Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300-1900 A Handbook (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 the Near and Middle East / Handbuch der Orientalistuk, 143) 9004436146, 9789004436145

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Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300–1900

Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch der Orientalistik section one

The Near and Middle East Edited by Maribel Fierro (Madrid) M. Şükrü Hanioğlu (Princeton) Renata Holod (University of Pennsylvania) Florian Schwarz (Vienna)

volume 143

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ho1

Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300–1900 A Handbook By

Li Guo

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: A Boat on the Nile. Al-Menzaleh. Photo courtesy: Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Köln. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Guo, Li, 1956- author. Title: Arabic shadow theatre, 1300-1900 : a handbook / Li Guo. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2020. | Series: Handbook of Oriental studies, Section 1, the Near and Middle East, 01699423 ; volume 143 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020024563 (print) | LCCN 2020024564 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004436145 (hardcover) | ISBN 9789004436152 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Shadow shows—Arab countries—History and criticism. Classification: LCC PN1979.S5 G85 2020 (print) | LCC PN1979.S5 (ebook) | DDC 892.7/009—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024563 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024564

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0169-9423 ISBN 978-90-04-43614-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-43615-2 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Preface ix List of Figures xiv

part 1 Research 1

Arabic Shadow Theatre in Historical Sources 3 1 Late ʿAbbasid Accounts (c. 1000–1250) 3 2 Mamluk Accounts (c. 1250–1517) 7 3 Ottoman Accounts (c. 1517–1900) 10 4 Western Visitors’ Accounts (c. 1760–1900) 12

2

Early Modern Scholarship 18 1 Orientalism and Arab Shadow Theatre: c. 1890–1945 18 2 Early Arab Scholarship: c. 1900–1950 25

3

New Studies 30 1 Western Scholarship Since the 1950s 30 2 Arab Research Activities Since the 1950s 41

part 2 Resources 4

Primary Sources: Manuscripts and Artifacts 55 1 Manuscripts 55 2 Shadow Figures 76

5

Language, Style, and Terminology 83 1 Content and Language 83 2 Songs in the Shadow Play: Canonic and Non-Canonic Verses 85 3 Terminology 89

6 Performance 102 1 Scenes from Medieval Cairo 102 2 Shadow Theatre of the Ottoman Time 105 3 Scenes from the Early Modern Era 108

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part 3 Repertoires 7

Medieval Arabic Shadow Plays: Ibn Dāniyāl and Others 119 1 Ibn Dāniyāl’s Three Plays 119 2 An Unconfirmed Mamluk Shadow Play 126

8

Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays 129 1 Sources 129 2 An Original Description of the Repertoire 131 3 Seven Early Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays 139

9

Late Ottoman and Early Modern Egyptian Plays 176 1 Four Egyptian Shadow Plays of Late Ottoman Time 176 2 Short Plays from Early Modern Egypt 184

10

Syrian and Levantine Plays 197 1 An Overview 197 2 Lebanon 199 3 Syria, Damascus 204 4 Syria, Aleppo 208 5 Syria, the Coastal Region 214 6 Other Syrian Plays 223

11

North African Plays 230 1 The Maghreb: Tunisia and Algeria 230 2 Libya 233



Epilogue: Notes from the Field Arabic Shadow Theatre Today 240



Appendix 1: Arabic Shadow Plays: an Inventory 245 Appendix 2: Shadow Theatre in Premodern Arabic Poetry 252 1 The Prime Metaphor: God, Reality, and Shadow Play 252 2 Performance as Illusions Making and Performer as Illusionist 255 Appendix 3: The Cast 258 1 Egypt 258 2 Syria and the Levant 258 3 Tunisia and Algeria 259 4 Libya 259



Contents



Appendix 4: The Programme of a Layla Celebration 260 Appendix 5: Glossary (Arabic – English) 262 Bibliography 266 Index 280

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figure 1

A lady on the camel. Aleppo

Preface Shadow play is a performing art form with a long and rich history in world civilizations. The Arab world is no exception. Variably known as khayāl al-ẓill, karākūz (Turkish karagöz), or simply liʿb, Arabic shadow play has cast its spell on mesmerized audiences of all walks of life, rich and poor, elderly and young, men and women, urban and rural, literate and illiterate, elites and laymen. Like Aladdin’s magic lamp that transforms the real world into a fantasy land, the shadow master’s oil (or gasoline) lantern lights up the intricate, colorful, and cartoonish figures made of camel skin or other material onto a white cotton screen, projecting movable human characters, genies, and animals in fairytales, comedies, and romances. They act out, fly, dance, and sing. Together, the puppets on the screen and the shadow master behind it, who moves them with long and thin sticks and gives them voices, tell fantastic tales in good humor and enchanting spectacle. Since its inception to the present day, Arabic shadow play has continued to entertain, enlighten, and enchant the audience, wide and far (Fig. 1). This handbook aims at an analytical documentation of all the known textual remnants and the preserved artifacts of this long-lived, and still living, tradition – from the earliest sightings in the tenth century to the twilight scenes at the turn of the twentieth century, a theatric tradition that was witnessed all over the Arabic speaking world – from North Africa to West Asia. The documentation is based on manuscripts (largely unpublished), printed texts (scripts, excerpts), academic studies (in Arabic and Western languages), journalist reportage, as well as shadow play artifacts from collections worldwide – in museums, research institutes, and private archives. For each play documented, a summary of the storylines will be provided, to be accompanied by the resources for future study. The performance records, if any, will be supplied as well. The scope, in space and time, and the diversity, in origins and regional traits, are dictated by the uneven nature of our primary sources. With regard to geography, apparently missing is Iraq. In respect of time, a gaping blank is the period prior to the nineteenth century, with the exception of Egypt. The sole reason for these lacunas is the lack of sources. In this connection, the case of Iraq is peculiar: with the exception of some anecdotal accounts, such as that of a twelfth-century actor known as “The Dancing Jaʿfar ( Jaʿfar al-rāqiṣ),”1 virtually nothing can be found in premodern sources that can be used as references 1  Scholars still debate over the nature of his performance – whether it was shadow play or live acting; see below, chapter 1.

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to shadow theatre in Iraq. In this regard, Egypt is perhaps better represented. Cairo, known fondly as the “Mother of the World,” was the arena for the three medieval shadow plays that have survived in entirety, all of which are attributed to Ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310), a Mosul-born and Cairo-based eye doctor and playwright. It was also the home of major primary source reservoirs – the Paul Kahle Collection (now in Turin, but with its origins in Cairo) and the Aḥmad Taymūr Collection – that contain extensive shadow play material from the Mamluk, Ottoman, and early modern times. Furthermore, Egyptian shadow plays, especially Ibn Dāniyāl’s trilogy, have long attracted scholarly attention, resulting in a substantial body of studies that has contributed to this Arab playwright’s gradual recognition as a major figure in medieval world drama. On the other hand, our knowledge of shadow theatre in Syria (and the Levant) and North Africa is confined to the documented materials dating to late Ottoman time only. The timelines, 1300–1900, set the scope of this handbook within a sixcentury span, from the Mamluk period that saw the first documented shadow play texts, to the turn of the twentieth century, when research and discovery by Orientalists and their Arab counterparts began. However, this time parameter is by no means strictly marked. Given the uneven developments in various parts of the Arab world and the resulting scarcity in reportage, the timeline for coverage of certain regions such as North Africa would stretch a little further. There is no dispute, though, that some plays might have been discovered and published later, in the twentieth century, yet their originals evidently trace back to the nineteenth century or earlier. In preparation for this book, I have consulted all the known original manuscripts, alongside a nearly exhaustive list of academic studies, magazine articles, performance reportage, and other related material. I also examined samples of the premodern shadow play figures now housed in museums in Germany and Egypt, attended, in Cairo, performances that featured contemporary adaptations of the “old plays,” and interviewed the performers, who have continued to create and stage new work. The same, regrettably, cannot be said of other parts of the Arab world, on account of the quality of, and accessibility to, original research material. Circumstances have prevented me from conducting fieldwork in Syria and Tunisia, the two locales that are representative for documentation (The Levant – Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan – and North Africa, respectively). The inventories presented here therefore relied mostly on library holdings. Of course, this “armchair” investigation does not necessarily mean that the coverage of these countries was informed entirely by secondhand material. In this respect, geographical boundaries are somehow artificial. Egyptian manuscripts, for example, also shed light on non-Egyptian

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traditions, albeit indirectly. Some Cairo-based shadow masters, such as the Qashshāsh family and their informers, were Algerian immigrants themselves, and, more importantly, their repertoires contained elements of Syrian genesis that had since seen a new life elsewhere thanks to the performers’ trajectories (see below, chapters 2, 3). Simply put, Arabic shadow play is a shared cultural experience, yet with distinct regional flavors and traits. This is a topic this book aims at exploring as well. What motivated me to compile this handbook stemmed from my own experiences in studying the subject. Earlier studies were mostly written in German and Arabic, published in hard-to-locate journals and out-of-print books. By sorting them out in one handy volume, this book, the first of its kind in English, will hopefully reach a wide audience – scholars and general readers interested in Arabic literature, Middle Eastern popular culture, the performing arts in general, as well as the history of drama, shadow theatre, puppetry, and animation. Hopefully it will also assist museum curators concerned with cataloguing Arabic shadow play artifacts, which to this day remains mostly an on-going process. Among these, the shadow puppets collection Paul Kahle purchased in Egypt, the finest of its kind, had long been taken apart. Kahle donated some items to various German museums and left the rest to family members, some of which probably will end up on art market. The number of puppets in these museums needs to be determined, and the items adequately catalogued. The same goes for other Arab shadow play collections housed in museums and research institutes all over the world. This handbook is primarily, but not merely, a reference tool. Its relevance and significance go beyond documenting and analyzing a once popular performing art with regional varieties and period features. It, I believe, has bearing on the on-going debate over the status of fiction and drama in Islamicate cultures and literatures. Scholars of Arabic (and Persian, Turkish, Urdu) literature and culture have long wrestled with the Orientalist assumption of the absence of fiction and drama in these traditions, on the grounds of the presumable religious dogma against any form of nonfactual, thus untruthful, narrative and of human-figural representation. Regarding Arabic drama, a long-held view is that it, in the Aristotelian sense, was a Western cultural import via colonialism. In this context, the study of Arabic shadow theatre can be placed squarely in the center of the inquiry, not only because it is the only relatively well-documented theatrical genre from the premodern Islamicate world, but also on account of the diversity and variety these plays demonstrate. By association, this handbook also sheds some light on German Orientalism. It may be argued that since Edward Said’s influential critique focused on British and French Orientalism and left the German branch out, there still is a

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great deal of nuances and shades that must be discerned and critiqued. Arabic shadow theatre might provide an intriguing case study for this conversation, insofar as German scholars for a long time “monopolized” the study of shadow plays in Muslim lands, including the Arab world. Their work has inspired, and continues to inspire, local and native scholars’ endeavors. The bibliographical documentation, as this handbook will amply evidence, has left trails by which to sketch the trajectory of some German Orientalists’ life and work and their significant contributions to the re-discovery of this ancient art form as well as their engagement and interactions with local native colleagues at the time. What emerges is a much more subtle picture of the perception and reception of the Orientalist pioneering work in this particular area, instead of simplistic stereotypes. This book consists of three main parts and a cluster of appendixes. Part 1 presents a history of Arab shadow theatre through a survey of medieval and premodern accounts and modern scholarship on the subject. Under the rather sober rubric of “research,” the three chapters were in fact meant to be narrative in tone. They tell stories of appreciation, witnessing, and discovery. Part 2 adheres to a more analytical approach, taking stock of primary sources (manuscripts), published studies, and the current knowledge of various aspects of Arabic shadow theatre: language, style, terminology, and performance. Part 3 is documentary at its core. It offers an inventory of all known Arabic shadow plays from medieval to early modern times. For consistency and clarity, all plays are referred to by their original Arabic titles (followed by English translation). The transliteration of Arabic is strictly according to the Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) conventions, although the actual pronunciation, with dialectal features, may vary. The transcribed colloquial spelling will only be provided if necessary. This handbook follows the system of transliteration used for the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (Brill) throughout. For authors’ names, the convention will be followed; but if alternates occur, the standard spelling established by the Library of Congress data system will be cited (for example, al-Ghazūlī, instead of al-Ghuzūlī; Kīlānī, instead of Kaylānī). For bibliography, all the titles will be presented in their original form. In citations from earlier scholastic works (including the published catalogues), original transliteration will be quoted. I thank the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) and the University of Notre Dame for funding my research. Special thanks go to Raouf Hilal, then the Director of the Egyptian National Library (Dār al-kutub), for granting me permission to digitize a key codex whose microfilm was missing when the building that housed the Microfilm Collection (Bāb al-Khalq) was damaged

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by a bombing in 2014. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the friendly and able staff at both branches of the Department of Manuscripts, Papyrus, and Numismatic Collections and in the Periodicals Reading Room of the Egyptian National Library. Francesca Bellino kindly shared with me her work on the Paul Kahle Fonds, now housed in the University of Turin, and facilitated my research at the Biblioteca di Orientalistica, where the efficient and dedicated staff proved to be most helpful. Peter Marx, the director of the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Köln, kindly arranged my visit to the institute. The staff members at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, the Staatliche Museum in Berlin, the Puppentheatermuseum in Munich, and the Hamburgisches Museum für Völkerkunde responded to my queries in timely manner. At Brill, Kathy van Vliet-Leigh proposed this project and saw to its completion. Without her encouragement and support along the way, this book may still be sitting in a computer, hidden in various folders of disjointed notes and passages. The two anonymous reviewers for Brill’s HdO series offered sharp critique, insightful comments, and valuable suggestions for the improvement of the draft. At Notre Dame, the production of the book is made possible in part by support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters. Roy McCoy’s editorial assistance is greatly appreciated as well. My thanks also go to Peri Bearman, Katherine Burke, Th. Emil Homerin, John Meloy, Carl Petry, Maurice Pomerantz, Marlis Saleh, Warren Schultz, and Daniel Varisco, who have shown interest in my research and helped me in many ways. Finally, heart-felt thanks go to the young members of the Wamḍa Shadow Play and Puppetry Troupe in Cairo, who embraced me as a researcher and friend, allowing me backstage access during performances, and making time for interviews. Through their perseverance and endeavor, the tradition of Arab shadow theatre lives on.

Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

A lady on the camel. Aleppo. The Mayfer Friedrich Museum (first published by Georg Jacob, 1925) viii Le Théatre de Karakouche à Alger. Charles-Théodore Frère (Illustration, Paris 1840) 14 Shadow theatre in Cairo. Charles-Théodore Frère. M.M. Khalil Museum, Cairo (first published by Ibrāhīm Ḥamāda, 1963) 15 Colophon, the Dīwān kedes (kadas), PKF MSB12. Photo courtesy: Biblioteca di Orientalistica, University of Turin 62 Manuscript page, the Dīwān kedes (kadas), PKF MSB12. Photo courtesy: Biblioteca di Orientalistica, University of Turin 64 Manuscript page, PKF MSB14. Photo courtesy: Biblioteca di Orientalistica, University of Turin 66 Notebook cover with shadow play titles and a performer’s (self)-portrait, PKF ARC_452. Photo courtesy: Biblioteca di Orientalistica, University of Turin 70 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ. The Taymūr Collection. Photo courtesy: The National Library of Egypt (Dār al-kutub) 72 A hunter and his falcon. Al-Menzaleh. Photo courtesy: Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Köln 80 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ. The Taymūr Collection. Photo courtesy: The National Library of Egypt (Dār al-kutub) 88 The Coptic monk. Al-Menzaleh. Photo courtesy: Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Köln 142 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ. The Taymūr Collection. Photo courtesy: The National Library of Egypt (Dār al-kutub) 144 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ. The Taymūr Collection. Photo courtesy: The National Library of Egypt (Dār al-kutub) 169 Replica of Syrian Karakūz figures. Exhibit at the Museum of Oriental Art, Turin (2016) 198 Audience waiting for a shadow play performance by the Wamḍa Troupe, Cairo (2015). Photo: Li Guo 241 Shadow play performers of the Wamḍa Troupe, Cairo (2015). Photo: Li Guo 243

part 1 Research

∵

chapter 1

Arabic Shadow Theatre in Historical Sources Shadow play, a type of optical mime, had long been known to Arabs. Premodern Arabic sources, however, offer scarce coverage of any forms of popular culture, let alone shadow theatre. This chapter presents a survey and critique of the writings about Arab shadow theatre in the past. It consists of four phases: (1) the late ʿAbbasid period (c. 1000–1250), the beginning of shadow theatre in the Arab lands and its early development; (2) the Mamluk period (c. 1250–1517), the heyday of shadow theatre activities and documentation; (3) the Ottoman and early modern era (c. 1517–1900), a time of changes and innovation; and (4) Western visitors’ initial encounters (c. 1750–1900), which not only bore witness to Arab shadow theatre at the time but also inspired, in some way, Orientalists’ endeavors later. 1

Late ʿAbbasid Accounts (c. 1000–1250)

Legends and written sources contain varied, and conflicting, accounts of the origins and the development of shadow theatre in the Arab lands. The question of when, where, and how it all started is subject to speculation and interpretation. The awareness of some kind of mimetic performance may be traced back as early as the Umayyad period (661–750). However, several widely cited examples as the earliest mention of shadow play now prove to be questionable, illustrating the complexity of the matter. The anecdote of a feud between a mukhannath, or “bisexual,” in this case an effeminate male actor who often impersonated female roles, and between Jarīr (d. c. 728 or 729), the Umayyad poet famous for his naqāʾiḍ-duelling verses (another version has Diʿbil, d. 860, one century later, as the antagonist), relates that the actor threatened the poet that if he mocked him, he would “act out” the poet’s mother in a ḥikāya, literally, “a tale,” or, according to a second source, a khayāl, literally, “a specter,” or, in a third source, a laʿba, which means “a play.” This variations-on-a-trope scheme had been circulated in various mutations, using different terms for “act out,” making it hard for verification. The terms ḥikāya and khayāl were mentioned in sources of the tenth century, whereas the third, laʿba, was quoted, four centuries later, in a fifteenth-century work.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_002

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This prompted one modern scholar to call into question the veracity in citing these anecdotes as a proof of the earliest mention of shadow play proper.1 Another legendary tale features the celebrity entertainer nicknamed “The Dancing Jaʿfar,” a khayālī, or “an actor, a shadow player,” who was famous for his acting in a certain kind of play (yakhruj fī bāba), or “he makes appearance in a [shadow] play.” The poet Sibṭ Ibn al-Taʿāwīdhī (d. 1187) recounted that he used to party with Jaʿfar at his home in west Baghdad, and recorded a poem that is said to have been composed and then written on the wall around the pond in the garden, describing the artistry of the actor and the beauty of his garden. Aḥmad Taymūr considered this Baghdadi khayālī to be a shadow master, whereas Shmuel Moreh interpreted it to mean a live actor.2 Then there is the issue of mutations of legendary tropes. At stake is a widely recycled couplet: I saw in the shadow play (khayāl al-ẓill) a great lesson (akbar ʿibra), for the lofty truth seeker. Puppetry figures and phantoms come and go, all will vanish; only the Mover (al-muḥarrik) stays, forever. The versified parable, of humans as shadow figures and God being the sole mover, had been cited in a great number of premodern sources, mostly anonymous, but was incorrectly attributed by some Ottoman sources to al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820).3 The confirmed version in fact dated much later, around late twelfth century, whereas its theme-and-variations, consisting of three lines and more, began to emerge in late Ayyubid and early Mamluk sources.4 The motto (maʿnā mashhūr) also made it to shadow play scripts of the Ottoman time, to drive home the moral of the story (see below, chapter 10). All said, similar to the aforesaid episode of the mukhannath and Jarīr on account of certain shadow play acts, this is another example of legend making when it comes to the question of origins. Taken together, the cause of confusion and uncertainty 1  The reference to Jarīr and ḥikāya was made by Ibrāhīm ibn Abī ʿAwn (d. 934); see his alAjwiba 133. The source of Diʿbil and khayāl was al-Shābushtī (d. 998); see his al-Diyārāt 188. The third source, of laʿba, was Ibn ʿĀṣim al-Gharnāṭī (d. 1426); see his Ḥadāʾiq al-azāhir 89. 2  The edition has al-raqqāṣ; see Ibn al-Taʿāwīdhī, Dīwān 369; Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 21; Moreh, Live theatre 137–8. Moreh’s rendering of the phrase yakhruj fī bāba (“performer of a play”) is unconvincing, in light of the examined manuscripts (see below, chapter 5). 3  al-Murādī (d. 1791–2), Silk al-durar i, 133, on the authority of his main source ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731). For al-Nābulusī’s own reworking of the couplet, see below, Appendix 2. 4  Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201), al-Mud’hish i, 298; al-Khafājī (d. 1659), Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ i, 163. For various expanded versions, see Appendix 2.

Arabic Shadow Theatre in Historical Sources

5

is the ambiguity with regard to terminology, alongside a common problem in source-criticism, when a famous quote has been attributed to many unverifiable authorities. With regard to the development of terminology, Moreh pointed out the difference between al-khayāl, which denoted “live theater” until the eleventh century, and khayāl al-ẓill, “shadow play” per se.5 But it is commonly accepted today that over time the term khayāl al-ẓill came to be the designated term for shadow play. However, the distinction was not always clear-cut, in that the two terms were used almost synonymously by Ibn Dāniyāl, author of the only three surviving Arabic shadow plays in the pre-Ottoman time, who also referred to his own shadow play as bāba, or bābat al-mujūn, alongside al-khayāl and khayāl al-ẓill.6 It is widely believed that the first confirmed documentation of this art form is by the famous Basra born and Cairo based optician Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1039), who described a performance of a khayāl play, which “appears from behind the screen,” and consists of “figures which the presenter (mukhayyil) moves in a way that their shadows appear on both the wall behind the screen and the screen itself.”7 An often-cited anecdote has it that when the Ayyubid sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (d. 1193, known in the West as Saladin) brought in a shadow play (khayāl al-ẓill) performer, his vizier al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil (d. 1200) had misgivings about the show. The vizier’s aversion to the shadow play, presumably on religious and moral grounds (ʿinda al-shurūʿ), was perhaps unfounded.8 The art form of shadow play must have been widely appreciated among the Arab and Perso-Arab literati to the point that various aspects of it were used as metaphors in their theological, philosophical, and literary discourse. Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064), the great poet of Muslim Spain, likened life in this world to a shadow play, on account of its temporality.9 Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), the philosopher and theologian, famously illustrated Aristotle’s concept of Prime Mover by using the example of a puppet master working behind the screen.10 The Baghdadi theologian and moralist Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201) reminded his audiences of the deceptive illusions of this world and the vicissitudes of fate through 5  Moreh, The shadow play 46–61; Live theatre 123–51. 6  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (Arabic text) 1, 55, 90. 7  Ibn al-Haytham, al-Manāẓir 408. 8  The vizier is reported to have admitted, “I saw great lessons to learn (mawʿiẓa ʿaẓīma). I saw dynasties (duwal, sing. dawla) come and go. Once the screen (al-izār) folds, the Mover is one and the only”; Ibn Ḥijja, Thamarāt al-awrāq i, 30; al-Ghazūlī, Maṭāliʿ al-budūr i, 78–9. 9  Ibn Ḥazm, al-Akhlāq 28. 10   al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ iv, 122 (Book 32).

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the metaphor of life as a shadow play (luʿab al-khayāl), “which a child would perceive to be true, whereas the intelligent (al-ʿāqil) knows what is going on behind the screen (al-sitr).”11 The Fatimid statesman and poet Badr al-Dīn Ibn al-Ṣāḥib (d. ?) used the same metaphor in his description of a chess game.12 Ibn al-ʿArabī, the Sufi thinker, drew a sophisticated analogy between the imagery of a shadow play and his vision of reality through the negation of borders between the actual and the hypothetical.13 The literati also revealed some details about the performance of a shadow play. In addition to the basics – the figures were illuminated by candle or lantern, and projected onto a screen or a wall or sometimes a curtain – sources also reveal some specifics, which must have been common in the Islamicate world at large. For example, Farīd al-Dīn ʿAtṭạ̄r (d. 1230), a Persian poet famous for his Conference of the Birds, wrote that once a puppet figure’s role ended, it was thrown into a box – a near ritualistic practice that apparently was carried on over time.14 Ibn Dāniyāl called the puppets “characters stored in the case (al-safaṭ).”15 In an Ottoman Syrian poet’s description, two boxes (sing. ṣundūq) were prepared for the used figures (dead) and to-be-used ones (to be given a life), separately.16 As for the format, Ibn al-ʿArabī’s description is perhaps the stereotype: a shadow play begins with an introduction by a presenter or narrator (waṣṣāf ),17 and then he withdraws as the real story unfolds. Ibn al-ʿArabī 11  Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Mud’hish i, 298. This is followed by a quote of the above-mentioned famous couplet; however, the verse was not in the original manuscripts, but rather “added from a printed [source]”; see note 8 (Damascuc/Beirut 2004 edition). In earlier printed editions (Baghdad 1929 and Beirut 1973, a reprint; p. 174), this possible modern editorial tempering was not notified. 12  “Look, the chess game is like this life (al-dahr), in a rotating state (dawla), / day and night, bad and good (anʿumāʾ). // The Mover stays on, while all of the rest vanish; / then life revives, as bones would (aʿẓumāʾ)”; Ibn Ḥijja, Thamarāt al-awrāq i, 30–1; Ghazūlī, Maṭāliʿ al-budūr i, 78. In the edition of Ibn Ḥijja’s version, the last word is vowelled aʿẓumāʾ (pl. of ʿiẓām), “bones,” which is a pun, in that the chess pieces could be made of bone (for passages in the Qurʾan on bones, see Q 2:259; 6:146; 17:49, 98; 19:4, and more). This reading, instead of the aʿẓamāʾ, or “greater,” found in Ghazūlī’s version, also gives a better rhyme with anʿumāʾ in the first line. I owe this observation to the anynomous reviewer. 13  Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt iii, 68 (#317). 14  ʿAṭṭār/Ritter, Ocean of the soul 43, 524. Ritter uses “Turkish puppeteer” and “Turkish puppet shadow show” for the performer and the show. One of the plays described by ʿAṭṭār is Laylā and Majnūn. Plato’s influence on ʿAṭṭār’s allegory of puppeteer representing God is also discussed by Ritter. 15  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (Arabic text) 1. 16  Attributed to Aḥmad al-Bayrūtī (fl. c. seventeenth century); for more discussion of this source and its date, see Appendix 2. 17  In Ibn Dāniyāl’s and later Ottoman era scripts, the presenter is known as al-muqaddim (pronounced el-miʾaddem in Egyptian Arabic) instead (see below, chapters 7, 8).

