Encounter between East and West: A Theme in Contemporary Arabic Novels Author(s): Issa J.

Boullata Reviewed work(s): Source: Middle East Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter, 1976), pp. 49-62 Published by: Middle East Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4325454 . Accessed: 29/02/2012 06:12
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ENCOUNTER BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: A THEME IN CONTEMPORARY ARABIC NOVELS

IssaJ. Boullata
theme in modern Arabic writing is the search for identity. It is natural for the emergent or the resurgent nation to embark on such search in order to establish its personality and the distinctiveness of its individuality. This is especially true of a people who, like the Arabs, suffered a long period of subjugation to foreign rule, during which their very character was put to question in various campaigns of derogation. There is, for this reason, no lack of apologetic writings in modern Arabic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.1 As Arab nationalism grows, there is a gradual increase in the clarity and the articulateness of the defense put forth by Arabs, first vis a vis the Ottoman Turks and then the West.2 In certain cases, the defense latterly develops into a hostility to the West and an affirmation of the superiority of the East.3This reaction to the West is doubly poignant because, in addition to its political and economic predominance supported in living memory by military power, the West belongs to a culture based on Christianity, unlike the Islamic culture of the Ottoman Turks which the Arabs shared. Yet, along with this reaction to the
SIGNIFICANT
A
1. From the writings of Muhammad 'Abduh and Jamnal al-Din al-Afghani in their periodical al-'Urwa al-Wuthqa published in Paris in 1884, to Muhaammad'Abduh, al-Islsm wa`l-Nasraniyya ma'a al-'Im wa'l-Madaniyya (Cairo: Matba'at al-Manar,n.d.) and Rashid Rida, Shubuhadt wa Hujaj al-Islim al-Nasa-rai (Cairo: Matba'at al-Manar, 1322 H.), 'Umar Farriikh, 'Abqariyyatal-'Arabfi'l-lIlm wa'l-Falsafa (Beirut: al-Maktabaal-'Ilmiyya, 1952, 2d printing), and more recent books like 'Abd al-'Aziz Shiwish,al-Islim Din al-Fitra wa'l-Hurriyya (Cairo: Dar al-Hilil, n.d.), and Fathi 'Uthman, al-Fikr al-Islimi wa'l-Tatawwur (Cairo: Dar al-Qalam, 1964), apologetic literature is still being produced. 2. See for example Sylvia G. Haim, ed., Arab Nationalism, An Anthology (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962). 3. See for example Muhammad Qutb,ShubuhaitHawlal-Islam (Cairo: Dar al-Qalam, 1954) and Ahmad Amin, al-Sharq wa'l-Gharb (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al-Misriyya, 1955). G. von Grunebaum, Modern Islam. The Searchfor Cultural Identity (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), p. 248, claims that the hostility to the West marks the final stage of Westernization when the developing nation regains self-confidence. See also H. A. R. Gibb, "The Reaction in the Middle East against Western Culture," in his Studies on the Civilization of Islam ed. S. J. Shaw and W. R. Polk (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), pp. 320-335.
A ISSA J. BOULLATA is associate professor of Arabic language and literature at the Institute of Islamic

Studies at McGill University, and at the Hartford Seminary Foundation. He is the author of Outlinesof Romanticismin ModernArabic Poetry (Beirut, 1960) and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: His Life and Poetry (Beirut, 1971).

