The Reflections: An English Translation of Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti’s ‘An-Naẓarāt’ – Part I

By Mohamed Abulinein

This book offers a faithful English translation of An-Nazarat (‘The Reflections’) by Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti, a distinguished essayist from the era of the Nahda, or the Modern Arabic Literary Renaissance in Egypt. Al-Manfaluti’s magnum opus, first published in 1910, is a rich collection of short stories, essays, and a few adapted translations, originally featured in Egypt’s al-Mu’ayyad newspaper.

With a sharp, reflective eye, al-Manfaluti captures the vibrant tapestry of life, inviting readers to explore the intricate interplay of cultural identity and the dynamic evolution of society. His works, which John A. Haywood describes as spanning the ‘whole gamut of current ethical and social problems,’ offer a glimpse into the early 20th-century Egyptian zeitgeist, touching on themes of political nationalism, pan-Islamic aspirations, and religious reform.

Al-Manfaluti’s unique, almost highbrow style, with its distinct lustre, sets his writings apart. Abdul-Sattar Jawad compares him to the Romantic essayist Lamb, noting al-Manfaluti’s use of personal reminiscences, stories, interest in the natural past, and prose poems, often reinforced with verse quotations.

Hailed as a genius in the art of literary composition and prose-writing, and a leader in pure stylistic diction, al-Manfaluti’s An-Nazarat remains a seminal work for those interested in the Middle East and the Nahda period, a melting pot of social and literary significance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889101130

Mohamed Abulinein

Mohamed Abulinein is a translator by designation. His alma mater is Mansoura University in the Bridal City of the Egyptian Delta. He got his Baccalaureus Artium in the English Language and Literature in 2000. He studied translation at the AUC’s School of Continuing Education, where he had gone through a lot of examinations, and had conducted concurrently so many projects summa cum laude. During his study at the AUC, he had unearthed the technicalities of journalese and the differences between hard and soft news. In addition, he added to his scope of specialties the intricate field of legal translation that is rife with the thickets of legalese. He used to work for Cairo- and Dubai-based leading translation companies. He is now a freelancer for worldwide pioneering translation companies.

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About the Author

Mohamed Abulinein is a translator by designation. His alma mater is Mansoura University in the Bridal City of the Egyptian Delta. He got his Baccalaureus Artium in the English Language and Literature in 2000. He studied translation at the AUC’s School of Continuing Education, where he had gone through a lot of examinations, and had conducted concurrently so many projects summa cum laude. During his study at the AUC, he had unearthed the technicalities of journalese and the differences between hard and soft news. In addition, he added to his scope of specialties the intricate field of legal translation that is rife with the thickets of legalese. He used to work for Cairo- and Dubai-based leading translation companies. He is now a freelancer for worldwide pioneering translation companies.

Dedication

To the Soul of my late dad, Abul-Enein;

To my mom, Su’ad;

To my cherished wife, Eman; and

To my beloved children, Eyad, Marwan, Kareem and Judi.

Copyright Information ©

Mohamed Abulinein 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Abulinein, Mohamed

The Reflections

ISBN 9798889101123 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798889101130 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023922996

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

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New York, NY 10005

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Acknowledgment

I would hereby like to extend my acknowledgments to those kind people without whose assistance this book could neither have come to light nor have been brought to fruition. It is admittedly Mr. Alaa Mustafa who is the father of the brainchild hereof, and who had been confident that I will win my spurs herein and hereby. Special thanks are due to Sheikh Ibrahim Zaher, Dr. Muhammad Bakr, Mr. Ali A. Aziz, Mr. Reda al-Rubie, Mr. Alaa Yahya and Dr. Hazem Musa. I would like to render my thanks to my wife, Eman, for her time, and to my late Dad, Dr. Abul-Enein, Mum, Mrs. Su’ad, my late Father-in-Law, Mr. Muhammad El-Sayed, and Mother-in-Law, Mrs. Gamalat, for wishing me Godspeed herein. Last but not least, I hereby extend my sincerest acknowledgments to my brother, whom my mother had not begotten: to wit, Mr. Nader Ibrahim, who had been giving me countless hours of his time, even at the wee hours, in discussing translational issues in respect hereof.

Dedication for the ST Book of ‘An-

Naẓarāt’

Penned by Muṣṭafā L. al-Manfalūṭī

If, in this magnum-opus, there is a favorable merit that a man of culture and refinement admires, a sound opinion that a man of reason is satisfied with, or a good diction that a man of letters praises, no people will ergo have thereunto anything to do with or have a hand therein except for these three men: my de-jure guardian and father, Mr. Muḥammad Luṭfī, my muse, guru and mentor, Sheikh Muḥammad ’Abduh, and my patron and master, Sa’d Pasha Zaghlūl.

Those are my dedicatees since this book of mine is akin to a handout of the kind acts of theirs, a favor of the good turns of theirs, and a procured opus of the guardianship, guruship and patronage of theirs. Those are further the persons, who have done me in this life such good turns that I still do hearken back to, and I will recall the fact that they are being akin to my benefactors in it until my soul would ergo be hampered and balked through meeting the fate of death thereof, and my bones would thence be detained and hog-tied from movement through being doomed to burial in the cairned sepulcher thereof. Thenceforth, God would hopefully take over for me that which has been in default on my part, and that which I have failed to fulfill: He is verily the Sustainer and Cherisher of the righteous, and He is indeed the Recompenser and Lavisher of the hard-workers.

Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī

Preface to the ST Book of ’An-

Naẓarāt’

Penned by Muṣṭafā L. al-Manfalūṭī

01

In the Name of God,

the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

After stating hereby that praise be to God, and blessings and salvation be upon our Master, Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH), as well as his companions and his household, I got this Part of An-Naẓarāt (’The Reflections’) printed out three years ago.

