Abstract
This plaintive line appears in a colloquial Arabic poem in the Cairo-based journal Al-Arghūl (the reed-pipe) soon after its founding in September 1894. Entitled ‘A Load of Poetry: The Reed-Pipe’s Zajal on Fashion’, the three-page poem attacks Egypt’s fin de siècle youth as a ‘good-for-nothing generation’ (gīl khāyib). It is a generation that drinks alcohol, sucks up Egypt’s resources, gets pregnant before marriage, fears no father or mother, never suckled on the milk of good upbringing, and rides around Cairo, especially to the Rawda pleasure-garden area, in European-style phaetons, sporting tarbushes and zikittas (jackets) and no beards. It is a generation of mōda, fashion; the label, a European loanword, verbally enacts the invasive presence that penetrates this satirical poem.
Al-gāmiʿ fī īūm al-gumʿa
Fādī wa-l-khamāra gāmiʿa
The mosque on Friday, day of gathering
Stands empty while the bar collects all
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Notes
- 1.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-adabī: himl zajal al-arghūl fī’l-mōda,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 2, 15 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1312/15 September 1894, 41–43; 42. By convention, unsigned or unattributed works in the journal were authored by Naggār; when giving titles and authors, I transliterate according to standard (rather than colloquial) Arabic conventions. All translations in this essay are mine. The same conventions hold for al-Hilāl, where the editor, Jurjī Zaydān, likely wrote most of the unsigned copy but we cannot be absolutely certain. Similarly, in Punch, most articles are published without a by-line, and I simply give these references by item headline. Thus, I do not give author names when there is no by-line, but neither are these cases of ‘anonymous’ publication.
- 2.
Lucie Ryzova has studied the Efendi as a social category. Lucy Ryzova, “Efendification! The Rise of Modern Middle Class Culture in Egypt” (Ph.D. diss., Faculty of Modern History, University of Oxford, 2008).
- 3.
On these see Marilyn Booth, “Colloquial Arabic Poetry, Politics, and the Press in Modern Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24, no. 3 (1992): 419–440.
- 4.
One poem that bears no signature is introduced by the journal as being by a poet from the group rijal al-haridi. This may refer to ‘rag-tag’ street poets. My colleague Tony Gorman suggests it might refer to the Haredim (Orthodox Jews) in Egypt—if so, this intercommunal participation would be intriguing in this journal. [Untitled zajal], al-Arghūl 1, no. 18, 15 Dhū al-hujja 1312/8 June 1895, 313–16; 313.
- 5.
While I have a full run of the first volume in my private collection, I have only seen two issues with covers. When such magazines were bound by owners or by the magazine editor for retrospective sale, they generally lacked the cheap coloured-paper front and back covers, alas for the researcher.
- 6.
Ettmueller, chapter Abū Nazzāra’s Journey from Victorious Egypt to Splendorous Paris: The Making of an Arabic Punch in this volume, refers to the performance aspects of the earlier Abū Nazzāra.
- 7.
See Marilyn Booth, chapter “What’s in a Name? Branding Punch in Cairo, 1908,” in this volume.
- 8.
See Ettmueller, chapter Abū Nazzāra’s Journey from Victorious Egypt to Splendorous Paris: The Making of an Arabic Punch in this volume, on Yaʿqūb Sannūʿ’s (Jacob Sanua’s) series of journals. I follow her spelling of his name in this chapter and in chapter What’s in a Name? Branding Punch in Cairo, 1908.
- 9.
See Elif Elmas chapter Teodor Kasab’s Ottoman Adaptation of the Ottoman Shadow Theatre Karagöz in this volume.
- 10.
See Chapters by Christopher G. Rea “‘He’ll Roast All Subjects That May Need the Roasting’: Puck and Mr Punch in Nineteenth-Century China,” and Swarali Paranjape “Crossing the Boundaries: ‘Punch’ and the Marathi Weekly Hindu Pañca (1870–1909),” in this volume.
- 11.