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West, there is a desireto seek the secretof its power,andthere is a realization that modern science and technology are its main bases. Thus, the Arab learns about himself, what he has and what he lacks, by findinghimselffaceto facewith the West.This is not the only wayhe canlearn abouthimself andcertainlynot necessarilythe happiest.But it is an extreme which elicits some orientation in the search for identity by way of the confrontationof cultures. Some Arab novelists concernedwith this search have used this motif of confrontation by placing their protagonist in the West, then tracing his behavior there and upon his return to his Arab homeland. In Tawfiq al-Hakim's 'Usfiur minal-Sharq(1938), Muhsin,the Egyptian studentin Paris, findshis relationswith Suzy, the Frenchwomanwith whom he falls in love, utilitarianand insincere;and his friend Ivanovich,the self-exiled Russian, speaksfor him when he regardsWesterncivilizationas a curse becauseit is materialisticand he extols the spiritualityof the East. In Shakibal-Jabiri's QadarYalhui(1930), 'Ala', the Syrian student in Berlin, joins study to a licentiouslife, heedless of the adviceof Elsa,the Germangirlwho loves him sincerelybut whom he abandons; backin his homelandhe findshimselfat a loss regarding the desperatebackwardness of his people, his only hope being 'Ali. In both novels, the confrontation perhapshis andElsa'sson, Muhammad betweenthe Arabprotagonist andWesternlife does not bringabouta positive andcreativediscoveryof the self, thoughthe firstleavesimpressions of a firm belief in the superiority of the Eastandthe secondanawareness of the colossal task of reform needed in Arab society. Qindil UmmHashim A writermore deeply concernedwith the theme of confrontation between EastandWest is the Egyptian His shortstoriesbeganto appear YahyaHaqqi.4 in the middle 1920s but he did not actuallypublishthem in book form until two or three decadeslater.The work thatclearlyestablishedhis literaryfame is the novellaQindil UmmHashim (1944).5 In it the protagonist,Isma'il,is at
4. Yahya Haqqi was born in Cairo in 1905. Having graduated in law in 1925, he practiced for a short time before he joined the Egyptian diplomatic service and held posts in several Arab states, Turkey, Italy and France. Back in Cairo, he became director of the Fine Arts Administration and then board member of Dar al-Kutub National Library. He also edited for many years the Cairo literary monthly al-Majalla. Though he published little, his work exhibits traits of a careful artist. Among his books are Qindil Umm Hishim (1944), Dima' wa Tin (1955),Sabh al-Nawm (1956), and works on literary criticism includingFajr al-Qissa al-Misniyya (1960) and Khutuwit fi al-Naqd (1961). 5. Yah.yaHaqqi, Qindil Umm Hishim (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, Iqra' Series No. 18, 1944). It has been reprinted several times and an English translation of it was made by M. M. Badawi, The Saint's Lampand OtherStories(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973). For a study of it see M. M. Badawi, "TheLampof UmmHMishim: The Egyptian Intellectual between East and West,"JournalofArabic Literature,I (1970), 145-161. See also 'Ali al-Rai',Dirasaitfi al-Riwaiyaal-Misriyya (Cairo: al-Mu'assasaal-Misriyyaal-'Amma, 1964), pp. 157- 188.

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the center of the clashbetween the culturesof the Eastand the West, but he managesin the end to effect a reconciliationbetween them within himself. He is broughtup in a traditional Muslimfamilythatmovedto Cairofromthe Egyptiancountrysideand lived in the neighborhoodof the SayyidaZaynab Mosque where the festivalsand religious celebrationsat the shrine and the folk customs and pious superstitionsbecome part of his life. He is made to memorize the Holy Qur'anby his fatherbut, unlike his two elder brothers who receive the traditionalreligious education, he is sent to the modern public schools. At the shrine he sees the crowds of worshipperswho come to seek the blessing of Zaynab or Umm H-ashim,the granddaughter of the Prophet andShaykhDardiri,the mosque attendant, Muhammad; tells him tales about the mysteriousand miraculouspowers of this saint. He tells him that on a certain night the saint is visited by a numberof other saintswho arriveon horsebackwith green bannersflutteringover them and aromaticperfumes fromthem, andthey all hold courtandlook into the complaints emanating of people. On thatnightthe saint'slampin the shrinewould shinebrilliantly and its oil would have the power to cure all disease. When Ism-a'ilfinishes high school, his grade average at the public examination is unexpectedlylow andhe cannotenter medicalschool in Egypt as his familyhoped. His father, not without hesitationat first,sends him to Englandto become an eye doctor, but not before makinghim engaged to Fatima,his orphanedcousin who lived with them; he also advises him to observereligiousritualsandto avoidEuropean women. Sevenyearsafterthat, he returns a changed man having shed his diffidence and clumsiness,and acquireda new outlook and character. Muchof the changein him is due to Mary,an Englishfellow student,who loves him andleadshimout of his virgininnocenceinto a worldof lustfor life, constantactivity,freedom from traditionand sentimentality, faith in himself andin science,andappreciation of artandthe beautyof nature.Meanwhile, he loses his religiousfaith and with it his mooringsin the values of his culture. The shock at firstmakeshim fallill but Marytakeshim on holidayto Scotland andhelps him overcomethe crisisandemerge triumphantly fromit. She later turns awayfrom him to an Englishfellow student, but by then Ism-a'lis no more under her domination.He is the character she wantedhim to become and he is now in love with Egypt, the backwardness of whose people he is determinedto fight. On the very night of his return to Cairo, he shocks and disappointshis familyby impiousreferenceto Umm Hashimwhen he sees his mothertreat the eyes of his cousinFatima with oil fromthe saint'slamp.Takinghis father's stick,he goes to the mosque andbreaksthe lampwith it in a fit of frenzy.The crowdat the shrineattackshimandwouldhavekilledhim,but Shaykh Dardiri

