Arabic literature is still partly shaped by a story written in Europe more than a century ago.
It begins in the eighth century, when Baghdad under the Abbasid caliphs became a centre of science, philosophy and poetry – a period regarded as the golden age of Islamic civilisation.
At the heart of that era were poets such as Abu Nuwas and Al Mutanabbi, alongside polymath philosophers Al Farabi and Avicenna, who came to represent the height of an Arabic intellectual culture that illuminated the world.
This framing emerged from 19th century European scholars, including France’s Ernest Renan and the Netherlands’ Reinhart Dozy, who argued that Arabic intellectual life then declined after the 11th century, leading to an 800-year lull before Europe’s Renaissance.
It is a view steeped in Orientalist bias and historical oversimplification, current scholars say, as the Arabic literature never fell silent.
Speaking at a panel organised by the Sheikh Zayed Book Award at the Frankfurt International Book Fair, linguists and literary historians noted that Arabic writing continued to evolve in that it was copied, performed and translated, even when not formally acknowledged.
These reassessments underpin the work of modern researchers such as Germany’s Beatrice Gruendler, German–Turkish scholar Hakan Ozkan and American academic Maurice Pomerantz of NYU Abu Dhabi, who argue that Arabic literature developed unabated.
Gruendler describes the idea of a “lost century” in Arabic literature as a myth. Her non-fiction work The Rise of the Arabic Book, recently shortlisted for 2025 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Arab Culture in Other Languages, recalls the thriving and competitive literature and publishing industry in ninth century Baghdad that echoes in book fairs today.
“You had professional copyists, bookshops and reading public,” she says. “If you walked through Baghdad, you would have seen scribes taking commissions, arguing over punctuation, advertising their handwriting. It was noisy, competitive and entirely familiar.”
That fact alone, she says, challenges the idea that formal publishing began in the 15th century in Germany with the arrival of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press.
A reason behind the Western narrative about Arabic literature, she says, lies in the way European Orientalists thought of a civilisation's trajectory.
“They wanted Arab history to look like theirs, with a beginning, a peak and a fall,” she says. “But Arabic literature doesn’t fit that pattern. It never stopped moving.
“The centres changed from Baghdad to Cairo to Damascus to Andalusia, but the conversation continued. The same poems were copied and reinterpreted, new genres appeared and older ones were reshaped. The language adapted to every place it went.”
That continuity can also be traced through poetry. Ozkan, professor of Arabic literature at France’s Aix–Marseille University, explores the topic in his study The History of the Eastern Zajal: Dialectal Arabic Strophic Verse from the East of the Arab World, shortlisted this year for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the category of Arabic Language and Literature.
The research shows how zajal, a rhythmic, dialect–based form of poetry long dismissed by both European and Arab academics as uncouth, continued to evolve long after the Abbasid period.
“These poets broke rules because they could,” he says. “They mixed registers, played with rhyme, mocked scholars and praised saints. Some of it reads like early rap. It’s the sound of a culture that’s alive.”
Further restoration is also happening at New York University Abu Dhabi with its Library of Arabic Literature, a series that helps bring back works from the supposedly lost centuries after the Abbasid period. Published in Arabic and English, it has already produced more than 60 volumes of prose, poetry and philosophy since its launch in 2010.
“Editing these books is like joining a conversation that never stopped,” said Maurice Pomerantz, one of the series editors and a professor of literature at NYU Abu Dhabi. “You can see generations of writers answering one another, authors, commentators, translators, all adding layers. The manuscripts are alive with argument.”
As for why the idea of Arabic literature’s decline took shape over the years, Pomerantz says it has less to do with history than with access. “If a text isn’t translated, it doesn’t exist globally,” he says.
“That’s why awards and institutions matter. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award, for example, recognises scholarship about Arabic culture written in any language. It brings visibility to research that might otherwise stay inside the academy.”
He adds that the real challenge now is ensuring these works live beyond academic circles. “We need to make them part of the public imagination again, taught in schools, read in translation, performed on stage. Otherwise the myth will just grow back.”
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Fines for littering
In Dubai:
Dh200 for littering or spitting in the Dubai Metro
Dh500 for throwing cigarette butts or chewing gum on the floor, or littering from a vehicle.
Dh1,000 for littering on a beach, spitting in public places, throwing a cigarette butt from a vehicle
In Sharjah and other emirates
Dh500 for littering - including cigarette butts and chewing gum - in public places and beaches in Sharjah
Dh2,000 for littering in Sharjah deserts
Dh500 for littering from a vehicle in Ras Al Khaimah
Dh1,000 for littering from a car in Abu Dhabi
Dh1,000 to Dh100,000 for dumping waste in residential or public areas in Al Ain
Dh10,000 for littering at Ajman's beaches
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
Sam Smith
Where: du Arena, Abu Dhabi
When: Saturday November 24
Rating: 4/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The Bio
Ram Buxani earned a salary of 125 rupees per month in 1959
Indian currency was then legal tender in the Trucial States.
He received the wages plus food, accommodation, a haircut and cinema ticket twice a month and actuals for shaving and laundry expenses
Buxani followed in his father’s footsteps when he applied for a job overseas
His father Jivat Ram worked in general merchandize store in Gibraltar and the Canary Islands in the early 1930s
Buxani grew the UAE business over several sectors from retail to financial services but is attached to the original textile business
He talks in detail about natural fibres, the texture of cloth, mirrorwork and embroidery
Buxani lives by a simple philosophy – do good to all
Dubai World Cup Carnival card:
6.30pm: Handicap (Turf) | US$175,000 | 2,410 metres
7.05pm: UAE 1000 Guineas Trial Conditions (Dirt) | $100,000 | 1,400m
7.40pm: Handicap (T) | $145,000 | 1,000m
8.15pm: Dubawi Stakes Group 3 (D) | $200,000 | 1,200m
8.50pm: Singspiel Stakes Group 3 (T) | $200,000 | 1,800m
9.25pm: Handicap (T) | $175,000 | 1,400m
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6.30pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-3 Group 1 (PA) | US$95,000 | (Dirt) 2,000m
7.05pm: Meydan Classic Listed (TB) ) | $175,000) | (Turf) 1,600m
7.40pm: Handicap (TB) ) | $135,000 ) | (D) 1,600m
8.15pm: Nad Al Sheba Trophy Group 3 (TB) ) | $300,000) | (T) 2,810m
8.50pm: Curlin Handicap Listed (TB)) | $160,000) | (D) 2,000m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB)) | $175,000) | (T) 1,400m
10pm: Handicap (TB) ) | $135,000 ) | (T) 2,000m
The specs
Engine: 1.4-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 180hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 250Nm at 3,00rpm
Transmission: 5-speed sequential auto
Price: From Dh139,995
On sale: now
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
Key features of new policy
Pupils to learn coding and other vocational skills from Grade 6
Exams to test critical thinking and application of knowledge
A new National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance, Assessment, Review and Analysis for Holistic Development) will form the standard for schools
Schools to implement online system to encouraging transparency and accountability
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F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
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