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identified this narrator as the first man, Adam, whose double role, in reality and shadow play, helps to illustrate his cosmological hierarchy in which God is the Prime Mover; then comes the presenter and narrator (Adam), the screen, a canvas for divine foreordination that is inaccessible to humankind; and finally, the characters, or puppet figures, representing humankind.18 Although the scheme delineated by most of the literati is metaphorical, we still may assume that the storylines of the plays they depicted would have some historical dimension, with religious legends and fantastic tales at the core. The show Saladin watched was most likely comprised of historical epics where “dynasties come and go,” in al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil’s own words.19 This epic-like life cycle theme was also alluded to by Ibn Ḥazm, who described the show he saw as one “in which images are placed on a wooden wheel which revolves with great speed. One group of images thus disappears while another appears, as generations follow one another in the world.”20 By the time of the Egyptian Sufi poet Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1235), the shadow play had developed into something more sophisticated. In his al-Tāʾiyya al-kubrā, better known as Poem of the Sufi Way, he described various scenes of a shadow play: mournful songs and sweet tunes, birds chirping and warbling “in foreign tongues,” camels travelling in the desert, ships racing amid the heaving deep, battles fought on land and sea by two armies “in great formations,” infantry and cavaliers dressed in iron mail, swords and spears, fireballs and catapults, specters and genies, men hawking, fishing, and hunting, savage beasts (serpents, lions, big birds) snatching their prey – tall tales on land and sea, into the river, and in the air.21 2

Mamluk Accounts (c. 1250–1517)

More literati, especially poets, of the ensuing Mamluk and Ottoman times, wrote about their own experiences with the shadow theatre: the fantasies relived, the imageries projected, the stories told, and the attractive performers who made all of this happen. Their selected works will be sampled in the following pages (also see below, Appendix 2). Ibn Dāniyāl, the Mosul born and Cairo based eye doctor and playwright, is arguably the most prominent figure in the history of Arabic shadow theatre. Mamluk sources afford relatively extensive reportage of his life and work, in 18  Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt iii, 68 (no. 317). 19  Ibn Ḥijja, Thamarāt al-awrāq i, 30; al-Ghazūlī, Maṭāliʿ al-budūr i, 78. 20  Ibn Ḥazm, al-Akhlāq 28. 21  Ibn al-Fāriḍ/Homerin, ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ 268–77.

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addition to the semi-autobiographic portrayal in his own shadow plays. The following is a brief sketch of his life and work. Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Khuzāʿī al-Mawṣilī, known as Ibn Dāniyāl al-Kaḥḥāl (d. 1310), was born in 1248 in Mosul. He fled the invading Mongols as a teenager and eventually settled in Cairo, eking out a living practicing eye medicine (hence the sobriquet al-Kaḥḥāl, “the eye doctor”). His literary talent and quick wit enabled him to secure the patronage of several Mamlūk sultans, particularly al-Ashraf Khalīl (r. 1290–3), and he served as the latter’s sometime panegyrist and court jester. Even so, the paltry pay at the eye clinic and the Mamluk court became recurrent tropes of lampoon in his poetry and jokes, and eventually found their way to the shadow play scripts. Perhaps to make ends meet, he sought commissions that would likely pay him to write a wide range of texts, including new plays for a shadow master named Ibn Mawlāhum. His close associations with a small yet influential group of literati-cum-artisans are well documented. Anecdotal accounts of him cracking jokes and delighting the crowd – the sultan and his entourage included – are widely cited in chronicles (for premodern biographical accounts, see below, chapter 7). Much more about his work will be the focus of chapters 2, 3, 4, and 7 in the following pages of this book. The Mamluk playwright’s work evidently continued to enjoy popularity, as the relatively ample extant manuscripts suggest. There were reports of some new works of shadow play having been produced after Ibn Dāniyāl. Throughout the Mamluk time, Arabic shadow play repertoire continued to grow in sophistication, diversity, and variety. The Egyptian poet ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-Muʿallim (fl. c. thirteenth century), in his description of a puppet master who brought figures to life, made reference to Jesus who resurrects the dead from “the screen (izār),” namely the grave, to real life,22 whereas another poet, Ibn Sūdūn (d. 1464), compared his fleeting pleasure-seeking life with a shadow play that comes and goes.23 In Mamluk sources, the terms arbāb al-khayāl, “performers” (of shadow plays, puppetry, and live performances), and arbāb al-malāhī, “musicians” (usually those who play instruments), are often lumped together, an indication that they usually performed as a troupe. The historian Ibn Iyās (d. c. 1524), one of the most significant witnesses to the twilight years of the Mamluks and the beginning of the Ottoman ruling, offered a series of accounts of the popularity of shadow play performance at the court. The sultan Shaʿbān (r. 1345–6), 22  Ibn Saʿīd, al-Muġrib (al-Mughrib) iv, 121; the poet recited this verse to Ibn Saʿīd (d. 1286) in Fustat (Fatimid Cairo); also see Moreh, The shadow play 52. 23  Ibn Sūdūn/Vrolijk, Nuzhat 17–9, 36–8.

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whose reign was very short, even took a shadow play troupe to accompany him on the pilgrimage journey in the year 1375 while he was no longer on the throne.24 Another account has it that the sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qāytbāy (r. 1496–8) ordered to have shadow plays performed to entertain visiting notables in the year 1498.25 Still another often-quoted anecdote relates that a shadow play depicting the hanging of Ṭūmān Bāy, the last Mamluk sultan, was staged for Ottoman sultan Salīm (r. 1512–20), in Cairo. The Ottoman conqueror of Egypt, well known in Western sources as “Selim, the Grim,” liked it so much that he asked to bring the show to Istanbul in the year 1517.26 On the other hand, there were setbacks. The “lascivious” reputation the shadow theatre had gained, perhaps thanks to Ibn Dāniyāl and his like, might have contributed to the troubles it encored over time. Mamluk sources reported that Sultan Jaqmaq (r. 1438–53) was so concerned that in the year 1451–2 he banned the performance of shadow plays in the streets of Cairo, and ordered all the figures to be burned.27 Apparently, Jaqmaq’s ban was short lived. The historian Ibn Taghrībirdī (d. 1469) related a scandalous story of the son of a Christian convert who had been accused of inviting entertainers to perform “salacious acts” of shadow play in his house. On the day of his death in the year 1466, a shadow play (khayāl al-ʿArab) was staged as part of the burial ceremony, to the historian’s chagrin.28 It is perhaps for the same factor that the threat of prohibition had never gone away. Ibn Iyās recounted that shadow plays, as well as singing and dancing, were prohibited in the year 1519, shortly after its introduction to Istanbul, over “public safety concerns.” The ban was by the same Ottoman sultan Salīm who had earlier taken a liking to this popular art form.29 The late Mamluk period also saw an unmistakable downward trend, in both content (plot, characterization) and form (language) of the shadow play. If Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays are any indication, the shadow play as an art form became increasingly lascivious and outrageously bawdy. In the final analysis, it is perhaps not too far off the mark to suggest that the trend exemplified by Ibn Dāniyāl’s work signified the zenith of the medieval Arabic shadow play, but also signaled drastic changes, and overhaul, to come.

24  Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ i, 174. 25  Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ iii, 401. 26  Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ v, 192. 27  Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ ii, 33; al-Sakhāwī, al-Tibr 353. 28  Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith viii, 537. 29  Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ v, 285.

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Ottoman Accounts (c. 1517–1900)

Compared with the steady flow of information about shadow theatre from Mamluk sources, the subject is thinly covered in Ottoman chronicles. There are some ambiguous borderline cases on account of terminology and the nature of the show, that is, a shadow play or a live act. The Damascene historian Ibn Ṭūlūn’s (d. 1546) description, for example, of a parade celebrating the circumcision of a weaver’s son, performed by musicians, acrobats, and actors known as mukhāyila, or “shadow masters,” was interpreted by some as live act of pageantry instead.30 Two often-quoted accounts by al-Shaʿrānī (d. after 1565) related some kind of miraculous theatric tricks (ṣanʿat al-khayāl) performed by Sufis, one using the figure of an elephant and the other staging a play (akhraja bābat al-khayāl) mimicking a judge.31 The Egyptian historian al-Jabartī (d. 1826), in his richly documented accounts of the twilight years of the Ottoman ruling in Egypt, detailed all kinds of pageantries, ceremonies, and other forms of mass entertainment. Among the garden variety of performers, jugglers, dancers, musicians, acrobats, and horsemen that frequent the pages, no reference of shadow players could be found.32 To be sure, there are cases where the performance of shadow plays is evidenced. Ottoman era poets wrote about shadow play in metaphorical terms, following the literary antecedents mentioned above. The poet al-Khafājī (d. 1659), in his dictionary of rare and loan words, designated a segment on bāba, or “shadow play.”33 His bio-anthology of contemporary poets contains an entry on one Muḥammad Ibn al-Rūmī, known as “the obtestrician (māmāʾī) and the nephew of a shadow master (ibn ukht al-khayyālī).” Al-Khafājī quotes the two famous anonymous couplets, on the shadow play as a metaphor of life and God being the Mover, recited to him by this Muḥammad Ibn al-Rūmī, then goes on to quote two couplets of his own on the subject (see Appendix 2).34 The legendary Egyptian folk poet Aḥmad Ibn ʿArūs (fl. seventeenth century), whose nickname was “Highway Robber” (qāṭiʿ al-ṭarīq), recited cynical verses 30  Ibn Ṭūlūn, Mufākahat ii, 105; Moreh, Live theatre 77. 31   al-Shaʿrānī, al-Ṭabaqāt i, 127; Laṭā’if ii, 172. 32   al-Jabartī, ʿAjāʾib i, 100. The event was the funeral for ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, a local officer (kāshif al-Sharqiyya). The performers were “jugglers, actors of acrobats, and horsemen (arbāb al-malāʿīb wa-l-bahlawāniyyīn wa-l-khayyāla),” who were “assigned to different enclosures (al-ḥīshān).” 33   al-Khafājī, Shifāʾ 93. 34   al-Khafājī, Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ i, 158–64. The chapter also cited this obstetrician’s poems on the related tropes of life, death, and re-birth.

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comparing the deceptions and illusions of this world to the twisted plots of a shadow play.35 In Syria, sightings of shadow play performances were also confirmed in sources. For example, in the year of 1519, on the eve of the official ceremony of wearing the robe of honor (khilʿa) bestowed by the Prince (al-khunkār), the viceroy (nāʾib) stayed at the Royal Stable on the outskirts of Damascus. The evening entertainment featured the performance of a shadow play (khayāl al-izār). The viceroyal entourage entered Damascus the next day, accompanied by a specutacular parade.36 Private shadow play performances were mentioned in a local school teacher Naʿʿūm al-Bakhkhāsh’s (d. 1875) diaries of the events in mid nineteenth-century Aleppo.37 Another local observer, Ghazzī (d. 1933), gave a more detailed account of the entertainments of an Aleppo family during long winter nights around the turn of the century: storytelling (the 1001 Nights, the hero epics, and more), religious tales, and music. On occasions, a shadow master (al-lāʿib bi-l-khayālāt) would be brought over to entertain. Shadow plays were also seen at coffee houses all over the city.38 Entries of the shadow play related subjects were included in the Encyclopedia of Syrian Crafts by Muḥammad al-Qāsimī (d. 1900).39 As for Egypt, the Moroccan ʿAbdallāh al-ʿAyyāshī (d. 1679) recounted in his travelogue the time he spent at Cairo’s entertainment circles, watching “those who played puppets (duman) behind a screen.”40 The poet al-Shirbīnī (fl. second half of seventeenth century) mentioned shadow play (khayāl al-ẓill) in his famous mock-commentary of mock-rural poetry about Egyptian fellah life.41 In yet another poetry commentary, Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī (d. 1860), the prominent scholar with the honorific title of Shaykh al-Islām, granted permission to watch shadow play performance ( jawāz al-tafarruj ʿalā khayāl al-ẓill), citing

35  Ibn ʿArūs, Dīwān 12–3. 36  Ibn Ṭūlūn, Iʿlām 229–30. The identity of this “Prince” is unclear. The robe of honor is described as khilʿat timsāḥ aḥmar, namely made of “red crocodile (skin?).” No reference can be found as to its particular significance. 37   al-Bakhkhāsh, Yawmiyyāt 148. 38   al-Ghazzī, Nahr i, 276–8. 39   al-Qāsimī, Qāmūs 112–3. 40   al-ʿAyyāshī, al-Riḥla 155. 41   al-Shirbīnī, Hazz al-quḥūf i, 210–1. It is not out of place to mention that he was based in the Nile Delta region which had a long history of shadow play activities. For the Delta village of al-Menzaleh (al-Manzala) where Paul Kahle discovered a collection of shadow play materials produced in the Ottoman era, see below, chapter 2. Since the place has become a technical term in this context, known as “the Menzaleh codices” of shadow play, Kahle’s original spelling, al-Menzaleh, will be retained in this book.

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the famous parable about the rise and fall of worldly affairs and God being the sole Mover.42 4

Western Visitors’ Accounts (c. 1760–1900)

Western travelers to the Arab world in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries wrote about street entertainments they had witnessed. The earliest Western report of Arabic shadow theatre is perhaps by Alexander Russel (d. 1768). In his seminal work, The natural history of Aleppo, Russel briefly mentioned the shadow play show he had attended in the city of Aleppo. He deemed the show, known to him as karākūz (the Arabized Tukish term karagöz), naïve and raw.43 Other early adventurers to the region, Carsten Niebuhr (d. 1815) and Domingo Badía y Leyblich (a.k.a. ʿAli Bey ʿAbbasi, d. 1818), did not mention shadow play at all.44 It is perhaps significant to note here that the term karākūz (with varied spelling) does not appear in any of the surviving premodern shadow play manuscripts of Egyptian provenance, nor is it mentioned in major medieval and Ottoman era historical sources. Rather, the term is used frequently (and almost uniformly) in Westerners’ accounts. This peculiar observation points to the trajectory of various forms of shadow play in different places in the Arab world over time. Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that the first term associated with Arabic shadow play known to most Western visitors turned out to be the Turkish word, karagöz, or “black sheep,” which was used to name a character in a type of shadow play that eventually became known as the genre of the show as well.45 The terminology adapted by Arabs during the Ottoman era was spelled qara ghūz in Modern Standard Arabic, karākūz in Syrian and Maghreb dialects (transcribed variously as karakouche, caragueuz, and so forth), and arājūz in Egyptian colloquial. The imported term also evolved over time. Overall, it loosely refers to marionette, puppetry, and shadow play. While in Greater Syria, that is, Syria and the Levant, and the Maghreb, namely North Africa, the term was nearly exclusively designated for shadow play proper. In Egypt, the term al-arājūz (or aragoz) primarily denotes puppetry proper, 42   al-Bājūrī, Ḥāshiyat ii, 131. 43  Russel, Natural history i, 147. 44  Niebuhr, Carsten Niebuhr; ʿAli Bey ʿAbbasi, Travels. 45  The bibliography on Turkish karagöz is long and will not be listed here. The sources for most of the important plays are the anthologies edited by Hellmut Ritter, Ignacz Kunos, and Cevdet Kudret. For studies, a good start is And, Karagöz.

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whereas shadow play has always been known as khayāl al-ẓill, the original Arabic term of greater antiquity, as discussed above.46 The spectacular vignette titled “Le théatre de karakouche a Alger” by the French Orientalist painter Charles-Théodore Frère (d. 1888) became a sensational visual reference to shadow theatre and marionette in the Muslim lands since it was first published in the Parisian Magasin pittoresque, and reprinted in the famous fine arts magazine Illustration in the year 1840 (Fig. 2). The painting, the whereabouts of whose original is unknown today, depicts a shadow theatre with a crowd in the audience; in the center is a screen on which a man wearing a tall cap is riding a swing.47 Frère’s Arab shadow play themed work also caught the attention of the Egyptian art patron, Muḥammad Maḥmūd Khalīl (Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Pasha, d. 1953). In his reputable collection of European arts is an oil painting by Frère, on the canvas of which is a shadow theatre in Cairo, with an all-male audience watching a play that featured two female characters confronting a man on the screen (Fig. 3).48 The Parisian magazine Illustration also published an article detailing aspects of live performance at a shadow theatre in North Africa (called ʿamad, literally, “pole,” for its outlook).49 The article commented that Algerian shadow masters were much superior over their French counterparts in artistry despite using very rudimentary equipment. It is perhaps not out of place to mention here that the famous Cairene shadow master, Ḥasan, the Qashshāsh family patriarch, hailed from Algeria (see below, chapters 2, 3). The German nobleman and artist, known as Prince Hermann Fürst von Pückler-Muskau (d. 1871), described in his travelogue of Northern Africa, under the penname of “Semilasso,” a shadow play he saw in Algeria in 1835. In this spectacle, a monster giant smashed, with his humongous phallus, the French soldiers who attempted to restrain him.50 Indigenous cultures of the Maghreb, or North Africa, received intense interests in Europe during the heyday colonial era. The European – mostly German, French, and Italian – reports of 46  Amīn, Qāmūs 257–8; Bahjat, al-Arājūz; Sadgrove, Egyptian theatre 14–7; also cf. the 1989 film al-Aragoz, “The Puppeteer,” featuring Omar Sharif. 47  A play titled al-Urjūḥa, or “The swing,” was reported by Georg Jacob as a popular skit in North African repertoire; see below, chapter 11. 48  The original painting has been on display at the Muḥammad Maḥmūd Khalīl Museum, Cairo, and was published for the first time in 1963 (Ḥamāda, Khayāl al-ẓill). 49  Illustration, 10 (1846), 301–2. 50  von Pückler-Muskau, Semilasso. This eye witness account of the play with an anti-colonial undertone was corroborated by other contemporary sources; for example, an unnamed photographer saw a shadow play in 1842 that featured a monster wearing French attires; see Champfleury, Le musée 72. This is perhaps the same source for a similar account in Reich, Der Mimus ii, 641.

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Le Théatre de Karakouche à Alger

the marionette and shadow theatre scenes in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya were considerably extensive. Compared with the mostly amateurish travelogue-like eye witness accounts about Egypt and the “Holy Land” (Syria and the Levant), the observers of the Maghreb (North Africa) were mainly professional – artists, administrators, journalists – whose reportage proves to be more substantial and much earlier than that of the Eastern counterparts. Two aspects of the shadow theatre in the Maghreb seem to have caught the attention of Western observers: the exotic visual spectacles and the anti-colonial undertone detected from the repertoire.

Arabic Shadow Theatre in Historical Sources

figure 3

15

Shadow theatre in Cairo

Among the influential endeavors in this arena is the Le musée secret de la caricature, an illustrated encyclopedia of world marionette and shadow theatre, by Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (d. 1889), who wrote under the name Champfleury.51 It dedicated three chapters to the Muslim lands: Turkey, Algeria, and Tunisia. For the “caragueuz” of Algeria, his main source was a certain M. Cherbonneau, who had followed the activities of an unnamed shadow master in Alger during a five-year period (1830–5). The result was a rare 51  Le musée 67–86 (Algeria); 87–102 (Tunisia).

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field report that provided interesting details about language, performance, and the content of the master’s plays. We learn that the shows, featuring the pair Karagöz and Hacivat (the Arabic counterparts were Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ, in various spelling), were performed in the language of “sabir (al-sābir),” a mix of Arabic, Turkish, with some French flavor.52 The audiences were made up of men and women, and even some French expats, who apparently enjoyed the language jokes. Most plays were variations of the Naṣīr al-Dīn (in Turko-Persian version) or Juḥā (in Arabic version) prototype comic variants. The coverage of Tunisia in Champfleury’s monograph relied on first-hand accounts by two French travelers, Jean Lux (d. ?) and Paul Arène (d. 1896), that provided some rare details. Lux, for example, noted the ticket price, five cents, and the specially constructed tent where the plays were performed. He characterized the “Kerrageuss” as “le Polichinelle musulman,” that is, an Arab answer to the Punchinello. He also drew comparisons with Aristophanes, Don Juan, and Chinese shadow puppetry.53 Arène, a prolific author and poet, recounted the contents of some plays he attended: one a “Karagouz à la maison des fous (The play of the madhouse),” and another a “Karagouz père de famille (The play of the lord of the family).”54 Arab shadow theatre in the Maghreb suffered from the colonial state censorship from time to time. In 1843, the French authorities issued a ban on the karagöz shows, which had become a vehicle of mass resistance propaganda.55 The karagöz was also blamed for its licentious contents that allegedly contributed to the moral decay in urban circles.56 This view was echoed by some European observers. Heinrich von Maltzan (d. 1874), in his travelogue to the region,57 expressed his dismay at the foul language, the grotesque figures, and the fact that children were allowed in the audience. On the other hand, Western observers also noted that shadow play performance was a popular entertainment, especially during the month of Ramadan. A number of magazines published articles with illustrations on the subject.58

52  Ibid. 70. 53  Lux, Trois mois 99–104 (quote is on p. 99). 54  Arène, Vingt jours 155–66. 55  Roth, Théâtre algérien 15. The ban did not seem to have significant impacts insofar as reports of performances continued, albeit mostly in private places; Feydeau, Alger 128– 30; von Maltzan, Drei Jahre iii, 58–60; Desprez, L’hiver à Alger 186–8; Bernard (Docteur Bernard), L’Algérie, 66. 56  Duchésne, Ville d’Alger depuis la conquȇte 46. 57  von Maltzan, Reise in die Regentschaften. 58  d’Oisy, Autour; Mess, Les fête 25–6.

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In the Levant, Henri Guys (d. 1878), the French Consul to Lebanon, wrote about his experience watching shadow play performances at coffee houses in Beirut.59 In his memoir, Italian diplomat Pietro Perolari-Malmignati (d. 1886) reported in detail of a shadow play he saw in Beirut around the year 1875. He described the play as a farce at the house of a woman with a dubious reputation. It ended up with the comic duo, Karākūz and his sidekick ʿAywāẓ, receiving a hearty beating by musicians who came out on stage and participated in the life-theatric action.60 While Westerners such as Edward Lane (d. 1876), Charles Didier (d. 1864), and one “missionary Hausmann” did report their experiences attending shadow play shows in Egypt, they also reported that the show was known to them as karagöz and performed in the Turkish language.61 Lane, who lived in Egypt from 1825 to 1828, considered it, along with other theatric performances he might have seen, as “extremely indecent, to occasionally amuse the Turks residing in Cairo, but, of course, are not very attractive to those who do not understand the Turkish language.” The preeminent Arabist went on to refer, rather dismissively, the khayāl al-ẓill, the indigenous Arabic shadow play, as some kind of “exhibition” that was “conducted in the manner of the ‘Chinese shadows.’”62 By all indications, when the Turkish karagöz, which had been inspired greatly by the Mamluk version of the Arabic khayāl al-ẓill, made it back to the Arab lands, it became the model to emulate in some places, such as Greater Syria and the Maghreb (for more details, see below, chapters 10, 11), but failed to impress in Egypt, where the Arabic tradition was just too strong to be taken over, let alone replaced. Taken together, eye-witness accounts and anecdotal descriptions culled from premodern historical sources present a sketchy overview of the history of shadow theatre in the Arab lands. Valuable to be sure, they were at best secondary sources in the strict sense. The original material was to be discovered and sorted out around the turn of the twentieth century by Orientalists and Arab scholars.

59  Guys, Beyrout et le Liban. 60   Perolari-Malmignati, Siria. The plot is similar to the play “Amūn,” which Enno Littmann published in 1900 (see below, chapter 10). 61  Lane, Manners; Didier, Les nuits; due to the distorted transliteration, it is hard to recognize the language of the shadow plays he saw. In 1860, the missionary Hausmann visited Cairo where he watched shadow plays and reported the experience; see Müller, Geschichte 341–2. 62  Lane, Manners 390, note 1.

chapter 2

Early Modern Scholarship The interest in shadow plays from the Islamicate world has inspired a long stream of scholastic pursuit among Orientalists, especially the German Semitists-Arabists, whose initial team work laid the ground for all the research activities to come. Western scholars’ endeavor in this arena can be divided into two major phases: first, the pioneer work around the turn of the twentieth century up to World War II; and second, the resumed efforts after World War II that have continued to this day. This chapter focuses on the first phase. It has often been assumed that Arab intelligentsia rediscovered their cultural heritage of shadow play through German Orientalism around the turn-of-the-century. A little explored, and even lesser exposed, aspect of this narrative is Arab scholars’ interactions and engagement, in various ways, with Western Orientalists early on. This surge of interest coincided with the Nahḍa, or “Awakening Critique,” that took the Arab world by storm, when the intelligentsia began to engage in spirited debate over Arab cultural heritage and modernity. The history and artistry of shadow theatre thus naturally became an integral part of this retrospetive rediscovery. The initial Arab efforts in this period, which paralleled the first phase of Western research, will be detailed in this chapter as well. 1

Orientalism and Arab Shadow Theatre: c. 1890–1945

1.1 The Pioneer: Georg Jacob Scholarly probe of the “Oriental” shadow plays, mostly in Turkish and Arabic (some in Persian, Armenian, and Hebrew), began in earnest with the German Orientalist Georg Jacob (d. 1936), who had attended a shadow play performance in Istanbul in the year 1892, hence the beginning of a life time fascination with, and dedication to the subject. Jacob was instrumental in spearheading Western, particularly German, scholarship on shadow plays from the Muslim lands: Egypt, Greater Syria, and North Africa, as well as the Turkish karagöz and shadow theatres of Indonesia and, by extension, of northern China.1

1  An earlier summary of German scholars’ published work on Arab shadow theatre was Landau, Arab theater 17–33. The careers of Jacob, Kahle, Littmann, Prüfer, and Spies were the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_003

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Jacob was the first to discover Ibn Dāniyāl’s scripts, and to publish partial editions and translations of them.2 He was also the first to identify and tackle the thorny challenges Ibn Dāniyāl’s corpus posed – tracking down manuscripts, cracking the oftentimes code-like technical terms, and deciphering the mysterious and puzzle-ridden texts. By focusing his own efforts on Turkey and Asia later in his career, he left much of the work on the Arabic side, along with his own archives of Egyptian shadow plays, to his colleagues and students. German scholars Friedrich Kern, Curt Prüfer, and Paul Kahle conducted research in Egypt during the first decade of the twentieth century and made ground-breaking discoveries. In light of the fact that, with the exception of Jacob, nearly all Orientalists working on Arabic shadow play specialized nearly exclusively in one particular region, Egypt, Syria and the Levant, and North Africa, respectively, the presentation of their work in the following pages is divided into three regions. 1.2 Early Fieldwork in Egypt Friedrich Kern (d. 1921), whose research focused on Egyptian theatre and drama, reported that around the year 1900 there was only one shadow theatre in Cairo that operated all year long, alongside several seasonal troupes that put up shows during the winter season and the holidays at coffee houses. It was also common for the performers to make house calls on demand. During his last stay in Cairo in 1903 (he spent six winters in Egypt), Kern discovered a second shadow theatre near the Fish Market, the Amīr al-Juyūsh neighborhood today. The troupe performed during the month of Ramadan and during the summer at night, and even catered to wedding parties as well. Among the plays he saw, or learned of, were Liʿb al-bayt, or “The household,” about the dilemma of a Coptic monk whose daughter falls in love with a Muslim, and Liʿb al-markab, or “The boating,” about a troublesome ferry ride by a raucous group on the Nile. Based on memory, Kern managed to write up the synopses, aside from other titles that came to his attention.3 There is no indication that he had any manuscript material at his disposal. This perhaps explains the slight discrepancies between his reportage and the documented cases (see below, chapter 8), not only on account of the titles, but also other subject of several recent retrospectives of German Orientalism, but none mentioned their work on shadow plays; cf. Marchand, German orientalism; and Wokoeck, German orientalism. 2  For Jacob’s publications on the subject, see Bibliography. Jacob’s papers were transferred to Paul Kahle’s estate, now in Turin (see below, chapter 4). 3  Kern, Schattentheater. The other plays are: al-Nūbī wa-l-Fārisī, or “The Nubian and Persian [war],” and Abū Jaʿfar.

