CRASSH

Cambridge Symposium on Middle Eastern Studies: Knowledge and Language in Middle Eastern Societies

Elke Morlok (Heidelberg University)
Integrative Hermeneutics via Language and Ritual in Medieval Jewish Mysticism

In recent scholarship on kabbalistic writings the linguistic and ritualistic aspects of mystical hermeneutics have been highlighted by several important studies. It has been demonstrated how in certain kabbalistic formulas on ‘analogy of signification’ and ‘analogy of memorization’ the term dimyyon goes beyond any figurative or docetic orientation. Such concepts are built on the assumption that a linguistic-ontological relation is given between signifier and signified, and that it links in-depth the human and the divine realms defined by the same names. The ritualistic aspect is anchored in the perception of the linguistic essence of all reality: the human being responding to a precept may reactivate a linguistic analogy, which from the beginning is found in nuce in the semiotic mapping of reality. Such a perception of reality in linguistic entities is the basis for the mystic’s approach to letter permutation. In other works, an analogical interpretation is developed, which allows for a peculiar ‘hermeneutics of integration’ of the different layers of language and reality. The interpretive mode facilitates an integration of the different ontological levels into a ‘narrative construction’, which may have as its initial basis the performance of the ritual, wherein a new narrative on the divine is finally created.

To these specific kabbalistic notions of the text, various models derived from Jewish and non-Jewish sources might be fruitfully applied towards a better understanding of mystical multi-layered approaches to hermeneutics. Modifications of the concept of ‘symbol’ according to the structures of Pythagorean, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic thought show an integrative method by creating correspondences between textual and ‘practical’ ontology. With the initiation into such correspondences and their actual application in ritualistic acts, the kabbalist may finally gain access to the divine realm.

With the ‘power of language’ as an alternative form of semantic meaning in numerology, i.e. the attempt to re-capture the semantic fullness of the divine language as opposed to ordinary language, we face a hermeneutical system, which is based on the perception of power as immanent in non-semantic aspects like those of sound and/or ritual. This allows us to describe hermeneutical modes, which may activate energies latent in the text, either through intense mental techniques or actual performance of the ritual.

I will try to open a comparative discourse on medieval mystical texts and modern linguistic theories, like those e.g. of Harold Bloom, George Steiner, Umberto Eco and Jacques Derrida by presenting the hermeneutical structures of a medieval kabbalist in an application of a methodology derived from postmodern linguistic theories, which may enable us to compare texts from different cultural, religious and historical backgrounds.

Khachik Gevorgyan (Yerevan State University)
Persian Fotovvatnamehs as Repositories of Knowledge

Already from the 12th century the structure of the futuwwa brotherhoods in Iran consisted of three parts – the warriors, the craftsmen, and the Sufis. The literature composed by representatives of these groups, namely the fotovvatnamehs, follows the same pattern. The craftsmen fotovvatnamehs reveal the main concepts of the particular craft and teach the rules of the craft to the novices. Such fotovvatnamehs mainly belong to the following 8 craft groups 1. butchers and skinners (qa?b va sall?kh) 2. bath-attendants (hamm?miy?n), barbers (salm?niy?n), hair-cutters (sartar?š?n), masseur (dall?k) 3. cobblers (kafšduz?n) 4. bakers (khabb?z?n) 5. cooks (abb?kh?n) 6. water carriers (saqq?y?n) 7. calico-printers (?its?z?n), felt makers (namadm?li), the weavers of coarse cotton cloth (karb?sb?f?n), 8. masons (bann?y?n).

In many of the craftsmen fotovvatnamehs it is mandatory that each practitioner of the craft be fluent in the rules and directions mentioned in the fotovvatnameh in order for his work to be halal. Apart from being collections of rules, the fotovvatnamehs are also a written source of the particular craft’s mythological history, and a repository of the possible knowledge on the craft. Originating in the Sufi fotovvatnamehs, these treatises have preserved the mythological chain of saints and prophets who were believed to be the founders of certain crafts. These chains also were believed to be the transmitters of the craft’s wisdom.