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saves him from their rage and carries him home, where he stays in bed several days silently thinking of returning to England and mulling over his hatred of his people. Finally, he decides to stay and treat Fatima's eyes himself. But despite his special care, her eyes become worse and in the end she loses her sight. He leaves his father's home defeatedly and lives in a boarding house run by a Greek woman. Roaming in the streets of Cairo lost in thought, he begins to sympathize with the poor people of Egypt and to enjoy their company as he meets them in the square of the mosque. He finds they have the peace and tranquility that are lacking in the West. He comes to accept them and love them. is loitering in On the Night of Power towards the end of Ramadan,as Ismatl1 the square of the mosque, he hears the sound of breathing echoing in the air. As a child, he was told that only those with a clear conscience could hear that sound. He sees the dome of the mosque flooded with the bright light of the saint's lamp and learns it is also the night of visitation. He asks Shaykh Dardiri for some oil from the lamp, and he takes it to Fatima.He knows now that there can be no science without faith. He applies his science to the eyes of Fatima and perseveres in spite of little progress until he finally cures her. Ismi'il does not feel anymore that he is uprooted in his own society. He sets up a clinic in a poor district and treats the eyes of his patients for very little money, relying first on God and then on his science. He also marries Fatima, having taught her the manners of a civilized woman, and she bears him five sons and six daughters. He grows to become a fat and lusty man who cares little about tidy looks, but the people still remember him with kindness and love. Yahy-aLaqqi's aim in this novella is the presentation of a characterin whom there is synthesis of East and West. The character, Ism-all,passes through two major crises before arriving at this synthesis: the first in England when Mary's influence, representing Western culture, erodes the foundation of his own culture; the second in Egypt when he breaks the saint's lamp and is subsequently unable to cure Fatima's eyes. Only when he begins to love his own people does he begin to arrive at the causes of his failure. He then knows that, to support his science, he needs faith which is symbolized in the novella by the oil of the saint's lamp. His science would certainly not tolerate the use of the oil as a medical cureall, and his faith would surely not allow the use of the holy oil in a mercenary way to gain Fatima'sconfidence. But the presence of the oil during the scientific treatment, vague as it is kept by the author, is meant to reassure both doctor and patient. Symbolically understood, it means that the presence of faith in a modern age of science enriches the lives of all human beings. In this novella, the Arab has not given up his culture in his search for

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identity, and he has not taken up Western culturein its totality,either. He recognizesthe valuesin both andmakessocialchoices amongthem whichhe synthesizesin accordancewith certainpreferencesthat suit his modern life without disruptinghis inner existence. Al-H. ayy al-La-tint The LebanesewriterSuhaylIdris6explores anotheraspectof the situation in his novel al-Hayy al-Latini (1954).7 Having himself been in Paris as a doctoral student between 1949 and 1952, the author may be presenting autobiographical materialsin his novel. Notwithstandingthis, the nameless hero of the novel is a type thatrepresentsthe Arabsearching for himselfas he comes in contactwith the West. The novel is dividedinto three parts.In PartI, the hero establisheshimself in the LatinQuarterin Pariswith two Arabstudentfriendswho arrivedwith him, $ubhi and 'Adnan.On the very nightof their arrival they go out to have fun but are disappointed.The hero later tries to have relationswith French girls,but is similarly disappointed: the firstgirl does not keep an appointment he had made with her in a cinema;the second-Lilian-comes to his room and when she leaves he discovers that she had taken his money; the third-Marguerite-leaves his room in an angrymood accusinghim of dirty selfishness. Comparedwith Nahida whom he loved in the East, they are worse to himwithall theirreadinessto give themselvesup to him thanshe was with her reticence and reserve. In PartII, he comes to knowJanine,a Frenchgirl from the Alsacewho had left her fianceon discoveringhis disloyaltyandwho was reluctantto embark upon a new love adventure.His persistencewins her over and they both fall madly in love with each other. While his Arab friends, 'Adnan,$ubhi, and othersboastof promiscuity in theirrelationswithEuropean girls,he is loyalto Janine.Fu'adstandsout amongthe Arabstudentcircleof friendsas a serious man who has realized that his need for woman is only one of his many
6. Suhayl Idis was born in Beirut in 1923. After his secondary studies at the Islamic Maqasid College, he joined the Institut de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth and graduated in 1948. He then went to Paris for studies at the Sorbonne where, in 1952, he was awarded a doctorate, his dissertation being "Leroman arabe moderne de 1900 a 1940 et les influences etrangeres." Back in Beirut, he founded the literary monthly al-Adab in 1953 and subsequently a publishing house, Dar al-Adab. His works include five collections of short stories:Ashwiq (1947), Niran wa Thul/j (1948),Kulluhunna Nisa' (1949), al-Dam'al-Murr (1956), Ruhmal/? Ya Dimashq (1965), and three novels: al-I.jayyal-Lattni (1954), al-Khandaq al-Ghamtq (1958), and Asabi'una-allati Tahtariq (1962). In addition, he published a book on Lebanese fiction al-Fann al-Qasaszif Lubnain(1958) and several translations from Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. 7. Suhayl Idris, al-H.ayyal-Litini (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1954). A seventh reprint appeared in 1973 but quotations here are made from the fifth printing of 1965. For studies of it, see Gh5li Shukri,Azmat al-Jinsfi al-Qissa al-'Arabiyya(Cairo: al-Hay' a al-Misriyyaal-'Amma, 1971), pp. 165-182; Ilyas Khiri, Tajribat alBakth 'an Ufq. Muqaddima li-Dira-satal-Riwaya al-'Arabiyyaba'dal-Hazima (Beirut: Palestine Liberation OrganizationResearch Center, 1974), pp. 19-23. See also several reviews of it inal-Adab of April 1954 and February 1955.

