cracks not only in the geology of history, but also in the simple fact of
the statement; it emerges in its historical irruption; what we try to
examine is the incision that it makes, that irreducible—and very often
tiny—emergence.
(See Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge
(London and New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 28)19 There is a further note on this movement.
20 Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge, p. 192.
21 One may argue that it also made use of early revivalist movements like the
Wahhabis in Arabia (first established their presence in 1745, and captured Mecca
and Medina in 1803–1804, 1806), the Sanusis in Cyrenaica (the movement was
founded in 1837), and the Mahdists in Sudan (whose revolt against the British
was in 1885). The survival of these depended then on how much they could cater
to dynamics of change and to Western presence and impact, and how open they
could be to accommodate the spirit of the age.
22 Cited in Carles C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt(Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1933), pp. 39, 135. See also Majid Khadduri, Political Trends
in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics(Baltimore and London:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), for a survey of these issues, pp. 59–63.
23 For an account of Rifm‘ah al-Yahymwl’s stay in Paris (1826–1831), see Daniel
L. Newman’s annotated translation, An Imam in Paris(London: Saqi Books, 2004).
24 See Ja‘far Xmdiq >ammndl, Mu‘jam al-shu ‘rm’ al-‘Irmqiyyln(Baghdad: Al-Ma
‘rifah, 1991), 359.
25 See for instance, M. A. Khouri, Poetry and the Making of Modern Egypt
(1882–1922) (Leiden: Brill, 1971); Ynsuf ‘Izz al-Dln, Al-Shi‘r al-‘Iraql
al-.adlth wa-athar al-tayymrmt al-siymsiyyah wa-al-ijtimm‘iyyah flh(Modern Iraqi
Poetry and the Impact of Political and Social Trends) (Cairo: Al-Dmr
al-Qawmiyyah, 1965); and J. Brugman, An Introduction to the History of Modern
Arabic Literature in Egypt(Leiden: Brill, 1984).
26 A. J. Arberry, Aspects of Islamic Civilization(Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press, 1978), p. 359
27 Ibid., p. 361.
28 >usayn Haykal’s words, quoted in ibid., p. 361.
29 Ibid., p. 362.
30 Ibid., p. 385.
31 Ibid., p. 394.
32 Issa J. Boullata’s phrase, see Trends and Issues in Contemporary Thought(New York:
State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 47.
33 M. M. Badawi, A Short History of Modern Arabic Literature(Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1993), p. 76.
34 Ibid.
35 The Free Verse Movement burgeoned technically and thematically as dissatis-
faction with conventions, as it looked upon the classical poem as binding, and
obstructing full experimentation with one’s vision and experience. The move-
ment promotes genuine experience, authenticity and spontaneity of speech. In
an eloquent description of the new consciousness and its freedom, the Syrian
poet Nizmr Qabbmnl(d. 1998) sums up the need for the free verse movement as
disenchantment with the traditional rhyme that hinders imagination and
excitement and renders the poem “disconnected stories in a lofty building.”
NOTES