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details, such as the monk’s name, Buṭrus (Peter) in his report, instead of the commonly known Manja, documented in manuscripts. By the time Curt Prüfer (d. 1959) arrived in Cairo to research his thesis, he too set his sights on the two plays Kern had reported. The young graduate student did have the advantage of gaining access to the notebooks of the performer, Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh, a shadow master in Cairo’s old town. Prüfer wrote that in 1905 he had seen at the maestro’s place several manuscripts but was only allowed to view them for a short time, because the owner was fearful of the possible leaks to competitors. He presented a transcribed partial text, titled Liʿb al-dayr, or “The monastery,” which turned out to be the same as Liʿb al-bayt and ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr (see below, chapter 8), accompanied by his own line drawings, and submitted it to the University of Erlangen where Jacob was on the faculty.4 He went on to publish a second shadow play text, titled Liʿb al-shūnī, or “The ferry ride,” which is the same as Liʿb al-markab reported by Kern.5 Expanding on Kern’s findings, Prüfer’s inventory included the following titles: al-Qahwa, or “The café”; ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr, or “Wonders of the Nile”; Liʿb al-shaykh Sumaysim, or “The Sufi shaykh”; Liʿb al-timsāḥ, or “The crocodile”; Liʿb ḥarb al-ʿAjam, or “War with the foreign invaders” (also known as al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse of Alexandria”); Liʿb ḥarb al-Sūdān, or “War in the Sudan”; Liʿb al-ʿumda, or “The chieftain”; and Liʿb al-ṣayyād, or “The fisherman.”6 Through his interviews with Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh, Prüfer also acquired some knowledge regarding the provenance and performances of the shadow plays. It was revealed that Darwīsh’s father, Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh (d. 1902), an Algerian emigrant, along with a friend Muḥammad al-Jundī, who later owned a coffee house where Ḥasan would perform, purchased a “book of shadow plays” in Syria nearly a quarter of a century ago, namely the 1880s, pointing to the possible Syrian origins of some plays of his repertoire (see below, chapter 8). The father had performed “every night” at the coffee house owned by his friend. But by the time Prüfer met the son, the public interest seemed to wane. The shadow player only performed periodically. The manuscript that was made available for the German visitor to examine was untitled (in fact the title page was missing), but evidently it was a codex on which notes were written in red ink by a person well-versed in classical Arabic, whereas the scripts proper were largely in verse.7 4  Prüfer, Schattenspiel. 5  Prüfer, Das Schiffsspiel. 6  Prüfer, Schattenspiel xii–xiii. 7  It was most likely the Dīwān kedes (kadas), which Kahle eventually purchased (see below, chapter 4).

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1.3 Laying the Foundations: Paul Kahle After a promising start, German research on Egyptian shadow theatre gradually became a one-man’s endeavor. Kern ceased to publish, while doing some freelancing work later in life. Prüfer left academia altogether to join German foreign services shortly.8 Yet this was also the most significant endeavor that has left an ever-lasting impact. At the helm was Paul Kahle (d. 1964), the head of the German Oriental Institute and a Lutheran minister in Cairo during the years 1903 to 1909. A former colleague of Jacob at Erlangen, and later a professor at Bonn, Kahle carried on the research of Egyptian shadow plays to significant breakthrough and fruition.9 Kahle’s achievements are multiple, in research and publication, in collecting manuscript and puppetry figures, and in promoting and reaching out to Western audiences (more on Kahle’s manuscripts collection, see below, chapter 4). During and after World War I, Kahle labored on, almost single-handedly, resulting in a series of important publications. A consummate scholar with impeccable philological acumen, his steady publications on Egyptian shadow play, in German and English (during and after World War II when he was in exile), set a model for all. He published two short post-Mamluk shadow plays in Arabic script for the first time: Liʿb al-timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” the story of fishermen’s encounter with a crocodile; and Liʿb al-manār, or “The Lighthouse [of Alexandria],” about the townspeople’s war with the invading naval fleet.10 His long time research of Ibn Dāniyāl laid the foundation for all future research in the West and the Arab world.11 Not only did he inherit Jacob’s materials, but he also continued to locate hitherto unknown manuscripts. It is remarkable that in October 1924, he even helped stage a shadow play performance, “Das Krokodilspiel,” in Stuttgart, based on his translation of Liʿb al-timsāḥ.12 This was perhaps the earliest staging of an original Arabic theatric work outside of the Middle East. 8  His career as a diplomat, from 1907 to 1943, is the subject of McKale, Curt Prüfer; also see Vrolijk, Curt Prüfer. Recent research has shed new light on the intertwined roles played by this “German spymaster” during World War I, along with other key players – “Lawrence of Arabia,” American intelligence officer William Yale, and Zionist Aaron Aaronson – in shaping up the geo-political map of the modern Middle East; see Anderson, Lawrence in Arabia. 9  Paul Kahle’s other major achievements are in the study of Hebrew Bible and the Cairo Geniza; see Kahle, Opera Minora. For his biography, including newly revealed details based on interviews with the Kahle family and former colleagues, see Bibliography; also see Milwright, On the date. 10  Kahle, Krokodilspiel; Leuchtturm. 11  Kahle, Shadow play (1940); Muḥammad ibn Dānijāl; Gypsy woman; Shadow play (1954). 12  The playbill of the programme and the show poster have been preserved in Kahle’s archives (PKF ARC_432; B119). The play was performed by the theatre company of the Württ.

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It should be pointed out here that in his research, especially his life long project on the crown jewel of all Arabic shadow plays, Ibn Dāniyāl’s trilogy, Kahle was assisted at one critical point by Taqīeddīn (Taqī al-Dīn) al-Hilālī, a Moroccan scholar who visited Bonn where Kahle held the chair, around the years 1936–7. Under the recommendation of Prüfer, by then a foreign service officer, through Emir Shakīb Arslān (d. 1946), a major patron of the study and preservation of Arab cultural heritage, the Moroccan scholar worked closely with Kahle, who, having been steadily presenting and publishing his findings of other shorter scripts, now focused on Ibn Dāniyāl’s texts. After World War II, al-Hilālī eventually managed to publish a booklet in Baghdad in 1948, titled “Three medieval Arabic plays,” which is an Arabic translation of Kahle’s essay(s) on Ibn Dāniyāl written in English.13 The abundant materials (notes, glossaries, translations, and drafts of critical edition) currently preserved in the Paul Kahle Fonds in Turin attest to Kahle’s dedication and commitment to the project, which consumed nearly his entire academic career. Ever cautious and meticulous, Kahle did not publish his edition of the three plays by Ibn Dāniyāl, which are considered the most difficult literary Arabic texts ever written. A type-set edition was lost on its way to a publisher in Cairo during World War II.14 It came to light nearly two more decades after his death, in 1964, with the insistent push and hard work of scholars at Oxford, where Kahle had found refuge during the war.15 Given the circumstances, the edition, published posthumously, is not without its share of errors and uncertainties. Yet in many ways, it is a monumental achievement, the result of the persistent and diligent work of several generations of scholars, Western and Arab. 1.4 Early Fieldwork in Syria and the Levant: Enno Littmann and Others The lands historically known as Greater Syria (Bilād al-Shām), or the Levant, which include today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, had a rich tradition in shadow theatre as well. However, our knowledge of its development and achievements is significantly limited, in comparison with that of Egypt. Very little, if any, can be found in historical sources prior to the Ottoman time whereas modern research has been spotty and inconsistent. With regard to 13   al-Hilālī, Thalāth masraḥiyyāt. 14  For the trajectory of this type-set draft, see Hopwood, Postscript 4–5 (in Ibn Dāniyāl/ Kahle, Three shadow plays); Tottoli, Orientalists at work 33–48. 15  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays. For Taqīeddīn al-Hilālī’s contributions, see Kahle, ibid., Introduction 3–4. Kahle lost his professorship in Bonn due to accusations against his wife who had helped a Jewish neighbor in the aftermath of the Kristallnacht. The events surrounding the incident were well documented; for the most recent recount, see Marchand, German orientalism 491–2.

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artistry and characteristics, while Egypt has nurtured its own distinct type, the quintessential Arabic khayāl al-ẓill, the Syrian branch, for the most part, stemmed from the Turkish karagöz genre instead. In 1899, Enno Littmann (d. 1958), a protégé of the eminent Orientalist Theodor Nöldeke, traveled to the Levant to further his Arabic study. His itineraries included Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Among his interests was Arabic shadow play, probably under the influence of his former teacher Jacob. In Littmann’s own description, around the year 1900 in Beirut, he stumbled upon a shadow play performance at a café in a Muslim neighborhood. He stayed and watched several acts, known to him as faṣl, or “short skit(s).” He noted that the audience was made up of mostly rambunctious youth. He then contacted several local shadow masters, yet failed to obtain any original manuscripts. One shadow master, Rashīd ibn Maḥmūd, a near illiterate, dictated the contents of seven short plays from his repertoire. Of these, Littmann managed to see only one, Amūn, or “Madame Amun,” and therefore could not further verify the remaining orally transmitted scripts. During the same year, Littmann published the Arabic text of the play Amūn, with transliteration and Germen translation.16 The rest of his Beirut transcripts were published in a collection (Arabic text in transcription only),17 and they are: Faṣl al-shaḥḥādhīn, or “The beggars”; Faṣl al-Afranjūn, or “The foreign [doctor]”; Faṣl al-afyūnī, or “The opium addict”; Faṣl al-ḥammām, or “The bathhouse”; Faṣl al-sahra, or “The evening party”; and Faṣl al-khashabāt, or “Pieces of wood” (see below, chapter 10). Littmann’s project of Levantine shadow theatre also extends to Palestine and other areas of Greater Syria, and beyond Arabic works. For example, the play al-Khashabāt was also seen in Jerusalem, in a slightly different version.18 An Armenian-Turkish shadow play, titled “The Painter,” which he had discovered in Aleppo was made public as well.19 Littmann turned his attention to other subjects throughout an extremely long and prolific career. His research on humor, rare words, and Arabic dialectology is still valuable for the study of Arabic shadow play. In his writings, Littmann also mentioned German Consul Johann Gottfried Wetzstein’s (d. 1905) account of attending a shadow play performance in Damascus in the late nineteenth century. The play was titled al-ʿĀshiq wa-l-maʿshūq, or “The lover and the beloved” (Wetzstein rendered the title as:

16  Littmann, Karagöz-spiel. 17  Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiels. 18  Ibid., 64–7. 19  Littmann, Malerspiel.

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“Lovers from Amasia”). The Arabic text, with German translation, was published posthumously.20 Among the scholars active in the early period of Orientalism, the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, who wrote about Arabic shadow plays and made distinct contributions to scholarship in this area, are the following: Joseph Horovitz (d. 1931): In addition to his edited monograph on Oriental mimes, he reported his discovery of one new manuscript of Ibn Dāniyāl and discussed, for the first time, the poet Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s use of shadow play as an art form to project the Sufi metaphoric world view in his famous al-Ṭāʾiyya al-kubrā, or Poem of the Sufi Way.21 Hellmut Ritter (d. 1971): Among the wide range of achievements by this towering figure in German Orientalism is his study and publication of the Turkish Karagöz canon (twenty-six plays in number), which shed significant light on its expansion to, and development in, the Arabic speaking world, especially its trajectory in Greater Syria and North Africa.22 Edmond Saussey (d. 1937): In Damascus, scholarly field work of shadow theatre was conducted mainly by French Arabist Edmond Saussey. Under the sponsorship of the French Institute, Saussey stayed in Syria for five years (1928–33), during which he discovered, and made copies of, thirteen plays and prepared them for publication. He seems, however, to have abandoned the project and turned his attention elsewhere. After his sudden death in 1937, one of these plays, titled al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse,” which he had watched in Damascus, was published. The prominent French Arabist Maurice (Mahomet) Gaudefroy-Demombynes (d. 1957) wrote the introduction, detailing Saussey and his work on Syrian shadow plays and dialects.23 The whereabouts of Saussey’s unpublished fieldwork notes is unknown. 1.5 The Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia, Libya The first scholarly probe of Arabic shadow theatre in North Africa was conducted by Max Quedenfeldt (d. 1891), an amateur ethnographer, in Tunisia around the year 1889. He published two articles on the subject in 1890.24 Despite that Quedenfeldt’s research predated that of Jacob’s, he was not working within the German philology-based Orientalist circles, and his articles did not provide textual data for further investigation. 20  Wetzstein (ed.), Die Liebenden. 21  Horovitz, Eine neue Hs.; Mimen; Ibn al-Fârid. 22  Ritter, Karagös. 23  Saussey, Une farce. 24  Quedenfeldt, Turkische schattenspiel.

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That line of research would begin much later, with the influential Orientalist Otto Spies (d. 1981), a former student of Kahle at Bonn. Spies conducted fieldwork in Tunisia during the 1920s, attending shadow play performances and collecting materials. He relied on two informants, Khamīs ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and Ṭāhir ibn Maḥmūd, and made copies of their scripts. The fieldwork resulted in two articles, the first presents four short plays, in summary and German translation, and the second is an overview of “Oriental” shadow figures for a German theater magazine.25 The four plays Spies published are: Luʿbat al-qariṣ, or “The citron”; Luʿbat al-markab fi al-baḥr, or “The fishing boat on the sea”; Luʿbat ṣayd al-ḥūt, or “A fishing tale”; and Luʿbat al-ḥammām, or “The bathhouse.” These are the earliest published Tunisian shadow play texts. A specialist in Arabic and Turkish popular narratives, Spies published widely on Arabic and Turkish popular narratives and shadow theatre as well.26 The next, and perhaps last, fieldwork of Arabic shadow plays in North Africa was undertaken by Wilhelm Hoenerbach (d. 1991), a student of Spies. In his 1959 monograph, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater, Hoenerbach surveyed the history of Orientalist research on the subject, detailed the technical issues involved in shadow play performances in Libya, along with an analysis of the repertoire.27 It also provides a full bibliography on the subject, from 1836 to 1949.28 The significance of this research is also highlighted by its summary of the plays presented by Quedenfeldt, Spies, and Kurt Levy, and a new presentation (partial edition) of ten plays: al-Ḥashshāshī, or “The hashish smoker”; al-ʿArūsa, or “The bride”; al-Sāniya, or “The water wheel”; al-Ḥadīqa, or “The garden”; al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse”; al-Markab, or “The boat”; al-Kātib, or “The clerk”; al-Khābiya, or “A large jar”; al-Ghūla, or “The she ghoul”; al-Qanṭara, or “The bridge”; and al-Waṣīf al-maksūra rijluhu, or “The servant with a broken leg” (see below, chapter 11). 2

Early Arab Scholarship: c. 1900–1950

2.1 The Custodian: Aḥmad Taymūr The first Arab to study, and purposely collect shadow play materials, Aḥmad Taymūr Pasha (d. 1931), was acquainted with the aforesaid German scholars working in Cairo, although the exact relationship among them is not clear. In 25  Spies, Tunesisches Schattentheater; Orientalische Schattenspielfiguren. 26  Spies, Turkisches Puppentheater. 27  Hoenerbach, Schattentheater. 28  Ibid. 2–3.

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a 1918 article, he recalled that “a researcher at the German Oriental Institute once told me that shadow play was originally an Indian art form.”29 This unnamed German scholar could have been either Kahle, or Prüfer, who were very active at the venues where Western Orientalists and Egyptian cultural elite mingled at the time. It is also worth noting that Taymūr published the articles about shadow theatre and other writings on various aspects of Arab popular culture in the prestigious journal al-Majalla al-Salafiyya that was dedicated to promoting “classical Arabic cultural heritage (al-turāth).” The Pasha and the Germans might have circled around different orbits and perhaps were cautious in approaching each other. However, as far as shadow play is concerned, they had all gained access to materials from the same source, the above-mentioned Cairene Maestro Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh. It should also be pointed out that as far as manuscripts acquisition is concerned, Taymūr Pasha seemed to have gained an upper hand insofar as many items in his collection were apparently not known to Kahle and Prüfer (they never mentioned these titles in their publications). On the other hand, it is also evident that German scholars managed to obtain the older codices and some sort of performance copies (with dialogues in them) from sources that Taymūr was not aware of (for more detail, see below, chapter 4). Out of pure serendipity, in 1932, the Taymūr Manuscripts and Rare Books Collection, well known as al-Khizāna al-Taymūriyya, was moved to the Egyptian National Library and Archives (Dār al-kutub wa-l-wathāʾiq al-qawmiyya), formerly the Khedivial Library, whose prestigious directorship Prüfer had failed to obtain in 1911 over the British opposition on account of his wartime “spy activities.”30 As a follow-up to German scholars’ initial inventory, in an important publication, Taymūr listed twelve plays, which he had heard of, either in manuscript form, or seen performances of. In addition to some, but not all, of the abovementioned titles reported by German Orientalists, others include: al-Awwalānī, or “The Nile watchman,”31 about a confrontation between a Turkish soldier, a Nile watchmen, and a local peasant over some stolen fish; al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse,” likely an episode (or spinoff) of the long serialized play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr; al-Tiyātrū, or “The theater,” yet another probable episode (or spinoff) of ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr; al-Qahwa, or “The coffee house,” a farce about a womanizer’s failed attempt to “reform” a homosexual; and Ḥarb al-Sūdān, or “War in the Sudan.” Without naming specific sources, Taymūr described each play with a synopsis, along with rare information about the performance – such as 29  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 77. 30  For this “library incident,” see McKale, Curt Prüfer 20–4; Vrolijk, Curt Prüfer 374. 31  The meaning of the word is to be explained below, chapter 4.

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the number of puppet figures and set pieces that were needed, and the visual spectacles of the play – that were not found in manuscripts themselves. These exclusive details will be cited in the following documentation of individual plays in chapters 8 and 9. As for the codices in his repository, Taymūr did not publish any contents of these manuscripts during his lifetime.32 The booklet on shadow plays, along with his study of Arab visual arts and games, published in 1957 under the auspices of the Taymūr Foundation, is in fact a re-issue of the articles published in 1918 as a series.33 By all accounts, Taymūr Pasha and the German Orientalists, while acknowledging each other’s endeavor, worked on separate circulars. Collaborations between Arab scholars and Western Orientalists slowly evolved into a more collegial mode. In a long article published in Cairo’s al-Ahrām newspaper, for example, Kahle’s work on Arabic shadow theatre was detailed with due appreciation and admiration.34 With respect to shadow theatre, some Arab scholars played a considerable role in assisting Orientalists’ research. Their contributions were well documented and duly acknowledged. Among these, the abovementioned al-Hilālī was invited to work with Kahle in Bonn on Ibn Dāniyāl’s texts in 1936–7.35 It is not without significance to mention that the Moroccan scholar’s Bonn stay, as mentioned above, was sponsored by Emir Shakīb Arslān, the charismatic Lebanese Druze prince and formidable driving force behind the pan-Islam cause, who was very active at the Cairo scenes at the time.36 2.2 Shadow Theatre and Arab Cultural Heritage Taymūr’s labor of love on Arabic shadow play did not draw much attention in the West at the time. Back home, Arab scholars, especially Egyptian ones, began to take note. But their enterprise was not without controversy as far as the issue of cultural heritage and popular culture is concerned. In this regard, it is significant to allude to the link between the Nahḍa, or Awakening Critique, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to which Taymūr made contributions by means of his discovery and preservation of a significantly large cache of Arabic manuscripts (classic and vernacular), and between the 32   For example, Taymūr did not include the play al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse [of Alexandria]” (two versions) in his 1918 inventory, despite that elements of the play were indeed in codices owned by Taymūr (for example, T1; see bellow, chapter 4). 33  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill. The series under the title “Luʿab al-ʿArab” was published in alMajalla al-Salafiyya, 1–10 (1918). The articles were eventually put together and re-issued in the book form in 1957. 34  Khayāl al-ẓill al-Miṣrī, al-Ahrām (5, Friday, 1928) 12. 35  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays 2–4 (Introduction). 36  Cleveland, Shakib Arslan.

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post Nahḍa discourse, before and after World War II, of which several other major cultural figures participated in the debates. In this continuous discourse, Arabic shadow theatre remained a topic within the context. Jurjī Zaydān (d. 1914), in his monumental A history of Arabic literature, described Ibn Dāniyāl as a poet of extraordinary talent and audacity, citing al-Ṣafadī’s famous characterization of him as “the Ibn Ḥajjāj of his time, and the Ibn Sukkara in his town.” Both poets were remarked by their reputation as the laurates on account of their libertine verses. Zaydān also mentioned one manuscript “in 120 pages (folios)” of a “book titled Ṭayf al-Khayāl” in the Taymūr collection, which was a “well-known shadow play, the likes of which were called by Syrians as karākūz.” Zaydān went on to state that “it is a typical comedy (al-riwāya al-hazliyya), ridden with un-savory elements and foul language. Despite all that, it was an example of the type of theatric drama (al-riwāyāt al-tamthīliyya) that the Arabic tradition rarely saw.”37 He stopped short of further endorsement. Aḥmad Amīn (d. 1954), the towering figure of early modern Egyptian academia, was an enthusiastic advocator for an aggressive retrospective overview of the rich heritage of Arab popular arts, including shadow theatre. His influential A dictionary of manners, customs, and idioms contains entries on Ibn Dāniyāl and the shadow play as well as other topics related to Arab folklore and the performing arts.38 Amīn readily admitted that his work on popular culture was met with indifference, if not dismay, from certain quarters. Originally conceived as a series of short articles on mass entertainment for the Radio Magazine (Majallat al-idhāʿa), the project was put on a hold when he was appointed dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the Cairo University, formerly the King Fuʾad University, in 1939, where some faculty members rallied against this line of pursuit, which would, in their opinion, “compromise the dignity of the deanship ( jalāl al-ʿimāda).” It was not until his resignation from the prestigious position in 1948 that Amīn was able to resume and finish the project. On the other hand, he received encouragements from luminaries such as Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm, the eminent Egyptian playwright, among others, in his efforts in delving into Arab folklore and popular culture, including shadow play and puppetry.39 Amīn made it clear that he was not a historian in the strict sense and that his encyclopedic entries did not necessarily dwell on original

37  Zaydān, Ta‌ʾrīkh iii, 131–2. In the new edition (1957), the editor Shawqī Ḍayf supplied notes about German Orientalists’ work. 38  Amīn, Qāmūs 257–8. 39  Ibid. 7–8.