In his presentation of al-Arghūl to readers, Naggār defines himself first as a member of the Egyptian umma; thus the territorial definition as ‘nation’ seems predominant. But the magazine’s emphasis on Muslims as targets of its critical voice suggests also umma as the collectivity of Muslims wherever they might live. [Muhammad al-Najjār], “Taqdīm al-jarīda li-dhuwiyy al-ʿilm wa-arbāb al-maʿrifa wa-ashāb al-imāra,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 1, 1 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1312/1 September 1894, 3–6; 3.
- 12.
On satire and journalism in late Ottoman culture see Palmira Brummett, Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908–1911 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000).
- 13.
“Al-Sihāfa wa-al-ʿilm,” al-Hilāl 9, no. 11, 1 March 1901, 324–26; 326.
- 14.
The Iraqi newspaper, Jurnāl al-ʿiraq, published in Arabic and Turkish in Baghdad, is mentioned by William Rugh, “Newspapers and Print Media: Arab Countries,” in Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, 2nd edition, vol. 3, eds. Reeva Simon and Philip Mattar and Richard Bulliet (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2004), 1678.
- 15.
On al-jurnāl, see Ibrāhīm ʿAbduh, Tatawwur al-sihāfa al-misriyya 1798–1951, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Maktabat al-adab bi’l-Jammāmiz, 1951), 27–29. Napoleon Bonaparte’s administration founded a French-language newspaper during the French occupation of Egypt (1798–1801) and apparently planned an Arabic one.
- 16.
Brummett, Image and Imperialism, 27–28, mentions discussions in the Ottoman press following the constitutional revolution (1908) of the ‘unbridled license’ of periodicals both in Teheran and Istanbul, and the anxiety that the double-edged presence of press freedom might engender.
- 17.
“Bāb al-maqālāt: al-jarāʾid wa-wājibātuhā wa-adābuhā,” al-Hilāl 4, no. 1, 1 September 1895, 9–17. The essay begins by noting that in the journal’s first issue it had addressed the history of the Arabic press, and that it also discussed general newspaper history in 3, no. 23. This notice announces and describes the recent publication al-Kharāʾid fī al-jarāʾid, by Hikmat Bek Sharīf, ‘bāshkātib majlis baladiyat tarābulus al-shām’ (head clerk in the Municipal Council of the city of Tripoli, Syria), as a book about newspapers that also inscribes the local (regional) history of the press by listing newspapers and their dates of appearance. Al-Hilāl 4, no. 5, 1 November 1895, 200. ʿAbduh, Tatawwur, 6–10, mentions other early studies. On the language of the press, sources are numerous; the most oft-cited turn-of-the-century commentary on this is al-Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī’s Lughat al-jarāʾid, a collection of essays first published in the magazine al-Diyāʾ (Cairo: Matbaʿat Matar, n.d.); al-Yāziji methodically criticises many examples of usage not conforming to the classical Arabic grammars and premodern literary usage. Ironically, those who supported a new language of the press did not always recognise language as dynamic by nature.
- 18.
“Bāb al-maqālāt,” 12.
- 19.
A reader writing in refers to al-Hilāl, for example, as jarīda. “Bāb al-murāsalāt: al-shaykh ahmad fāris al-shidyāq wa-adīb bek ishaq: iqtirāh ʿalā hadarāt al-udabāʾ,” al-Hilāl 4, no. 5, November 1, 1895, 183.
- 20.
On this subgenre see Booth, “Colloquial Arabic Poetry”.
- 21.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Khātimat al-sana al-ūlā min jarīdat al-arghūl,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 22, end of Safar 1313, 367–68; 367–68.
- 22.
Al-Shaykh Hasan al-Ālātī, Kitāb tarwīh al-nufūs wa-mudahhik al-ʿubūs (Cairo: Jarīdat al-Mahrūsa, 1889).
- 23.
I am grateful to my colleague Tony Gorman for mentioning the presence of these in late nineteenth-century Egypt.
- 24.
The last few issues I have seen are dated only with the year, 1319 AH (1900/01 CE).
- 25.
The two compositional arenas are often confused; the ease of doing so is heightened by the fact that in some Arab societies, the term shiʿr shaʿbī (‘people’s poetry’) may refer to either or both. See Marilyn Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi’s Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies, St. Antony's Middle East Monographs, 22 (Exeter: Ithaca, 1990).