The paper will discuss the types of knowledge presented in different craftsmens’ fotovvatnamehs, such as the knowledge concerning the founders of the craft, knowledge about the rituals to be conducted, knowledge about particular tools, etc. The relation between two types of transmitters’ chain – the mythological and the “real” ones will be discussed as well.

Fatima Badry (American University of Sharjah)
Will Arabic Remain the Determining Component of Arab Identity?
 
Today multilingualism and multiculturalism engender wide-ranging attitudes and orientations toward the languages and cultures involved. For many multilinguals, their identities in relation to particular languages and language varieties are characterized by a sense of a continuum from the global to the local which allows them to cross from language to language without necessarily feeling a fragmentation or living this multiplicity in negative terms. Recent research on language and identity suggests that the classical dichotomies of “native speaker”, and “bilingual” are often disconnected from language users’ own relationships to multiple languages or language varieties (Leung, Harris, and Rampton, 1997; Nero, 2005). LePage and Tabouret-Keller (1985) argue that particularly in multilingual communities, individuals’ linguistic behavior is highly influenced by their identifying with particular groups in specific contexts. In the Arabic context, the classical definition of Arabness as being exclusively tied to speaking Arabic as a mother tongue has also come under scrutiny (Barakat, 1993).

Drawing on insights from language identity research in multilingual communities, this paper examines the ways in which multilingual Arabs’ uses of language reflect a changing role of the position of Arabic in their identification as Arabs. Results from a survey of Arabs studying and working in an English medium university in the Gulf are analyzed to answer the following questions:  1. What is the relation between the Arabic language and Arab identity? 2. How does linguistic behavior affect perceptions of Arab identity? 3. How do Arabs perceive the impact of the predominant use of English in everyday life on their sense of belonging to ‘Arabness.’ The results suggest that, increasingly, language plays a less symbolic and more pragmatic role in the lives of its native speakers educated in non Arabic medium institutions and that Arabic no longer seems to be the only determining criterion of “Arabness”.


Allison Mandaville (University of Washington)
Four Alphabets in 100 Years: The Effects of State Control of Writing in Azerbaijan

In Azerbaijan, a former state of the Soviet Union with a rich history of written literature both before and during the Soviet period, there have been no less than four governmentally dictated changes in written script in the past 100 years (Persian to Latin to Cyrillic to Turkish-style Latin). The effects of such ongoing state regulation of written language reach beyond the logistical dilemma posed by generation of children who read an entirely different script than did, and do, their parents. 100 years of overt state regulation of language in all media, but particularly in writing, appears to have led to a wearing down of a sense of the aesthetic in writing (with the interesting effect that music and oral poetry in musical form have become the primary vehicle of contemporary aesthetic production and awareness—and sense of national identity). Although nearly everyone is literate, few people, particularly young people, read—much less write—for pleasure (even on the internet).

While writers of the past such as Fizuli and the more recent national writer Vurghun are still taught and held in high regard—indeed felt to be at the heart of national and ethnic Azerbaijani identity, contemporary writing has largely become perceived of as a tool of government and business—not an artistic medium. But this emphasis on literary heritage without concurrent dynamic contemporary literary production means that state efforts of social and cultural regulation through language may backfire. With globalization, young Azerbaijanis indeed turning almost exclusively to non-Azerbaijani contemporary culture, language and literature to fill a felt vacuum in the currency of their own country’s written culture. Indeed, Azerbaijan’s “new writing” may soon be only found in other languages. This paper will explore some key circumstances leading to the current state of literary (non)production in Azerbaijan and begin to explore possible scenarios for the future of written literary culture in this former Soviet state.

Liora Halpern (The Hebrew University)
Babel in Zion: The Politics of Language Diversity in Jewish Palestine, 1900-1948

My doctoral dissertation (in progress) explores the scope and significanc