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research. Still, his essays, for the most part substantial dictionary entries, have raised several points worth mentioning. Overall, Amīn’s presentation of shadow play, and others that he called “folklore” material, is framed within the context of the Nahḍa-Awakening Critique and Egyptian Nationalist. His introduction to Ibn Dāniyāl, for example, highlights the artistry and creative prowess of this Mamluk poet. One of only a handful of historical figures to have made it to the dictionary, the Cairene shadow playwright is hailed as “the first Arab novelist.” On the other hand, the controversy over the lewd elements in his plays is totally glossed over. In the entry on qarājūz (karagöz), Amīn attributed the rapid decline of this once popular form of entertainment to the “invasion” (ghazw) of Western cinema and live theatre (al-tamthīl). For shadow theatre, Amīn’s emphasis is on the lasting impact of this folk art on Egyptian culture and society at large. The lengthy entry, dwelling on Taymūr’s and others’ testimonies, gives detailed description of all aspects of Arab shadow theatre: the making of figures, the writing process, and the staging (lightening, performance, and so forth). The popularity of shadow play as a favorite entertainment is witnessed in the vast range of venues: coffee houses-cum-theatres, street festive celebrations, even at Sufi rites. Another cultural significance of shadow play, according to Amīn, is its function as a register of the Egyptian vernacular language. Overall, in his advocacy for reviving the Arabic shadow play, Amīn challenged the “Age of Decay” paradigm, known in Arabic as ʿaṣr al-inḥiṭāṭ, a long-held theory about the “decline” of classical Arabic culture after the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258, by highlighting its originality and creativity. Some of his characterizations, however, tend to be oversimplifying, lacking the adequate documentation and the conceptual context within which the claim of shadow play as part of genuine Arab cultural heritage could be verified. In many ways, the application of modern academic approach to the cultural heritage was still a new task facing the Nahḍa era Arab intellectuals. Scholastic research on shadow theatre, and other subjects, had yet to take off.

chapter 3

New Studies The study of Arabic shadow theatre, as mentioned above, could be divided into two phases: the initial scholastic groundwork starting from the epoch around the turn of the twentieth century and the continued efforts in the post World War II era. As far as Western scholarship is concerned, the two phases share commonality and continuity in focusing on philological work to discover and publish source material, but differ in analytical methods, disciplinary approaches, and much diversified backgrounds of the participants in the second phase. In the Arab world, the revitalization of Arab cultural heritage would become a major theme that marked the post-World War II era, to be fueled by independence movements, Arab nationalism, and post-colonial discourse. This new cultural landscape also ushered in a new phase in the study of shadow theatre. What follows here is a broad survey and assessment of all known works by scholars in Western academia, as well as that of Arab scholars and cultural critics. 1

Western Scholarship Since the 1950s

The postwar era has seen a steady, if not robust, growth of Western scholarship on Arabic shadow theatre. Many published studies demonstrate substance and originality. The new phase in research has also witnessed a diversity in discipline, methodology, and the cultural background of the participants. The following survey of the works published in the West since the 1950s falls into three categories, each of which follows a rough chronological order, outlining a timeline of research activities and a trajectory of scholarship. 1.1 General and Comparative Studies In 1958, Jacob Landau published Studies in the Arab theater and cinema, a synthesis that is representative of the general studies in the West on the subject at the time.1 Its summation of earlier research, especially of Orientalist scholarship, has remained as one of the often-quoted Western studies on the subject for a long time. The book as a whole also reveals the directions of research taken by scholars, in the West and the Arab world. The tendency is to treat 1  Landau, Arab theater.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_004

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Arab shadow theatre within the context of general history of drama and cinema in the Arab world on the eve of modernity. Several publications in Western languages reflect the trend, with different focuses and methodologies. Among them are Arlette Roth’s study of Arabic theatre in colonial Algeria;2 Nada Tomiche’s short history of Arabic theatre;3 Tamara Eskandarova Busitiva’s general history of Arabic theatre;4 and M.A. al-Khozaʿī’s short history of early Arabic drama.5 Only Clara Wilpert’s Schattentheater deals with shadow theatre proper exclusively, with an incomplete inventory of Arab shadow figures in German museums (see below, chapter 4).6 Most recently, Philip Sadgrove, in his history of Egyptian theatre in the nineteenth century, briefly mentions shadow play, which he terms karagöz, and farce as the examples of traditional Arabic drama in the face of the encroachment of Western theatre and cinema on the eve of modernity.7 Brief reference to shadow theatre in the past has also been made in Viola Shafik’s history of Arab cinema.8 In an influential study on Turkish shadow play, Metin And, a leading Turkish theatre historian and critic, launched a ferocious attack on earlier Orientalist approach to shadow theatre in the Muslim lands.9 And characterized the methodology of the previous researchers of the Karagöz – Jacob, Menzel, Kunos, and Ritter – as “defect,” loaded with “basic disciplinary bias.” On the other hand, he gave high marks to Kahle’s work on Arabic shadow play. And noted that Kahle began to remedy the “defect” of earlier scholars by incorporating the performance elements – shadow puppets figures, music notes, and so forth – in research.10 Primarily concerned with the Turkish Karagöz, And drew comparisons between it and the Mamluk specimen, Ibn Dāniyāl’s khayāl al-ẓill, and saw similarities between the two in mimicry structure.11 However, he is of the opinion that the Mamluk traits seen in the Karagöz were merely

2  Roth, Théâtre algérien. 3  Tomiche and Khazndar, Theatre Arabe. 4  The Russian scholar’s work was published in Arabic under the title Alf ʿām wa-ʿām ʿalā al-masraḥ al-ʿArabī (Beirut, 1981). 5  al-Khozaʿī, Arabic drama. 6  Wilpert, Schattentheater. 7  Sadgrove, Egyptian theatre 11–26 (chapter 2). 8  Shafik, Arab cinema 73–4. 9  And, Karagöz. 10  Ibid. 7. 11  Ibid. 28–9.

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technical in nature.12 The influences of the Karagöz in Arab countries – Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria – and in the Balkans were also duly remarked.13 In the mid 1980s and 1990s, two scholars elevated the study of Arabic shadow play to a new level of critical acumen. In 1982, Muhammad Mustafa Badawi, the first Arab to hold a teaching position in Arabic literature at Oxford,14 published an important article on the legacy of Ibn Dāniyāl.15 What sets this article apart from earlier and contemporary publications in the West and the Arab world is its comparative perspective, with the erudition of a scholar who was at home in two literary traditions: the Arabic and the Western. Badawi’s presentation of Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays through a comparative lens is both refreshing, informed by his expertise in English drama, and authentic, drawing on his intimate knowledge of Egyptian folklore. His analysis of Ibn Dāniyāl’s leading characters is sensible and insightful, observed, for example, in the matchmaker Umm Rashīd’s gendered speech pattern and the reference to the “Fool” in English literature in relation to the protagonist Amīr Wiṣāl’s self-mockery and absurdity.16 Badawi’s other significant contribution was to champion the cause to see Paul Kahle’s 1992 edition through.17 In many ways, the Israeli scholar Shmuel Moreh carried on the Orientalist tradition in the study of Arabic theatre and shadow play with a significant body of work. In an article published in 1987, he took researchers to task by proposing a distinction between live theatre and shadow play, on account of the word khayālī, or “(live and shadow play) actor.” He argued that many of the occurrences of the khayālī in sources, especially early sources, did not denote shadow master per se, but rather a live actor who might have played shadow play (or not) in his show. Therefore, caution is warranted when one tries to trace the historical trajectory of Arabic shadow theatre vis-à-vis drama and theatre in general. In his 1992 monograph, Moreh further advanced this notion in a sweep survey of the history of Arabic drama and theatre.18 Richly documented, drawing on unpublished manuscripts and a wide range of sources, the monograph, although with the term “medieval” in the title, also stretched the 12  Ibid. 34. In this he echoed Ḥamāda (see below), who devoted an entire chapter on the relation between the two and argued for a separate, parallel, development scheme. 13  Ibid. 70–2. 14  For his career, see Allen et al., Mustafa Badawi. 15  Badawi, Ibn Dāniyāl (reprinted as Introduction to Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays). 16  Badawi did not use the term al-taḥāmuq proposed by Egyptian scholars as a school of comic poetry that Ibn Dāniyāl belonged (see below), but the parallel is obvious. 17  Hopwood, From the shadow plays. 18  Moreh, The shadow play; Live theatre; also see his review of Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays.

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scope to the Ottoman time, with a full translation of al-Isḥāqī’s seventeenthcentury masṭara-shadow skit (see below, p. 44). Overall, this is an important, and thought-provoking work. In comparative studies, noteworthy is the recent work by Marvin Carlson, a historian of world drama, who has long turned his attention to Arabic drama and theatre. In 2013, Carlson published an article in which he compared Ibn Dāniyāl’s masterpieces on the par of Aristophanes, presenting the thirteenthcentury Cairene shadow playwright “as one of the most important dramatists of the Middle Ages.” Carlson pointedly attributes Ibn Dāniyāl’s oblivion, outside a small circle of specialists, to the long held common assumption that the puppet theater is “a form often thought of as artistically inferior by both Arab and Western scholars,” and also by the fact that Ibn Dāniyāl wrote in Arabic, “a language that most Western scholars incorrectly think produced no drama before the colonial period.”19 Reigniting the debate on some of the long-disputed issues, such as the status of shadow play and the alleged “lack” of drama tradition in premodern Arab culture, it is obvious that Carlson’s effort is part of a larger project aimed at bringing all forms of Arabic drama into the current conversation of world drama and theatre studies. 1.2 The Study of Ibn Dāniyāl Despite the widening of horizons with regard to new discoveries, when it comes to Arabic shadow play, Western scholarship has long been focusing on one, and only one subject: Ibn Dāniyāl. In light that the Mamluk poet and playwright is the sole representative of pre-Ottoman Arabic theatrical literature, “the study of medieval Arabic drama” and “the study of Ibn Dāniyāl” oftentimes are interchangeable, as the contents of the preceding pages have amply demonstrated. This preoccupation has continued to this day. Philological groundwork, such as preparation for editions and attempts at translation, has yielded significant results. Based on the textual foundation established by the philologists, scholars in art history, theatre and performance studies, literature, history (social history, history of medicine) have also joined in. The study of Ibn Dāniyāl has grown into an interdisciplinary and, at times, collective enterprise. The following survey is arranged in a raw topical scheme, some of which overlap – especially that of selective partial translation and that of the themed analysis.

19  Carlson, Arab Aristophanes; Theatre xiii–xxvi.

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1.2.1

The Philological Work: Approaching Ibn Dāniyāl through Themed Translation The effort to translate Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays began immediately upon their discovery. The journey over the past century has proven to be a long, slow, and protracted process. Jacob was the first to try and render Ibn Dāniyāl’s extremely difficult texts into a Western language (in his case, German). Given the challenges, he was prudent in the endeavor, starting with small steps, translating important passages, such as ʿAjīb al-Dīn’s opening monologue, from the play ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” among others. Special attention was paid to philological peculiarity, namely the decipherment of puzzling rare words, such as nātū (“the Sudanese clown”), qarrād (“the monkey man”), and so forth.20 Kahle followed the approach of Jacob and went beyond, with a series of successfully translated lengthy passages (mostly in verse) into German and English. His English translations of the two songs, also from the play ʿAjīb, set a model for this kind of ground-laying work – explaining the rare terms by looking into their use within the historical context. Of the two translated poems, one was by the mashāʿila (“the brazier-bearers”) of the Banū Sāsān, the mysterious group of the outlaws and the underworld in medieval Cairo,21 and one by the ṣāniʿa (“the tattoo lady”).22 Kahle’s translations are always proceeded by an introduction to the verse genre, meter, and a transcribed text, and followed by a discussion of the issues – philological, social, and literary – involved. Translating and commenting on selected passages and poems of a chosen topic has continued to be a main vehicle by which scholars approach Ibn Dāniyāl’s corpus. Oftentimes the same poem could be cited, with translated text, for different topics of special interest. For example, James Monroe and Mark Pettigrew chose Ibn Dāniyāl’s famous ode on the death of Iblīs, or Devil, featured in the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” to compare with other non-canonical genres in an exploration of the court patronage of the vernacular narratives,23 whereas Li Guo used the same poem, with his own translation, to reveal the light it sheds on the Mamluk state’s prohibition policy and its impact on society in medieval Cairo.24 Another research topic that has frequently drawn extensive attention is sexual discourse and homoeroticism in Ibn Dāniyāl’s scripts. Among them, the third play, al-Mutayyam, or “The Charmed,” is arguably the more sensible 20  Jacob, al-Mutaijam; Markttypen. 21  Kahle, Arabic shadow play (1940). 22  Kahle, Gypsy woman. 23  Monroe, Zajal 144–5. 24  Guo, Paradise lost. Geert Jan van Gelder commented on the two translations (Monroe and Guo); see van Gelder, Review 538.

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and sensitive one, perhaps partially on account of its controversial topic – a homoerotic romance with some disturbing elements of abnormal sexual behavior. Previous studies tended to mention briefly the play as part of a trilogy, select some content of interest for discussion (such as the description of animal fights and the scenes of the wrestling ring and the public bathhouse), and gloss over many of the details of the text as a whole. Everett Rowson’s engaging reading of the play, in comparison with al-Ṣafadī’s Lawʿat al-shākī, along with richly annotated sensible translations of both, presents the duotexts in question on solid philological ground with insightful erudition.25 The analysis, with partial translation, remains the definitive resource to date of the play al-Mutayyam. Building upon earlier research, especially that of Rowson, Dror Ze’evi tried to explain away the puzzle of the limited space allocated to homoerotic practices and the proliferation of cross-dressing schemes in the Turkish Karagöz. Arabic Mamluk plays, on the other hand, are almost entirely the opposite, making “homoerotic relations their main focus, to the exclusion of all others” and with a minimal exposure to cross-dressing.26 Regarding the reasons for this intriguing contrast, Ze’evi pointed out the increasing censorship in the nineteenth century and the changing nature of the theatre and the audience. While Ottoman society was accustomed to men dressed as women in the context of performing arts, the medieval elitist male audience of Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays were more at home with the high register of his language rooted in a refined type of classicism in which homoeroticism was a staple. Using Bakhtin’s carnival laughter theory to read both Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow play and his contemporary al-Ṣafadī’s Lawʿat al-shākī, another “counter-script” on homoeroticism written as a narrative essay in prose and verse (risāla), Ze’evi concludes that since Mamluk spectators were mainly high-class patrons and their entourage and that the plays were written with them in mind, “it was improper, in such company, to present the carnival in all its coarse heteroerotic glory.”27 This observation further underlines Guo’s discussion, based on his translation of a monologue-song in the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl, of the protagonist’s wife-bashing through outlandish misogynist and sexist rants. In fact, of all the male-female sex liaisons and acts depicted in Mamluk shadow plays, Ibn Dāniyāl’s and another self-claimed Mamluk play (see below, chapter 7) 25  Rowson, Two homoerotic narratives. 26  For a discussion of cross-dressing in Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays, also see Guo, Cross-gender ‘acting’. 27  Ze’evi, Producing desire 143–5. Ze’evi mistook al-Ṣafadī’s Lawʿat al-shākī for a shadow play. Overall, this is an insightful work, although it was not the first to apply Bakhtin’s carnival theory in reading Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays (see below, this chapter).

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are indeed grotesque, sadomasochistic, and ugly.28 These new readings have moved beyond the traditional mujūn-libertine verse paradigm utilized by earlier critics in examining Ibn Dāniyāl’s art of satire, using a new theoretic lens to shed light on the phenomenon. When it comes to sexual discourse, they also provide a better cultural, linguistic, and social context to look at the changing nature and tones of the Ottoman era shadow theatre. The subject of equestrian art (al-furūsiyya) was the focus for Ahmed (Ahmad) Shafik’s translation and analysis of a group of poems and passages from Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays. Echoing earlier studies on the influence of al-Maqāmāt, attributed to al-Hamadhānī (d. 1007) and al-Ḥarīrī (d. 1122), on Ibn Dāniyāl, Shafik highlighted that of al-Azdī’s (d. 1009–10) Ḥikāyat Abī al-Qāsim al-Baghdādī with respect to horse-related writing.29 Poems and passages from both Ibn Dāniyāl’s Selected poems (al-Mukhtār via al-Ṣafadī’s al-Tadhkira) and the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl were translated by Shafik into Spanish for the first time and annotated with substantial comments on terms that relied on earlier and contemporary Arabic equine manuals. One noteworthy tendency in approaching Ibn Dāniyāl’s corpus is the effort made by scholars with interest to uncover the valuable information his texts contain, regarding medicine, crafts, and trades. Recently published works by Leigh Chipman on pharmacy30 and Mark Muehlhaeusler on block prints31 exemplify this line of inquiry. The accompanying expert translations made by specialists in the targeted fields on the speeches in question, both from the play ʿAjīb, further highlight the potential for collaborative efforts, or interdisciplinary teamwork, in future research. The first attempts at a comprehensive analysis of full scripts with substantial translated passages were carried out in the 1990s by Francesca Corrao and Amila Buturović. Begun as an integral part of a dissertation, both relied on all known manuscripts.32 They did not aim at full translation in the strict sense, but rather that of selected passages arranged thematically (more on these two monographs, see below). The publication of the long-awaited first critical edition of Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays in 1992 (reprint 2015), prepared by Paul Kahle and finalized by a 28  Guo, Self-mockery. 29  Shafik, El arte ecuestre; Ḥikāya. 30  Chipman, Pharmacy 164–9. 31  Muehlhaeusler, Arabic block prints 561–2, 566–7. Muehlhaeusler pointed out the parallels between the “classical models” of Arabic block-printed charm and talisman and the speech of the ‘awwādh al-sarmāṭ, or “amulet writer,” featured in the play ʿAjīb. 32  Corrao, Ombre di Ibn Dāniyāl; Buturović, Sociology of popular drama. Later, Corrao, in her 1996 monograph Il riso, il comico also consulted Kahle’s 1992 edition.

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team of Oxford-affiliated scholars, ushered in a new era of the study of Arabic shadow play in general, and Ibn Dāniyāl in particular. It laid a sound foundation for future research and marked the first step forward toward a serviceable translation.33 Based on Kahle’s edition, a small number of partial and full translations of the plays – to French, Italian, English, and Spanish – have been made public in academic and commercial venues. Needless to say, none of them are close to satisfactory. Besides the issue of the edition itself,34 a major challenge, as all agree, is Ibn Dāniyāl’s language. In that sense, any effort in this direction is meaningful and to be commended. (For a complete checklist of all translations based on this edition, see below, chapter 7.) 1.2.2 Ibn Dāniyāl’s Plays and His World Major studies of Ibn Dāniyāl often start with a sketch of his life as a backdrop of his plays and of the world they portray. Among these, the above-mentioned full-length monographs by Corrao and Buturović merit special mention. Both are theoretically sophisticated and philologically solid; both utilize Bakhtin’s carnival theory – based on Rabelais and the culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – to read medieval Arabic shadow plays as a counter-script of comic and carnivalesque laughter; both consulted an extensive amount of medieval Arabic chronicles and literary anthologies, in addition to Ibn Dāniyāl’s own texts, as primary sources for his life and work. In Corrao’s presentation, the substantial translated passages (including verses) from Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays were spread out in three chapters, under the rubric of six topics.35 Chapter 1, “The author and his era”: (1) notables and pedophiles: monologues of the protagonists Amīr Wiṣāl, ʿAflaq, and al-Mutayyam; (2) various types of professions such as astrology and astronomy, medicine, and pharmacy; (3) places of consumption and purification: house, bathhouse, pilgrimage, Amīr Wiṣāl’s home and Umm Rashīd’s brothel.36 Chapter 2, “Time of memories, rites of festivals”:37 (4) images, light, and scenes of enchanted world: parade, clowns, animal fighting rings; (5) acrobats, barkers, buffoons: various players in the parade, Abū Murra (namely Iblīs the Devil), the infant fatale, and the party crasher (al-ṭufaylī). Chapter 3, “Women and love, sacred 33  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays. 34  Despite all the efforts, a considerable amount of errors and uncertainty remains; see Bibliography, reviews by Marilyn Booth, Robert Irwin, Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa, Shmuel Moreh, Everett Rowson, Rianne Tamis, and Francesca Corrao. 35  Corrao, Il riso, il comico 51–162. 36  For some reason, this segment did not include tavern and bathhouse scenes in Ṭayf al-Khayāl and al-Mutayyam. 37  Corrao, Laughter festival.

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and profane”: (6) women’s portraits: Umm Rashīd, al-Șāniʿa the tattoo lady, and Umm al-Yutayyim, the orphan’s mother. Corrao’s work attempted at and solved a number of philological puzzles, while placing Ibn Dāniyāl’s texts in the context of classical Arabic literature and popular tradition (al-Maqāma, mujūn, and folklore, such as the story of Juḥā), as well as a larger theoretical framework of laughter and medieval farce in general. A laudable achievement is a streamlining of Greek terms, of astrology and astronomy, medicine, and pharmacy, to be collated with the myriad of varied spellings in the manuscripts.38 Similar to that of Corrao’s work with regard to theoretical framework, namely Bakhtin’s paradigm of medieval carnivalesque laughter as a counterdiscourse, albeit from different angles, Buturović’s 1993 dissertation is a study of Ibn Dāniyāl’s work and his world, Mamluk Egypt, from a historical-sociological perspective.39 Of five chapters, each contains a substantial amount of translated passages, under the rubrics of: “historical perspective” (Ibn Dāniyāl and his world), “three narratives, one chronotope” (a detailed outline of the three plays), and “collectivity as dramaturgic discourse” (modes of dramatic communication, agential names, and thematic concerns). The translation benefited from careful philological work. With regard to rare words, in addition to an extensive amount of verifications, the author also offers, on occasion, alternative readings of puzzling terms. In a series of articles that eventually led to a monograph, Guo presented a collective critical study of the biography of Ibn Dāniyāl, based mainly on the playwright’s own works, chiefly poetry. This method of using one’s own poetry as a main source to reconstruct his life is admittedly not without its pitfalls. However, on account of the dearth of information in conventional biographical sources, and nearly all in prose, this approach was perhaps inevitable. The thematic highlights are Ibn Dāniyāl’s life, his relationship with the Mamluk court, and his literary output.40 Similar approach has been taken by Shafik in his studies of Ibn Dāniyāl’s life and work, with up-to-date information regarding manuscripts and other rarely seen materials.41 This kind of reconstructed biographical, or semi-autobiographical sketch, to be supplemented by annotated full or partial translations (English, Spanish) of the original texts, might prove to be a functional formula, an alternate for a conventional biobibliography of a major literary and cultural figure. Several recently published 38  Corrao, Il riso, il comico 79–91. 39  Buturović, Sociology of popular drama. 40  Guo, Self-mockery; Ibn Dāniyāl’s ‘occasional verses’; Ibn Dāniyāl’s judge list; Performing arts. 41  Shafik, Onomástica literaria; El saber médico; Ibn Dāniyāl.

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encyclopedias also include entries on the subject that reflect the state-of-theart of research on Ibn Dāniyāl’s life and work.42 1.2.3 Characterization, Performance, and Language Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays feature a colorful gallery of characters, many of them with remarkable eccentricities and larger-than-life personalities. They have long held inspiring and intriguing appeal to scholars of Arabic literature. Among them, the protagonists in the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl, Amīr Wiṣāl and the matchmaker Umm Rashīd, have received most attention. Character analysis from various perspectives constitutes the focal point of studies by Maria Kotzamanidou,43 Peter Molan,44 Victor De Lama,45 Marianna Salvioli,46 Jacqueline Sublet,47 Cyrus Zargar,48 Ahmed Shafik,49 among others. In the area of performance studies, recently Guo attempted at reconstructing selected scenes of the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl by looking at the performance mechanism, especially the gender-crossing voice-over maneuver, in light of the instructions and clues given in the scripts.50 A major challenge in the study of Ibn Dāniyāl, as recognized by all, is his language – a mixture of classical Arabic with intricate rhetorical devices and of the sīm, or the so-called “Tongues of the Banū Sāsān,” a code-like slang, or guild vocabulary, of which little is known to outsiders. The modern researcher must labor on his/her own, with virtually no, or little, help of adequate references (the lamentable fact is, to this day we still await a historical lexicon of the Arabic language). In many ways, reading and translating Ibn Dāniyāl is not only an integral part of research, but also perhaps the most vital aspect of it at this stage of our knowledge. Research on the language, especially the medieval Cairene guild slangs, has made some progress in the works of Edmund Bosworth, on the Banū Sāsān, and Rowson, on the sīm, respectively.51 Although not directly addressing issues rising from shadow play texts per se, they supplement earlier efforts of 42  Rowson, Ibn Dāniyāl; Guo, Ibn Dāniyāl; Hammond, Khayāl al-ẓill. 43  Kotzamanidou, Go-Between. 44  Molan, Charivari. 45  De Lama, Un antecedente de Celestina. 46  Salvioli, Cultura scientifica e farsa popolare. 47  Sublet, Nom écrit, nom dit. 48  Zargar, Satiric method. 49  Shafik, The character of Ṭayf al-Khayāl. 50  Guo, Cross-gender ‘acting’. 51  Bosworth, Islamic underworld; Rowson, Cant and argot. Earlier works are: Littmann, Zigeuner-Arabisch; Kahle, Eine Zunftsprache. Kahle’s archives also preserve several unpublished notes on shadow play related sīm (see below, chapter 5).

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decipherment by Littmann and Kahle and provide researchers with a useful, albeit small, glossary to work with. Recent publication by Kristina Richardson has continued this line of inquiry by expanding to the lingos of the Gypsy subsocieties, some of which were represented in Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays, especially the play ʿAjīb, or “Amazing.”52 1.3 The Study of Ottoman and Early Modern Shadow Plays Arabic shadow theatre in the Ottoman and early modern times has yet to generate a great deal of interest, compared with that of Ibn Dāniyāl. Research progress has been slow and uneven. In addition to some sporadic on-going groundwork of textual editing, published studies have ventured into previously uncharted arenas, with some significant findings. The Italian scholars Rosella D. Ceccato and Francesca Corrao each presented a summation and synthesis of the earlier work by Orientalists and Arab scholars on the subject. Ceccato’s research focuses on the post-Mamluk era development, with a noticeable emphasis on Arab scholars’ work, especially that of Aḥmad Taymūr, for Egypt, and Salmān Qaṭāya, for Syria and the Levant (more on these Arab scholars’ work, see below).53 Apparently, Kahle’s archival materials, rich in Ottoman texts, were not available for the Italian researchers at the time. An important and long neglected Syrian play, al-ʿĀshiq wa-l-maʿshūq, has been revisited by Shafik recently.54 Several studies from sociological and cultural perspectives aim at examining the development, and decline, of Arabic shadow theatre on the eve of modernity within the context of the history of Arabic theatre and drama.55 With regard to basic textual research, building upon the pioneering work of Prüfer and Kahle, Guo has presented a source-critical study and reconstructive analysis of a major Ottoman era play, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, or “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr” (see below, chapter 8).56 The research dwelled on Ottoman and early modern materials from the Taymūr Collection in Cairo and the Paul Kahle Fonds in Turin. In the meantime, Kahle’s archival materials have also been examined by Shafik, who has announced forthcoming publications in the near future.57 In the arena of language studies, significant analytical work has been conducted by Liesbeth Zack. For the first time the language of an Ottoman era 52  Richardson, Gypsy mixed language. 53  Ceccato, Il treatro d’ombre; Un diverso approccio; Drama in the post-classical period. 54  Shafik, A vueltas. 55  ʿĪsā, The Disappearing of shadow plays; Sadgrove, Egyptian theatre. 56  Guo, The monk’s daughter. 57  Shafik, Dīwān kadas. In this article he has announced the publication of an anthology of shadow plays based on his findings from this codex.

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shadow play text, in this case al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse [of Alexandria],” has been analyzed through linguistic perspectives.58 2

Arab Research Activities Since the 1950s

In the wake of the rise of Arab Nationalism and post-colonial discourse that swept the Middle East in the post-war era, concerted efforts in revitalizing indigenous Arab culture began to gain momentum. Under the umbrella of “popular culture,” or “folklore (al-fann al-shaʿbī),” the study of Arabic shadow play, along with that of other performing arts, has seen a steady stream of research activities aimed at the revival of this dying art form. The pioneering scholastic enterprise initiated by Orientalists and a few concerned Arab literati of the Nahḍa era now entered a new phase of discovery, analysis, and preservation, with government sponsored programs and academic institutes. The media has also played important advocating and supporting roles. The 1950s witnessed several trends in the study of Arabic shadow theatre that would define the landscape of scholarship in the ensuing second half of the twentieth century: memories of the recent past of the late Ottoman and early modern times, discovery of new resources, and academic research in various disciplines in the humanities and the arts. Compared with the Western scholastic work on the subject that has been surveyed in the above, the efforts of Arab scholars and cultural critics took somehow new directions, with different results and offering different perspectives. Their endeavors will be surveyed in the following pages. 2.1 New Editions and Scripts 2.1.1 Mamluk Materials: Ibn Dāniyāl and Others A milestone in the study of shadow play in the Arabic language emerged in the year 1963 with the publication of a monograph by Ibrāhīm Ḥamāda, a young Egyptian theatre scholar at the time.59 It was the first comprehensive study of the history of Arabic shadow theatre in the Arabic language along with an abbreviated edition of Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays, based solely on the Taymūr codex (no. 16), one of the six known extant codices (see below, chapter 4). The edition is not, strictly speaking, a critical one and is heavily bowdlerized. It is, however, credited for presenting, for the first time, texts of all three plays in the 58  Zack, Liʿb al-manār. Other publications by Zack on non-shadow play Ottoman era popular narratives (see Bibliography) are also very helpful for shadow theatre research. 59  Ḥamāda, Khayāl al-ẓill.

