Ihsan Abbas (December 2, 1920 – July 29, 2003) was a
Palestinian professor at the
American University of Beirut,[1] and was considered a premier figure of Arabic and Islamic studies in the East and West during the 20th century.[2] The "author of over one hundred books",[3] during his career, Abbas was renowned as one of the foremost scholars of Arabic language and literature and was a respected literary critic.[4] Upon his death, Abbas was eulogized by
University College London historian
Lawrence Conrad as a custodian of Arabic heritage and culture, and a figure whose scholarship had dominated the Middle East's intellectual and cultural life for decades.[5]
Life
Abbas was born in the former Palestinian village of
Ayn Ghazal near
Haifa on December 2, 1920,[5] though the village's population was forced to leave in 1948 at the time of the 1948 War, and was subsequently destroyed during
Operation Shoter. As a child, the only books in his family's impoverished home were the
Qur'an and a famous 15th-century Arabic encyclopedia known as Al-Mustatraf; Abbas would often sadden at the mention of the latter due to the memories it brought him.[6] Growing up in
Palestine, Abbas completed high school in
Haifa and
Acre before attending the
Arab College in
Jerusalem from 1937 to 1941.[7] Abbas then spent the next four years teaching at a college in
Safed and went on to earn a
Bachelor of Arts degree in
Arabic literature from
Cairo University in 1950; for the next ten years, Abbas traveled between his study at Cairo where he earned a
Master of Arts and
Doctor of Philosophy, and his work at
Gordon Memorial College or, as it became known during his tenure, the
University of Khartoum.[7] Abbas' master's thesis focused on Arabic literary culture in
Sicily, while his doctoral dissertation was on the subject of religious asceticism and its influence in Umayyad culture.[5] At the end of his tenure in
Sudan, he was appointed to a professorship position in the Arabic literature department at the
American University of Beirut, a post which he held until his retirement in 1985. Abbas remained active, performing post-retirement research projects for the
University of Jordan, especially on
Andalusian Arabic literature and the translation of
world literature to the
Arabic language.[7]
Abbas was often at the center of intellectual life wherever he was living, and camaraderie with his colleagues was an important part of his life. Abbas was an avid participant in the cafe gatherings of
Naguib Mahfouz in
Cairo during the 1950s and 1960s.[5] In the midst of the
Lebanese Civil War in 1981, perhaps the primary intellectual activity in
Beirut which continued despite the conflict was a weekly meeting of intellectuals and academics at Abbas' house.[6]
Abbas was a critic of the focus on the
North–South divide, emphasizing improvement of quality of life in the
Third World rather than conflict between the north and the south.[9] Abbas was also distinguished as a Palestinian figure who defended contributions to Arabic and Islamic studies by Israeli scholarship, on one occasion reacting angrily to when a student claimed that Israeli academia was unable to master the Arabic language, a claim that Abbas found to be racist.[5]
Abbas, like most other historians of Arab literature, held the view that classical biography and autobiography in the Arabic language tended to reduce the subject to a type rather than an individual.[10] He also echoed the sentiment that in Arabic poetry, the description of the city as a genre and the details of urban life revealed the writer's ideological biases.[11] Abbas was also a defender of
Kahlil Gibran's maligned Al-Mawakib, considering it a measuring stick for the literature produced by the Arabic renaissance in the
United States.[4]
Work
Abbas was a celebrated man of letters and a prolific writer during his lifetime. He republished
Ibn Bassam's 12th-century biographical dictionary of the
Iberian Peninsula's intellectuals, editing it into eight "mammoth" volumes.[12] Abbas' analysis of
Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati's poetry and the significance of Bayati's references to
Sisyphus and
Prometheus was criticized as
Shmuel Moreh; Abbas saw the references as being philosophical allegory, while Moreh tied them to the fall of the
Iraqi Communist Party.[13] Abbas contributed significantly to the history of Arabic literature and writers, and was responsible for collecting and compiling the work of
Abd al-Hamid al-Katib in 1988,[14] uncovering archived letters between the Umayyad secretary and the empire's last caliph which shed light on the inner workings of the dynasty in its last days.[15] He was also one of the few writers to critically analyze the
Kharijites, a now extinct sect of Islam.[16] Though reserved in revealing his own beliefs, Abbas adhered to
Sunni Islam and leaned toward the
Zahirischool of Islamic
jurisprudence. He was responsible for reviving the works of Ibn Hazm, one of the main philosophers of the school and of Islam in general, editing and republishing many of them and even uncovering previously unpublished works on Ibn Hazm's legal theory from various archives; Abbas' 1983 edition of Ibn Hazm's book on legal theory Ihkam is considered a key moment in Arab intellectual history and the modernist revival of Zahirite legal method.[17]
^Einboden, J. ""Call me Ismā'īl": The Arabic Moby-Dick of Iḥsān 'Abbās." Leviathan, vol. 12 no. 1, 2010, p. 4
^
abSuheil Bushrui, "Jubran Khalil Jubran." Taken from "Essays in Arabic Literary Biography: 1850–1950," p. 184. Vol. 3 of Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, Band 17. Eds. Roger M. A. Allen, Joseph Edmund Lowry and
Devin J. Stewart. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010.