- 26.
For more on this with regards to poetry, see Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi’s Egypt and “Colloquial Arabic Poetry”; further sources on diglossia are listed there. In “The Cartoon in Egypt”, Marsot misdefines zajal as rhymed prose (5) and suggests a more dichotomised oral-written compositional context, but I agree with her emphasis on the existence of indigenous antecedents for the cartoon—though I think it is important also to consider the importance of editors’ and artists’ growing familiarity with European forms, possibly indirectly. Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, “The Cartoon in Egypt,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 13, no. 1 (January 1971): 2–15; 5.
- 27.
ʿAbd al-Majīd, officer in the camel corp [zābit bi’l-hajjāna], [Untitled zajal], al-Arghūl 1, no. 8, 1 Rajab 1312/28 December 1894, 138–40; 138.
- 28.
In traditional form, rather than a title as such, the title page says: ‘This is the collection of azjāl composed by he who is ample in merits, and wondrous as exemplar, the fine professor and excellent human being, possessor of honour and respect, Shaykh Muhammad Naggār, may God gratify the days with his presence and not prohibit people from enjoying his merit and generosity’. (Cairo: The Literary Press, Old Greens Market, 1318 AH/1898/99 CE). First signature of the azjāl collection.
- 29.
Martha Banta, Barbaric Intercourse: Caricature and the Culture of Conduct, 1841–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 4.
- 30.
[al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-adabī: himl zajal al-arghūl fī’l-moda,” 43.
- 31.
Grammatically, the sukūn over the verbs here suggest masculine gender (btiʿliq rather than btiʿliqi).
- 32.
[al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-adabī: himl zajal al-arghūl fī’l-moda,” 43.
- 33.
See Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi’s Egypt, on the satirical maqāma and its trickster figure.
- 34.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-adabī: zajal al-arghūl fī al-sarmāha,” Al-Arghūl 1, no. 3, 1 Rabīʿ al-thānī 1312/1 October 1894, 61–63; 61.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
[Untitled zajal], al-Arghūl 1, no. 18, 15 Dhū al-hujja 1312/8 June 1895, 313–16; 313. rijāl al-harīdī: see note 4.
- 37.
Ibid., 314. The meaning of khās-kī is unclear: ‘Cossack’ is a guess. The next lines mention ‘a pair of high stockings [or tassels] with a royal qūfī [?]/and two ildīwāns one in each hand/and I said, who’s up to me in reaching his hope?’
- 38.
Ibid., 315.
- 39.
Ibid., 316.
- 40.
See quotations from famous practitioners within the English satirical tradition, in Jane Ogborn and Peter Buckroyd, Satire, Cambridge Contexts in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 11–12.
- 41.
ʿAbd al-Majīd, officer in the camel corp [zābit bi’l-hajjāna], [Untitled zajal], al-Arghūl 1, no. 8, 1 Rajab 1312/28 December 1894, 138–40; 138–39.
- 42.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-ʿilmī: fī suqūti al-ʿālim suqūtu al-ʿālam,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 4, 15 Rabīʿ al-thānī 1312/15 October 1894, 65–67.
- 43.
Inqilāb, connoting radical if not necessarily permanent transformation; almost violent action.
- 44.
[al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-ʿilmī: fī suqūti al-ʿālim suqūtu al-ʿālam,” 66–67.
- 45.
Ibid., 66, 67.
- 46.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-ʿilmī: sughāru qawmin kibāru ākharīn,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 5, 1 Jumāda al-awwal 1312/15 November 1894, 81–85.
- 47.