It was—Laus Deo—the cynosure of the entire readership of Arabic, including inter alios celebrating readers, admiring encomiasts, diligent criticizers and industrious strugglers. I had thanked the readers for their concern, the encomiasts for their consideration, the criticizers for their high-mindedness, and the strugglers for their magnanimity. Then, no single eye had been cast over the book afterwards until it occurred to me that I would get it reprinted out.

Thenceforth, I had had a stranger’s look thereat, and I was ergo able to opine the merits and demerits thereof. Hence, I got the useless opuscula thereof deleted out, and added up that which I have conceived that setting it down in writing is better than letting it be omitted. Many of phraseologies have been smartened up. I have made right the slips that I had succeeded in fixing. The second edition is therefore rendered meticulously better, put in more controlled order, and made to be of more general avail than the first one.

Verily, God is the Sustainer, from Whom assistance is sought.

Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī

Forewords to the ST Book of

‘An-Naẓarāt’

Penned by a constellation of some luminaries who were Muṣṭafā L. al-Manfalūṭī’s coevals

01

A writer’s foreword about another fellow writer, poet or author, whether it be opined in good or evil, is not so credible to be heeded, is not deemed a subjective opinion of his own, and is of no avail to get it published and/or broadcast unless it is written out of his own courtesy and in spontaneity in order to air his own feeling of the truth of what he believes. It is only as such when it is opined by himself whilst he is in a state far from either of such two ones: a euphoria of contentment or a fit of anger. That is, he does not put it in writing in compliment out of cordiality. Nor is it to be in response to a suggestion, in freedom from an urge, and in submission to a sentiment of revenge.

That is why I opined that I publish herein as forewords what is in compliance with such provisos, and what had come to have been written respectively in newspapers, or communicated with me so that the readership could be properly introduced to this book, and could get a visualized image hereof before casting their eyes over it.

Foreword by Dr. Ya’qūb Ṣarrūf

Founder of al-Muqtaṭaf (‘The Digest’) Journal

The book has various topics, most of which are literarily-oriented, and wherein the Author waded through their billowy swells as if he were a diver in search of pearls, and roamed their orchards and groves in order to reap their fruits, and arrange their flowers whilst being guided by a vigorous mind’s eye, and being furnished with a diction, by virtue of which its lexical vocabulary and syntactic structures are succumbed to him. We have been admiring everything we browsed, both in terms of verbal expressions and meanings and/ or conceits.

Foreword by Sheikh Muḥammad al-Mahdī

History of Arabic Literature Professor at the University of Egypt

I have been so dotingly much-longing for An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’) of thine because I see it capably apt to reinstating the Arabic language and/or tongue to its originality after ‘Time’ had got it tattered. No sooner hadst thou been so graciously disposed to vouchsafe it to the Ḍād-speakers (i.e., the Arabophones) than I extended unto thee my thanks that would have to be extended by a recognizer of thy favor.

Foreword by Abdurrahman Effendi Zaghlūl

Arabic Literature Professor at Darul ’Ulum School

This book of thine, as being set forth as a locus-classicus byword, is akin to a sui-generis opus. No sooner may a reader pass through what he/she wishes to scan from amongst that which is penned by the later generations of authors than he/she comes to encounter thy book: he/she is to be like such a traveler in the desert that he/she would, after going through it, end up with an oasis or fertile place that is abounding in verdure, umbrage and water, wherewith the very souls are pleased.

Verily, there is in this book of thine such a well-proven token that commonsense and long-term practice make a person reach perfectly wherever he/she wishes. In it, there is such a well-proven token that a successor penner is in similitude of the ancestors of his, and is eligibly qualified to be imparted with sound judgment that is licked into shape in terms of the choicest pith of Arabic. In it, there is such a well-proven token that the straightforwardly correct inditements¹, to which no affectation is pinned, would take over the soul, and would win the cockles of the heart in their entirety. That is why it behooved thy inditements to gain possession of me surpassingly and make headway as to my conscience by far.

Foreword by Ahmed Ḥāfiẓ Bey ’Awaḍ

Translator at al-Ma’īyah as-Sanīyah (‘The Viceregal Cabinet’)

A penmanship like such copiously prolific penmanship of thine as well as an imagination like such vigorous mind’s eye of thine, a rhetorical eloquence like such rhetorically-enthralling eloquence of thine, and a soul like such radiantly light-like soul of thine that no folding screen or keeping-off barrier could hold it back shall aptly behoove to place thee at the top of the ranks of intellectual writers, whose names would eternally perpetuate the history of literature.

Foreword by Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Effendi al-Qāsimī

Syrian Writer

Mr. al-Manfalūṭī is endued with such miraculous acumen and flair for descriptive imagery, which is almost akin to an innate and inborn disposition of his. Upon reading a piece of literature of his, it manifests itself to me out of its enchantment that a Hugolian whiff had whiffled onto me.

No sooner do I complete reading it than I make up my mind to re-read it again and again. I praise God that there is, in this era, someone who breathes, into such a ramshackle structure of literature, a new tone or spirit in order for it to lead a halcyon and carefree life.

Foreword by Sheikh Taha Ḥussein

Egyptian Writer

I used to have a profound distaste for al-Mu’ayyad save on such a day when an episode of An-Naẓarāt (’The Reflections’) or a weekly article of his (i.e., al-Manfalūṭī’s) came out, for God verily knows best that I would be transported engagingly with him, do think very highly of him, and do apply myself earnestly to reading him.

