Abstract
Taymur’s collected poems (diwan), titled Hilyat al-Tiraz (the finest of its class), was published in 1892. She also published her Persian and Turkish poems with the title Shukufeh in Istanbul, but its date was not known. The latter lay outside the boundaries of this study, which focused on the relationship between her Arabic works to nation-building in nineteenth-century Egypt. I do recognize that the Persian and the Turkish poems most probably indicated the continued relevance of the Ottoman identity to Taymur and her aristocratic class, but the fact remains that most of her writings appeared in Arabic reflecting the development of the narrowly defined Egyptian national community.
With the hand of virtue I maintain my veil and with my
chastity (‵asmati) I tower over my contemporaries,
And with brilliant ideas and a critical disposition, my literary studies/good manners are complete.
—Hilyat al-Tiraz1
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Notes
‵A’isha Taymur, Hilyat al-Tiraz (Cairo: n.p., 1892), 3.
Zaynab Fawwaz, Al-Durr al-Manthur fi Tabaqat Rabat al-Khudur (Cairo: al-Matba‵t al-Kubra al-Amiriya, 1894), 304.
Al-Anisa Mayy, Sha‵irat al-Tali‵a, ‵A’isha Taymur (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1956), 121.
Robert J. C. Young, Colonial Desire (London: Routledge, 1995), 20, 22.
For a discussion of this thesis, see Mervat F. Hatem, “Khitab al-Hadatha: Diwan ‘Hilyat al-Tiraz’ wa Ru’iyat ‵A’isha Taymur li Harakat al-Taghiir al-Ijtima’I wa al-Siyasi,” in ‵A’isha Taymur: Tahadiyat al-Thabit wa al-Mutaghayir fi al-Qaran al-Tasi‵ ‵Ashr, ed. Hoda Elsadda (Cairo: Mu’assasat al-Mar’at wa al-Thakira, 2004), 129–43.
Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, Introduction to Opening the Gates, A Century of Arab Feminist Writing, eds. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), xxx.
Adunis, al-Thabit wa al-Mutahawwil: bahth fi al-Ittiba‵ wa al-Ibda‵ inda al-‵Arab (Beirut: Dar al-‵Awdah, 1974).
Ibid., 545–49; Elizabeth Fernea and Basima Qattan Bezirgan, eds., “Walada Bint al-Mustakfi, Andalusian Poet,”, Middle Eastern Women Speak, eds. Elizabeth Fernea and Basima Qattan Bezirgan (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), 67–76.
Elizabeth Fernea and Basima Qattan Bezirgan, eds., “Lament for a Brother” by al-Khansa,’ Poet of Early Islam,”, Middle Eastern Women Speak (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), 3–6.
Rif‵at al-Said, “Wathiqat Jawaz, Rifa‵,”, al-Mu’alafat al-Kamila (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa al- Jadida, 1978), 34.
Hoda Sha‵rawi, Mudhakarat Ra’idat al-Mar’at al-‵Arabiya al-Haditha (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1981), 82–83.
Lami‵a Tewfik, “Sijin al-Rammad wa ‘Afaq al-Hawwiya fi Shi‵r ‵A’isha Taymur,” in ‵A’isha Taymur: Tahadiyat al-Thabit wa al-Mutaghiir fi al-Qarn al-Tasi‵ ‵Ahar, ed. Hoda Elsadda (Cairo: Mu’assassat al-Mar’at wa al-Thakira, 2004), 115.
A discussion with Dr. Lamis Jarrar, psychologist and colleague at Howard University’s Counseling Center, helped me realize how the Christian Ziyada transposed a Christian definition of religion on the poetry of the Muslim poet (June 30, 2004). See Salma Al-Haffar al-Kuzbari, Mayy Ziyada Aw Ma’ssat al-Nubugh, vol. 1 (Beirut: Mu’assasat Noufal, 1987), chaps. 2–3 for a discussion of Ziyada’s family’s religious background and her religious education.
Zaynab Hamdy, “Ali Pasha Ibrahim, Ba‵ith al-Nahda al-Tibiya fi Misr,” Rose al-Youssef, January 23, 2004, 70.
Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Beirut: Maktabat Libnan, 1974), 932.
Mayy Ziyada, Warda al-Yazji (Beirut: Mu’assat Noufal, 1980), 17.
Abdel Rahman al-Rafi‵, ‵Asr Ismail (Cairo: Dar al-Ma’rif, 1982), 1:266.
Judith E. Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), chap. 4.
A. M. Broadly, How We Defended Ahmed ‵Arabi and His Friends (Cairo: Research and Publishing Arab Center, 1980), 373.
Muhammed al-Khafif, Ahmed ‵Urabi, al-Za‵im al-Mufra ‵Aliyhi, in Raja’ al-Naqqash, “Ami- rat Nabilat,” Al-Ahram al-Dawli, February 13, 2003, 13.
This section is based on Mervat Hatem, “Writing About Life Through Loss: ‵A’isha Taymur’s Elegies and the Subversion of the Arabic Canon,”, Transforming Loss into Beauty, eds. Marle Hammond and Dana Sajdi (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2008), 229–52.
Ali Mubarak, al-Khitat al-Tawfiqiya al-Jadida Li Misr al-Qahira (Cairo: Al-Hay’at al-Misriyat al-‵Amma lil Kitab, 1982), 2:163.
As an example of this dominant discursive tendency, please see Fadwa el-Guindi, review of Remaking Women, edited by Lila Abu-Lughod, Journal of Political Ecology: Case Studies in His- tory and Society, 6 (1999).
Peter Gran’s analysis of the cultural production of the first half of the nineteenth century offered this very important observation about how writers organized their presentations and their materials. Please see Peter Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism, Egypt 1760–1840 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), 87.
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© 2011 Mervat F. Hatem
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Hatem, M.F. (2011). Hilyat al-Tiraz. In: Literature, Gender, and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118607_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118607_6
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