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concerns, not necessarily the first as when he arrived in Paris a few years earlier. He is motivated by strong feelings of Arab consciousness and a readiness for national struggle and social reform. In Part III, the conflict between East and West that was latent in the earlier parts comes to a head. The hero returns home to spend the summer and his mother discovers his relation with Janine when, in his absence, she opens a letter from Janine to him telling him she is pregnant. He is made to disclaim his relationship by a letter he writes to the French girl, in deference to his mother. A chiding letter from Fu'ad informs him thatJanine had become sick after the abortion and that she still loved him. When he returns to Paris, he looks for her and learns that her poverty had led her to live a libertine life. He finally finds her but she refuses to marry him and disappears from his life lest she should stand in his way and deter his struggle for the good of his country. When he returns to the East at the completion of his doctoral studies, he feels the struggle has begun. Suhayl Idris may have inadvertently lost sympathy for his protagonist because of Janine's ill fortune. But his main concern in the novel as a whole should not escape us. He has clearly shown how the Arab yearns to free himself from the shackles of traditions binding his emotional growth, particularly with regard to relations with parents and members of the opposite sex. The hero's mother is not only a mother but she is also the voice of his Eastern culture inculcated in his conscience which constrains obedience.
What binds you to your mother now is not love but rather fear: the fear that she may feel that you hurt her if you do this or that. It is a desire to please her, to pay her back the debt you owe her, whatever the price you pay. . . . His mother did not give him the opportunity to think for himself and to reach the solution he liked. She thus obliterated his personality, shattered his self, and imposed her personality and self on him.8

Actually, his mother used all the force of cultural pressures on him by invoking the honor and reputation of the family, and referring to the gossip that would arise if he married a non-virgin who had been the fiancee of another, a Christianwoman not of his religion who had been kicked out by her own parents, a French woman who was a sales clerk whom he had picked off the street. The mother appealed to her son's sense of manliness not to accept a woman who knew other men before him and might know others after him, one whose pregnancy after all might not be his own responsibility. She referred to the scandal that would tarnish his dead father's memory and the shame that would forever be linked with the family name. Suhayl Idris is intentionally equivocal in attributing such words one time to the mother and another to an inner voice in the depths of the hero,9 because what the mother
8. Idris, al-Hayy al-Laitinl, pp. 236-237. 9. Ibid., pp. 231-233.