My motivational and driving force of habitudinal engagement in melodic singsong intonations of the Bosphorus, the Belvedere and the Nile Festival is the exact driving and motivational force, through which I would strive to read out al-Mu’ayyad on the day when the essays of this great writer were published.

Foreword by Sheikh Muḥammad Shalabī

Inspector at the Ministry of Education

I hereby felicitate the Arab World on having this copiously-prolific penman who guides it to the approach of levelheadedness as if he were such a valiant, veteran commander who would lead such soldiers to victory and triumph.

Foreword by Luṭfī Bey as-Sayyid

Editor-in-Chief of al-Jarīdah Newspaper

A grand master of rhetorical eloquence of ours is Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī. I can hardly find a connatural peer for him in such diction of his amongst our writers: he is distinguishably characterized by egalitarianism, and seldom are those who are known to be egalitarian.

He is markedly characterized by use of the lexis of particularity, as a one meaning is coined and draped only by using such relevant lexeme that is hardly to be shared to purport another meaning.

He broaches farfetched hard-to-grasp topics in such a style that he brings them nigher to the reader, and makes the reader think that they are amongst the garden-variety stock of his/ hers though they were not as such erstwhile.

I hereby say, with no favoritism, and having An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’) of al-Manfalūṭī in my hands, that Mr. Muṣṭafā is the full-fledged product and ripe fruit of the present era of authorship. He conceptualizes urbanism in an original Arabic style cloak.

This magnum opus of his, An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’), is therefore akin to a marvelous opus for those who think that the Occident and the Orient are dissimilarly at odds, and that they would have been still as such as long as they remain poles apart.

Foreword by Walī ad-Dīn Bey Yakan

Author of al-Ma’lūm wa al-Majhūl

(‘The Known and the Unknown’)

Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī is one of the great men of letters in our time: he is one of the first-class writers and one of the second-class poets. His prose enchantingly and engagingly wins over the hearts, and is typically and kindredly connatural to the veins of temperament: it is just easy and eloquent; the verbal expressions thereof are just loftier than the meanings and/ or conceits thereof.

Foreword by Jurjī Bey Zaydān

Founder of al-Hilāl (‘The Crescent’) Journal

The emergence of such a rhetorician wordsmith like thee, publishing liberal and mature opinions in a large newspaper such as al-Mu’ayyad Newspaper, gives a renaissance of hope that this country will enter a new phase.

Therefore, kindly accept, O dear pal, my acknowledgments that are extended to thee on behalf of all the readership of Arabic as thou hast braced the freedom of speech, have blazed a trail by knocking on the door of valid criticism, and have revived the belles-lettres of this language with such a good modern stylistic diction that thou hast introduced into the Arabic art of composition.

Thus, thou hast had an eye therefor, and have done innovatively and ingeniously well in achieving such a telic goal that there would have been no other sublime telos beyond.

In saying the same, I translate for thee the feelings of pleasure, admiration and recognition by all those who read thy opuscula as being such unique sui-generis opuscules that combine bifoldly the rhetorical eloquence of the earliest era of Islam with the belles-lettres of these very days.

Foreword by the Late Muḥammad Effendi Rāḍī

Egyptian Man of Letters

It happened that I had read a greater part of An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’) twice on a couple of consecutive nights, and I could have still then betokened myself to yearn for more striving quest for furtherly increasing perusal thereof in a plethora of times, and for more augmentative recurrent reiteration of its phraseologies.

I therefore believe that such ultra-high excess of yearning is the most sublime impact that a great book could leave in a reader’s mind, and it alone is apt enough to be constructively as good as a scale to weigh it out judgingly.

Foreword by Anton Effendi al-Jamīl

Founder of Az-Zuhūr Journal

Al-Manfalūṭī, the author of the poignant An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’), is well-known to Egypt. His objets d’art have been taken up by the train-carried newspapers, whereby he has come to be known to the Arab countries.

Rīḥānī, the author of Ar-Rīḥānīyāt (’The Rīḥānī Essays’), was well-known to Syria, United States and Egypt as a writer of Arabic, and was known to the Anglo-Saxons as a writer of English.

Both writers are of high-rank standing amongst their own people, and of an elevated status amidst their own readership. They are similar in some points and dissimilar in some other ones.

I have come to know both of them: I have known the twain to have underneath two honest souls, even if they are at odds in principles, and in consideration of things, and each of whom fights his corner in defense of his own opinion and thought without letting you feel exasperation with your own opinion and thought. Their guiding principle is the peace of heart, and their ultimate end is the peace of mind.

Al-Manfalūṭī as well as Rīḥānī has scrutinized the human community, and each of whom has judged it as per the place, from where he stood to scrutinize it. The former writer knew not a country of God’s but Egypt. Nevertheless, Egypt is a place of assembly that is at crossroads of three continents, so it is as if he knew so many countries since he has come to know it. The latter writer had been to Asia, Africa, Europe and America as a matter of fact.

In the wake of such journeying, both of them wended their way back to a life of solitude and open air, and began to scrutinize human beings and their urbanity through the spectacles of the serene nature.

On the one hand, Rīḥānī has been a satirizer of and laugher at the absurdities of human beings. On the other hand, al-Manfalūṭī has been a moaner and repiner, whose pen is described as follows in his own inditement:

A1

fa-tarāhu warqā’a tandubu shajwān

wa-tarāhu raqṭā’a tanfuthu nārān

(Muṣṭafā L. al-Manfalūṭī.)

"It’s perceived by thee as a stock dove that moans in lamentation;

it’s perceived by thee as a harlequin snake that spews out fire."