ISBN9783447061414
^
abcdeLawrence Conrad, "Ihsan Abbas: Custodian of Arabic Heritage and Culture." Al-Qantara, vol. xxvi, iss. #1, pp. 5–17. 2005.
^
abUlrich Marzolph, "Medieval Knowledge in Modern Reading: A Fifteenth Century Arabic Encyclopedia of Omni Re Scibili." Taken from Pre-modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second Comers Congress, Groningen, 1–4 July 1996., pg. 407. Ed. Peter Binkley. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.
ISBN9789004108301
^Amin Malak, "Colonial Encounters or Clash of Civilizations? Taken from A Sea for Encounters: Essays Towards a Postcolonial Commonwealth, p. 247. Vol. 117 of Cross/cultures : readings in the post/colonial literatures in English. Ed. Stella Borg Barthet.
Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 2009.
ISBN9789042027640
^Susanne Enderwitz, "From curriculum vitae to self-narration: Fiction in Arabic autobiography." Taken from Story-telling in the Framework of Non-fictional Arabic Literature, p. 6. Ed. Stefan Leder. Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998.
ISBN9783447040341
^Mahmoud Darwish, "Exile's Poet." Taken from Mahmoud Darwish, Exile's Poet: Critical Essays, p. 28. Eds. Hala Khamis Nassar and Najat Rahman. Interlink Books, 2008.
ISBN9781566566643
^Peter C. Scales, The Fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba: Berbers and Andalusis in Conflict, pp. 18–19. Vol. 9 of Medieval Iberian Peninsula: Texts and studies.
Leiden:
Brill Publishers, 1993.
ISBN9789004098688
^Shmuel Moreh, Modern Arabic Poetry: 1800 – 1970; the Development of Its Forms and Themes Under the Influence of Western Literature, p. 256. Vol. 5 of Studies in Arabic literature: Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1976.
ISBN9789004047952
^Ehsan Yarshater, "The Persian presence in the Islamic world," p. 57. Vol. 13 of Giorgio Levi Della Vida conferences. Eds.
Richard Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
ISBN9780521591850
^Ṣāliḥ Saʻīd Āghā, The Revolution which Toppled the Umayyads: Neither Arab Nor ʻAbbāsid, p. 200. Vol. 50 of Islamic History and Civilization Series. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2003.
ISBN9789004129948
^Hussam S. Timani, Modern Intellectual Readings of the Kharijites, p. 84. Vol. 262 of American University Studies, Series VII: Theology and Religion.
Bern:
Peter Lang, 2008.
ISBN9780820497013
^Adam Sabra, "Ibn Hazm's Literalism: A Critique of Islamic Legal Theory." Taken from: Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba: The Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker, p. 98. Vol. 103 of Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 1: The Near and Middle East. Eds.
Camilla Adang,
Maribel Fierro, and
Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012.
ISBN9789004234246
^Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: The Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature, p. vii. Part 2 of The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: The Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1976.
ISBN9789004045026
^A. M. H. Mazyad, Ahmad Amin,
page 47.
Leiden: Brill Archive, 1963.
^Aziz al-Azmeh, "Mortal Enemies, Invisible Neighbors: Northerners in Andalusi Eyes." Taken from The Legacy of Muslim Spain, p. 270. Vol. 12 of Handbook of Oriental Studies : The Near and Middle East. Eds.
Salma Jayyusi and Manuela Marín. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1994.
ISBN9789004095991
^Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture, p. 238. Vol. 25 of Brill's series in Jewish studies. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2000.
ISBN9789004117389
^Otto Zwartjes, Love Songs from Al-Andalus: History, Structure, and Meaning of the Kharja, p. 334. Vol. 11 of Medieval Iberian Peninsula, Texts and Studies. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.
ISBN9789004106949
^
abcSarah Stroumsa, Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Rawāndī, Abū Bakr Al-Rāzī and Their Impact on Islamic Thought, p. 243. Vol. 35 of Islamic philosophy, theology, and science: Texts and studies. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1999.
ISBN9789004113749
^Ross Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain, p. 163. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World.
Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2009.
ISBN9780691146737
^Jocelyn Sharley, "Public Displays of Affection: Male Homoerotic Desire and Sociability in Medieval Arabic Literature." Taken from Islam and Homosexuality, vol. 1, p. 53. Ed. Samar Habib.
Santa Barbara:
ABC-CLIO, 2010.
ISBN9780313379031