Vegetarianism in Modern Arabic literature

Abstract

If it’s so rare to see vegetarian characters in the international fiction, it’s even rarer in the contemporary Arabic narratives. Yet it’s common to find them in classic Sufi and religious literature (al-Rūmī, al-Ma‘arrī, Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’) and collections of tales. After a historical survey about the Prophet’s and Sufis’ positions on vegetarian food, excerpts from Kalīla wa Dimna and other fables, we start with Maḥfuẓ’s Bidāya wa Nihāya (“The Beginning and The End;” 1949), where vegetarianism comes “from necessity,” is marginal and treated with humour. The real focus of this article is the novel Nazīf al-ḥağar (“The Bleeding of the Stone;” 1991), by the Libyan writer Ibrāhīm al-Kawnī. From Sufism it draws its themes and suggests sustainable models for human interactions with nonhuman animals and environments. This novel helps us to link ecocriticism, in its vegetarian/ vegan declinations, with decolonial or postcolonial theory. Apart from that, it can be analyzed through the lens of eco-feminism, human-animal studies and biopolitics approaches. To better understand the context that underlies vegetarianism in the Arabic literary arena, I try to analyze two other contemporary novels that offer interesting insights and perspectives, even if they don’t present this theme as pivotal.  Min ḫašab wa ṭīn (“Made of wood and clay;” 2021) by the Moroccan writer and poet Muḥammad al-Aš‘arī, suggests a selective vegetarianism, connected to a perspective of ecocritical philosophy of life, adopted by two socially different characters. The last text to be analyzed in this article, Krīsmās fi Makka (“Christmas in Mecca;” 2019), by the Iraqi writer Aḥmad Ḫayrī al-‘Umarī, carves a young vegan character to shed light  into  issues of social identity in the Western countries diaspora.