Notwithstanding, the two fellows, this one in his expression of suffering and the other one in his expression of sarcasm, have loved humanity dearly. Perhaps, this would purport the beam that seem not to get off the two fellows’ lips.

Foreword by Ḥāfiẓ Bey Ibrāhīm

Translator of ’Les Misérables’ (The Wretched)

A Yemeni chieftain came to the Dār an-Nadwa (‘Hall of Qurayshite Assembly’) for debating and arbitrating,² where he eyed the Founder of Sharia Islamic Law, whilst he was being then a teenage lad.

This lad was eying you at times with a lioness’, and at other times with a bashful virgin’s, said the Yemeni chieftain to the attending people of the clan. Had his first eyeshot been an arrow, your hearts would have been smacked down one by one, and had the second eyeshot been a breeze, it would have brought your dead denizens alive.

In such same way, I eye thee in thy An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’) where thou hast eyed and reflectively pondered on thy people,

Oh, Thou! Great Writer! If it were not for the fact that thou art peccable, and God has regarded prophethood too exalted in aloofness from similitudes and resemblances, I would ergo say such thisness be similar to such thatness.

Foreword by Salīm Effendi Sarkīs

Founder of the Sarkīs Journal

Mr. Muṣṭafā al-Manfalūṭī is the rhetorician wordsmith, for whom al-Mu’ayyad has been publishing his opuscula for a year. Thenceforth, men of letters have been flocking to read them, and admire their writer’s belles-lettres, highbrowism, and copiousness of material. They are taken aback that he does not master a foreign language. Notwithstanding, a reader may, in a great deal of the opuscula, conceive that he peruses Hugo.

Foreword by Sheikh Muḥammad Suleiman

Author of al-’Adab al-’Aṣrī

(‘The Modern Literature’)

Mr. al-Manfalūṭī is the ablest of writers to drive meanings home into the readership’s brains, conceptualize up-to-date ideational notions in out-of-date verbal expressions, and formulate them in tightly-cohesive Arabic molds.

Foreword by the Jarīdat al-’Ittiḥād al-Miṣrī

Newspaper

Were this Writer a subject of such bodies politic that highly value writers as they should be done, and are cognizant of their great merits, his literary fame would have led him to glory and fortune by the shortest route. Notwithstanding, suffice it here for him that a small group is satisfied with his great superiority, though those to be honored are a few.

Foreword by Ahmad Effendi Fū’ād

The Founder of the Jarīdat aṣ-Ṣā’iqah

(‘The Thunderbolt Newspaper’)

He is akin to a litterateur: should he put something in prosaic writing, a spell of enchantment would ergo be cast, and the large pearls would be strewn in a plethora. He would ergo act both in such earnestness that is more fatal than fatalism, and in such drollery that is fresher than water.

He could do whatsoever he may wish to do: he could unsheathe a sword, wage a war, and shed rivers of blood. He could also let the celestial bodies break forth in daytime. He could stand in the land of Nod, and be ensconced in the cockles of hearts.

He could further do whatsoever he may wish to do: he could portray for thee on paper a fairly grassy garden with its water running in steady effluxion, and its air streaming in breathy ventilation.

He could let thee see it populous with paradisal youthful pages and nymphish houris as if they were bestrewn pearls, and let thee hear out the choicest mysteries of love, the palpitations of the heart, the sentimentalities of the soul, and the presentiments of the sensory perception.

Should he put something in poetic writing, he would let thee behold the firmamental dome of the sky, wherein the stars are glistening, and would let thee sip the drinking glasses of wine that would dispel the worries.

The verse-lines would be well-rallied in acceptation, and the rhymes would be well-arranged in uniformity.

The meanings and/ or conceits would be driven home, and could dashingly overwhelm the bodily organs and limbs as fiducially and assuredly as the singsong melodic intonations are driven home, and dashingly overwhelm the soul.

Such meanings and/ or conceits could further dashingly creep into the intestines as speedily and hastily as a sick person is fairly recovered and cured.

Foreword by Jarīdat Miṣr al-Fatāh

(‘Young Egypt Newspaper’)

The author of An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’) came to learn that he is penning for the ‘body politic’ that is composed of a specifically-oriented particularized elite clique and generally-oriented grass-roots public, given the uncommonness of the former category in contrast with the latter.

He further came to learn that he is duty-bound to advise those two categories. Lo and behold! How able would the writer be when his pen was driven in this path so that he won over the hearts, and satisfied contentedly the ‘body politic’ in such two categories of its?

Foreword by the Majallat al-Malājī’ al-’Abbāsiyah

In everything he indites in terms of pencraft, His Excellency the Proficient Wordsmith, Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī, is markedly characterized by coherence, robust style, pure lexis, good syntactical composition, easy expression, and domestication of the farfetched notions.

Suffice it for an author to preen himself on having all such idiosyncratic traits met in his wordsmanship: that is why the readership of Arabic, in their particularity and generality, did not unanimously agree on applauding objets d’art of an Arab author as unanimously agreed on applauding that which was penned by this diligently proficient wordsmith.

Foreword by Rameses Journal

In the early years of this [twentieth] century, it was the genesis of a rhetorician of Arabic, who should be rightfully called the founder of the Arabic composition in Egypt, and by whom we mean Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī, the greatest literatus of the recent intelligentsia, and the most rhetorically eloquent of writers in this era in terms of the elegance of phraseologies, the euphemistic subtlety of expressions, and the true depiction of incidents that are to be exemplified in robust compositional structure and good diction.

