- Ṣūfī ʿAbdallah’s (1925 – 2003, Egypt) play Thamānī ʿUyūn (‘Eight eyes’, 1975). When a man refuses to revenge through blood feud, his mother applauds his decision assuring him that she had brought him up for that refusal (reference). She sees in his action a sign of true virility: the son upheld his convictions despite contradictory social expectations. The play was made into a 1973 film.
- Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm’s (1898 – 1987, Egypt) play Ughniyyat al-Mawt (‘The song of death’, 1967). This revenge drama plays centers ʿAsākir, a peasant woman whose husband was killed. To avoid that her son, ʿAlwān, meets the same fate, she sends him to Cairo where he enrolls in al-Azhar university. When he returns to his village seventeen years later, his mother expects him to preform a revenge killing but ʿAlwān is only interested in improving the living conditions of his fellow villagers. A conversation between mother and son follows which lays bare the contradicting ways of thinking (reference). Her son’s attitude eventually drives ʿAsākir to drastic measures. The play was made into a short movie in 1973.
- Yūsuf Idrīs’ (1927 – 1991, Egypt) short story ‘Ḥādithat Sharaf’ (‘A Case of Honour’). An entire community, that of a country estate – with all its jealousies and complex relationships – is possessed by the idea that ‘something may have happened’ between Fāṭima and Gharīb, its two most beautiful young people. In fact, nothing has happened, but at the end of the story the narrator makes it clear that what has been lost is a sense of innocence (reference). The story can be found in the collection Ḥādithat Sharaf (1971).
- May Muẓaffar’s (1940-, Iraq) short story ‘Awrāq Khāṣṣa’ (‘Personal Papers’) describes a brother who, as a self-appointed guardian of the family honour, shoots his sister dead on the street as she walks hand in hand with her beloved (reference). The story can be found in the collection al-Bajaʿ (‘The pelican’, 1979). It can also be found in the English-language anthology Opening the Gates: a century of Arab feminist writing (1990).
- Muḥammad Yūsuf al-Quʿayyid (1944-, Egypt) – Akhbār ʿIzbat al-Manīsī (‘What happened on the Manīsī estate’, 1971). Deals with the killing of a girl who has violated the code of honour after becoming impregnated by the landowner’s son, Ṣafwat. It becomes clear that it is her brother, al-Zanātī, who has poisoned her, but only after the landowner paid the girl’s father to have the baby aborted (reference). The novel is a reflection on the failures of the 1952 revolution, and shows the remnants of feudalism in the country, especially in the countryside (also in 1952 Revolution in Egypt: Before and after the revolution).
- Fuʾād al-Tikirlī’s (1927 – 2008, Iraq) short story ‘al-Ṭarīq ilā al-madīnah’ (‘The Way to the City’, 1982). In this short story a young official in Baʿqūba, Iraq, is urged by especially his aunt to kill his feeble-minded sister, whom he loves, because she has a miscarriage after taking a strong laxative. Against his inner convictions and driven only by social pressures, he beats his sister. She does not understand anything, however, and his psychic agony seems as tormenting as her physical pain (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- miriam cooke. 1992 “Arab Women writers” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 443-463, p. 460
- Gol Man Gurung. 2021. “Questioning of Stable Gender Roles in Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s ‘The Song of Death’.” Smart Moves Journal Ijellh 9(1): 18-32, p. 19
- Roger Allen. 1995. “The Arabic Short Story and the Status of Women.” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 77-90, p. 80-1
- Roger Allen. 1995. “The Arabic Short Story and the Status of Women.” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 77-90, p. 80
- Hilary Kilpatrick. 1992. “The Egyptian novel from Zaynab to 1980.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 223-270, p. 261
- Wiebke Walther. 1995. “Distant Echoes of Love in the Narrative Work of Fuʾād al-Tikrilī” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 131-139, p 134