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was sayingranga bell deep in the soul of her son, broughtup to cherishall these values that tend to subordinateindividualwill to that of family and thatgenerally community.The motherwas thus voicingculturalreservations disapproveof marriagesoutside one's culture and religion, and stress the importanceof pre-marital virginity.When the son submitsto his motherand writes the disclaimingletter to Janine, the authoris equivocal againabout whetherthe motherwasphysicallythere to approvethe languageof the letter and then take it awayto be mailed,becausethe son was indeed respondingto his own deep seated feelings of culturalsanctionswhile at the same time he wasrecognizingashamedly thathe wasa cowardshirkingthe responsibility of his own acts-a thingwhich "thehomelanddoes not expect of an honorable Arab,"10 as Fu'ad would latertell himin his letter.Whenhe returnsto Paris,he does his best to reconcileJaninenot only by offeringto marry her but actually by takingher identitycardto preparethe necessarydocumentsfor travelwith her. He could no longerlive with this conflictin him between the demandsof his mother and cultureon the one hand,and the requirementsof individual responsibility andlove on the other. But when he returns,he findsthatJanine had disappeared, leaving him a note of love justifyingher decision to leave him free for the struggleaheadof him in his Arabhomelandawayfromher in her degradation. Leadingto this climax, the novel presents another aspect of traditional shacklesthwarting emotionalgrowth,namely,the attitudeto membersof the opposite sex which, in Arab culture, is generallyrepressive and which, in Westernculture,is ratherpermissiveby comparison.Earlyin the novel, the hero says to himself, "Don't try to protest or deny. Nothing lured you to escape from that Eastof yours except the vision of the Westernwomanand the absence of the Easternwoman from your life....''11 The authorpresentsWesterncultureas a sexuallyliberatedone andpermits his protagonistto see the West first throughthe Western woman and then throughthe arts and sciences of Western civilization.The Arab studentsin Paris are shown to be so occupied with Western women that the reader wonderswhatis happening to theirstudies.OnlyFu'ad amongthemhasbegun to understand himself and this phenomenon,and when the hero confidesto him thathe avoidsthem becauseof theirrepugnant behavior,Fu'id answers,
No, my dear. I think you are wrong. They are not repulsive. You will not be repelled by them if you realize that they are anguished young men searching for their identity. We are all lost Arab young men searching for our identity by ourselves. It is inevitable that we commit some stupidities before we find ourselves.12

Laterin the novel the sameFu'adasksthe hero, "Don'tyou thinkthatmanyof

10. Ibid., p. 244. 11. Ibid., p. 28. 12. Ibid., p. 87.

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our Arabyoungmen here andin the homelandare deprivedof utilizingtheir best potentialitiesbecausetheir needs for love and sex are not satisfied?"'13 The authormakes it clear that the Arab young women are also similarly deprived,and a good exampleis the effaced personalityof Nahida, the girl whom the hero'smother would have liked as a wife for him. The hero loved her andshe loved him, backin the East,but neithercouldtell the otherof that love. On the lasteveningbefore he left for Paris,they dancedto the tune of a tango at her home amid parentsand friends but they did not communicate their feelings of love to each other except by vague symbols.When the hero returned home from Paris to spend the summer, Nahida had finished her secondarystudies but her parentshad no plans for any highereducationfor her because they wanted her to get married,though she herself wanted to continueher studies.When the hero'smotherencouragesher to go with him to his room to see his many books, Nahida does so hesitantly after her mother'sapprovinglooks. Alone with him, she is suddenlyawareshe is too near to him, and she keeps her distance.
N5hida retreated not because as a human being she felt she was nearer to him than she had estimated, but because she felt so as a body. She had learnt to sanctify this body not in love and worship, but in fear and caution. For it is a repository of emotions andwhims, a store of feelings and passions which she was doomed to repress, and live while they corroded, because she was forbidden to live them out as they were and experience them as her nature-her human nature-permitted her or rather required her. Thus she feared her body which pulsated with forbidden feelings and passions, and her fear of her body was transposed to anyone who tried to arouse this repository and cause the eruption of its sacred latent forces. Thus the Arab woman has come to fear the man, the being whom she ought to have confidence in, because she fears the body which she ought to love.14

Friendships between membersof the opposite sex in the Eastarepresentedas relationsof mutualdeprivationand repressedemotion that separateyoung 15 The West on the other hand men andwomen, andborderon the abnormal. opens to the Arab students in the novel all sorts of experiences with the opposite sex. Most of them are lost in the sudden freedom that is allowed them. The hero, however, discoversafter some failuresthe true meaningof love which unites soul and body,'6and he findsin Janine the person who is capableof bringing out the bestin him.Forshe hashelpedhimin his searchfor himselfandnow he knowswho he is, whathe hasandwhathe lacks.Andwhen he loses her, he realizesas he returnshome thathe has a greatstruggleahead of him as an Arab. The authordoes not specifythe areasof struggle,but the novel as a whole suggests that it is not in the political arena alone, though talk of Arab
13. 14. 15. 16. Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., pp. 132-133. pp. 213-214. p. 70. p. 151 and 214.

