...Christina Civantos The Egyptian feminist and educator Nabawiyya Musa (1886–1951), after publishing her autobiographical essays serially from 1938 to 1942, published them as a book under the title Ta’rikhi bi-qalami (My history, by my pen). This essay analyzes the material role of literacy...

...Sara Pursley This article discusses the writings of Amina bint Haydar al-Sadr, a prolific Shi‘i intellectual and novelist in Najaf during the 1960s and 1970s more commonly known by her pen name Bint al-Huda (“Daughter of the Right Path”). It examines the author’s ambivalence about marriage...

...Mervat F. Hatem This paper examines the work of Egyptian ‘A’isha Abdel Rahman (who acquired the pen name of Bint al-Shati’ in the 1930s) on the tarajim (biographies) of women of the prophetic households published in the 1950s and the 1960s. It begins by shedding light on personal and intellectual...

... and others which had gone astray She is a rebel who uses her pen and her voice, her ideas and her literature to break walls and hurdles so we can build gardens where we breathe hope Do not lament the darkness of this period, oh miriam As this darkness will inevitably end And as we await...

... revolution, Civantos shifts the lens to her writing and to her fraught relationship with her pen. What did it mean, she asks, for a respectable Egyptian woman to pick up a pen at a time when such an action was considered inappropriate, vulgar, and even dangerous since only men or European women were...

... the meaning of qalam , recount the following prophetic tradition with minor variations: ‘The first thing God created was the Pen, then nun . Nun is ink. God ordered the Pen to write. The Pen asked: “What should I write?” God said: “Write all human actions until the Day of Judgment, their livelihood...

... are eager to visit and off er support, and the grandmothers continuously advise the couple to have another child. Th e novel explores the strains endured by the couple, haunted by memories and apprehensive of what might hap- pen next. Th e narrator becomes pregnant again and slowly...

... combination of “pen and scalpel” reminds any common reader in China of Lu Xun, the most venerated writer in modern China. He also studied medicine before shifting to literature, finding in literature a more powerful remedy for his nation, and the pen in his hand a sharper scalpel against its chronic malady...

...Figure 3. Najah Zarbout, image 1 from Veil Flight ( Vole voile , 2007). China ink with quill pen on drawing paper, 60 × 80 cm. Courtesy of the artist. ...

... titled “Alone with Pen and Paper.” It’s hard to imagine Nawal ever being alone, and indeed the title suggests that in some sense this situation was an unusual occasion for her; it was written during her exile from Egypt in the 1990s. She concludes her essay with a recollection from her childhood...

... The growing inclination for realism and realist literature was soon realized in Arpiar Arpiarian’s novellas and short stories and Hagop Baronian’s satirical plays and novels, which would be perfected under Krikor Zohrab’s pen at the turn of the next century. 8 Mayda (1883), Serpouhi Dussap’s first...

... by the couple, haunted by memories and apprehensive of what might hap- pen next. Th e narrator becomes pregnant again and slowly becomes more involved in her kindergarten-age son’s life. Amid all this, the couples, like many Egyptian middle-class families, face the temptation to sell the fam...

... My mother, the most beautiful mother, passed on Mother’s Day, Sunday, March 21, 2021, at 12:30 p.m. in a hospital far from her daughter and son and her home and her pen and her intimate things. For Nawal El Saadawi . . . my mother, October 27, 1930–March 21, 2021 ...

... as chroniclers in time of war. For example, Said Makdisi ( 1999 [1990], 22) wonders, “How to write, what form to choose.” Samman ( 1997 [1976], 5) questions the role of the writer: “Why hadn’t I learned how to take up arms—not just the pen. . . . Whenever some explosion went off, the scratching sound made...

...) is Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Pens, Swords, and the Springs of Art: Th e Oral Poetry Dueling of Palestinian Weddings in the Galilee (2006). Roksana Bahramitash (Ph.D., Sociology, McGill...