Al Majalla’s Book Watch takes a regular look at some of the new volumes in the Arab World’s rich publishing scene. Here, we round up a selection of the best, starting with one from Saudi cultural critic Abdullah Al-Ghathami.
The Explicit and the Implicit – From the Writings of Abu Al-Tayyib Al-Mutanabbi
By: Abdullah Al-Ghathami
Published by: The Arab Cultural Centre of Morocco and Lebanon
When Abdullah Al-Ghathami releases a new book, it promises an intellectual journey bridging the innovative and the traditional with fresh insights on topics ripe for debate.
His work fuses critical reflection and depth. This is especially true of his latest, focusing on the writing of Abbasid-era Arabian poet Abu Al-Tayyib Al-Mutanabbi.
In it, Al-Ghathami reveals the cultural patterns in Al-Mutanabbi's poetry, often overshadowed by his eloquence, artistic mastery, and sheer strength.
Al-Ghathami thinks Al-Mutanabbi has a reputation as a sage because his verse has been so enduringly recited in the Arab world, often to mark significant occasions. The poetry comes across with an air of rationality and foresight.
Yet Al-Mutanabbi was also haughty towards other people, with inflated self-perception and arrogance. Such traits are deeply embedded in Arab culture, particularly its poetry.
The more self-centred Al-Mutanabbi becomes, the more he embodies these patterns, Al-Ghathami argues. But when the poet can resist the self-exaltation, he becomes wise and transforms into a philosopher.
Such contradictions in his character led to the poet’s reckless death in a duel. Al-Ghathami attributes this avoidable demise of a genius to an out-sized sense of self.
When challenged, Al-Mutanabbi’s first instinct was to flee, wisely seeing the clash as beneath his dignity, yet his ego triumphed over reason, so he fought—and lost.
The author asks if these elements of Al-Mutanabbi’s character reflect our own tendencies toward egoism, an inclination to exalt ourselves and lash out at others when angered.
Does the poet and his story embody the darker aspects of our nature, setting them down in his introspective and narcissistic poetry? Al-Mutanabbi is open about his flaws, relying on his poetic prowess to justify and transcend them.
Does the sheer beauty and aesthetics of his verse allow us to forgive his flaws? Do his virtues compensate for the wrongs?
African Faces - Marginalia on Thought, Colonialism, and Liberation
By: Mahmoud Abdel Karim Ahmed
Published by: El Maraya for Culture and Arts, Egypt
This book has a thoughtful structure, organised into four sections, each addressing key issues of governance and people in Africa, such as colonialism (both old and new), liberation movements, and development challenges.
The book examines historical controversies and debates such as the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, together with its influence on Egypt’s identity and role in African centrism.
Throughout, the author contextualises the circumstances that shaped these important historical ideas and explores recurring crises in Africa, such as military coups and the intense international competition for the continent’s resources.
The complex dynamics that continue to shape Africa’s present and future are explored through prominent African figures, and this forms the core of the book. From politics to culture, the likes of Frantz Fanon, Patrice Lumumba, Samir Amin, Steve Biko, Thomas Sankara, and Ousmane Sembène are discussed.
The author skilfully links their ideas, achievements, and ideological positions to ongoing debates on African identity, colonialism, and liberation, illustrating their lasting influence on cultural and artistic movements across the continent.
The book also highlights the significant role of African women, particularly their participation in the Pan-Africanism movement in the United States and the Caribbean during the first half of the 20th century.
It analyses how Africans see other people and how they, in turn, are seen. Noteworthy encounters, such as Mao Zedong’s meeting with the former Algerian president Houari Boumédiène, are explored along the way, as are the racist perceptions of some Western writers about African Islam.
Overall, African Faces offers readers a deep understanding of the continent’s historical and cultural landscape by way of bringing these faces to life.
One Thousand and One Nights in Contemporary World Culture
By: Mohammed Jassim Al-Moussawi
Translated by: Qusay Mahdi
Published by: Kalima for Translation, United Arab Emirates
There are good reasons why a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age continues to fascinate and excite.
One Thousand and One Nights must, by now, have inspired 1,001 books, films, poems, and artworks. When a new one is released, it needs to offer new insights.
The author of this contribution, Mohammed Jassim Al-Moussawi, says that One Thousand and One Nights occupies a unique and enduring place in world culture, likening its influence to that of sacred texts.
Having researched this timeless literary inheritance, Al-Moussawi does indeed bring fresh and original perspectives to it, including a sharp critique of how One Thousand and One Nights has gone from a cultural masterpiece that shaped both Arab and Western storytelling to the commodified product of consumer societies.