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nationalism, independence and unity dominates the latter part of the novel in the conversations of Arab students in Paris. The struggle extends by implication to the emancipation of the Arab individual will, be it that of man or woman, from all traditional pressures that stunt its growth and prevent its functioning with freedom and responsibility. In this sense, the search for identity has culminated in a discovery of a sore spot in the Arab self that needs immediate care, perhaps before all other areas. Mawsim al-Hijra ilai al-Shamal With the Sudanese writer al-Tayyib Salih,17 who has lived in England for many years, the motif of encounter between East and West achieves fabulous dimensions in his novel Mawsin al-Hijra ilh al-Shama1.18 The Arab hero of the novel, Mustaf-a Sa'id, is not only a brilliant Sudanese student who avidly acquires knowledge as he moves from his Khartiumelementary school, to a Cairo secondary school, and then to Oxford University, but he is, at the age of 24, a lecturer in economics at the University of London whose theories on the economics of love and humanism aim at discrediting the West and pointing out the depravity and cruelty of its imperialism in Africa, and whose rapacious personal life in England is a 30-year hiatus of willful and calculated seduction of English women leading to their destruction and experienced by him as sexual conquests. When the novel opens, however, Mustafa Sa'id is a mystifying person of about 50 who, five years earlier, had settled in a village on the Nile, north of Khartium.He had married Hasana bint Mahmiudfrom the village and had two sons. He lived on a farm he bought but no one knew anything about him. The narratorof the novel, a Sudanese who has just finished his doctoral studies in England and returned to the village after an absence of seven years, becomes inquisitive. His observation leads him to notice that Mustafa takes interest in village affairs, keeps the prayers, and commands respect and authority among the villagers but never takes power. The narrator'scuriosity grows when he hears Mustafa recite English poetry as he gets drunk one day. In a dramatic confession on another occasion, the narrator confidentially learns from Mustafa of this 30 years in England, and of his trial and seven year
17. Al-Tayyib $alih was born in the Northern Province of the Sudan in 1929. Coming from a family of small farmers and religious teachers, he studied at KhartiumUniversity and worked as a school teacher for a brief period. He then went to England, studied at the University of London, and worked for several years in the Arabic section of the BBC in London and was in charge of the drama department. Some of his short stories have been translated into English by DenysJohnson-Davies, and then German and Italian versions were made from English. His fictional works include 'Urs al-Zayn, Riwa~ya wa Sabl Qisas. (1967), partly translated by Denys Johnson-Davies as The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories (London: Heinemann Educational Books, African Writers Series, 1969); Mawsim al-Hijra ila al-Shamail (1967), translated by DenysJohnson-Davies asSeasonof Migration to the North (London: Heinemann Educational Books, African Writers Series, 1970); and Bandar Shah, Daww al-Bayt (1971). 18. Al-Tayyib $alih, Mawsim al-Hijra ikl al-Shamal (Beirut: Dar al-'Awda, 1971, 2d printing). Quotations will be made from Denys Johnson-Davies' translation (see note 17 above).

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imprisonment after having killed his English wife,Jean Morris, afemmefatale he had chased for three years. Having roamed about in the world on his release, he finally settled in that village, determined to bring to it progress through the best means of modernized agriculture and social organization. When Mustafa disappears in a Nile flood, the narrator finds that he had been left a sealed letter by him in which he is asked to take care of Mustafa's wife and two sons. He is also left the key to Mustafa's private room which nobody but he alone had ever entered. The narrator, a married man with one daughter, works in education in Khartium but he visits his village annually. Three years after Mustafa's disappearance or death, the narrator's grandfather prevails upon him to intervene with Hasana and persuade her to marry Wad al-Rayyis, a married man of the village 40 years her elder, whom she had rejected as well as all other suitors. The narratorunwillingly approaches Hasana but she refuses to marrythe old man and threatens to kill him and herself if she is forced to marry him. Meanwhile, the narrator begins to admire and love her himself, and learns subsequently, when it was too late, that she had asked to marry him when she was being forced by her father to marry Wad al-Rayyis. The narrator returns to the village on receiving a telegram about a month later, and he discovers that Hasana had indeed killed Wad al-Rayyis and herself when the old man, two weeks after having married her, finally insisted on having sexual intercourse with her in spite of her refusal. The whole village is scandalized at the unprecedented murder, and the narrator knows that Hasana had done that because of what Mustafa meant to her. He now hates Mustafa whom he has begun to consider a big lie. He opens Mustafa's private room intent on destroying it. He finds it full of all kinds of English books, including The Economics of Colonialism, Colonialismand Monopoly,The Cross and Gunpowder, and The Rape of Africa by Mustaf-aSatld himself. He finds scraps of paper, notes, a newspaper and other memorabilia from Mustafa's life in England including photographs of the women he led to suicide, Sheila Greenwood, Isabella Seymour and Ann Hammond, and an oil portrait of his wife Jean Morris whom he killed. There were also many pictures of Mustaf7a himself at various stages of his life and on various occasions. The room was unbelievably English with fireplace, marble mantelpiece, round table, silver candlesticks, Victorian chairs, leather-upholstered chairs, Persian carpets, oak ceiling, marble columns-all in a remote village in the Sudan! The narrator is angry that he has allowed himself to be deceived by Mustafa's secretive self-worship. He does not destroy the room but goes to the Nile to relieve his anger by swimming at dawn. Gradually as he is swimming across the river, he begins to feel he is being pulled downwards by the water and for an indeterminate period surrendering to its destructive force. Then suddenly he regains his desire for life, and for the first time in his