In a zajal by a contributor, the rather straightforwardly sermonising language bemoans a loss of religion and suggests (unhappily) the ʿulamāʾ’s irrelevance. “Kathura al-fasād fī’l-barr wa’l-bahr bimā kasabat ayday al-nās,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 20, 15 Muharram 1313/8 July, 1895, 330–33. This poem follows an editorial treatise—“A Reminder to Certain ʿUlamāʾ”—that directly addresses and censures those ʿulamāʾ whom the magazine views as turning away from proper behaviour, as we have seen represented in poetic caricature. [Muhammad al-Najjār], “Tadhkārun li-baʿd al-ʿulamāʾ,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 20, 15 Muharram 1313/8 July 1895, 325–27; seemingly attached to the opening editorial: [Muhammad al-Najjār], “Al-qism al-ʿilmī: madāris al-ʿarab wa’l-jāmiʿ al-azhar al-anwar,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 20, 15 Muharram 1313/8 July, 1895, 321–25.
- 48.
“Much Better!” Cartoon signed H. F. Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 27 January 1883, 45. On the same page, “Hints from the Hindoo” pokes fun both at a provincial-colonised perspective on London and at the Londoners who cheat them and in general show no interest or hospitality toward them.
- 49.
“The Complete Letter-Writer on the Nile (a ‘private’ letter from D-ff-r-n to Tewfik [sic]),” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 19 May 1883, 233.
- 50.
“How Bull-Apis went up against Tel-el-Kebir: Fragments of an Epic From Modern Egypt,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 3 February 1883, 53. Visual signed H. F.
- 51.
See, for example, “Essence of Parliament, Extracted From the Diary of Toby, M.P.,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 17 February 1883, 76, and Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 10 March 1883, 112; “Essence …,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 28 April, 1883, 204; “Annexation Made Easy: A Page From the Future Journal of the House of Lords,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 5 May 1883, 207; “Tiddy Fol Lol,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 2 June 1883, 255; “Essence …,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 23 June 1883, 298; “Essence …,” Punch, or the London Charivari 85, 21 July 1883, 29, on how the war in Egypt has decreased stationery expenditure in London since ‘when war going on no time for useless correspondence’, says Sir George Balfour. See also “Something Like a Fellah!” Punch, or the London Charivari 85, 6 October 1883, 158; “Interviewing a la Mode: A Chat With the Prime Minister,” Punch, or the London Charivari 92, 5 February 1887, 69; “Essence …,” Punch, or the London Charivari 92, 12 February 1887, 84; “Essence …,” Punch, or the London Charivari 92, 19 March 1887, 143–44 (on the cost of Drummond-Wolff’s mission); “Wanted!—the Institute!” Punch, or the London Charivari 92, 4 June 1887, 274; and a single-line pun, “the latest cry of ‘wolff! —The Evacuation of Egypt,” Punch, or the London Charivari 92, 21 May 1887, 245. Drummond-Wolff’s mission comes in for considerable attention: see, e.g., “A la Porte!” and “Clear as Crystal; Or, All About It,” Punch, or the London Charivari 93, 23 July 1887, 29; “An Epitaph to the Memory of the Egyptian Convention,” Punch, or the London Charivari 93, 30 July 1887, 40; “The Conventional Missionary Who Couldn’t Convert the Sultan,” Punch, or the London Charivari 93, 30 July 1887, 45; “Convention-al Politeness,” Punch, or the London Charivari 93, 5 November 1887, 210–11.
- 52.
“The Khedive’s Pocket-Book (A Leaf anticipatory of the Immediate Future),” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, 17 March 1883, 132.
- 53.
“The Friend,—in Need!,” poem and cartoon, Punch, or the London Charivari 85, July 28, 1883, 42–43. See also “Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley, &c.,” Punch, or the London Charivari 85, August 4, 1883, 53, and the cartoon on p.55, “An Isthmian Game”.
- 54.
“A New ‘Whip’,” Punch, or the London Charivari 84, March 10, 1883, 114.
- 55.
“Free and Easy-dom at Drury Lane,” Punch, or the London Charivari 85, 18 August 1883, 76–77.
- 56.
I have not carried out a comprehensive survey, but the volumes of Punch for 1890–1992 suggest this, as do those for 1906–1908. Ritu Khanduri, in her study of Punch in colonial India, suggests that market ambitions may have tempered or reshaped representations of the Empire in this period, as the magazine’s editors sought audiences in the subcontinent. However, it seems to me that this could have had varying effects, depending on just whom the publishers hoped to attract. Ritu G. Khanduri, “Vernacular Punches: Cartoons and Politics in Colonial India,” History and Anthropology 20, no. 4 (December 2009): 459–86, as well as in this volume.
