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Literary Reflections by Leila Golestaneh Austin with Ali Asani and Andrew Halladay

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Literary Reflections by Leila Golestaneh Austin with Ali Asani and Andrew Halladay Presented by National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with American Library Association and Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University new world of almost limitless potential. When the Khan. By the sixteenth century, this empire had painting is seen from this perspective, virtually faded into distant memory. But in our painting, the only possibility the artist seems to exclude is its cultural legacy can still be seen in the sweeping the presence of any people other than the Spanish zigzag of the landscape, and the angular energy of themselves. And in this sense, for all its exuberance, the rocks and trees—both features highly evocative his painting conveys an image of history that is of Chinese visual styles. anything but connected, one in which Europeans are the only real protagonists, and the world exists only Such details helped to ensure that our painting for them to explore—and, eventually, to conquer. would appeal to Sultan Murad, a famously generous patron of the arts with the tastes of a connoisseur. But look again—for this painting, much like But why, from the comfort of his palace in Istanbul, history itself, holds many lessons to uncover, some would the sultan have been interested in a book obvious at first glance and others scribbled in the about Spanish America in the first place? The answer margins or hidden just beneath the surface. To begin is to be found not in the painting itself, but in the with, look at the unfamiliar writing at the top of the sweeping political events of that moment in world page. It is obviously not Spanish. Nor is it Arabic, history. although it might seem so at first glance to the untrained eye. Instead, it is Ottoman Turkish—the Specifically, in 1578—just a few years before language of the only sixteenth-century ruler who The History of the West Indies was composed—the could legitimately vie with the king of Spain for dashing but reckless King Sebastian of Portugal the title of “World Emperor.” In other words, The had fallen in battle while on a crusade in Morocco. History of the West Indies was a work produced not in Because Sebastian was a young man and left no any Western capital, but in the imperial workshops children, his death paved the way for King Philip II of Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace, where it was prepared of Spain, his closest living relative, to inherit both in 1584 for the reading pleasure of the Ottoman Portugal and its many new colonies in India. And sultan, Murad III. since Philip, already the most powerful sovereign in Europe, was Sultan Murad’s most feared Western This unexpected provenance helps to explain the rival, his accession to the Portuguese crown was a painting’s distinctive visual style, itself the product of matter of the utmost concern in Istanbul—raising a long history of cultural influence that began not in the specter of Spanish attacks not only from the the West, but, rather, far to the East. For during the Mediterranean, but from the Indian Ocean as well. sixteenthNEH century, Bridging the artists Cultures of the Ottoman Empire had fallen under the spell of a particular style of This brings us once more to The History of the LET’S miniature paintingTAL perfectedK A in BOUTneighboring Persia IT:West Indies, whose author introduces his work in (the Persians being the acknowledged artistic masters a most unexpected way: with a proposal to build of the Islamic world in much the same way that a Suez canal, which would enable the Ottomans the painters of Renaissance Italy were regarded as to send a fleet from Istanbul directly to the Indian standard-bearers by their European contemporaries). Ocean and seize control of the Portuguese colonies But inMuslim one of history’s many twists, this Persian style thereJourneys before the Spanish could do so. Indeed, it is of painting was, in turn, heavily influenced by the this proposal that gives meaning to the rest of the artistic traditions of China—a direct consequence book, which outlines the activities of the Spanish in of the Mongol conquests of an earlier age, when the New World in order to convince the sultan of both China and Iran were incorporated into the the global reach of King Philip’s power—and of the transcontinentalLiterary empire established by Genghis Reflections consequent necessity of building a canal across more By Leila Golestaneh Austin • The Johns Hopkins University With Ali Asani and Andrew Halladaybridgingcultures.neh.gov/muslimjourneys • Harvard University | 1 Literary Reflections by Leila Golestaneh Austin with Ali Asani and Andrew Halladay Mantiq al-Tayr (The Language of the Birds), Islamic illustrated manuscript. Attributed to: Iran, Isfahan. Safavid period, circa 1600. Fletcher Fund, 1963 (63.210.11). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY In the aftermath of 9/11 and the democratic uprisings to translations of the Qur’an, the foundational scripture of the Arab Spring, a host of news anchors, political of the Muslim faith. Yet without a deeper understanding pundits, and scholars have sought to explain the role of of the wider historical and cultural contexts in which the religion in “the Muslim world.” Many Americans seeking Qur’an emerged and has been interpreted, the text itself to educate themselves about Islam have turned is of limited use in explaining the diverse expressions 2 | LET’S TALK ABOUT IT: Muslim Journeys of Islam throughout the world. A complex web conflict and intersect, and the distinction between of political ideologies, socioeconomic conditions, the religious and the secular is blurred. At one level, societal attitudes toward gender, literary and these works are but glimpses into various expressions artistic traditions, and historical and geographic of Muslim societies, but collectively they teach us circumstances, connect the Qur’an with its many that literature provides representations of Islam that interpretations across Muslim societies. remove religion from isolation and situate it within wider contexts. Life in Muslim societies, like life anywhere, consists of far more than just religion. We must look to the larger social, political, and cultural dimensions The Arabian Nights with which religion consistently intersects to better understand the principal aspirations and concerns Edited by Muhsin Mahdi (translated of Muslims around the world. To this end, literature by Husain Haddawy) can offer us a valuable lens through which to view Muslim societies on their own terms. The Arabian Nights, or, as it is known, The Thousand and One Nights, is among the works of Arabic The five works in “Literary Reflections” literature best known in the West. The text was all emerge from communities that share a religious compiled during the Abbasid caliphate (750–1258), identification (Islam), yet in their pages we read regarded as one of the glorious periods of Muslim about considerably more than religion—we civilization because of its significant contributions to encounter the hopes, dreams, and fears of characters scientific knowledge, cultural arts, engineering and as they relate to their communities and to the wider architecture, and general intellectual innovation. A world. We encounter mundane routines, but also French translation introduced the Nights to Europe the crises and special events that punctuate them. In more than three centuries ago, and it has fascinated many of the works, individuals find themselves in the West ever since. The obsession is understandable: vigorous negotiation between old and new, at times the pages of The Arabian Nights abound with tales of relying on traditional symbols and at other times demons and treasures, mysteries, erotic details, and inventing new ones. These texts reveal individuals riddles. Less celebrated, but equally interesting, are caught in the midst of cultural change, in historical the more quotidian elements that reveal portraits moments when religious rituals and symbols, of market life, or the roles of various trades and experiences, and identities are being retained, professions as they might have been understood borrowed, and reforged. at the time of the text’s compilation. Elements from the stories continue to appear in numerous Through these stories, and through Western paintings and musical compositions, and literature more generally, we realize that in their the great variety of genres and sophisticated literary diversity, Muslim experiences encompass more than techniques in the text itself have influenced writers just religious texts and ritual practices. Instead, these as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Jorge Luis Borges, and experiences are embedded within a set of dynamic Salman Rushdie. traditions that are constantly being reformulated. Nothing is monolithic in these works; the worlds in As beloved as The Arabian Nightshas which the writers composed, and the worlds they become in the West, historically the text itself imagined, are in many cases diametrically opposed. never had much importance in the Arab world. Little is stable; characters change (sometimes Few manuscripts existed until modern times, and literally), the traditional and the modern both the Nights was not a component of traditional bridgingcultures.neh.gov/muslimjourneys | 3 education. We can point to a few factors that might could learn tales and freely adapt them. Just as partially explain the apparent lack of interest in the writers of the Nights reworked oral traditions to Nights as a text. In an era when classical literature meet their own needs and social milieus, storytellers was a highly formal and disciplined art that required modified tales from the Nights to suit the demands years of study to master, the tales were generally of their audience. The great flexibility with which thought to be too coarse and unrefined to be stories were recorded, retold, and added to reveals included in the canon of classical Arabic literature.
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