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life he chooses and he makesa decision. He fightsthe waterand screamsfor help. With this affirmationof life, al-TayyibSalih ends his novel. The most significant element of this affirmation is the fact thatthe narrator chooses and makesa decisionfor the firsttime in his life. All his previouslife seems to him to be one in whichhe was doingwhatwasrequiredof him, whatwasexpected of him, but hardly what he wanted to do. A doctor in English literature graduatedfrom an Englishuniversity,he says to himselfwhen he returnsto the Sudan,
I wantto takemy rightfulshareof life by force, I wantto give lavishly,I wantlove to flow frommy heart,to ripenandbearfruit.There aremanyhorizonsthatmustbe visited,fruit thatmustbe plucked,books read,andwhitepagesin the scrollsof life in whichto inscribe vivid sentencesin a bold hand.19

However, he is appointedby the Ministryof Educationto teach pre-Islamic literaturein secondaryschools and is later promoted to be an inspectorof elementaryeducation.Worse still, he permitshimself to be led by Mustaf-a into a mess he has not chosen for himself, and he becomes a participant in a story of which he is not the author.Yet when he loves Hasana,Mustafa's widow, he does not take steps to marry her but rather acts only as her as expectedof him,when in factshe is "theonly womanI have ever guardian, loved,"20 as he confesses, bitterlyresentingher deathas a victimof Mustafa. By contrast,Mustafais a personwho assertshis will even as a child.Having no relatives, brothersor sisters, he grows under his mother'slax care, his father having died a few months before he was born. Relating this to the narrator, he says,
I used to have-you maybe surprised- a warmfeelingof beingfree, thattherewasnot a humanbeing, fatheror mother, to tie me down as to a tent peg at a particular spot, a particular domain.I wouldreadandsleep,go out andcome in, playoutsidethe house, loaf aroundthe streets, and there would be no one to orderme about.21

At a time when children were hidden by parents as government officials scouredthe villagesto take youngstersto school, he decides of his own free will to go to school.This is the firstdecisionhe hasever madeandhis mother saysnothing.Subsequently, hiswhole life is in his own hands.At the ageof 12, he decides to go to Cairo for secondary school studies and tells his mother-only after all arrangements have been made. That turnsout to be the lasttime he sees his mother."It'syourlife,"she tells him, "andyou'refree to do with it as you will."At 15, he leavesEgyptfor England. At everystageof his life, there arepeople who give him a helpinghandbut for whom he has no
19. Season of Migration to the North, p. 5. 20. Ibid., p. 141. 21. Ibid., p. 19.