He has particularly excelled in framing the precise meanings and/ or conceits in subtly-molded lexis so that the most exquisite folio of sensation, and the most sublime impact of good sense were displayed. That which helped his genius burgeon, and gave vent to his amazing ability to be cropped up is the fact that he deliberately betook himself to approach, analyze, explicate the notions, and brought into light their subtlest secrets: he expressed them in expressions that are destined to be expressed by none of the other litterateurs of this era except by him.

He has ferreted out for all that which the soul is touched by wholeheartedly, all for which the heart palpitates cordially, and all by which the bodily organs and limbs are shuddered effectively, the forms of imagery that he has made use of to represent them by dint of the most crystal-clear statements of perception and in a way that makes them most fairly stand out conceptually.

In more explicitly declarative words, the lexical items were yoked by him to his own sentiments and conceptions, and were made to feature out such stupefied meanings and/ or conceits that were revealed only to him.

Foreword by the al-Mu’ayyad Newspaper

This style, which is Bedouinistic in its vein, urbanized in its meanings, close to the tastes of the specifically-oriented particularized elite clique, and not far from the minds of the generally-oriented grass-roots public, is the missing link in the series of Arabic writings, and ought to be the prevalent style of the Arabic language in the pencraft of modern young people in this era in order for the language to be safe from the befallen deterioration and alienation as between—on the one hand—an in-depth penner, who writes only for a few esoteric readership, who are able to understand what is being written, and who are willing to be influenced by his esoteric style, which is alien to the general minds and ears, and—on the other hand—a penner, who is of a meager lexicological material, who is a habitual platitudinarian, and who demolishes deucedly every day a stone from the architecture of the language as in such lay of the land that if he lasts in such a habitudinal attitude for a long time, no stone will be left erect therein.

Foreword by Mīkhāʼīl Bey Shārūbīm

Author of Tārīkh al-Kāfī (‘The Ample Guide to the Ancient and Modern History of Egypt’)

The geniuses among the litterateurs in Egypt are trichotomized: Muḥammad Effendi Mas’ūd, Muḥammad Bey al-Muwayliḥī, and Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī.

Foreword by Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Effendi al-Qāsimī Once

Again

Syrian Writer

It is not a novelty when it had occurred ab initio for Mr. al-Manfalūṭī, the author of this book, that he would, at first blush, have encountered what he had been meted out by his contemners: tonguing him filthily, treating him scurrilously, and making him a laughingstock by means of vilification, which such acts, from which he is aloof, as he is thought to be of too kind a character to be involved in since it is akin to the consuetudinary practice as to the innovators from time immemorial.

This had also been the case with Gustave Flaubert, the French litterateur, who in his own time was in such suchness, and whose opuses were destined to be inured to the inconvenience of the public opinion. Yet, people in today’s world would adore and glorify them, and would sing their praises.

Foreword by Wehbī Bey

Principal of the Coptic Schools

The geniuses amongst the wordsmiths in Egypt are dichotomized: Muḥammad Bey al-Muwayliḥī and Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī.

Foreword by the Late Muḥammad Effendi Imam ul-

’Abd

Egyptian Man of Letters

Miṣbāḥ ash-Sharq (‘Lantern of the East’) was the beacon of Muḥammad and Ibrāhīm:³ no sooner had writers in such an era been keen to observe the day when such an eastern light rose from between the fingertips of these two luminaries, and wherein the rivers of rhetorical eloquence had remained to burst out of the magnanimity of these two penmen than the matter had fallen to evil times that turned a cold shoulder thereto for something being harbored within the inmost being thereof. The pen was seen to have been in such weakest ’as-was’ condition in the hands of people who manacled it after having been free, and humiliated it after having been high-minded.

The verbal expressions had been rendered to be antsy and restless on paper as if they had tossed and turned abed like a sick person who had been overwhelmed by illness, and it had been customary for him to be suffering from various diseases until we were almost about to pay our mother metatongue the last offices.

At this intervallic juncture, no sooner had Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī, our proficient master, who is expert on its underlying factors and secrets, and is acquainted with its nuances and subtleties, opined and saw to it that our mother metatongue be reinstated into its originality with such articulate pencraft, which had grown up in the paradisical gardens, than it was just high time to have eyed such light that glittered on the pages of al-Mu’ayyad, and that was dispatched into the macrocosmic universe by al-Manfalūṭī out of the firmament of the literature of his microcosmic being under the goodliness of An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’), for which it was rendered every week by such regal belles-lettres a festive day, on which the language is attired in the best panoply.

The great master, Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī, has scrutinized—with the An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’) of his—this human community that he has thence portrayed for the observers by using such a paintbrush that if Raphaël⁴ had hit upon it, the worldly effects would have been conferred upon the latter at dawn on a halcyon day.

Driven by self-righteousness, al-Manfalūṭī had still been betaking himself to move about therein until he guided aright the souls that were overtaken by ennui, seized with dismay, and became overwhelmed with obfuscation. Therefore, it was almost the lay of the land that they went, out of despair, whithersoever no didactic guidance is extended, and no glimmering light of divine guidance finds their way: there were ergo featured the standing wretchedness and abiding torment.

In these Reflections, the author has put the existence of beings on a scalepan, and has cast a philosophizing sage’s eye thereat so that all the visualized thoughts were bethought and reflected upon against his own cogitation, whence he passed by and brought together everything that the human community incorporates, and presented them to us, an image by an image, in verbal expressions that he authored as if he had collected them from the choicest of places, the ‘Sea of Oman’, and introduced meanings and/or conceits, for attainment of which the ‘Prodigy of Time’⁵ had cudgeled his brains.

Al-Manfalūṭī was an authorial journeyer who toured everything: he is seen to it that the worldly life would, when he authored about wretchedness, be more humbly reduced into miniaturized insignificance, and the pen would, when he wrote about the ideational signification of humanity, be driven to the innermost seat of conscience.

