An-Nubūgh al-Maghribī fī al-adab al-ʻArabī ( ‘Moroccan Ingenuity in Arab Literature’) is an anthology of Moroccan literature compiled by the Moroccan scholar Abdellah Guennoun and published in three volumes in 1937. It has been considered the first literary history of Morocco.
This anthology indexed and contextualized major works of literature from and al-Andalus written in Arabic, and led to the development of a Moroccan literary canon. Affirming both Morocco's contributions to Arabic literature and the long tradition of Arabic literature in Morocco, an-Nubūgh al-Maghribī was seen as a nationalist reaction to colonialism.
Contents
Volume I: Study
Introduction
Abdellah Guennoun introduces the book as an endeavor to trace the course of intellectual life in al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, the far west, over the centuries from the conquest of Al-Andalus in 711 led by Tariq ibn Ziyad. He writes:This is a book in which we have collected from knowledge, literature, history, and politics, with the objective of imagining the intellectual life in our homeland al-Maghrib (Morocco) and its development over the various periods, from the first of the Muslim conquests until close to our time. The intellectual trends, through periods of activity and lull, through all the eras, is explained thoroughly, and politics and the directions they took according to the nature of each state are explored in detail.Guennoun describes the neglect and disregard with which the Mashriq, the Arab East, tended to regard the literature of al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, the far west as his motivation for the project. He argued for the inclusion of Maghrebi literature in the wider Arabic literary tradition, though explicitly not asserting, in the words of Gretchen Head, "the existence of a national literary canon detached from its broader heritage." Head also notes the use of the phrase waṭanina al-Maghrib ('our homeland Morocco') and places the work within a trend of textual production by intellectuals associated with the Moroccan Nationalist Movement.
Study The section is then divided into the periods according to ruling dynasty: ʿaṣr al-futūḥ (Idrissid, lit. 'era of Islamic conquest'), ʿaṣr al-murābiṭīn (Almoravid), ʿaṣr al-muwaḥḥidīn (Almohad), ʿaṣr al-Mariniyīn (Marinid), ʿaṣr as-Saʿadiyīn (Saadi), and ʿaṣr al-ʿAlawiyīn (ʿAlawi).
Volume II: Prose The second volume contains excerpts of prose.
Volume III: Poetry The third volume contains excerpts of poetry.
Publication The anthology was first published in Mohammed Daoud's in Tétouan in 1937.
Censorship It was banned by the authorities of the French Protectorate, and could not be brought into the area under French colonial control, nor could it be sold, displayed, or distributed there. Spain, however, was receptive of the work; an-Nubūgh al-Maghribī was translated into Spanish and Abdallah Guennoun was granted an honorary doctorate from a university in Madrid.
Reception and critique Despite its censorship by French colonial authorities, an-Nubūgh al-Maghribī circulated widely in nationalist circles and was celebrated by nationalist figures such as Allal al-Fassi, who wrote a letter of congratulation to Guennoun in 1946. In this letter he wrote:
According to Calderwood and Parrilla, this letter attests to how the work "performed one of the primary functions of nationalism—namely, to endow the nation with a glorious past, one that legitimates the claims of the present and undergirds the projects of the future." As such, they argue, the book is emblematic of the moment in Moroccan cultural history when the nationalist movement was seeking to legitimize itself by linking itself to the wider Arab and Muslim worlds.
A letter of appreciation for the work from the German orientalist Carl Brockelmann also appeared in later editions of the anthology.Guennoun, Abdellah. an-Nubūgh al-Maghribī fī al-adab al-ʻArabī (, Moroccan Intellect in Arabic Literature), Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah. 2014.
Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla and Eric Calderwood, writing in 2021, note that the organization in an-Nubūgh al-Maghribī of Moroccan literature under the banners of Islam and Arabness led to striking omissions. They ask:Where do texts in languages other than Arabic fit into the history of Moroccan literature? And what can we do now with Kannūn’s concept of the waṭan (“homeland”) at a moment when Moroccan literature has become increasingly diasporic?
Editions
Tetuan (1937) , Beirut (1961) , Beirut (2014)
References