysemic notion could cover a variegated range of meanings, ranging from good behaviour, good manners, etiquette, proper knowledge of the rules, to belles-lettres, and finally, literature. This volume addresses the notion of adab through four perspectives, which correspond to the four parts into which it is divided: “Origins”; “Transmissions”; “Metamorphosis” of the “Origins” and finally “Origins” through the lens of modernity.