He thence betakes himself to cry as he wishes, and betakes himself to laugh as he wishes, and gets the minds of the readership at a glance to a point where no person can reach even if his/her lifespan becomes as old as it is atemporally predestined.

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The ST reads as "مستقيم—mustaqīm" (correct) where it is applied to"that which is verbo-semantically composed and constructed in such a discoursal mode wherewith there is requirement for nothing else." As contained as well in al-‘Askarī’s "Al-Furūq fī al-Lughah," every mustaqīm (correct) item is ṣaḥīḥ (right) and ṣawāb (true), but not all ṣaḥīḥ (right) and ṣawāb (true) items are mustaqīm (correct). Should it be applied to a certain ’mode of discourse’, it is "that which forms a discoursal mode, wherein there are no discrepancies, even if the notion and/ or conceit is qabīḥ (inelegant/ repugnant)." (Vide Abū Ḥilāl al-’Askarī’s "Al-Furūq fī al-Lughah.") (Translated by the Translator.)

Abū Hilāl apparently had had a copy of the Kitab by Sībawayhi (d. 180? AH), with the commentary by Sībawayhi’s student, Abūl-Ḥasan Sa’īd b. Mas’ada (d. 215 AH), from which he copies the passage nearly word for word. He divides the ma’ānī into the following categories: 1) correct and acceptable (mustaqīm ḥasan): e.g., I saw Zayd; 2) correct, but inelegant/ repugnant (mustaqīm qabīḥ), because of improper word order; e.g., Zayd I saw; 3) well-constructed, but inaccurate/false (mustaqim an-naẓm wa-huwa kādhib): e.g., I lifted the mountain; or I drank the water of the huge river; 4) impossible/absurd (muḥāl); e.g., I shall visit you yesterday; or I visited you tomorrow. (Vide Kanazi, George J. (1989) ’Studies in the Kitāb Aṣ-Ṣināʻatayn of Abū Hilāl Al-ʻAskarī’;c E.J. Brill, p. 85).↩︎

The ST reads as ‘munāfara’ that was a poetry genre of the pre-Islamic Arabs. Originally the munāfara, like the Greenlandish song duel, was a contest in mutual vilification and not infrequently the verbal battle must have boiled over into a real one.

"The munāfara is primarily a form of contest, in which the two parties dispute their claims to honor before a judge or arbitrator: the verb, from which the word is derived has the connotations of decision and judgment."

(Vide Walker, D. B. (1949) Hic herde a strif bitweies two: A Study of the Principal Middle English Debate Poems with Special Reference to the Bird Debates and the Devotional Debates, their Analogues and Sources, PhD dissertation, University of Canterbury; also cf.: J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens, London, p.89.)

Both intra-and inter-tribal conflicts were settled through the institution of munāfara (arbitration). The two tribal adversaries conceded to the authority of a third party, usually from a neutral tribe, to arbitrate in the matter of their dispute. (Vide: Dabashi, Hamid; Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads (New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.) p.30.)

Munāfara took the form of dialogue of a tit for tat debate, most of the time usually witnessed by the public and refereed by a judge. A typical story that is instructive of the various points of view of munāfara in pre-Islamic times is the one that took place between ’Āmir b. aṭ-Ṭufayl and ’Alqamah b. ’Ulāthah (vide al-Iṣfahānī’s al-’Aghānī., Chapter XV, pp. 52–56.)↩︎

They are al-Muwayliḥī, the Junior, and al-Muwayliḥī, the Senior, respectively. It was Ibrāhīm al-Muwayliḥī (1844–1906) who founded Miṣbāḥ ash-Sharq (‘Lantern of the East’), which had been the beacon that lit the East with its light, and slaked thirst for pure Arabic literature.

Al-Muwayliḥī, the Junior, (1858?–1930) served as the nexus between traditional Arabic fiction and the genesis of modern Arabic fiction. He had been serializing throughout the period from 1898 to 1902 his "Narrative of ’Isā Ibn Hishām" in Miṣbāḥ ash-Sharq (’Lantern of the East’), conjuring up the name of ‘Isā ibn Hishām, the wandering narrator and trickster protagonist of Badī’ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānī’s famous tenth-century assemblies (maqamāt). (Vide Jayyusi, S. K. (Ed.) (2005) Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthology).↩︎

Raphaël is the oldest fine-art brush maker in Europe. It is founded in Paris in 1793, and is owned and operated by the Sauer family since 1859.↩︎

Hereinabove is in the ST a paronomastic expression known technically as ‘homonymic pun’, whereby it might be intendedly meant the hereinabove TT as well as the Arab writer, Badī’ az-Zamān al-Hamadhānī.

There are further in the ST significant figures of speech: the Arabic word "baḥer"is alliterated with the Arabic word ‘badī’;’ and the Arabic word "umān" ’is rhymed with "zamān."↩︎

Biographical Sketch of Muṣṭafā L.

al-Manfalūṭī

His Birth, Upbringing and Life

Mr. Muṣṭafā Luṭfī was born in Manfalūṭ, a provincial locality of Assiut Governorate, in 1293 AH/1876 AD. He was brought up in a noble-mindedly religionist and stately jurisprudence-cognoscente household, whose members had inherited the administration of Sharia and the Order of Sufism for nearly two-hundred years.

Al-Manfalūṭī trod his forbears’ footsteps, and followed suit their approach to education. He memorized the Koran at the preschool maktabI. He studied at the Azhar. Notwithstanding, although he was pious in his innermost heart, and was cared for by his own father, he had been paying only too much of his attention to linguistics and the belles-lettres.