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Arabic script. Since it was perhaps the only edition available before the publication of Kahle’s critical edition in 1992, it has been widely cited, especially by Arab scholars, as the textual basis for research. It has also drawn serious attention of Western scholars. The significance of Ḥamāda’s work also lies in the fact that it was the first serious critique, by an Arab scholar, of Orientalist scholarship on the subject (and that was before the puboication of Edward Said’s seminal Orientalism), although some of its criticism was based on dated and incomplete information. Ḥamāda aimed at moving away from the Orientalist philological project by analyzing Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays as a theatric art on its own terms. Some issues he raised are worth noting. First, the performance context: the book starts with imagined descriptive settings in Cairo and the Nile Delta (where al-Menzaleh is located), drawn from contemporary observations of a long, living, tradition. Second, it presents an argument for the indigenous nature and pure Arab identity of the khayāl al-ẓill versus the influence of Turkish karagöz. Third, it utilizes the analytical tool of literary criticism, with a focal point on the influence of the Maqāma genre on shadow play. Finally, it is also significant that the work was published in the book series, Turāthunā, or “Our heritage,” by the state-run Egyptian National Publishing House (al-Muʾassasa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿāmma lil-ta‌ʾlīf wa-l-tarjama wa-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-nashr). This fact alone demonstrates the continuous inclusive stand regarding the canon vis-à-vis the controversies about folklore and popular narratives. With regard to methodology, Ḥamāda’s book has been influential in such a way that it sets up a model for Arab scholarship on the subject. Saʿd Allāh Wannūs (d. 1997), the eminent Syrian playwright and drama critic, for example, regarded Ḥamāda’s monograph as “the most comprehensive survey of the subject,” and “the standard bearer as a mode of source critical study and documentation” that offers “penetrating analysis and insight” into the history of Arabic shadow theatre and Arabic drama as a whole.60 Nearly all the studies of Arabic drama and shadow play published in the Arab world since Ḥamāda’s work include a chapter, or segment, on history and origins, and they all trace the roots of Arabic drama to shadow plays. They mostly base their analysis on that of Taymūr and Ḥamāda, with occasional acknowledgement of the work of German Orientalists. It has become a paradigm. As regards new efforts in a textual edition, the recent book-length project, by Sayyid Kasrawī Ḥasan, has produced a new edition of Ibn Dāniyāl’s Ṭayf al-Khayāl. The bulk of the monograph consists of annotated editions of three medieval texts on the subject of ṭayf al-khayāl, or “the apparition,” a spirit that 60  Wannūs, Preface to Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 15–9 (quotes are on p. 16).

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appears in the lover’s dream. The three authors are Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 1073– 4), Bahā al-Dīn ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Munshiʾ (d. 1284–5), and Ibn Dāniyāl. The organizational lexis is the leitmotif of “the apparition” and its parody in classical Arabic literature. Ḥasan’s approach is evidently to treat the three as literary “treatises (rasāʾil, sing. risāla)” rather than theatric script. As far as the edition is concerned, it is far from being critical and useful. The treatises are presented as separate “books (kitāb)” with its own pagination; Ibn Dāniyāl’s is the last “kitāb.” Consisting of 144 pages, the text is overshadowed by redundant and at times questionable footnotes. The edition was based on a copy of the Istanbul codex preserved in Cairo’s Institute of Arabic Manuscripts. The general introduction offers a description of “the manuscript,” which was in fact a copy of the original, and ignores earlier Ibn Dāniyāl scholarship altogether.61 In a word, no progress has been made in the Arab world so far with regard to a new critical edition of Ibn Dāniyāl’s theatrical masterpieces. On the other hand, the birthplace of Ibn Dāniyāl, the city of Mosul, did not forget its long-departed son. The local cultural historian Saʿīd al-Daywah’chī (al-Dīwahjī) wrote about the Mosul born and Cairo based playwright and his work in a series of publications on cultural history of the city.62 In 1979, Muḥammad Nāyif al-Dulaymī’s edition of Ibn Dāniyāl’s poetry anthology was published in Mosul. Based on al-Ṣafadī’s al-Tadhkira, the anthology contains significant shadow play material, and has been extensively utilized by scholars worldwide.63 In many ways, this anthology is by far one of the most significant, and reliable, published primary sources for the study of Ibn Dāniyāl, second only to Kahle’s 1992 edition of the three shadow plays (see below, chapter 7). On the front of groundwork of new plays, some attempts were made. But overall, the discovery of new scripts, especially those of antiquity, has been a slow and unguided process. In his 1961 monograph on world and Arabic theatre, Muḥammad Kāmil Ḥusayn (d. 1977), the Egyptian philosopher and literary scholar, reported one hitherto unknown shadow play (bāba) titled al-Shaykh Ṭāliḥ wa-jāriyatuhu al-Sirr al-Maknūn, or “Shaykh Wicked and his slave girl named Hidden Secret.” It is a comedy about the attempt of a destitute shaykh to obtain a judgeship, with the help of his resourceful maid, by seducing the head of the ulema, only to discover and expose the latter’s hashish addiction and other unsavory habits. According to Ḥusayn, this is significant in that it alludes to “a fourth Mamluk shadow play,” in addition to the well-known three plays attributed to Ibn Dāniyāl. Ḥusayn reported that he had obtained 61  Ḥasan (ed.), Rasāil ṭayf al-khayāl. 62   al-Daywah’chī, Ibn Dāniyāl. 63  Ibn Dāniyāl/al-Dulaymī, al-Mukhtār.

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“an anonymous manuscript” that contained what appeared to be a shadow play script dating from the fifteenth century. For Ḥusayn, the materials seemed to be in the form of ballads (balālīq) that were “particularly popular in the fourteenth century,” a generalization that is too vague for further verification with regard to the date of the script. It is true that Mamluk chronicles and anthologies contain a significant number of non-canonical verses, among them the bullayq (or ballīqa, pl. balālīq) as a vernacular verse type that had gained popularity at the time. However, only a few poems of the bullayq verse form made their way to Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays, which retained the classical qaṣīda-ode as the main verse form (see below, chapter 7). The zajal, and especially bullayq, only became the main vehicle of shadow play narratives and lyrics in the Ottoman time (more on this see below, chapter 5). He also remarked, rightly, that like Ibn Dāniyāl’s scripts, this play satirizes the establishment and that it is mostly in the fuṣḥā, or classical Arabic, which conforms to the Mamluk mode. Unfortunately, no further information about this mysterious manuscript was provided.64 2.1.2 Ottoman Materials Scholarly efforts in this area have proven to be more productive. A significant breakthrough came in the year 1978, when Muḥammad ʿInānī published in the monthly magazine al-Kātib, or “The writer,” a hitherto unknown Ottoman era shadow play. Attributed to ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Isḥāqī (d. c. 1600), and included in his anthology titled Dīwān sulāf al-inshāʾ fī al-shiʿr wa-l-inshāʾ, or “The vintage wine of intoxication on account of verse and prose composition,”65 it is based on two manuscripts.66 This excerpt, as the title Misṭarat khayāl Munādamat Umm Mujbir, suggests, is “a song script67 from the shadow play ‘Courting Umm Mujbir.’”68 The songs center around a shadow master (al-rayyis) caught between two women. This is the first time an Arab scholar published an original shadow play text, based on manuscripts research in Western libraries. Equally significant is that it is a song-version, with no dialogue, a practice that is consistent with most of the Ottoman era Egyptian shadow plays to be presented in this book (see below, chapters 4, 8, 9). 64  Ḥusayn, Fī al-adab al-masraḥī. 65  ʿInānī, Khayāl al-ẓill fī Miṣr (2). The edition is sanitized. The title contains a pun on the word al-inshāʾ: of n-sh-w, “intoxication,” and n-sh-ʾ, “composition.” I thank the anonymous reviewer for this observation. 66  M S Paris, BN, arabe 4852; MS Vienna, no. 494 (Flügel catalogue). 67  Literally, “a sheet of verses,” a type of shadow play script (see below, chapter 5). 68  The root meaning of n-d-m (Form III, verbal noun munādama) literally means “drinking companionship, intimate friendship.”.

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The intellectual and cultural environment that paved the way for a surge of research activities also has nourished continued interests in conducting original fieldwork about shadow theatre in various regions of the Arab world, especially Syria and Egypt. What follows here is a summary of the highlights. In the mid 1960s, ʿĀ dil Abū Shanab published the first modern Arabic monograph written by a Syrian critic on the subject of shadow theatre. As it became clear from the title, Traditional Arabic drama: the karagöz,69 Abū Shanab set out to focus on the Syrian-Levantine branch of the shadow play, the karākūz. In addition to a general survey of the subject, drawing on Western and Arab scholarships of the time, Abū Shanab provided new information of the history and current state of Syrian shadow theatre. For example, he detailed the holdings of the shadow master Ḥabīb’s family, of Damascus, reportedly of some fifty shadow play scripts and a repository of shadow figures and other performance-related material and equipment. The family kept a low profile and the fifty scripts were kept in secrecy. He also reported that at least fifty shadow plays were performed and recorded in Aleppo in the past century or so; of those plays he went on to publish one: al-Shaḥḥādhīn, or “The beggars.”70 Another anthology of shadow script plays from Aleppo, by the Syrian scholar Salmān Qaṭāya, made a significant contribution to better knowledge and documentation of Syrian shadow theatre after the initial Orientalist work by Littmann and Saussey.71 Thirteen original short plays were published for the first time, preceded by an informative, albeit succinct, introduction that sheds light on the history and sources, along with an in-depth analysis of the plays published. A significant development in the Aleppo theatre circle was the launching of the SODWA Co. (an abbreviation for Société orientale du disque Wattar) founded by Muḥammad Wattār in 1925. It was the first record manufactory in East Syria.72 A number of shadow play records were made between the years 1935 and 1937. This was around the same time the French Institute published Saussey’s edition of the Damascene play, al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse.” In Syria, efforts in discovery and recording original shadow play materials have continued.73 Ḥusayn Salīm Ḥijāzī’s 1994 book, albeit with a somehow misleading title, Shadow play and the origins of Arabic drama, is in essence a 69  Abū Shanab, Masraḥ ʿArabī qadīm. 70  Abū Shanab, Faṣl al-shaḥḥādhīn. 71  Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ. 72  It ceased operation in 1945. Shadow plays gradually gave way to the more appealing live theatre and the cinema, according to the compiler; see Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 27, 30–2. 73  Abū Shanab, Masraḥ ʿArabī qadīm, identified more than sixty “scenes, acts ( faṣl)” of shadow plays; some of which were recorded on gramophones and made commercially available.

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study and edition of shadow plays of the Syrian coastal region,74 a cumulation of the author’s decades long research on the traditional Syrian-Levantine shadow theatre repertoires. The above-mentioned doyen of contemporary Syrian theatre, Wannūs, wrote the preface. At Ḥijāzī’s disposal was a collection of some sixty shadow plays (sing. faṣl) originally in the possession of the Lebanese shadow master (al-mukhāyil) Sulaymān Ḥājj ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Miʿmārī, also known as al-Muʿallim Abū ʿAbd al-Laṭīf. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Ḥijāzī published four plays in the Syrian theatre magazine, Majallat al-ḥayāt al-masraḥiyya, or “Theatre life.” The 1994 book publishes nine more (with one overlap, “The two Karāgūzes”), with an introduction to the history, types, and dramatic tropes of the shadow play repertoire in the coastal region. The nine plays published in 1994 have been termed by Ḥijāzī as “drama (al-masraḥiyya),” a modern term that was not found in the original. The published Syrian coastal scripts have been edited and formatted by Ḥijāzī with many modern theater conventions. This seems to be a common tendency among the Arab scholars – to apply modern theatre terms in their study of Arab shadow plays. Munīr Kayyāl’s Muʿjam bābāt masraḥ al-ẓill karakūz wa-ʿīwāẓ fī nuṣūṣ muwaththaqa, or “A dictionary of karagöz shadow plays from verified scripts,” is mainly a handbook of shadow plays of Syria and the Levant.75 The core is a collection of twenty-three plays edited by the author, based on his longtime fieldwork since the 1950s, a process he described as transcribing texts “from the mouth of the karagöz maestros (min afwāh al-mukhāyilīn al-karākūzātiyya)” and their associates. He did not mention his sources by name, yet in the informative introduction, Syrian masters loom large. A substantial biographical sketch of the Ḥabīb family, father ʿAlī and son Khālid, is particularly valuable. So is the short list of a “Who’s Who” of Syrian and Levantine masters. For some, the book is also useful on account of its fully vocalized texts, with explanations of words and expressions in Syrian dialect (although it tends to be repetitive and incomplete: some common words would appear several times whereas others, and actually the most unusual expressions, were skipped over). Of the twenty-three plays documented, nearly half had been published before, some with different titles and slightly different details (for individual plays, see below chapter 10). Most of them date to a much earlier time than the 1950s when the documentation was conducted.

74  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill. 75  Kayyāl, Muʿjam. Again, note that the spelling of the two main characters in Syrian and Levantine plays varied in manuscripts and ditions: karkūz/karakūz/karākūz; ʿīwāẓ/ ʿaywāẓ.

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2.2 General Studies 2.2.1 Folklore Studies The preeminent scholar of Arab folk culture, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Yūnus (d. 1988), was a leader in advocating and fostering the study of Arabic shadow plays and other popular narratives. As early as in 1927, he translated Theodor Menzel’s entry “Shadow Play” in the Encyclopedia of Islam to Arabic, which marked the beginning of a life long journey in shadow theatre related research.76 Yūnus, who held a number of important positions in major Egyptian cultural institutions – Professor of folk literature at Cairo University, the editor-in-chief of the magazine al-Funūn al-shaʿbiyya, or “Folk arts,” among others – published several studies of Arabic shadow plays as an integral part of his monumental body of work on the general subject of Arab folklore and popular narratives.77 Drawing on his vast knowledge of Egyptian popular culture (in his writings, he often incorporated his own memories of attending shadow play shows), Yūnus also gave insight into some of the puzzles of shadow play technical terms.78 He also sampled several Ottoman era plays for a brief analysis, plays such as al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse [of Alexandria],” and ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, or “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr.” Another important scholar of folk literature, Fuʾād Ḥasanayn ʿAlī (d. ?), had an extensive track record of publications on the subject. A long-time professor of Greek at Cairo University, among his books is the widely cited Qiṣaṣunā al-shaʿbī, or “Our folklores” (1947), which has long been considered a pioneer work of Arabic popular culture and folklore. Shadow theatre occupies a significant bulk of the book. As early as in 1946, in a monograph on the cultural encounters of East and West in the medieval world, he introduced German scholars’ work on Egyptian shadow play. In 1968 he published an Arabic edition of al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse,” based on Kahle’s 1930 edition.79 Among the influential writers on the subject was Aḥmad Rushdī Ṣāliḥ (d. 1980). In a long career as a cultural critic and journalist, he published frequently on popular narratives, including shadow plays, and championed for the scholastic pursuit of the culture and arts of everyman in Egyptian society.80

76  Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill. 77  Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill; Khayāl al-ẓill; Muʿjam al-fūlklūr (entries “Ibn Dāniyāl” and “Khayāl al-ẓill”). The first two have recently been reissued in Yūnus, al-Aʿmāl al-kāmila i, 285–95, 487–567. 78  For example, the etymology of al-Rikhim and al-Ḥāziq, the sidekicks of the presenter in Ottoman era Egyptian repertoire; see Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill 35–6. 79  ʿAlī, Athar al-Sharq; Qiṣaṣunā al-shaʿbī; Liʿb al-manār. 80  Ṣāliḥ, al-Adab al-shaʿbī; Funūn al-adab al-shaʿbī; Khayāl al-ẓill; al-Masraḥ al-ʿArabī.

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2.2.2 Theatre Studies Challenging the long-held assumption of the lack of genuine drama tradition in Arab culture, a series of studies by Arab scholars have been published since the 1980s to address the issue. These books, some were written in English, all take Ibn Dāniyāl as the most significant, and evident, missing link between the ancient mimenic tradition practiced by Arabs and between the modern theatre culture in a long and un-interrupted history of Arabic drama. These works have all been inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism critique and have all emphasized the originality of Ibn Dāniyāl’s work as a proof of the indigenous dramatic thinking by, for, and of the Arabs. Among these publications are Ahmed Shams al-Din al-Haggagi’s work (in English) on the origins of Arabic theatre;81 Jamāl al-Dīn ʿUthmān’s monograph on Ibn Dāniyāl;82 Jumʿa Aḥmad Qāja’s history of Arabic drama;83 and Muṣṭafā Abū al-ʿAlāʾ’s monograph on Ibn Dāniyāl.84 Among these works, the Sudanese scholar Mohamad Wathiq’s monograph on the history of Arabic drama (written in English) is perhaps better known in the West. It presented a critique of Orientalism in view of dramatic tradition in Arab history and devoted a significant bulk to Ibn Dāniyāl with a summarized translation of all three plays. The translation was based on Ḥamāda’s edition and cited contemporary Mamluk sources for verification and comparison.85 University theses on the subject were written, most of which remain unpublished.86 In Egypt, ʿAlī Ibrāhīm Abū Zayd’s 1982 monograph focuses on the performance of shadow play as literary texts.87 The bulk of the book is dedicated to an analysis of three Mamluk plays by Ibn Dāniyāl, based on Ḥamāda’s edition, fourteen Ottoman era plays, relying mostly on Taymūr’s synopses, and, for comparison, a Chinese shadow play. It addresses various aspects related to performance, such as shadow figures, theatre, technical terms, language (classical Arabic and dialects) and verse genre (classical forms and the zajal vernacular variants), the performer, the audience, and music. The discussion is mostly brief and often merely scratches the surface. For example, the segment on technical terms only listed a few words (and there were many that remained unsolved), and the explanation was based on lexical root meaning 81   al-Haggagi, The origins. 82  ʿUthmān, Khayāl al-ẓill. 83  Qāja, al-Masraḥ wa-l-huwiyya. 84  Abū al-ʿAlāʾ, Muḥammad Ibn Dāniyāl. 85  Wathiq (al-Wāthiq), Arabic drama 46–92 (translation). 86  One thesis at Cairo’s Institute of Theatric Art, by Muṣṭafā Mutawallī, is mentioned in Khalīfa, Fann al-fukāha 164. 87  Abū Zayd, Tamthīliyyāt khayāl al-ẓill.

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with some speculation (unlike Yūnus, whose decipherment of shadow play technical terms was informed by his research in folklore narratives). With regard to post Mamluk material, overall Egyptian scholars, many from the field of drama and theatre, confined themselves to textual analysis and synthesis of the published texts. Very few, if any, have conducted anthropological-ethnographical fieldwork in recording performances and interviewing performers. 2.2.3 Historical and Literary Studies The significance of embracing popular culture in the national conversation of Arab cultural heritage is highlighted by the writings of some prominent academics on the subject of shadow theatre. In his influential social history of Mamluk Egypt, Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ ʿĀshūr, a medieval history professor at Cairo University, cited Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays as a reliable source for historical inquiry. The historian remarked that shadow theatre was not only a popular folk art, but also a significant element of a court culture that had entertained many a ruler and his circles, from Saladin to the Ottoman sultan Selim. It, along with story collections such as the 1001 Nights, vernacular poetry, wise-sayings, and popular songs, constitute “a great cultural heritage (al-turāth al-ḍakhm) through which the characteristics of Egyptian people (shakhṣiyyat al-shaʿb) come to light.”88 The portraits from popular culture, albeit fictionalized, are so representative in depicting the milieu and mentality of society that this strictly academic history of medieval Egypt concludes with a quote from none other than a character in Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow play, Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” in his summation of Egyptian society.89 It is also noteworthy that the French-educated historian resulted to relying on German Orientalist Paul Kahle’s work on Egyptian shadow play as a major reference, insofar as Egyptian scholars’ own research was still to catch up. For social historians and literary scholars of the Mamluk time, Ibn Dāniyāl’s texts present themselves as a mine of information for the study of society, culture, and literature. Nearly all the major history works of the Mamluk Sultanate written in Arabic and published in the Arab world mention the Cairene eyedoctor, poet, and shadow playwright as a primary source for analysis and discussion. Among the representative works that utilize shadow plays as primary sources are Maḥmūd Rizq Salīm’s multiple-volume history of the Mamluk

88  ʿĀshūr, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Miṣrī 2–3, 105–6. 89  Ibid. 244.

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Sultanate90 and Muḥammad Zaghlūl Sallām’s history of Mamluk literature.91 Some researchers place shadow theatre within the context of Mamluk court entertainment as well.92 An emerging trend in the study of Ibn Dāniyāl’s work, especially his poetry (most of which appear in his shadow plays), is to read his verses as art of satire par excellence in medieval Arabic literary tradition. Aḥmad al-Jammāl, in his discussion of Mamluk popular literature, listed Ibn Dāniyāl as one of the three major poets of the so-called “School of Fool (al-mutaḥāmiqūn),” alongside Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Jazzār (d. 1280), a much younger poet, and the aforesaid Ibn Sūdūn (d. 1464), who was active a century and a half after Ibn Dāniyāl.93 Other scholars view Ibn Dāniyāl as a master in the art of “humor and absurdity ( fann al-fukāha wa-l-sukhriyya).” The studies by Bakrī Shaykh Amīn,94 Muḥammad Rajab al-Najjār,95 and Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Majīd Khalīfa96 use Ibn Dāniyāl’s poems, which are themselves the building blocks of his plays, especially Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” as masterpieces of satire with a unique voice in medieval Arabic literature. Reference books on the subject were also published near the end of the twentieth century, taking stock of the scholarship of Arabic shadow theatre in the past century. In addition to the aforesaid Kayyāl’s handbook of Syrian shadow theatre is Fārūq Saʿd’s Encyclopedia of Arab shadow theatre.97 The 1000 plus page tome is the result of the labor of love by the Lebanese freelancing researcher and shadow play aficionado. By the time of its publication in 1982, it was by far the most comprehensive documentation of world shadow plays in general and Arabic shadow theatre in particular. The author was very knowledgeable of the publications on the subject, both in the Western languages and in Arabic, and amassed a substantial archive of materials, both textual and visual. The book is extensively illustrated with many published black-andwhite shadow figures. The most valuable is a batch of colored photos taken by the author at the museums of Damascus and Aleppo. The author did not have access to unpublished manuscripts such as those in Paul Kahle’s collection. Overall, the encyclopedia is an informative reference tool, despite some 90  Salīm, ʿAṣr salāṭīn al-mamālīk v, 440–82; viii, 301–4. 91  Sallām, al-Adab fī al-ʿaṣr al-Mamlūkī i, 170–1, 178–9, 286, 291–9; ii, 118, 166–73. 92  Naṣṣār, Wasāʾil al-tarfīh. 93   al-Jammāl, al-Adab al-ʿāmmī 191–209. For Badawi’s discussion of the literature of Fool in association with Ibn Dāniyāl’s art of satire, see above, p. 32. 94  Amīn, al-Shiʿr al-Mamlūkī 283–91. 95   al-Najjār, al-Shiʿr al-shaʿbī. 96  Khalīfa, Fann al-fukāha 130–53. 97  Saʿd, Khayāl al-ẓill.

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typographical errors (especially titles in Western languages) and its eccentric presentation (it contains photocopies of the author’s private correspondences and cut-and-paste lengthy quotes from published materials). In addition, entries on Ibn Dāniyāl and Arabic shadow theatre have continued to be written with up-to-date new information. Among these, the essay by a group of North African scholars is the most comprehensive and well documented, although its narrative of Ibn Dāniyāl’s life tends to be speculative with regard to some details.98 2.2.4 Regional Research Activities Finally, a few words about the study and preservation of shadow plays elsewhere in the Arab world. Little is known of Iraqi scholars’ activities in this regard, due to a dearth of information. The Society of Arab Performance Art ( Jamʿiyyat al-tamthīl al-ʿArabī) was founded in Baghdad in 1922, and its first director, Muḥammad Khāliṣ al-ʿImādī, was reportedly a scholar of drama and shadow plays.99 Some Mosul scholars’ work, such as that of al-Daywah’chī on Ibn Dāniyāl, which has been summarized above, does not address the issue of Iraqi shadow theatre, or the lack thereof, directly. It is also curious that Kahle’s work on the subject was presented and published in pos-war Baghdad (1948), of all places, by his onetime research assistant, the Moroccan scholar al-Hilālī; but there is no documentation of any special attention given to the subject of shadow theatre by the Society. More research is needed to determine the cause of this noticeable and curious lacuna. For North Africa in general, original research of regional shadow plays has not been conducted since the Orientalists’ early enterprise. Local scholars, mainly theatre critics, have since published journalist pieces in mostly Francophone cultural and theatre magazines. These publications deal with general issues of Arabic theatre, drama, and popular entertainment. In Algeria, one may mention the writings of Saadin Bencheneb,100 Mustapha Kateb,101 al-Budali Safir,102 and Nadji Abou Merqem.103 A general history of shadow theatre, Le Theatre d’Ombres, written by Françoise and Cherif Khazndar,

98  Ṣāliḥiyya et al., Ibn Dāniyāl. 99  According to a lecture on Arabic drama given by ʿAlī al-Zubaydī, Professor of Arabic literature at Baghdad University, in Paris, the Institute of Oriental Languages, 1963; see Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 9–10. 100  Bencheneb, Le Theatre Arabe; Le Garagouz; Aspects du theatre arabe en Algerie. 101  Kateb, Theatre Algerien; Theatre d’expression arabe. 102  Safir, al-Masraḥ; Le Theatre Arabe. 103  Abou Merqem, Le Theatre Algerien.