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feelings of gratitude. He accepts their help as though it were some duty they must perform for him. "You're not a human being," a fellow student in love with him tells him, "you're a heartless machine." In England, he entices several English girls to his bed from all walks of life. He shatters their resistance by all manner of devilish devices and designs, sometimes posing as the warm African yearning for the cold of Europe, sometimes as the mysterious Arab hailing from behind centuries of romance, till he finally meets the indomitable Jean Morris who compels him to marry her. When he finally kills her, he expects to die like a conqueror. Before sentencing him to seven years of imprisonment, the judge at the Old Bailey tells him, "Mr. Sa'eed, despite your academic prowess you are a stupid man. In your spiritual make-up there is a dark spot, and thus it was that you squandered the noblest gift that God has bestowed upon people -the gift of love."22His defense lawyer, a former professor of his at Oxford who disliked him, says, "You, Mr. Sa'eed, are the best example of the fact that our civilizing mission in Africa is of no avail. After all the efforts we've made to educate you, it's as if you'd come out of the jungle for the first time."23But Mustafa Said does not share this opinion, and he thinks to himself.
The ships at first sailed down the Nile carrying guns not bread, and the railways were originally set up to transport troops; the schools were started so as to teach us how to say "Yes" in their language. They imported to us the germ of the greatest European violence, as seen on the Somme and at Verdun, the like of which the world has never previously known, the germ of a deadly disease that struck them more than a thousand years ago. Yes, my dear sirs, I came as an invader into your very homes: a drop of poison which you have injected into the veins of history. 'I am no Othello. Othello was a lie.'24

Back in the Sudan, however, Mustafa Sa'id chooses the farmer's life and plans to devote himself to his land. But rather than turn a completely new leaf, he keeps living privately the memories of his English conquests till he disappears in the Nile flood either of his own free will or, this time, in spite of himself. Mustafa Sa'ldrepresents a real desire for freedom and power too well felt by Africans and Asians dominated by the West for some time. Unlike Idris's hero of the Latin Quarter, his mother does not deter his volition in any way, and his culture does not prevent him from completely assimilatinghimself to Western culture. But he is beset by accumulated feelings of hate that took generations to form and need generations to die. The West on the other hand is similarly beset by misconceptions and hatreds more than a thousand years old. The encounter between East and West influences Mustafa Sa'id and the novel's
22. Ibid., p. 54.

23. Ibid., pp. 93-94. 24. Ibid., p. 95.

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narratorin differentways. But they both agree where the future must be. in the letter he left him to help and advisehis two Mustafaasksthe narrator sons and "to spare them the pangs of wanderlust."
If they grow up imbued with the air of this village, its smells and colours and history, the faces of its inhabitants and the memories of its floods and harvestings and sowings, then my life will acquire its true perspective as something meaningful alongside many other meanings of deeper significance.25

Thispositiveoutlookof love for one'scountryandserviceto its people is what Mustaf7a chooses for himself after his own wanderlust,but is hauntedby his own pastwhich,in turn,is the resultof a tragicchapterin the historyof Africa and Europe that cannot be unwritten.He likes his two sons to have this positive outlook in the new, independent Sudan so that his life, as well as theirs, will be meaningful. The narrator hassimilarthoughtsas he makeshis decisionto live at the end of the novel. He says,
I shall live because there are a few people I want to stay with for the longest possible time and because I have duties to discharge. It is not my concern whether or not life has meaning. If I am unable to forgive, then I shall try to forget.26

The narrator's feelings towardsMustafa,like Mustafa's feelings towardsthe West, must not be allowed to poison the present and the future for ever withoutend. A new beginningmustbe madeandthe humanwill mustmakea decision, if the choice is to be life not death. Conclusion In the contemporary Arabicnovels reviewedabove, variousaspectsof the confrontationbetween the culturesof the Eastand the West are portrayed. Yahya Haqqi emphasizes the spiritual side of the confrontation as experiencedin the crisisof Ism-a'il which is resolved by a happysynthesisof religionand sciencewherebyIslamicvalues are retainedalongwith Western scientificprinciples.SuhaylIdrisemphasizesthe socio-psychological side of the confrontation experiencedby the hero of the LatinQuarter who discovers his needs for individualfreedom from the traditionalconventionsof Arab society in order to build up his personalityand his nationon foundationsof free will and not on coercion of any sort; this includes a liberalization of relationsbetween the sexes aswell as relationsbetweenparentsandchildren. Al-Tayyib Salih emphasizes the political side of the confrontation as internalized by MustafaSa'idandpervertedinto a vengefulfeeling expressed
25. Ibid., p. 66. 26. Ibid., pp. 168-169.

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in sexual conquests; however, the hero-like the narrator-transcends this feeling finally in the hope of achieving progress and happiness in the present and the future. Whether spiritual, socio-psychological, or political, the confrontation between Eastern culture and Western culture portrayed in these novels displays a variety of Arab attitudes to Western culture which contributes to the understanding of the predicament of the modern Arab and to an appreciation of the anguish of his modernizing process, even as the Arab novelist uses a Western vehicle of literary expression which he has recendy mastered and rendered indigenous to his culture after a period of imitation and experimentation.