He addresses how this transformation, driven by supply and demand, has stripped the work of its cultural depth and examines how Western interpretations have framed One Thousand and One Nights through an Orientalist lens.
This, he says, reflects colonial ambitions to detach the work from its cultural origins and reshape it as a Western narrative about the East.
A central focus of the book is the complex network of translations surrounding One Thousand and One Nights and their far-reaching consequences, including Antoine Galland’s controversial 18th-century translation.
This significantly altered the original text by omitting what was considered immoral and adding stories that never existed in the original source material. Such translations have heavily influenced scholars, philosophers, filmmakers, poets, and painters alike.
The analysis is impressively comprehensive, covering a wide range of mediums such as literature, cinema, painting, poetry, digital forums, and even political terminology, making it an invaluable resource for anyone interested in understanding the ongoing global cultural impact of One Thousand and One Nights.
The Temptation of Populism in the Arab World – The New Voluntary Servitude
By: Hassan Aourid
Published by: Dar Nofal / Hachette Antoine and Arab Cultural Centre of Lebanon
A Moroccan writer and politics lecturer, Aourid delivers a powerful warning about the global spread of populism, with a particular focus on its rise in the Arab world.
He argues that this is a political movement destined inevitably to usher in authoritarianism, oppression, and dictatorship by sidelining alternative or critical voices or institutions.
This is justified under the pretext of preserving security, which Aourid refers to as populism’s “social contract based on the idea that security comes first and last”.
He traces the roots of populism to the failure of movements aimed at advancing Arab societies, including Arab nationalist and Islamic initiatives, pointing to the disillusionment following the Arab Spring, which once promised hope for change.
According to Aourid, the Arabs have “suffered failures at every wave, leaving them with nothing but the mirage of populism”.
He provocatively asks if the cure can be found in the disease itself, “fleeing from the scorching heat of political disfigurement, economic stagnation, and cultural decline into the searing flames of populism”.
In Aourid’s view, populism is simply authoritarianism in disguise—a form of what he calls “voluntary servitude”. The masses are misled into believing they are moving forward and progressing when, in fact, they are only moving toward their own downfall.
He portrays populism as a temporary, pathological phenomenon that must be tackled in its early stages before it consolidates into a new form of tyranny.
While the book’s primary focus is on populism, it also offers a broader analysis of the challenges facing the Arab world. Shakib Arslan once asked why the West advanced “while we lagged behind”. Aourid reframes this by asking: “Why have non-Arabs advanced while Arabs have not?”
His critique of populism is sharp and timely. He warns us that without addressing the underlying causes of the trend, Arab societies may fall into a new cycle of authoritarianism under the guise of popular will.
This book will be an important read for those who want to understand the dynamics of political failure and the allure of populism in the modern Arab world.
Philosophising Before Plato – A First Introduction to All Philosophy
By: Abdulhakim Ajhar
Published by: Ibn Nadim Edition of Algeria / Al-Rawafed Cultural House, Lebanon
The common belief is that philosophical thought began with figures like Socrates and Plato. Modern philosophy, particularly the European kind, oftens consider ancient Greece as the starting point of philosophical inquiry. Did nothing come before?
In Ajhar’s insightful work, the Syrian writer on philosophy addresses examines the contributions of Mediterranean cultures to Greek wisdom long before Plato’s time.
He shows how the intellectual flourishing in cities closer to North Africa and West Asia challenges the notion that philosophy began exclusively in Athens. This was a time when philosophy was neither Western nor Eastern, but a shared cultural endeavour.
Ajhar goes further, to examine how modern European philosophers—particularly the German Romantics like Hegel, Heidegger, and Nietzsche—reinterpreted this early philosophical period.
They positioned it as the dawn of philosophy and the foundation of European intellectual thought, inadvertently shaping the cultural trajectory of the Mediterranean and influencing the region’s philosophical legacy in ways that continue to resonate today.
The book delves into the core questions that preoccupied civilisations before Plato. Where did the world originate? How did its elements form? What is the nature of the universe? Which human attribute governs the cosmos?
Ajhar makes it clear that his intent is not to claim ownership of these early philosophical ideas or to vie for a share in their legacy but to explore the universal questions that provoke thought across civilisations.
“Our goal,” he explains, “is to awaken, raise awareness, spur action, and reject cultural inertia by reconnecting these fundamental concerns to the issues that have engaged Muslim thinkers and continue to challenge us today.”
This focus on shared intellectual history is why Ajhar chose his subtitle, A First Introduction to All Philosophy. He positions the book as an introductory work to philosophy in general and Arab-Islamic philosophy. He argues that understanding the origins and early formations of philosophical thought is essential to dissolving the East-West binary view of the world.