He had been keeping by rote poetical verses, had been hunting down lexicological anomalies and obscure verbal expressions, had been writing poesy, and had been composing opuscula, all of which have rendered him famous at the Azhar for perspicacity of his artistically-or intellectually-intuitive talent and acumen, and splendor of diction and style, wherefore His Eminence Imam Muḥammad ’Abduh brought him into his own company, and drew up the best plan for him to reach the telos of literature and in life.

Thence, al-Manfalūṭī made use of his own companionship of the Imam in order to gain his own rapport with Sa’d Pasha Zaghlūl. He then proceeded from being in the company of these two great personalities to getting support from the founder of al-Mu’ayyad, Sheikh ’Alī Yūsuf, whilst his writings were selling like hotcakes.

This trio was akin to the most powerful actors in the making-up of al-Manfalūṭī as a man of letters after having enjoyed his inborn and innate disposition, and having got guidance from his father. Whilst studying at the Azhar, it was imputed to him that he satirized Khedive Abbas II Ḥelmī with a poem he had published in one of the weekly newspapers, and for which he was sentenced to imprisonment, and spent the term of his sentence in jail.

No sooner had the Imam passed away into the mercy of God than al-Manfalūṭī was anxiously grief-stricken due to the demise of his hope-giver and supporter, and he returned disappointedly back to his own birthplace.

Then, God dispelled his hopelessness after the lapse of a period of time, when he proceeded abruptly to seek the means of livelihood and success in attainment of telos at al-Mu’ayyad newspaper. Afterwards, Sa’d Pasha took office of the Ministry of Education, for which al-Manfalūṭī was appointed as its editor of Arabic.

When Sa’d Pasha was reshuffled as the Minister of Justice, he took al-Manfalūṭī with him, and appointed him to such same position. Then, scarcely had a party other than his own one come to power when al-Manfalūṭī gave up his service.

Afterwards, hardly had the parliament been established when Sa’d Pasha appointed him in a clerical position in the House of Representatives, wherein he had remained until he passed away while being in the fifth decade of his lifespan.

His Manners and Idiosyncratic Vein of Character

Al-Manfalūṭī has been an epitomized piece of music—extrinsically and intrinsically. He was agreeable in ethical manners, favorable in artistic taste, symmetrical in intellectual thought, consistent in stylistic diction, and harmoniously elegant in attire.

Neither anomalies of genius nor abnormalities of cretinism could be noticed in his words or deeds. He was of slowly proper understanding, of arduously sound thought, of stilly meticulous sense, and of reservedly solemn tongue: such distinctive attributes would show the person, who is attributed with, before people in the featured profile of a stupid ignoramus.

Therefore, he used to be fearful to be in assembly, aversive to be engaged in debate, and loath to address orations. In addition, he howbeit was soft-hearted, virtuously-conscientious, sound-chested, truly dyed-in-the-wool and open-handed philanthropist. He was fair-minded, righteous and unbiased as amongst his household, his compatriotism and his humankind.

His Stylistic Diction and Literature

Al-Manfalūṭī was a talented man of letters, whose literature is more shared by bred-in-the-bone disposition than by wordsmanship, because wordsmanship creates neither an excogitated literature, nor an excellent litterateur, nor an independent approach.

During his period of time, artistic prose was akin to an opaque genre of al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil’s literature or an oblique opus of Ibn Khaldun’s informed art. Notwithstanding, it cannot be said that his stylistic diction was cast in one of the two molds.

Rather, the stylistic diction of al-Manfalūṭī in his own time was like the stylistic diction of Ibn Khaldun in his age: it was an exquisite style that was established by a vigorous natural disposition in such manner that is second to none from scratch.

Al-Manfalūṭī was the first of his people to tackle short stories, and as to the mastery of which he had reached so top-notch a caliber that was not expected from those who grew up in such a way of upbringing like his own in such a generation like his own.

The underlying factor of the wingedly widespread publicity of al-Manfalūṭī’s belles-lettres is that he came up in such a period with pithy literature. People were taken aback by such superb stories that portray pain, and represent flaws in mellifluous style, elegant eloquence, steady context, and chosen expression.

As for immortality, two things prevent it from realizing such an attribute: his feeble instrumentality and narrow-culturedness.

Feeble instrumentality is due to the fact that al-Manfalūṭī was not eruditely well-informed of his own language. Nor was he knowledgeable on its literature proper. Therefore, erroneousness, indiscreetness and misplacement of words (i.e., malapropism) are found in his compositional expressions.

Narrow-culturedness is due to the fact that he availed no acquisition of the oriental sciences, and he had no direct contact with the occidental sciences. Therefore, in his mindset, superficiality, naïveté and referentiality can be noticed.

In a nutshell, al-Manfalūṭī in prose was like al-Bārūdi in poetry: they both betook themselves to revivalism and renewalism, blazed new trails and led the way for others, and brought about transmutation of style from one state into another.

His Authorships and Adaptations

Al-Manfalūṭī has his celebrated book, An-Naẓarāt (‘The Reflections’), in three parts, in which he compiled what he had published in al-Mu’ayyad from the chapters on criticism, sociology, description, imagery and stories. He further has al-‘Abarāt* (’The Tears‘), which is a collection of adapted and authored short stories. Then, Mukhtārāt al-Manfalūṭī (’The Manfalūṭian Chrestomathy*’) is akin to some selected literary poetic and prosaic topics and essays of the earlier and later generations of Arabic literature.

