On the Significance of Secrecy in the Medieval Arabic Romances
By Ruqayya Yasmine Khan
Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol.31:3 (2000)
Introduction: In this essay, I analyze the keeping and divulging of secrets as they relate to aspects of love and sexuality portrayed mainly in a selection of medieval Arabic romances known as the ‘Udhri love stories. The Arabic word ‘Udhri means “virginal” and these Arabic love stories, which are considered to be chaste romances by many scholarly critics of Arabic literature, contain what I term a dialectic of secrecy and revelation in their constructions of intimacy and sexuality. It should be noted that although these stories purport to be from the earliest Islamic times, they appeared in their canonical form in tenth-century C.E. compilations. I therefore treat them as the literary products of that particular century, especially since their historicity is so problematic. A few words about the phenomenon of secrecy are in order before I discuss the dialectic of secrecy and revelation and its relation to love and sexuality in these Arabic works.
There are two key works on secrets and secrecy that have influenced my approach in this article. One is a locus classicus on secrecy entitled “The Secret and the Secret Society” by Georg Simmel, a German sociologist born in 1858. The other is an important book entitled Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation by Sissela Bok. By way of comparing the two works, it could be said that whereas Simmel is interested in what he describes as the “the form of the secret,” Bok is more concerned with its content. Bok, in her work, offers a kind of typology of secrets. She suggests that a defining trait of secrecy is intentional concealment, or hiding. She then goes on to observe that “several other strands have joined with this defining trait to form our concept of secrecy. Although they are not always present in every secret or every practice of secrecy, the concepts of sacredness, intimacy, privacy, silence, prohibition, furtiveness, and deception influence the way we think about secrecy.” These concepts – which may overlap, intertwine and even conflict – offer a range of the kinds of content a secret may hold. Simmel’s approach, as mentioned, differs from that of Bok. Simmel maintains that it is the form of the secret that is crucial, and not its contents. He observes that “the secret is a form which constantly receives and releases contents: what was originally manifest becomes secret, and what once was hidden later sheds its concealment.” According to him, “the secret is a general sociological form which stands in neutrality above the value functions of its contents.
On the Significance of Secrecy in the Medieval Arabic Romances
By Ruqayya Yasmine Khan
Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol.31:3 (2000)
Introduction: In this essay, I analyze the keeping and divulging of secrets as they relate to aspects of love and sexuality portrayed mainly in a selection of medieval Arabic romances known as the ‘Udhri love stories. The Arabic word ‘Udhri means “virginal” and these Arabic love stories, which are considered to be chaste romances by many scholarly critics of Arabic literature, contain what I term a dialectic of secrecy and revelation in their constructions of intimacy and sexuality. It should be noted that although these stories purport to be from the earliest Islamic times, they appeared in their canonical form in tenth-century C.E. compilations. I therefore treat them as the literary products of that particular century, especially since their historicity is so problematic. A few words about the phenomenon of secrecy are in order before I discuss the dialectic of secrecy and revelation and its relation to love and sexuality in these Arabic works.
There are two key works on secrets and secrecy that have influenced my approach in this article. One is a locus classicus on secrecy entitled “The Secret and the Secret Society” by Georg Simmel, a German sociologist born in 1858. The other is an important book entitled Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation by Sissela Bok. By way of comparing the two works, it could be said that whereas Simmel is interested in what he describes as the “the form of the secret,” Bok is more concerned with its content. Bok, in her work, offers a kind of typology of secrets. She suggests that a defining trait of secrecy is intentional concealment, or hiding. She then goes on to observe that “several other strands have joined with this defining trait to form our concept of secrecy. Although they are not always present in every secret or every practice of secrecy, the concepts of sacredness, intimacy, privacy, silence, prohibition, furtiveness, and deception influence the way we think about secrecy.” These concepts – which may overlap, intertwine and even conflict – offer a range of the kinds of content a secret may hold. Simmel’s approach, as mentioned, differs from that of Bok. Simmel maintains that it is the form of the secret that is crucial, and not its contents. He observes that “the secret is a form which constantly receives and releases contents: what was originally manifest becomes secret, and what once was hidden later sheds its concealment.” According to him, “the secret is a general sociological form which stands in neutrality above the value functions of its contents.
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