- 57.
“Interviewing a la Mode: A Chat With the Prime Minister,” 69.
- 58.
There’s a double meaning here: the verb ghalaba, to conquer or be victorious, has a range of meanings: to wrest away or rob or plunder, to gain ascendancy; in the vernacular, by extension, to profit. (And a related adjectival form, also used as a noun, in Egyptian colloquial, ghalabāwī, means ‘garrulous’ and refers dismissively to a windbag.)
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Muhāwara bayna ʿismat wa-tawfīq fī fath jarīdatin,” al-Arghūl 5, no. 9, 1318, 137–41. 5, no. 9 is simply dated 1318, and is the first issue to be labelled with this year. If it were following in sequence, it would have come out in 1317, perhaps on 1 Dhū al-qaʿda 1317 (3 March 1900). If it really did come out in 1318, the magazine publication skipped at least 2 months, to Muharram, the first hijrī month; 1/1/1318 would be 1 May 1900. Early 1318 publication is likely since the next issue is also dated 1318; thus, this was probably not a typographical error.
- 59.
[al-Najjār], “Muhāwara bayna ʿismat wa-tawfīq fī fath jarīdatin,” 137–38.
- 60.
Ibid.; 138.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
Ibid., 139–40.
- 63.
Ibid., 140–41.
- 64.
Ibid., 141.
- 65.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], [Untitled opening], al-Arghūl 1, no. 1, 1 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1312/1 September 1894, 1–2. Comparing newspaper oratory to that of mosque sermons, Naggār contrasts this to sūq al-ʿUkkāz, the famous marketplace in the Hijaz in pre-Islamic Arabia where poets declaimed and posted their poems, a virtual clearing house of information but one which Naggār appears to see as too ‘popular’.
- 66.
[al-Najjār], “Taqdīm al-jarīda,” 3.
- 67.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Muhāwara bayna naggār wa sabiyhi,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 1, 1 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1312/1 September 1894, 9–13; 9.
- 68.
Ibid., 12.
- 69.
Ibid., 10.
- 70.
Muhammad Tawfīq, [Untitled Essay], al-Arghūl 1, no. 7, 15 Jumāda al-thānī 1312/13 December 1894, 117–20; 118. (According to conversion calendars, the corresponding date should be 14 December.) This is unlikely to be the Muhammad Tawfīq who founded Himārat munyatī, but it could be. This would have been 3 years before the first issue of that periodical, in Shawwāl 1315 (beginning 23 February 1898).
- 71.
Hikmat Sharīf, “Bāb al-murāsalāt: Lā salāmata min al-khalq,” al-Arghūl 1, no. 16, 15 Dhū al-qaʿda 1312/10 May 1895, 262–64; 262.
- 72.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Iftitāh al-sana al-khāmisa,” al-Arghūl 5, no. 1 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1317, 1–4; 3. (1 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1317 = 10 July 1899.)
- 73.
Ibid., 3.
- 74.
Ibid.
- 75.
[Muhammad al-Najjār], “Muhāwara bayna al-Arghūl wa-mushtarik,” al- Arghūl 5, no. 1, Rabīʿ al-awwal 1317, 7–11; 7.
- 76.
This could mean ‘regular guy’, as well as literally, Muslim.
- 77.
[al-Najjār], “Muhāwara bayna al-arghūl wa-mushtarik,” 7.
- 78.
Ibid., 8.
- 79.
Ibid., 9–10.
- 80.
[Untitled zajal], al-Arghūl 1, no. 17, 1 Dhū al-hujja 1312/25 May 1895, 281–84.
- 81.
Banta, Barbaric Intercourse, 3.
- 82.
Ibid., 2.
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Booth, M. (2013). Insistent Localism in a Satiric World: Shaykh Naggār’s ‘Reed-Pipe’ in the 1890s Cairene Press. In: Harder, H., Mittler, B. (eds) Asian Punches. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28607-0_9
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