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devoted a few pages to shadow plays.104 In Tunisia, the publications on the subject are spotty. A few books mention shadow play within their presentation of other related subjects. Omar Khlifi, in his Histoire du cinéma en Tunisie, considers shadow theatre as a prelude.105 Mohamad Aziza, in his study of visual arts in Islamic Maghreb, incorporated shadow theatre as a topic.106 Nothing can be said about Morocco. In Palestine, Ra‌ʾed Abdel Raheem (Rāʾid ʿAbd al-Raḥīm) has recently published a series of articles on shadow plays in The Journal of the Najah National University,107 where a M.A. thesis under his supervision on the subject has been written.108 Access to these publications is extremely difficult, given the circumstances. But this is an encouraging sign that the study of Arabic shadow theatre has found more new academic homes. Among the new developments on this front is the series of conferences on Arabic puppetry, marionette, and shadow play held in Sharjah and Tunisia in 2013, 2014, respectively. The proceedings have been published.109

104  Khazndar, Le Theatre d’Ombres. 105  Khlifi, Histoire 21–5. 106  Aziza, L’image et l’Islam; Formes Traditionnelles. 107  Majallat jāmiʿat al-Najāḥ lil-abḥāth: al-ʿulūm al-insāniyya (details unknown). I owe the information to Adam Talib. 108  Taghreed W.M. Koni (M.A. thesis, al-Najah National University, Palestine, 2013). I owe the information to Adam Talib. 109  ʿAbd Allāh (ed.), Wathāʾiq al-multaqā al-ʿilmī al-ʿArabī.

part 2 Resources

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Primary Sources: Manuscripts and Artifacts The primary sources of Arabic shadow theatre are of various kinds: (1) manuscripts that contain original materials composed for performance; (2) puppet figures and sets crafted specifically for the purpose; (3) historical descriptions found in chronicles, biographical accounts, and poetry; and (4) for early modern period, journalist reportage, travelogues, sketches and drawings made by (mostly Western) spectators, playbills and posters, and records (gramophones). Of these textual, visual, and audial testaments to the rich history of Arab shadow theatre, the original codices and artifacts, namely manuscripts and puppet figures, will be inventoried here, whereas other supplementary materials will be presented in Part 3 of this handbook along with the specific play these materials help to document. Due to the fact that premodern manuscripts preserved in various collections were either unpaginated, or paginated by folio or by page, the referencing markers “f./ff.” (folio), or “p./pp.” (page) will be used throughout. If the manuscript in question was unpaginated, then references will be given only by the title. 1 Manuscripts In light of the current knowledge of the state of preservation, all the manuscripts pertaining to shadow theatre prior to the nineteenth century originated in Egypt. A continuous stream, if not always steady and robust, of textual production and preservation yielded two major types of codices: (1) the Mamluk material and later copies; and (2) the Ottoman material and early modern reworks and copies. 1.1 Mamluk Plays: Ibn Dāniyāl Six manuscripts that bear the titles of Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays are known today. They are the only surviving pre-Ottoman era manuscripts of Arabic shadow theatre. In addition, two poetry anthologies preserve a significant amount of Ibn Dāniyāl’s verses that were related to his shadow play scripts. In preparation for his critical edition, published posthumously, Kahle consulted four medieval codices, which he named codex A, B, C, and D respectively (1, 2, 3, 4 listed below).1 Corrao added two early modern copies to the inventory 1  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays 2–3. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_005

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(5 and 6 listed below).2 Catalogue data is minimal as no detailed description of these manuscripts was given by both scholars. The original catalogues in the institutions that house these items are also dated and very sketchy. The six manuscripts share all the basics: storylines, characters, lyrics (verses), and dialogues, an indication that the three plays were originally written as working compositions, or uniform scripts. They were not merely random outlines for impromptu as often were the case in the Ottoman and early modern times. In other words, there must have been a base draft, and a final script, upon which all copies had been made. However, the noticeable variants in wording shown in the manuscripts reveal the uncertainty, and likely confusion, on the part of the copyists regarding some bizarre words and puzzling expressions. Minor omissions here and additions there suggest that liberties were taken by individual copyists some of whom were perhaps themselves performers. Microfilm copies of all six manuscripts can be accessed at Cairo’s Institute of Arabic Manuscripts (Maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya). In order to document all details with accuracy, original Islamic calendar dates shown in the manuscripts, along with the Common Era dates, are to be cited in the presentation of this chapter. A brief description of these six shadow play manuscripts is presented in the following pages; it is based primarily on published materials, including catalogues and earlier scholarly work: 1. MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, MS Ali Paşa Hekimoğlu no. 648 (688 in printed catalogue), currently in Ayasofya Millet Kütüphanesi (same catalogue number). Dated 824/1424, this is the oldest codex, albeit incomplete. It is Codex B for Kahle’s edition. The codex consists of 182 pages (or ninety-one folios), ten lines to each; the scribe was one Muḥammad ibn al-Khayyām (?). 2. MS Madrid, El Escorial, Derenbourg no. 469 (Casiri vol. I, no. 467). Dated 845/1441–2; consisting of sixty-five folios. It is Codex A for Kahle’s edition. 3. MS Cairo, Dār al-kutub, Taymūriyya no. 16. Dated the fourteenth century; consisting of 134 folios. It is Codex C for Kahle’s edition. Ḥamāda used it as the sole base for his edition. 4. MS Cairo, The Azhar Library, Adab 463/Abāẓa 7095. Dated 998/1598; consisting of forty folios. It is Codex D, discovered by Jörg Krämer (d. 1961), and consulted by Kahle for his edition. 5. Cairo, Dār al-kutub, Adab Ṭalaʿat collection, no. 4772. Dated 19 Ramadan, 1327/4 October, 1909, with scribe’s signature: Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad 2  Corrao, Il riso, il comico 7–10.

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ibn Aḥmad al-Mawṣilī; consisting of 130 folios, seventeen lines to each,3 elegant cursive al-rayḥānī (?) hand. 6. Cairo, Dār al-kutub, Adab no. 186. Dated 1370/1950; consisting of 174 folios. In addition, two poetry anthologies contain substantial materials of shadow play. The description below was based on my own examinations. 7. al-Ṣafadī, al-Tadhkira al-Ṣafadiyya, Cairo, Dār al-kutub, adab 9796, part ( juzʾ) xiv, 40–105, 179–91. This is a voluminous anthology of poetry (reportedly of fifty volumes) compiled by al-Ṣafadī (d. 1362), a younger contemporary of Ibn Dāniyāl. Five volumes are housed at Cairo’s National Library, among them is volume ( juzʾ) 14, the bulk of which contains Ibn Dāniyāl’s poetry. The manuscript was written in an elegant and large naskh hand, seventeen lines to each page. The part that contains Ibn Dāniyāl’s poetry was edited and published in Mosul (1979) by al-Dulaymī, with a description of the manuscript, along with sixty-four supplementary poems culled from other sources.4 The significance of this anthology lies in the information it reveals about the poems which were re-used, with slight variants, in shadow plays as monologues to be sung (or recited) by the characters. Generous captions notify the time, patron, and circumstances under which a given poem was composed and therefore provide valuable data for cross-reference, let alone variants of verses themselves. 8. Ibn Dāniyāl, [al-Dīwān], MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Ayasofya 4880–1. Ibn Dāniyāl’s Dīwān is found in a majmūʿ-anthology, between folios 131a and 168a. The anthology itself was copied, supposedly, by one al-Nasāʾī, who died in 716/1317, namely merely six years after Ibn Dāniyāl’s death, although the manuscript itself proved to have been made after that.5 In many ways, this is a scaled-down version of al-Ṣafadī’s Tadhkira mentioned above. It preserves several shadow-play related poems. 1.2 Ottoman and Early Modern Plays Primary sources of Arab shadow theatre in the Ottoman and early modern times are to be found in two major repositories, that of Paul Kahle and Aḥmad Taymūr, along with a number of random manuscripts housed in European libraries, in Paris and Vienna. All of these materials are of Egyptian provenance. Since the majority of them has not been documented in a systematic manner, 3  It is significant to note that seventeen lines to each page was an observed norm for formal manuscript copying in the Ottoman time as well (see below). 4  Ibn Dāniyāl/al-Dulaymī, al-Mukhtār. 5  A description of the manuscript and its contents is presented in Guo, Ibn Dāniyāl’s ‘Dīwān’.

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the following contains a detailed descriptive survey; it was based on my own examination notes. The published catalogues, in print and online, were consulted and also will be updated. 1.2.1 The Paul Kahle Collection 1.2.1.1 History of the Collection Paul Kahle was the first scholar to actively purchase original Arabic shadow play materials, both textual and visual. Among the items Kahle acquired is a manuscript of vernacular poetry dating from the seventeenth century. With a self-deprecating title Dīwān kedes (kadas), literally, “An anthology of accumulated material,”6 it is attributed to three poets, who all lived in the sixteenth century, if not earlier. Among them, the youngest was Dāwūd al-Munāwī (or al-Manāwī), a shadow master (al-rayyis) himself, who once performed for the Ottoman sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) in 1612–3 and wrote a poem about it. He was also the compiler of the anthology. Kahle obtained this manuscript from the above-mentioned shadow play performer, Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh, in Cairo in 1907. He published his preliminary findings of this codex in Leipzig, in 1909.7 The same year, Kahle discovered another manuscript, which was incomplete and of much smaller paper size, along with several fragments in the Nile Delta village al-Menzaleh (al-Manzala),8 along with a collection of leather shadow figures (see below). In an unusual speedy fashion, he published these figures in 1910 and 1911.9 Kahle’s manuscripts, research notes, and working papers eventually were acquired by the University of Turin after his death.10 Of the shadow play related manuscripts acquired by Kahle, all but one, the Dīwān kedes, were incomplete, comprising of loose folios that betray signs of original binding. The older manuscripts demonstrate consistent features of conventional Arabic poetry anthology, on account of the scholastic cursive handwriting, the delicate division of verses marked by decorative (often in red ink) dots and flowers, and most importantly, the “catchword,” namely the first word of the next folio, recto, marked on the left lower corner of the preceding 6  Kahle translated the term as “Schattenspieldichtung”; see Kahle, Zur Geschichte 4. The root meaning of k-d-s is “pile, heap, stack of grain, hay, etc.”; as a technical term, it denotes vernacular verses in shadow plays (for more, see below). 7  Kahle, Zur Geschichte 1–20. This is codex K1, to be described below. 8  It is in fact not a single manuscript, but rather a bundle of fragments, namely the K2 group, to be described below. Kahle did not publish any general descriptions of this bundle, perhaps on account of its fragmentary state. 9  Kahle, Islamische Schattenspielfiguren. Another batch was published in 1954. 10  For the acquisition of Kahle’s papers, see Tottoli, et al., Catalogue of the Islamic manuscripts 11–12.

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folio, verso. The standard seventeen lines per page norm is strictly followed in the most elegantly written codices, such as that of the Dīwān kedes. It is significant to note here that, with a few exceptions, all the manuscripts (catalogued under the code MSB in the Turin online database) contain only verses, songs made for shadow play performances. This dīwān-songbook format is in accordance with other Ottoman era manuscripts of the similar kind, for example, that in the Taymūr collection (see below), and the manuscripts of Ottoman era shadow plays in Paris and Vienna. Dialogues were only found in early modern notebooks of the turn of the century, currently preserved under the category of “archival” materials (ARC) in the Turin online database. By all accounts, these ARC items are equally invaluable as primary sources for the study of Egyptian shadow theatre, insofar as they preserve a great deal of exclusive materials. 1.2.1.2 Catalogue: in Print and Online The Kahle collection, now named the Fondo Paul Kahle, or The Paul Kahle Fonds (hereafter: PKF), is housed in the Biblioteca di Orientalistica, the University of Turin. The manuscripts related to shadow play were discovered during the reorganization of the materials in the archives of Paul Kahle and were not included in the current printed catalogue.11 They were catalogued recently and, along with the rest of Kahle’s collection, can be accessed online at: www.paulkahle.unito.it. The online catalogue lists 113 items under the rubric of “literature – shadow play,” in two categories: “manuscript (MSB)” and “archival (ARC).” Of these, eighteen are manuscript units (disseminated from the original two bundles). In light of the confusion over manuscript titles, the actual number of the shadow play related items may be slightly different (see below). Among these, the majority pertains to shadow plays of the Ottoman and early modern times. The collection does not contain medieval shadow play material except for copies and working notes of the Ibn Dāniyāl manuscripts from Istanbul, Madrid, and Cairo. Most of the items are listed under the title of the individual play. Overall, the online catalogue is serviceable in listing and describing all the identifiable items. On close examination, minor inconsistencies and mismatches do exist. The problem has largely to do with the peculiar state in which these materials have been preserved in the first place. Perhaps on account of the relatively late date of these materials, Kahle did not treat his shadow play fragments as one would for medieval manuscripts – rather, he took the liberty to tear out the originals, which he referred to as al-waraq al-qadīm, 11  Tottoli et al., Catalogue of the Islamic manuscripts. Kahle’s other archival material of medieval Egyptian shadow play was summarized in Tottoli, Orientalists at work.

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“old papers,” and re-arrange them according to individual plays. In the case of the longer play, for example, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, he further divided the manuscripts and fragments into smaller units and put them in blue school notebooks. This explains why the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr alone is listed under no less than nine MSB numbers. Kahle also made his own marks of pagination and numbers of verse lines (but only the ones he apparently was working on at the time), and occasional corrections in pencil on the paper directly. This practice is in sharp contrast to the way more scholastic manuscripts in the PKF were handled: namely, being kept intact. One speculation would be that Kahle purchased the scholastic manuscripts for purposes beyond his own research interest,12 whereas the shadow play materials, and other “popular culture” material for that matter, were acquired exclusively for his own purview. The result of this dissemination is perhaps both a blessing and a curse for the librarian. The online catalogue benefitted from Kahle’s thematic division of plays; but from the viewpoint of codicology, the challenge is obvious: none of these disseminated pieces could be considered a “codex,” with its original intrinsic structure intact. Case in point is the above-mentioned, now torn apart, manuscript known as the Dīwān kedes, which was entirely miscatalogued in the current online search database (for more details, see below). Making the matter worse is the fact that these loose folios were arranged in such a way that it perhaps only made sense to Kahle, not to mention the tumultuous trajectory these leaves, along with the rest of Kahle’s collection, went through before, during, and after the two World Wars. Inconsistencies and mismatches in cataloguing and preservation are therefore perhaps inevitable. What follows here is a checklist that updates and supplements the current online catalogue. 1.2.1.3 A Descriptive Checklist To keep the integrity of the original manuscripts and to help the reader navigate the current Turin online catalogue, the following checklist was arranged according to the original setting of the manuscripts (and fragments). In addition to the Turin catalogue codes, I assigned two code numbers, K1 and K2, to highlight the two sets of manuscripts fragments acquired by Kahle that were eventually disseminated by him into smaller units, upon which the current online catalogue (MSB + number) is based. As of this writing, the Turin online catalogue has established a new tracking system (zot_ + number) as “identifier” while keeping the earlier description and catalogue title intact. Both numbers will be provided in the following pages. 12  For the market of “Islamic” manuscripts in Cairo and Europe at the time, see Tottoli et al., Catalogue of the Islamic manuscripts 13–8.

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(K1) Dīwān kedes (kadas)13 1. MSB12 (zot_4418). Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “A” The most important, and relatively complete, manuscript is titled Dīwān kedes (kadas), whose title page and beginning part are missing (the first part is partially preserved in the now MSB23). The only detailed description of the manuscript in its original state is Kahle’s 1909 pamphlet.14 In Kahle’s description, “nearly half of the manuscript,” of 125 folios, is of the play ʿAlam, some thirty for Ḥarb al-ʿAjam (namely al-Manār), a few of al-Timsāḥ, and some thirty-five cover the play Abū Jaʿfar and ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr.15 A recent examination of MSB12 in its current condition yields the following: consisting of 215 folios (as it is indicated in the online catalogue), seventeen lines to each page, the colophon, which is inserted between the first and second parts of the manuscript, bears a much-quoted date of 1119/1707 (Fig. 4), making it the oldest shadow play manuscript in Kahle’s possession.16 Given the known dates of the major contributors, the three poets Shaykh Suʿūd, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, and the aforesaid Dāwūd al-ʿAṭṭār al-Munāwī, the actual base text could have been put together much earlier, no later than the early seventeenth century when the compiler, Dāwūd al-Munāwī, was active (for more details, see below). The bulk of the manuscript is now titled, in the current online catalogue, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “A,” insofar as the play ʿAlam occupies the bulk of the first part, in some 170 folios (not “125” as claimed by Kahle in his initial published survey, 1909).17 The second part of the manuscript, which reiterates the title Dīwān kedes on the top of the first folio, consists of a few clusters of zajal verses made for several short plays. Some of these are identified as that of al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse,” Abū Jaʿfar, and ʿĀqil wa-majnūn, or “The Sane and the Insane,” which in turn is the second act of ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, whereas a number of loose folios remain to be identified. Among these is the play referred to by Kahle as ʿAjāʾib al-barr, or “Wonders of the land.”18 It includes several fragmentary clusters that consist of two versions of a play, or an act, titled in the manuscript as 13  For titles, Kahle’s original transliteration is retained. 14  Kahle, Zur Geschichte 1–20. 15  Kahle, Zur Geschichte 14–5. 16  A transcription of the colophon is listed by the title Dīwān kedes in the “Literature” subfield in the online catalogue, under “ARC_472.” 17  My speculation was that Kahle did not count the part that covers ʿĀqil wa-majnūn, or “The Sane and the Insane,” of roughly fifty folios, in his intial count. He was aware of the fact that this was part of the play ʿAlam later, as his research notes confirm. 18  In the 1909 list, it was tentatively guessed as ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr (Zur Geschichte 14), a title first reported by Prüfer. The title ʿAjāʾib al-barr was used by Kahle in his working notes later.

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Colophon, the Dīwān kedes (kadas)

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kalām al-Nājī wa-l-Qarwāsha, or “The tale of al-Nājī and al-Qarwāsha,” after the two protagonists. Inserted between are a cluster of songs of the “marketplace type” – a hashish seller, a candy seller, and a shaykh – the beginning of which is missing, along side a group of some ten songs that are marked with a rubric of Maghānī al-ʿArab, literally, “The mastersingers of the Arabs,” a touring company of variety shows (Fig. 5). The relations of these fragments to each other are not very clear and will be discussed below, in chapter 8. In light that the current count of folios is 215, a chunk of some forty leaves evidently had been moved away to separate folders by Kahle and later assigned different catalogue titles and numbers. In other words, if the 125 folios that cover the play ʿAlam constituted “half of the volume,” as stated by Kahle, then the original manuscript must have been of some 250 leaves. The beginning of the play ʿAlam, for example, namely al-Ḥāziq’s opening song, starts at the bottom of the last folio of the now MSB23, and continues on the top of MSB12. Some folios such as that of the play al-Manār (thirty in number) and the beginning part of “the marketplace type” (four folios) were placed elsewhere to form separate entries under their own titles. 2. MSB21 (zot_4424). Current online catalogue title: Dāʾūd al-Manāwī Three manuscript folios, of the same large size (210 × 150 mm) and fine handwriting as that of MSB12, preserve a zajal-verse of Dāwūd al-Munāwī, describing his travel in Turkey and performance of shadow play for the sultan. The text was published in 1909 by Kahle.19 This ought to be part of the original Dīwān kedes, preceding that of MSB23 and MSB12. 3. MSB23 (zot_4431). Current online catalogue title: Shadow play of the genre “marketplace type” Four folios were removed from the main body of the original Dīwān kedes to form the current separate cluster, of the “marketplace type” songs. The last folio contains the beginning of the play ʿAlam, which continues on MSB12. (K2) Shadow play fragments A few other manuscripts have survived substantially (more than fifteen folios each). They are of various paper sizes and handwriting styles. No title page or colophon can be found. As mentioned above, the folios were disseminated by Kahle into numerous blue cardboard-covered “Deutsche Schule, Kairo” (hereafter: DSK) notebooks. In addition to these relatively longer fragmentary units, there are a number of loose paper sheets that contain contents that can be attributed to various plays. These random fragments are mostly in very cursive, and mostly naïve hands, in jotted-down scraps. It is not clear whether 19  Kahle, Zur Geschichte 21–49.

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Manuscript page, the Dīwān kedes (kadas)

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these loose leaves were purchased along with the “major” manuscripts or acquired randomly by chance. The former is more likely, in light of Kahle’s provenances (the Qashshāsh family in Cairo and a shadow master in al-Menzaleh). Altogether, included in this group are items currently catalogued in a sequence, from MSB13 to MSB30. This group is more problematic as far as cataloguing is concerned. Judging from contents, especially the evidence of new authorship and added elements, most of these manuscripts were written later than K1. The significance of this group therefore lies not only in the variants, but also in the new material they offer. 1. MSB13 (zot_4419). Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “B” The catalogue title, again, is somehow misleading. Of sixty-two loose folios, written in a very elegant hand, only two belong to the play ʿAlam, while the rest are that of Abū Jaʿfar. In manuscript, the play is often referred to as al-Qūr wa-lQibs, or in Kahle’s own note on the cover of the folder, “Kur u Kibs.” 2. MSB14 (zot_4420). Current online catalogue: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “C” Of a total of eighty-nine loose folios, the play ʿAlam and other plays are mixed together in one blue DSK notebook, marked by a pencil as “Part 7 of ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr.”20 This is one of the most significant fragmentary manuscripts among the K2 group. Random folios cover several plays, including that of ʿAjā’ib al-barr, or “Wonders of the land” (Fig. 6). Among the many songs, sixteen can be identified with the play ʿAlam. The manuscript features a significant contributor, one al-Sayyid ʿAlī, a street entertainer who claims to be from the “Khan Sinan Pasha neighborhood, making a living selling nuts and candy, signing Prophetic panegyrics, and writing songs for shadow plays (al-kadas).” At least two songs bear his signature authorship phrase (al-istishhād). This fragment is also noteworthy for adding some exclusive material, especially the variants of the “marketplace type” songs. 3. MSB15 (zot_4422). Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 6 Manuscript leaves related to the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, eight in number and written in different hands, all are very coarse and rudimentary, and the size of leaves varies. One song contains the verse “I am sitting at the café (qahwa) in the opposite of the square …” The leaves are kept inside a blue cardboard envelope of DSK, bearing the title “al-ǧuzʾ al-sādis min riwāyat ʿAlam wa Taʿādīr,” written by Kahle. 20  The covers were most likely written by Kahle himself, but the folios inside each folder might have been misplaced over a long time, through many changing hands.

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Manuscript page, PKF MSB14

4. MSB16 (zot_4421). Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 5 Twenty-six large manuscript leaves (230 × 168 mm) related to the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. Along with these leaves, a folio is preserved that contains the content of another play. The leaves are kept inside a blue cardboard envelope of DSK, bearing the title “al-ǧuzʾ al-ḫāmis min riwāyat ʿAlam wa Taʿādīr.” 5. MSB17 (zot_4416). Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr This manuscript contains some exclusive material, attributed to several “new” poets. The loose folios, twenty in total, form several mini working scripts. One incomplete quire, for example, bears a rare summary, in prose, of the storyline of the play ʿAlam and directions for staging the scenes. Some folios are densely written and generously vocalized. This manuscript also contains a generic opening song of shadow theatre ( fann al-kadas), attributed to ʿAlī Saʿd, the earliest known author of the original version of the play (for more details of this poet and shadow master, see below, chapter 8). Eleven songs can be identified as belong to the play ʿAlam, many are new elements, by new contributors: one Ṣiyām, and one Ibrāhīm.

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6. MSB18 (zot_4423). Current online catalogue title: ʿĀqil wa-Maǧnūn One loose folio of the content of al-ʿĀqil wa-l-Majnūn, or “The Sane and the Insane,” a part of the play ʿAlam, that was also often performed separately as an act, or a play (see below, chapter 8). 7. MSB19 (zot_4425). Current online catalogue title: Liʿb al-Timṣāḥ “C” Small manuscript leaves (147 × 99 mm), thirty-seven in total. As stated by Kahle, this is Ms C for his edition of the play al-Timṣāḥ, or “The crocodile.” The text was written by one ʿAlī al-Najjār in 1118–9/1707–8. Kahle published part of the text.21 8. MSB20 (zot_4436). Current online catalogue title: Miscellany Various manuscript fragments, 103 in total, written by different hands, on various topics, some were related to shadow theater. A title has been written in triangular shape on the first leaf, but it does not correspond to the content of the leaves. 9. MSB22 (zot_4426). Current online catalogue title: Timsāḥ Ten manuscript folios related to the play al-Timsāḥ. They are “Ms B” and “Ms C” for Kahle’s edition. Kahle held the sheets together with a strip of paper on which he wrote that Ms B has six leaves, Ms C has one leaf. The leaves are kept inside a cardboard envelope of DSK, bearing the title “Timsah ms.” 10. MSB24 (zot_4432). Current online catalogue title: Miscellany Loose manuscript folios, thirty-eight in number, held together by Kahle with a strip of paper entitled “Varia.” The texts were written by different hands and have different topics: some contain dawr-stanzas and qaṣīda-poems of the shadow play, the others are religious texts, such as one Munājāt Mūsā, or “Moses’ supplication,” and so forth. One cluster of three folios, written in elegant calligraphy, seventeen lines to each, is part of a love song by the male protagonist, in fourteen dawr-stanzas, used in the play ʿAlam. Some leaves are fully vocalized. The leaves are kept inside a blue cardboard envelope of DSK. 11. MSB26 (zot_4427). Current online catalogue title: Sheets of a play of shadow theater-1 Loose folios, twenty in total, form a seemingly working script owned by the Qashshāsh family. The manuscript unveils the mechanism and process through which the copy was made. Blank spaces were left to be filled. This manuscript 21  Kahle, Das Krokodilspiel.