Some friends of his own translated for him from French the followings that he betook himself to adapt them: ‘Sous Les Tilleuls’ (‘Magdalena aw Taḥta Ẓilāl az-Zayzafūn’) by Alphonse Karr, ‘Paul et Virginie’ (‘Al-Faḍīla’) by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ (ash-Shā’ir—‘The Poet’) by Edmond Rostand. Thence, al-Manfalūṭī freely and adaptively indited them in his own eloquent solemn style without adherence to the source texts, whereby he enriched Arabic literature with a bonanza of riches, and endowed modern fiction with élan and aptitude.

From Tarīkh al-’Adab al-’Arabī

(’History of Arabic Literature’)

By Ḥasan az-Zayyāt

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IMaktabs (Arabic: مَكْتَب; pl.: makātib) or kuttabs (Arabic: كُتَّاب; pl.: katātīb) were mainly the centers of elementary education in the Muslim world. They were a lifeline—to the preservation and protection of Muslim faith.

A maktab or kuttab represented an old-fashioned method of education in Muslim-majority countries, in which a sheikh was teaching a group of pupils, who were sitting in front of him on the ground.

Until the 20th century, pupils were instructed primarily in reading, writing, grammar and Islamic subjects (such as Koran recitations) in maktabs or kuttabs, which were the only means of mass education. Other practical and theoretical subjects were also often taught.

(Vide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuttab )

In my opinion (to wit, the Translator’s), through dismantling maktabs or kuttabs the enemies to Islam had managed to dismember the Muslim Ummah, undermine its strength, and single it out to manipulate it.↩︎

Introduction by the Translator

I cannot find no most fully-fledged and holistic depiction of An-Naẓarāt (’The Reflections’) as the one quoted hereinafter:

"There is certainly little in [neoclassic]*Arabic writing that affords so much pleasure as ‘An-Naẓarāt’, and its brilliant qualities frequently disguise the inadequacy and lack of originality of the ideas which it clothes. Only when it is read in bulk does the repetition of ideas, of phrases, even of metaphors, and still more the querulous and critical tone which pervades it from cover to cover, pall at length on the reader, and leave him with the feeling that, with ‘An-Naẓarāt’, al-Manfalūṭī had worked himself out."—Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb.

* (The word between the square-brackets is mine rather than that which is not proper in context, and for the time being).

A half-Arab and half-Turkish scion as he was, Muṣṭafā L. al-Manfalūṭī epitomized himself as a true Azharite in streak and in costume albeit his own rejection of some of the Azharic pedagogic customs and traditions, and his own appreciation of belles-lettres.

He got his early life’s education at Manfalūṭ in a conventionalized manner, and was educated in an orthodox fashion. At first, he attended the traditional preschool maktab. Then, his father sent him in 1888 to ‘School of the Azhar’ for higher education where he had been studying for ten years.

During this period, he had not only confined his studies to the religiously-and theologically-based textbooks but had perused and kept by rote thoroughly numerous books on different literary topics.

He attended the classes of Islamic religious scholar and reformer Muḥammad ’Abduh (1849–1905 AD), whom al-Manfalūṭī greatly admired as a muse, guru and mentor who was impressed, in turn, with al-Manfalūṭī.

It had happened that he had to encounter condemnations by Azharite criticizers, who made a scathing assault against him to dissuade him from the perusal of belles-lettres.

Apparently conventional as the nature of his career is, a latent rebellious streak in his nature had already become self-evidently apparent when he was briefly imprisoned for composing verses, in which Khedive Abbas II Ḥelmī was satirized in the wake of his return from Turkey in 1897, and which were published on the front page of Jarīdat aṣ-Ṣā’iqah (‘The Thunderbolt Newspaper’):

a2

qudūmun wa-lakin lā ’aqūlu sa’īdu

wa-mulkun wa-’in ṭāla l-madā sayabīdu

"It is such a malvenu return that is not said to be auspicious;

it is such a monarchic Khediveship that might have been lasting long,

yet it will perish sooner or later."

Al-Manfalūṭī was greatly impressed by the trio: Sheikh Muḥammad ’Abduh, Sa’d Pasha Zaghlūl and Sheikh ’Alī Yūsuf respectively, to whom he dedicated this very book.

After the Imam passed away, al-Manfalūṭī was anxiously alarmed and grief-stricken due to the demise of his hope-giver and supporter, and he returned disappointedly back to his birthplace.

Then, al-Manfalūṭī recovered from his hopelessness after the lapse of some time, when he then proceeded abruptly to seek the means of livelihood and success in attainment of his teloi at al-Mu’ayyad newspaper.

Afterwards, al-Manfalūṭī’s career was fairly smoothly even. In 1909, he became an Arabic editor at the Ministry of Education under Sa’d Zaghlūl. He worked then for some time at the Department of Justice, and at the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, wherein he had remained until he passed away while being in the fifth decade of his lifespan. He became a respected man, a follower of Sa’d Zaghlūl, and on friendly terms with men of letters. He passed away on July 12, 1924.

As stated hereinabove, Muṣṭafā Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī engaged in traditionally-and theologically-oriented education at ‘School of the Azhar’, but was then profoundly influenced by Egyptian nationalism and pan-Islamism. The Syrian school of writers made an influential impression on al-Manfalūṭī, and ushered him into having acquaintance with the Western, particularly French, literature.¹

Literature, as purported in Arabic, is translated as "adab," the origin of which is traced, in the premodern period, to the realms of correct behavior, and which conveys the combination of aesthetic and didactic elements.²

Pithily unreserved, free-flowing and free from the then-fashionable ornamentation of overly rhymed prose (saj’) as al-Manfalūṭī’s Arabic style would be, it had a luster of its own that is not tracked down in journalese. It served as the foundation for subsequent generations of writers’ more accomplished modern Arabic narratives.³

The style developed