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also features one ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, most likely the same al-Sayyid Aḥmad, whose logo, “SA,” appears in several fragments as well as the ARC materials (see below). This also indicates that this is a much later codex. Of six songs, the first love duet was originated by al-Munāwī, and expanded upon, indicated by a second istishhād-author signature, attributed to Ḥasan Qashshāsh. A new chicken seller’s song is credited with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. 12. MSB27 (zot_4428). Current online catalogue title: Sheets of a play of shadow theater-2 Seven large manuscript folios (252 × 175 mm) contain various songs (dawr) between al-Zibriqāsh and al-Ḥājj Maʿāsh and the song of al-Kābis (al-Rikhim, the clown), all are characters of the play al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile” (the current online catalogue left this manuscript as “unidentified”). On the first page there is a name of Muḥammad, perhaps the scribe. The text was written by two hands. 13. MSB28 (zot_4429). Current online catalogue title: Sheets of a play of shadow theater-3 Manuscript folios (169 × 110 mm), ten in number, bound together containing various dawrs of a play concerning shadow theater (needs verification). The text seems to be missing only the beginning and has no title. It was written by the same hand and bears the same calligraphy. 14. MSB29 (zot_4430). Current online catalogue title: Sheets of a play of shadow theater-4 Nine manuscript folios (160 × 118 mm) containing various dawr-stanzas and a qaṣīda-ode from an unidentified shadow play. The incomplete text has no title and was written by the same hand. 15. MSB30 (zot_4417). Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr Consisting of twenty-four folios of high-quality paper, written in elegant hand, the manuscript appears to be a pocket-size songbook of a later date. All of the eleven songs are existing lyrics related to the play ʿAlam. 1.2.1.4 Archival Materials (ARC) In addition to the manuscripts (MSB), materials of shadow plays produced in early modern era and under the catalogue heading of ARC prove to be a mine of information with significant substance. The archival materials (ARC) in the PKF were arranged according to contents, and often catalogued under individual play titles. The detail of these materials will be presented below for each play (chapters 8 and 9). While most of the ARC items were Kahle’s working

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notes and drafts, many of them and the related items are highly original. For example, several names, other than the Qashshāsh clan, emerged as the original owners-cum-scribes-cum-authors of these plays. These new plays are mostly short and written either by the owner himself or transcribed by Kahle. They include: the aforesaid al-Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (MSB26), whose logo “SA” is featured in several texts (such as ARC_433); Ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad ʿAbbāsī, whose (self-)portrait is featured on the cover of one notebook (ARC_452; Fig. 7), and Samānī Darwīsh, whose provenance of one collection of seven short plays was confirmed by Kahle (ARC_481; ARC_467). What follows here are some of the highlights: 1. ARC_433 (zot_444). Current online catalogue title: Volume with transcription and transliteration of “ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr” This notebook, of 400 pages, preserves a full text of a much-expanded new adaptation of the play ʿAlam, by the aforesaid Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (“SA”). It features a mostly dialogue version of the play, with many added scenes, while keeping a substantial amount of original songs from earlier manuscripts. More details will be discussed below, chapters 8, 9. 2. ARC_467. Current online catalogue title: Samāni Derwish This is a notebook that contains exclusive material of various shadow plays. Kahle numbered, in pencil, the pages of the notebook, and on the first page added an index of the titles of the plays he transcribed, which are the following, in Kahle’s transliteration: “1. Abū Ǧaʿfar. 2. Abū Rizq. 3. ṭa‌ʾm el-ʾahua. 4. ṭa‌ʾm al-ḥeggîis (sic.). 5. ḥarb al-ʿagam. 6. ṭa‌ʾm šēḫ smēsim. 7. el-merkib elʾawwalāni.” Kahle’s transliteration of these seven plays contains material not found elsewhere; for example, the plays Abū Rizq, or “Abu Rizq”;22 al-Ḥajjiyya, or “Pilgrimage journey”; and al-Awwalānī, or “Tales of Nile watchman.” 3. ARC_452 (zot_463). Current online catalogue title: Characters of the chapter “Yanā” Preserved in the PKF is an early modern checklist that contains some thirty titles most of which have apparently not survived. Made by an anonymous shadow master, written in pencil, on a sheet, in two columns, it also has the drawing of the scribe (or shadow master) named Ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad ʿAbbāsī. The list is divided into two parts. The first part is marked by a phrase faṣl yanī (or yanā), the meaning of which is unclear. Below the heading is a list of thirtyfour entries (see Fig. 7). The current Turin online catalogue describes it as a list of “characters of the chapter Yanā.” This cannot be correct in light that a 22  The content of this play is yet to be located.

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Notebook cover with shadow play titles and a performer’s (self)-portrait

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number of these entries are not personal names and therefore cannot possibly be characters in a play. Furthermore, seven entries are confirmed as titles of identified plays, and they are: al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse”; al-Būsṭa, or “The post”; Lūrīta, or “Loretta”; al-ʿUmda, or “The chieftain”; Ḥarb al-Sūdān, or “War in the Sudan”; al-ʿAyyān (also al-Rājil al-ʿayyān), or “The sick man”; and al-Ṣayyād, or “The fisherman.” In addition, the archival materials also include some items that were not catalogued under the ARC heading. For shadow theatre research in general, of interest are items from Jacob’s archive which had been transformed to Kahle’s care, now catalogued under the heading of PK_JA. Other types of material, such as the documentation of Oriental shadow plays in Europe, under the heading B, also contain some remarkable holdings, such as the printed poster of shadow play performance Kahle helped to stage in Stuttgart in 1924 (B119; whereas the playbill of the same program was catalogued as ARC_432) and Jacob’s notes on a Russian transcription of an “Oriental” shadow play (B138). Although no artifacts have remained in the collection (see below), namely the shadow figures purchased by Kahle in al-Menzaleh, some documentation, such as Kahle’s correspondences with various German institutions to which he donated shadow figures before World War II, can also be found now under the catalogue heading of “Cor.” 1.2.2 The Taymūr Collection In the unique and true treasure-trove of Arabic cultural heritage, well known as al-Khizāna al-Taymūriyya, or The Taymūr Collection of Manuscripts and Rare Books, now at the National Library of Egypt (Dār al-kutub), is a small yet significant cache of shadow play manuscripts. Alongside the Mamluk material mentioned above are at least six manuscripts that contain materials of Ottoman era shadow plays, to our best knowledge. Of these, two are anthologies of shadow play songs, and four are general collections of vernacular poetry (zajal). They appear to be Sufi songbooks that include verses originally from shadow plays to be reused in other performance venues, such as the Sufi dhikr rite. A brief description is presented in the following pages. For convenience, I assigned all manuscripts with a T + number. (T1) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 785, Kitāb al-Rawḍ al-waḍḍāḥ fī tahānī al-afrāḥ al-musammā bi-ijtimāʿ al-shaml fī fann khayāl al-ẓill, or “The luminous garden of joyful songs, known as The happy reunion in the art of the shadow play”23 23  I thank the anonymous reviewer for his suggestions in translating the title.

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Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ

The title makes clear that this was a book of poems for performers of shadow plays with special reference to selected scenes. The names of both Ḥasan and Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh, father and son, appear frequently (Fig. 8). The randomly arranged verses belong to several plays, chief among them is ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. The manuscript is paginated, consisting of 300 pages, and it is made up of two volumes (kitāb) in different hands and on various types of paper. Long song-cycles are often marked with a phrase, or refrains, serving as a heading. Loosely arranged in the order of the overall narrative line, volume one deals with events before the protagonist’s madness, and volume two continues from there to the finale. Volume two also includes additional songs. In addition to the play ʿAlam, the other shadow plays in the manuscript are Abū Jaʿfar, about the farcical rivalry between two countrymen; Liʿb al-manār, or “The Lighthouse [of Alexandria]”; Liʿb al-timsāḥ, or “The crocodile”; Shaykh Sumaysim, a Sufi master’s dealings with a landowning woman, and probably

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al-Ḥajjiyya, or “The pilgrimage tale,” a comic take on the treacherous journey (the title is not clearly spelled out). (T2) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 970, al-Sirmāṭa fī azjāl khayāl al-ẓill, or “A collection of shadow play songs” Taymūr remarked that zajal songs originally made for shadow plays were collected in anthologies known as sirmāṭa (or surmāṭa), of which he possessed several.24 The term sirmāṭa was a sīm-code word, “to write out amulet,” as it has been examined by scholars.25 As a matter of fact, one “amulet write (ʿawwādh al-sharmāṭ)” is featured in Ibn Dāniyāl’s play ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” whose monologue is among the longest passages that demonstrate the skills required for the craft in question.26 The songs in this collection can be linked to five shadow plays, chief among them is ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. Different hands are witnessed, as the clusters are arranged randomly. The opening song introduces the presenters as “Ḥasan Qashshāsh, and his son Darwīsh Qashshāsh.” The manuscript is paginated and has headings that highlight the scenes. The play ʿAlam is divided into several clusters, which are not arranged in any particular order, insofar as the first and second clusters overlap in content. Compared with T1, this codex is much leaner; yet it offers elements not witnessed in the former. Noteworthy is the second cluster, which offers the most detailed headings for the songs and is in essence a condensed version of the complete play. Other shadow plays found in the manuscript are: Shaykh Sumaysim, Liʿb al-timsāḥ, Liʿb al-shūnī, and Abū Jaʿfar. (T3) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 666, Majmūʿ, or “Songbook” On the corner of the title page is a note that the shadow master al-Qashshāsh was also a contributing author/poet (nāẓim) of the anthology, “whose home was at the corner of the Amīr al-Juyūsh marketplace,” a stone’s throw from the Khan al-Khalili bazaar. The table of contents lists sixty-six zajal poems, by alShaykh Suʿūd, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, and Dāwūd al-Munāwī al-ʿAṭṭār, showcasing a wide range: love songs and panegyrics (religious and political) for weddings, festivals, and other public celebrations. The manuscript also has folio numbers. For a detailed discussion of the layout of this Sufi songbook and its relation to shadow play songs, see below, chapter 8. 24  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 81. 25  For the root meaning of s-r-m-ṭ and the derived jargons, “writings of amulets,” “book,” see Bosworth, Islamic underworld ii, 250–1 (AD, v. 76); Muehlhaeusler, Arabic block prints 561–2. 26  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 71–4; also see Muehlhaeusler, Arabic block prints 561–2; 566–7.

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(T4) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 776, Safīnat zajal madḥ fī al-nabī, or “A collection of songs in praise of the prophet” Both title page and colophon identify the manuscript as safīnat zajal, namely, a songbook in oblong format, like a ship (safīna), with the lines running horizontal to the spine. The colophon contains a date of completion: 13 Muḥarram 1301 (15 November 1883), and the name of the scribe and owner, Muḥammad Jād [ibn] Mūsā. Among the sixty-six song-cycles contained herein, several are from shadow play scripts. The manuscript is paginated, written in a disciplined and diligent hand. For a detailed discussion of the layout of this Sufi songbook and its relation to shadow play songs, see below, chapter 8. (T5) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 667, Majmūʿ, or “Songbook” In light of the similarities of this codex with T4 and T6, the provenance could be traced to Muḥammad Jād. The anthology consists of mostly devotional, and some didactic, poems. Of the sixty-four song-cycles featured, several were used for shadow plays. The manuscript is paginated, written in very elegant hand, with detailed headings. For a detailed discussion of the layout of this Sufi songbook and its relation to shadow play songs, see below, chapter 8. (T6) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 668, Majmūʿ azjāl qadīma, or “Songbook of old lyrics” The colophon states that copying was completed in 1300/1882 by Muḥammad Jād ibn Mūsā, the same copyist and owner of T4 and probably T5. Composed of 105 folios, written in the same naskh hand throughout, it contains several songs of shadow plays. 1.2.2.1 Other Ottoman Shadow Play Manuscripts Two manuscripts of ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Isḥāqī’s anthology titled Dīwān sulāf al-inshāʾ fī al-shiʿr wa-l-inshāʾ contain songs from a short shadow play titled Munādamat Umm Mujbir, or “Courting Umm Mujbir.” The text has been published by ʿInānī and Moreh (see below, chapter 8). 1. MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, arabe 4852, folios 142–4a. 2. MS Vienna, no. 494 (Flügel’s catalogue). The Vienna Arabic manuscripts catalogue, vol. 1, 485. 1.2.2.2 Unidentified Manuscripts Material In light of the precarious songbook format of Ottoman era shadow play collections, in that verses were often not assigned with a uniform title on account of the lack of any full “scripts,” along with the imperfect state of preservation, the documentation of these source materials is not without its share of uncertainties. Two sets of issues present themselves for future research, and they are: (1) some unidentified fragmentary elements in the manuscripts, and (2) plays

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that have been reported with titles only but lack confirmed references. For the former, some fragmentary elements found in both Kahle’s and Taymūr’s collections still remain unidentified. For the latter, some of the plays described by Kern, Prüfer, and Taymūr could not be verified. And then there is the question of another “Mamluk era shadow play” claimed by Ḥusayn (see above, chapter 3, and below, chapter 7). What follows here is a list of the “loose ends,” or unidentifiable materials, found in the manuscripts. They were temporarily grouped according to types. 1.2.2.3 The Nile Fishermen Tales Among the several short plays preserved in the second part of K1 (MSB12, a bulk of the Dīwān kedes) is a song cycle, incomplete with water damages to the paper, that begins with a song by the title of “description of the sailor (waṣf al-muqalliʿ)” on the Nile. This is followed by a monologue sung by an elder sailor (shaykh al-baḥḥār) named Abū Munīr. He gets into an argument with a youngster, whom he calls “the son of a thief,” and accuses him of stealing. After some back-and-forth, the boat is stuck against the high waves. A soldier is also involved in the saga. Judging from the story, it resembles the play reported by Taymūr, titled al-Awlānī (or al-Awwalānī), and confirmed by Kahle, as al-Markab al-awwalānī, also about a Nile night-watcher, a boy who steals from fishing boats, and a Turkish soldier.27 A similar title, Maṣṭarat al-muqalliʿ, or “The play of a boat man,” is found in K2 (MSB14), but with no content left therein. 1.2.2.4 The Marketplace Scenes Four manuscript folios of the genre termed by Kahle as “marketplace type” were from the original Dīwān kedes, and now preserved separately (K1, MSB23).28 The genre is similar to the play ʿAjīb wa-Gharīb, or “Amazing and Strange,” by Ibn Dāniyāl, which showcases a parade of street characters. The present act, or perhaps an interval type in performance, consists of a dialogue between Abū al-Qiṭaṭ (a.k.a. al-Rikhim, the clown and sidekick of the Presenter in Egyptian repertory) and a candy seller. This scheme is also seen in the scenes from the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, when the protagonist pretends to be a street peddler selling various commodities (often with the help of al-Rikhim/Abū al-Qiṭaṭ) in efforts to lure the young lady ʿAlam out. Kahle’s working notes have been 27  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 26; PKF, ARC_467; ARC_481. 28  The current online catalogue of MSB23 states that the text “was written by the same hand and bears the same calligraphy. These folios are from the materials acquired by Kahle in 1707 (sic. for 1907) in Egypt. Paul Kahle has kept these sheets separately from the rest of the main manuscript.”

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preserved (ARC_474, dated c. 1912), and he also published the content (Arabic text and German translation).29 1.2.2.5 Tales of the Shaykhs The manuscript T1 contains only songs to be used exclusively for various shadow plays, but while the majority can be identified, a few song cycles remain uncertain. One of these (pp. 239–49), attributed to one Mūsā al-faqīr (“the poor,” usually refers to a self-stylized Sufi), narrates some type of urban legend of Cairo. It starts with street scenes of the Būlāq area, the social gatherings (al-majālis) around the Sayyidat al-Zaynab district, and the activities of the shaykhs of the Azhar. Then it turns to a bullying champ (al-fatā), who has been tyrannizing the neighborhood. An unnamed shaykh provides him with moral guidance, concluding with a song condemning the thuggish bullies (dhamm al-khabīs). This is one of the several song-cycles, probably skits, that feature Sufi masters (cf. the play al-Shaykh Sumaysim). 2

Shadow Figures

The earliest reference to the artifacts of Arab shadow puppets, other than Ibn Dāniyāl’s description in his scripts, is perhaps the accounts by the Mamluk Syrian historian Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn (d. 1546). In one of his biographical dictionaries of the local notables, he mentioned that once in the house of the subject of the bio-obituary, one ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad al-Makkī al-Shāfiʿī, he had seen “illustrated books (kutub muṣawwara), among them the Țayf al-Khayāl by Ibn Dāniyāl.”30 If this eye-witness account could be verified, these now lost “illustrated books” could be among the early records of shadow figures and their representation. A limited number of Arab shadow figures, both puppets (human, Genies, and animals) and set pieces (house, garden, sheep yards, etc.) of the Ottoman and early modern times, are known to have been preserved in museums, research institutes, and private collections all over the world. Among these, few have been published. What follows here is an inventory of all the shadow figures that were made public, along with a brief survey of research, past and current. This inventory is far from being exhaustive given the state of documentation and preservation of cultural heritage in the Arab world. 29  Kahle, Marketszene. 30  Ibn Ṭulūn’s Dhakhāʾir al-qaṣr has only recently been pubished in a facsimile edition (Amman 2014), to which I have yet to gain access. The quote is from Taymūr (al-Taṣwīr 147), who relied on a manuscript copy at his disposal.

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2.1 The Paul Kahle Collection of Egyptian Shadow Figures Paul Kahle’s collection of Egyptian shadow puppets is unmatched and by far the most important. Kahle acquired the original pieces from two sources. The “new” puppets, made by Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh around the late nineteenth century, were purchased through his son Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh in 1907. “Hasan,” Kahle wrote, had “begun re-introduction of the shadow play in Cairo somewhat earlier. He must have had a certain success. We hear that he was invited to perform his shadow play before the Khediv Tewfik Pasha (1879–1892) in Heluan.” Among the figures Kahle purchased were those “to have been made expressly” for those representations before the Khediv.31 Then in 1909, in the Nile Delta village of al-Menzaleh, Kahle purchased yet another set, which he tentatively categorized as “old” shadow puppets. Kahle wrote that one of the owners had told him that these puppets “had been in their family for several generations, and that they had been brought over from Cairo in the middle of the eighteenth century by one of their forefathers. He had bought them from a Pasha who was anxious to get rid of them, because his son who had played with them had died.”32 Kahle was also a pioneer in embarking upon an iconographic analysis of the shadow figures through his inventory of the Menzaleh material. He characterized these puppets as on a par with “the best specimen of Mamluk art.”33 However, as briefly mentioned above, recently the art historian Marcus Milwright has suggested that the Menzaleh puppets were an Ottoman production of “Mamluk prototypes” manufactured in the early eighteenth century. Among the key evidence is the detail of a passenger on a boat who is clearly seen as smoking what appears to be a waterpipe, which is widely believed to have been introduced to the Islamic lands after the late sixteenth century, namely the Ottoman era (see cover illustration).34 The impact of the visual art of shadow theatre on book illustration, namely the illustrated Maqāmāt and the Rasāʾil ikhwān al-ṣafā, or “Epistles of the Sincere Brethren,” was also discussed in passing by art historians, most notably Richard Ettinghausen and Robert Hillenbrand.35 Recent study by Alain George argues that it represents “a key element in our understanding of Maqāmāt illustrations, their mood, and the broader pictorial tradition which flourished in that period.”36 Therefore, the method of research is innovatively multiplefaceted: relying on textual evidence, namely Ibn Dāniyāl’s script, which 31  Kahle, Arabic shadow play (1954) 96. 32  Ibid., 94; also, Kahle, Islamische Schattenspielfiguren II, 183. 33  Kahle, Arabic shadow play (1954) 96. 34  Milwright, On the date. 35  Ettinghausen, Shadow figures; Arab painting 81–8; Hillenbrand, Erudition exalted 193. 36  George, The illustration 3.

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remains the only surviving written testimonial of that period, the study draws parallels between the shadow play figures, from the Paul Kahle collection, with the classical Maqāmāt illustrations. George’s iconographic comparative reading also extends to the medieval Western iconic tradition. This study, along with the above-mentioned article by Milwright, present the most detailed and comprehensive iconographical analysis of Arab shadow art and the most upto-date inventory of Egyptian shadow artifacts. As for the collection itself, as mentioned above, in 1910 and 1911 Kahle published his collection of shadow puppets, numerated at a total of eighty-four figures.37 The actual number may fluctuate, given that some pieces belong to one figure (for examples, figs. 11–12, 17–18, 22–23, 31–33), whereas others are fragments (figs. 25–28). This first major publication of Egyptian shadow puppets was typographical in nature. In Kahle’s archives are also several sketches of shadow figures and scenes drawn by one Maḥmūd ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ṣamad.38 Some of these artifacts were used, at least once on the record, for a live audience performance by the Landestheater at the Württ, Stuttgart, on October 19, 1924. The play was “Das Krokodilspiel,” namely Liʿb al-timsāḥ.39 After World War II, in 1954, Kahle published another, smaller, batch in an iconography-oriented presentation aimed at further advancing his argument for the “Mamluk style.” Of these “old” figures, some were published for the first time, whereas others overlap with the 1910–1 batch. It appears that not all the items at Kahle’s disposal have been published.40 It should also be pointed out that Kahle’s publications are all drawings in black and white, the original pieces may have been re-constructed over time. In recent years, a selected few have been reprinted in HD color photo by George and Milwright.41 2.2 Egyptian Shadow Puppets in German Museums A number of Kahle’s Egyptian shadow puppets were donated to museums in Germany before World War II. They form the core of their Egyptian shadow puppet collections. Among these, a life-size leather shadow puppet, “The falconer on horseback,” has been on permanent display in Berlin at the time of this writing.42 A large part of the collection was still in Kahle’s possession

37  Kahle, Islamische Schattenspielfiguren; Arabic shadow play (1954). 38  P KF, ARC_492. The circumstances under which these sketches were made are not clear. 39  See above, chapter 2. 40  For example, no match could be made for “Puppet #6,” a pelican, in the current Köln collection, with the published drawings. 41  George, The illustration; Milwright, On the date. 42  Museum für Islamische Kunst, Inv. Nr. I 1642.

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around 1960. They seem to have been dispersed among family members after Kahle’s death in 1964; some have appeared on the art market in recent years.43 These pieces have since been examined by a number of researchers,44 but no full catalogue has been produced. Some museums have digitized the Egyptian shadow puppets in their holdings, but none has made its entire collection of shadow puppets available online. In light of the most recent count, here is an incomplete checklist. 1. The Linden Museum in Stuttgart, twenty-six puppets (eighteen are identified),45 donated in 1913. 2. The Deutsches Ledermuseum, Offenbach am Main, four puppets, donated in 1933.46 3. The Staatliche Museum in Berlin, number uncertain, donated in 1933. 4. The Puppentheatermuseum, Munich, number uncertain, donated in 1938, before Kahle emigrated to Britain. 5. The Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Köln, six puppets, donated in 1938 (Fig. 9).47 6. Hamburgisches Museum für völkerkunde, Hamburg (need to be identified whether they were from the Kahle collection),48 number uncertain. 7. The Max Bührmann collection, formerly of Islamische Museum (now Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), sources and number uncertain.49 2.3 Shadow Puppets in Egyptian Museums Small collections have been preserved in several Egyptian museums. No full catalogue can be found.

43  Hopwood, Introduction to Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays 4; Milwright, On the date. 44  Blackham, Shadow puppets; Hermann, Die welt der Fellachen; Wilpert, Schattentheater; And, Karagöz; George, The illustration; Milwright, On the date. 45  Milwright, On the date 43, 64 (n. 9). 46  P KF, COR_555, includes one invitation card to Kahle from the then director Hugo Eberhardt, and four letters by Kahle, between 1937 and 1938; also see Milwright, On the date 43. 47  The information is via communications with the director, Peter Marx, in 2012 and 2013. The Köln collection was noted by Wilpert, Schattentheater 75–7; And, Karagöz 401. The correspondences between Kahle and J.J. Niessen dated 1933 and 1934 are now in PKF, COR_1681. 48  Blackham, Shadow puppets 199; And, Karagöz 401; Hermann, Die welt der Fellachen 46; Wilpert, Schattentheater 74. 49  And, Karagöz 360.

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A hunter and his falcon

1. The Museum of Egyptian Geographical Society, Cairo Leather shadow puppets were on permanent exhibition, accompanied by brief captions. No catalogue has been published. On the cover of Corrao’s monograph on shadow theatre in medieval Cairo is the reproduction of a leather figure, “A lady by the balcony,”50 from the museum holdings. Other leather figures currently preserved in the museum are: a deer (?); a sheep yard/ stable, with a movable door; a man; two men, one holding a stick; two ladies in wedding gowns,51 and perhaps more. 50  Corrao, Il riso, il comico. The set piece resembles a scene in the early modern play “Loretta” (see below, chapter 9). 51  I thank Francesca Corrao for sharing with me the photos of these figures, which remain unpublished.

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2. Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo The Egyptian newspaper al-Ahrām online in 2008 reported that replicas of leather shadow play puppets are preserved at Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art.52 But no catalogue is available, and the details are uncertain. Two artists from Cairo, Bahaa El-Merghani and Said Abu Rayah, have kept shadow figures manufacturing alive, according to the al-Ahrām report. Several shadow figures crafted by them are among the holdings of the Center of Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, USA.53 They are the gift of Dr. Nabil Bahjat, a professor of Arabic theatre at the University of Helwan and the founder of the Wamḍa (the word means “beam of light”) Troupe of Puppetry and Shadow Play that has been very active in preserving and promoting Arabic shadow plays (for a description of the troupe’s performances in summer 2015, see below, Epilogue). These replicas are of the Ottoman Egyptian repertoire. One is the figure of Rikhim, the clown. Another shows a “woman in the house,” which is similar to the abovementioned “A lady by the balcony” at the Geographical Society. The third piece is a fisherman, similar to the figure used in the recent production of the play al-Timsāḥ, “The crocodile,” by the Wamḍa Troupe. 2.4 Artifacts from Syria and the Levant A fine shadow puppet known as “A lady on the camel,” originated from Aleppo, has been an iconic piece since its publication by Jacob in 1925, showing off the intricate artistry of Syrian shadow figure making (see Fig. 1).54 Significant holdings of shadow puppets are housed in two major museums in Syria, but the publications are spotty. The events in Syria since the 2010s have had catastrophic effects on cultural heritage preservation. With regard to the dire situation of shadow play artifacts and the art form itself, a call of action has been issued by UNESCO recently.55 The following information is the most up-to-date. 1. Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions, the ʿAẓm Palace, Damascus (Matḥaf al-taqālīd al-shaʿbiyya wa-l-ṣināʿāt al-yadawiyya), the website is up to date. The museum has a substantial collection of early modern and contemporary shadow puppets, which have not been fully catalogued. Saʿd described his visit to the museum in the 1970s where he saw the large holdings of shadow puppets. The puppets were of different types, mainly of the Karakūz style and the Arab war epic type. He published some color photos he took in the

52  a l-Ahrām online, 6–12 March 2008, Issue No. 887. “Theatre of Shadow,” by Amira el-Noshokaty. 53  http://www.puppetry.org. 54  The piece was housed in the Mayfer Friedrich Museum, Germany. 55  See: https://ich.unesco.org/en/USL/shadow-play-01368.

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museum.56 Prior to that, two black-and-white photos of the museum holdings were published by Abū Shanab.57 2. Museum of Popular Traditions (Matḥaf al-taqālīd al-shaʿbiyya), Aleppo, website last updated, 2010. The museum housed the private collection of the maestro Muḥammad Marʿī al-Dabbāgh, among others. Several black-and-white photo reproductions were published in 1977.58 Saʿd took color photos and published a small, yet valuable, selection.59 The figures represent the peak of Syrian shadow artistry. Unfortunately, the museum, and the city of Aleppo, must have suffered devastating damages during the recent upheaval. The official website was last updated in 2010. The situation is unknown now. 2.5 Artifacts from North Africa In addition to pictures of shadow theatre in Alger published in turn-of-thecentury French art magazines (see Fig. 2),60 the publication records of shadow puppets from the Maghreb are confined to researchers’ drawings and sketches. These include Jacob’s drawing of Tunisian karagöz figures (1925),61 Levy’s line drawing of seven figures from the play “A fishing tale” (1929),62 and Hoenerbach’s reproduction of nine pieces from two private collectors: the Libyan shadow maestro Muḥammad al-Wasṭī of Tripoli, and R. Tschudi.63 Overall, shadow figures produced in North Africa are coarse and naïve, compared with their counterparts in the Arab East.

56  Saʿd, Khayāl al-ẓill 380–1, 383, 393–4. 57  Abū Shanab, Masraḥ ʿArabī qadīm. 58  Qaṭāya, Khayāl al-ẓill. 59  Saʿd, Khayāl al-ẓill 380–94. 60  See above, chapter 1. 61  Jacob, Geschichte des Schattentheaters 129. 62  Levy, Laʿbät Elhōtä 123; reprinted in Hoenerbach, Schattentheater III, Abbidungen. 63  Hoenerbach, Schattentheater III, Abbidungen.

chapter 5

Language, Style, and Terminology Of the repertoires of shadow theatre in the premodern Arab world, only a fraction has survived. The small extant corpus of codices exhibits certain discernable features and trends with regard to content, language, and style. This chapter aims at a preliminary description of the issues at stake here. For modern researchers, a major challenge is without a doubt the related thorny matter of terminology – of guild-code like jargons and highly technical music notations that perhaps only made sense to their users and performers, of which our current knowledge is very limited. 1

Content and Language

Much may be said about the nature and the characteristics of premodern Arabic shadow plays and the direct link between their content and language. From indirect references, such as Sufi poet Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s famous description of fantastic shadow play scenes, earlier plays may have featured more serious and didactic subjects. But there is no surviving proof for comparison. By the Mamluk time, Ibn Dāniyāl’s outlandish plays of societal critique and ruthless satire, ridden with excessive vulgarism, probably reached a peak point that went beyond the tolerance of the authorities. Perhaps as a reflective reaction, many of the Ottoman era plays reveal an impulse to appease the collective moral consciousness and appeal to a larger audience base in the landscape of urban cultural consumption. This is seen in the surprisingly “clean” characters and their speeches (songs), which were void of the obscenity that was characteristic of Ibn Dāniyāl’s scripts. It is also evident that the story lines of postMamluk shadow plays are now more socially engaging and morally affirmative. True to the form, some Ottoman and early modern shadow plays still aimed at age-old farcical high drama, poking fun at the cultural elites, especially the ulema and Sufis, while others touched upon sensitive, and period-relevant, topics such as interfaith tension, war and peace, ethnicity and multilingualism, and peasant life. While comedy remained the main draw, substantial didactic components of religious, natural, literary, and common knowledge were also incorporated into the Ottoman and early modern era repertoires. Taking into account the above-mentioned scholarly discourse on the changing nature and audience of the shadow “theatre,” from the medieval court and private salon to

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_006

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the Ottoman era coffee houses, a working theory would be that the vernacular turn, in general, as witnessed by the post-Mamluk cultural production at large, manifests itself in the performance venues where didactic zajals emerged as a major oral educational tool in the collective cultural enterprise to entertain, educate, and enlighten. The changing trends in contents and moral stands of the scripts certainly had direct bearing on language and style. If the Mamluk mode, exemplified by Ibn Dāniyāl, reflects a neo-classical inclination in its retaining of the classical measures – of sajʿ, or rhymed prose, for dialogue, and qaṣīda, or formal poem in monorhyme, for recitation and/or singing – the Ottoman specimens demonstrate a tendency leaning towards the overwhelmingly vernacular: not only were the dialogues entirely in local dialects, but also the song-speeches, which were predominantly in the zajal vernacular variants, namely shorter poems made of stanzas and in multiplerhymes. Oftentimes, as the extant manuscripts evidence, the dialogues were not “scripted”; that is, they were mostly not recorded in writing. Only song versions of a given play were circulated in manuscripts. Given that many of these songs were also suitable for other venues than shadow theatre, such as coffee house storytelling, Ramadan festival entertainments, popular religious rites, and public pageantry, a better knowledge of them would shed significant light on a broader spectrum of subjects, such as Arabic poetry in the “post classical” period, social linguistics, oral culture, and public performance at large. Speaking of language, if Ibn Dāniyāl’s occasional use of Persian words to spice up the exotic and often lascivious flavor of his lyrics followed a long tradition in classical Arabic poetry, exemplified by figures like Abū Nuwās (d. 814), who has often been compared with Ibn Dāniyāl, in Ottoman era shadow plays the fusion of languages became a trademark. Not only Turkish, but also the languages spoken in the Ottoman Empire – Albanian, Hebrew, Persian, Armenian – along with the sundry dialects of the Arabs, were utilized in shadow play performances. The male protagonist of the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, for example, a Turk living in Ottoman Cairo, often opens his song-speech with the phrase “dastūr …,” a Turkish expression for “I beg your pardon …” He also brags about his talent in languages, seven in total, to appeal to his Copt love interest. Similar Turko-Arabic phraseology is also common in Ottoman era vernacular Sufi songbooks (see below). Many of the songs from shadow play scripts produced at the time are peppered with words or expressions in these languages, often in a distorted twist for laughter. The play al-Shūnī, “The boating,” for example, builds up its entire premise on the chaos and confusion caused by a misunderstanding of languages and dialects among characters of multipleethnic groups. In Syrian-Levantine and North African plays, the schematic

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cast includes a host of ethnical types – the Jew, the Turk, the Armenian, the Bedouin, the Berber, the Albanian, the Maltese – whose “exotic” speech patterns often play an important role in comic relief. More detail of the use of this language-humor will be discussed below for individual plays. 2

Songs in the Shadow Play: Canonic and Non-Canonic Verses

As a performing art, premodern Arabic shadow plays were made up primarily of verses to be recited and sung. With the exception of Mamluk examplers, namely Ibn Dāniyāl’s work, the verses were predominantly, and at times exclusively, in the non-canonic zajal form. Therefore, it is necessary to present an overview of the verse types, especially the non-canonic, used in the shadow play, before turning to the specificities. Arabic non-canonic poetry, collectively known as zajal, grew side by side with the classical crown jewel, the shiʿr. The two were hardly on a par, nevertheless. The non-canonic genres – muwashshaḥ, mawāliyā, dū-bayt, zajal, and kān wa-kān – further developed into a garden-variety of sub-types, which display discernable topical specialty, period features, and regional flavor. While the muwashshaḥ and zajal, both invented in Muslim Spain, better known as Andalusia, have been studied extensively within that cultural context, their eastern trajectories – in Iraq, Egypt, and Syria – have been less so.1 While nearly all of the published studies so far focus on the “classical,” namely Andalusian/“Western,” and “post-classical,” namely Mamluk/“Eastern,” phases, the development of the genre in the post-Mamluk era has yet to receive scholarly attention. Shadow plays of the Ottoman era, which were composed nearly exclusively of zajal verses, promise to be a fertile field for the much-needed inquiry. Linguistically, it is important to note that not all non-canonic genres were of the “vernacular.” One may argue that only the zajal, narrowly defined, is strictly speaking of the vernacular, with considerable colloquial elements and specific grammar rules.2 The Egyptian cultural elites’ engagement with non-canonic poetry is well documented, but less so is their involvement in the vernacular, to say nothing of the commoners’ (al-ʿāmma, or al-ʿawāmm) participation in this enterprise. While the forms of muwashshaḥ, dū-bayt, and mawāliyā remained 1  The bibliography of the subject is long. For the present interest, the debate over meters of zajal verse was summarized in Özkan, Why stress does matter. A case study of Mamluk zajal is in Özkan, The drug zajals. 2  al-Ḥillī, al-ʿĀṭil al-ḥālī.

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the favorite all over the Mamluk realm,3 the zajal did seem to enjoy some popularity in certain regions, such as Egypt. Known as al-zajjālūn, or “vernacular poets,” some of them made a name for themselves in specializing in the genre; and their compositions on rulers, places, battles, and religious themes were widely quoted in Mamluk chronicles and biographical dictionaries. But it is the blossom of its “lower” branch, the bullayq (as genre) or ballīqa (as song, pl. balālīq), in Egypt that calls for attention here on account of the predominance of the genre in shadow play scripts.4 Arabic vernacular poetry, especially certain types of the zajal, was particularly suitable for singing. However, its development had long been hindered by two formidable forces: the religious doctrine hostile to music making and the Arab art-song tradition championing highly stylized lyrics. This is not a place to go into detail on these complicated issues; suffice it is to say that these factors dictated the nature and outlook of vernacular poetry. On the other hand, by cultivating a unique voice, zajal poetry (and songs) not only survived, but also formed its own characteristics – aesthetic, linguistic, and artistic – that were dynamic, genuine, and at times enchanting. The more popular sub-type, and least studied so far, is perhaps the verse-form known as bullayq, which appeared in Ibn Dāniyāl’s texts and went on to become the main verse type of shadow play songs from the Ottoman time onward. According to al-Ḥillī, bullayq is one of the four types of zajal, which covers “comical, licentious, and jocular topics (al-hazl wa-l-khalāʿa wa-l-iḥmāḍ),” whereas the zajal proper consists of “love, nostalgia, wine, and flowers (ghazal wa-l-nasīb wa-l-khamrī wa-l-zahrī).”5 This content-based typology is useful but only to a point; it is particularly true in Mamluk Egypt, where the other types of the zajal listed by al-Ḥillī, namely al-qarqī and al-mukaffir, which supposedly deal with satire and insult as well as moral extortion and wisdom respectively, were no longer mentioned in sources. The bullayq, on the other hand, seems to have developed significantly, to the extent that the lines between it and the zajal proper became blurred. This perhaps explains why in the 1001 Nights and

3  By the numbers, al-Kutubī’s biographical dictionary, for example, documented fifty-three cases of dū-bayt, forty-six of muwashshaḥ, six of mawāliyā and kān wa-kān, three of zajal, and two pieces of bullayq; see al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-wafayāt. 4  Other than a few samples from Baghdad and Damascus (al-Ḥillī, al-ʿĀṭil al-ḥālī [Arabic text] 126–8; al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-wafayāt i, 126; iii, 46–7), overall most of the bullayq pieces are of Egyptian provenance. 5  al-Ḥillī, al-ʿĀṭil al-ḥālī (Arabic text) 10.

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other Mamluk texts, the term balālīq (pl.) and azjāl (pl.) are often used interchangeably, as a general reference to ballads, as opposed to shiʿr-poetry.6 The popularity of bullayq likely has to do with its special metrical and rhyme pattern, which made the words easy to sing. This is not only deduced from theoretical works, but also attested to in narrative sources. Late Mamluk sources furnish stories where bullayq pieces were composed specifically for singing. Ibn Taghrībirdī and Ibn Iyās, for example, while citing a ballīqa piece within the narrative of a story, would add that the piece was to be set in a melody (laḥḥana), to be performed in the form of “a ballad, or jingle (ghunwa),” or “a dance tune (raqṣa),” in public.7 This performance-inclined spontaneity would be greatly facilitated by the lax verse-form rules. Until recently the common knowledge of bullayq is that it follows a general rhyming pattern of zajal. Each piece begins with two common rhyme lines (maṭlaʿ), to be followed by several stanzas. Each stanza consists of three lines with separate rhyme and one line with common rhyme (AA, bbbA, cccA …). It is commonly held that there are two types of zajal: the so-called “muwashshaḥ-like zajal,” which consists of a full-length opening and five to seven stanzas, and the “zajal proper,” where the rhyme scheme of the common rhyme lines constitutes only one-half of that of the maṭlaʿ-opening, with more stanzas.8 Both types appear in surviving shadow play texts. But most of the Ottoman era zajal songs related to shadow plays subscribe to the latter pattern: beginning with a couplet for the maṭlaʿ-opening, to be followed by a greater number of five-line dawr-stanzas (Fig. 10). As for bullayq, the samples provided by al-Ḥillī, of what he calls “the Egyptian style” and “the Baghdadi style” respectively, represent an early standard mode. On the other hand, the samples found in shadow play texts display a garden variety in rhyming schemes. In Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays, narratives and dialogues are set in rhymed prose, mimicking the high-stylized maqāmāt, with occasional bursting into colloquialism. Interestingly, the lyrics are primarily in classical metric forms. This comes as no surprise insofar as the script made it clear that the songs were to be set in the tunes of the classical maqām modal system in music 6  Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm ix, 139 (the editors cited Dozy, “espèce de poème populaire comique et licencieux”); Mahdi, Thousand and one nights i, 133 (the 30th night). For the 1001 Nights as a Mamluk text, see ibid. 7  Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm x, 317–8 (raqaṣū bihā bayna yadayya al-sulṭān); al-Manhal vii, 213–22; Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ i/1, 425 (ṣannafū kalāman wa-laḥḥanūhu wa-ṣārū yughannūna bihi); ii, 21 (ṣannafū al-ʿawwām ghunwa); 202 (ṣannafat fīhi ghunwa); iv, 61, 92 (ṣannafū al-ʿawwām raqṣa). Unlike Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ibn Iyās did not spell the word bullayq out, yet the verses quoted were of the bullayq; see Sallām, al-Adab fī al-ʿaṣr al-Mamlūkī i, 316. 8  Schoeler, Zadjal; Hoenerbach, Einleitung, in al-Ḥillī, al-ʿĀṭil al-ḥālī 19–23.

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figure 10 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ

making. The system was developed in ʿAbbasid Iraq for art-music,9 namely songs in classical poetry, as opposed to folk tunes. The dominance of classicism is amply symbolized by the fact that one of the most luminous musicians in Cairo, a contemporary of Ibn Dāniyāl, was nicknamed Ibn al-Faṣīḥ, or “the son of a man of perfect diction [in classical Arabic].”10 Ibn Dāniyāl’s shadow plays were created in this classical art-song medium, with a few vernacular ballads as a carefully crafted component aimed at exotic special effects, artistically and linguistically (more on this, see below, chapter 7). The zajal verses that constitute the main linguistic vehicle for Ottoman era shadow plays conform to the earlier conventional scheme, but in a much watered-down fashion. Most of the bullayq song-cycles, usually a duet, starts with a two-line maṭlaʿ, led by one character, to be followed by numerous 9  The term “art-music” is borrowed from Wright, Music theory (passim). 10  Described as “the miracle of his time,” he died in 1310, the same year Ibn Dāniyāl died; see al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina ii, 494.

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dawr-stanzas (often five lines each) sung by him/her against the antagonist. For a metric analysis, liberty is also witnessed in internal and external structure of a bullayq-ballad used in shadow scripts. With regard to language per se, the term “vernacular” indicates non-classical linguistic measures, on both morphology and syntax levels. In general, zajal is the most “colloquial” among all Arabic poetry – and bullayq even more so. But there are many shades. A close reading of all scripts available shows that except for the few songs in the shadow plays that are entirely in Egyptian dialect, the majority of zajal/bullayq is perhaps best described as a “hybrid,” where classical Arabic (CA), Middle Arabic,11 and colloquial elements mingle and infuse. Further linguistic details of the Ottoman era Egyptian plays will be discussed below, in chapters 8, 9, on specific cases. 3 Terminology 3.1 General Technical Terms Arabic shadow plays feature distinct language and style, as well as terminology. This phenomenon manifests itself in Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays where the “tongue of the Banū Sāsān,” the lingua-franca of the urban underworld, constitutes an alternate medium of narrative with a few jargons tailored for shadow theatre. The guild slang, known as sīm, has also been viewed by scholars as a continuation, or a sub-branch, of this lingua-franca. The Ottoman era shadow play manuscripts, on the other hand, exhibit a tendency to develop a vocabulary of its own for dramaturgy and music notation. In light that these Ottoman and early modern manuscripts, the earliest being a seventeenth-century codex, namely the Dīwān kedes (see above, chapter 4), and the newest being several late nineteenth-century notebooks, also unveil a historical context, a process through which some terms seem to have continued, while some disappeared, along the way. In this regard, a documentation of the frequency of these words, especially comparing that of the K1 group (seventeenth century) and that of T1 (late nineteenth century), will shed light on the continuity and discontinuity of the shadow play terminology in post-Mamluk Egypt. This glossary is still

11  In linguistic terms, Middle Arabic is often defined as “the missing link between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic,” or “a stage of language between 800–1800.” But these qualifications have been modified in the on-going debate. For basic references, see Fischer, Das Mittelarabische; Blau, Handbook; Versteegh, Middle Arabic; Zack, Middle Arabic.

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awaiting to be made (the one to be offered in Appendix 5 serves as a preliminary checklist). For now, a tentative observation may be made: sharing a core prototype tradition that could be traced back prior to the seventeenth century, along with some derivatives from classical Arabic lexica and a light dose of code-like slangs, a semi-standardized vocabulary of shadow theatre was established during the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, namely the Ottoman and early modern era. This vocabulary grew over time, when many a poetcum-performer contributed new components to, or re-arranged, existing materials in the earlier texts, adding his own jargons, or technical terms, as a kind of editorial device in the process. Given that the manuscripts were made over a time span of more than three centuries, the variants would reflect the tastes and trends of the time, forming the source material for the study of the history of these plays and the changing environments of their production. What follows here is a basic sketch of the traits of this vocabulary. The medieval term, bāba, continued to be used in Ottoman historical and literary sources as a general term for “a shadow play,” but did not appear in any manuscripts pertaining to shadow play per se. In its stead are terms such as liʿb (luʿba, laʿba in CA), or “a play”; faṣl, or “an act”; masṭara, or “lyrical lines (of a play)”; ṭaqm (ṭa‌ʾm in Egyptian Arabic), or “a skit”; and riwāya, or “a story,” all under the general rubric of khayāl al-ẓill or fann al-khayāl, both for “the shadow play (as a genre).” These terms appear on title pages, in the text proper, and in colophons. As for the performer, the medieval term rayyis continued to be used in Egypt (also, the colloquial word usṭā, a generic word for a craftsman), whereas in Syria and the Levant, he was often called either al-karkūzātī, or khayālātī, or their variants. It remains to be seen if the shift in terminology, from bāba to liʿb, reflects the changing mechanism in composing, and preserving, shadow play scripts. What we witness in post-Mamluk Ottoman texts is a practice of “stockpiling,” namely piling various layers of a base text together, resulting in the unique phenomenon of multiple-authorship of a given play. While the original playwrights might be Dāwūd al-Munāwī, of the seventeenth century, and earlier poetscum-shadow masters Shaykh Suʿūd and ʿAlī al-Naḥla, credits are also due to Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh, who lived till the turn of the twentieth century – all for the same play. There were perhaps never any finished “scripts” in the form of a complete text with a single authorship, the mode exemplified by Ibn Dāniyāl. Research also suggests that some plays, such as ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, were serialized, from a one-night show to a seven nights’ worth of long drama, a process probably similar to the composition of the 1001 Nights. Creating Arabic shadow

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plays, at least in some cases, seems to have been a never-ending process of adding up and taking down materials overtime and on demand. Changing technical terms must have reflected this flexibility and evolution as well. Simply put, the new vocabulary, as amply evidenced by manuscripts, reflects the changing perspective and practice in making and preserving shadow play scripts. In many ways, it is not merely a vocabulary, but a new formula of shadow play script: a lose frame built on songs and song cycles composed by multiple poets on the premise of a core story with main protagonists and a central plot. With the help of specific terms that serve as cues, the performer would pick up the material, along with his improvisation of dialogue and music, and stage a show. In this connection, it should be pointed out that the overall preliminary statistics point to a gradual decrease in the use of rare slang-like jargons and a process of standardization and simplification. As all the manuscripts exminaed would prove, these “standard” terms, mainly featured in the rubrics (some appear in the main text as well) and ranging from a single word to full paragraphs, cover all aspects of performance and dramaturgy: verse genre, song type and topic, music notation, names and nicknames of the characters, settings, performance places, and props (see Appendix 5 below). The main building blocks are jumal zajal, or “verse unit, song cycle.” Each song cycle consists of a number of dawrs, or “stanza,” from five to fifty.12 This is in addition to the formulaic components: the opening panegyric (madḥ, istiqbāla) and the concluding panegyric and author’s declaration (madḥ, istishhād). The theme of each song cycle is indicated as well. Some are in line with the classical poetry and prose conventions, such as love (ʿishq, ghazal); pain of separation (al-firqa); advice and moral (naṣīḥa wa-adab); wine (khamriyya); complaints [about …] (dhamm …); debate (muqābasa), and so forth. These themes could be the plots of a long play, but also could stand alone as the topic, and title, of a separate skit. The next set of the vocabulary has to do with the type and topic of songs, also indicating specific scenes or acts. They form a framework for dramaturgical elements: entering the screen (nuzūl), exiting (kharja), interrupting (dakhla), flirting (tadallul), pleading (istighātha), begging for affection (ṭalaba), chasing (ṭarda), playing tricks (ḥīla), apologizing (iʿtidhār), arguing (maqlūba), warning (iʿtibār), oath (qasam), and so forth. While the majority of these terms seem to be self-explanatory, specific context in which they were used must 12  Dawr, pl. adwār (= dāʾira, pl. dawāʾir), rhythmic cycles, “group of four modes perceived as forming a circle”; Wright, Music theory 253.

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be noticed. For example, the use of terms of dukhūl, or “tuned in,” khurūj, or “out of sync,” and so forth, were often used in association with music performance in shadow theatre. They do not mean “to enter a scene,” or “to exit,” as one would assume.13 The guild-code like jargons such as kadas, sirmāṭa, and so forth, also call for more probe. Kahle started this line of inquiry with his article on what he termed “Zunftsprache,” or guild-code, in shadow play scripts. More research still needs to be conducted.14 Just to give an example, here we sample two guild-code terms that are at the center of this Ottoman era shadow theatre vocabulary. The two terms are: al-kadas and al-dukhūl, or “shadow play text” and “shadow play music making,” respectively. The compiler of Dīwān kedes (kadas), Dāwūd al-Munāwī, remarks that he “composed al-kadas and al-manẓūm,” namely shadow play songs in the vernacular zajal and the classical form.15 The case of al-dukhūl, on the other hand, is more complicated. The term was documented in a Mamluk manual of musicology. Derived from the root meaning d-kh-l, “to enter,” hence (1) dukhūl, verbal noun, “to enter into a rhythmic cycle”; (2) dākhil, active participle (cf. the reverse, khārij), “falling within (or off) appropriate pitch norms”; and (3) dakhala, verb, that a note is “situated” between a lower and a higher note, or a tune that is “to be contained within.”16 These terms were frequently used in the manuscripts of shadow plays produced in the Ottoman time, a testimonial to the existence of a commonly accepted vocabulary that had been in circulation for a long time.17 Certain patterns on the morphology level may be observed. The vocalization, which reflects the colloquial pronunciation, is according to the manuscripts. 1. Place of performance. The pattern consisits of the place-noun format, mi- (often mu- in CA) + the act: mirayyesa (CA: murayyasa), or “shadow

13  For the use of these terms in textual samples, see below, chapter 6. 14  Kahle, Zunftsprache. This list is not definitive. In one curious case, the word al-raqṣa (er-ra‌ʾṣa, in Egyptian pronunciation), was interpreted by Kahle as to mean “female dancers (plural),” which in turn denotes “the presenter” (al-muqaddim; el-miʾaddim, in Egyptian pronunciation); see ibid. 318. But the only citation I could find is in K1 (Dīwān kedes; since the manuscript is un-paginated, no folio number could be cited here), in the segment of the maghānī al-ʿArab, or “the mastersingers of Arabs” (see above, chapter 4), where the raqṣa, probably “a dance tune,” was to be sung by the female shadow master, or band leader (al-rayyisa in manuscript). 15  Kahle, Zur Geschichte 21–49 (German translation and Arabic edition of the poem). 16  Wright, Music theory 97–9, 144–5, 253–4, 323–4, 341. 17  Cf. Guo, The words kadas and dukhūl in shadow play scripts: material for a glossary of premodern Egyptian guild-slangs, unpublished conference paper, the American Oriental Society annual meeting, April, 2018.

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theatre, a place for riyāsa (performing a shadow play)”; minaṣṣa, or “raised platform, a stage to set up a screen,” and so forth. 2. Performer. The pattern consists of the active participle with mi- (mu- in CA) + the instrument or act (verb II, III forms): miʾaddem (CA: muqaddim), or “the presenter”; mikhāʾel (CA: mukhāyil), or “shadow master”; miraqqeq (CA: muraqqiq), or “the tambourine (raqq, riqq) player”; miṭayyer (CA: muṭayyir), or “he who plays the drum (ṭār), drummer”; migharrez (CA: mugharriz), or “he who performs a short interlude (ghirza),18 a joker”; miraqqeṣ (CA: muraqqiṣ ?), or “a dancer”; midawwer (CA: mudawwir), or “he who sings dawrs, a singer,” and so forth. All the terms mentioned above appear in shadow play manuscripts of the Ottoman time, and mostly in the general opening songs describing the show to be presented. Evidently, the actors would be assigned particular types of acting, behind screen or on the stage (in live acting role). It goes without saying that the shadow theatre was at times a live theatre as well. Together with other known types of actors of specialty – such as muḥabbaẓ (or muḥabbaḍ), or “a traveling performer”; muḍḥik, muharrij, both mean “a joker, a clown”; muḥākī, or “an impersonator”; mukhannath, an effeminate male actor; mughazlik, or “a singer (literally, ‘he who sings ghazal’)”; mughabbir, or “a singer of ascetic songs”; mumaththil, or “an actor”; musākhir, or “a joker (literally, ‘he who lampoons’)” – they form a gallery of role-playing actors in the performing arts of the premodern Islamicate world.19 3.2 Music Notation in Shadow Play Scripts Insofar as music – vocal and instrumental – is an integral part of a shadow play performance, primary sources contain necessary instructions and notations for the purpose. Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays shed light on this practice. In early Ottoman era manuscripts, more extensive music notations were incorporated into the “scripts,” which in essence were songbooks judging by the surviving manuscripts. However, for reasons that still need further probe, the practice of marking music notes in shadow play texts gradually disappeared in late Ottoman and early modern time. Also noteworthy is the fact that all the documented cases of music notation are preserved only in Egyptian specimens. 18  The word ghurza (or ghirza) in CA denotes “a stitch,” to be inserted, or planted, between two pieces of fabric. As a shadow play term, it indicates a short act in between the main parts of a play, or of a performance. The term ghirza is also used in Syrian plays for the same meaning; see below, chapter 6. 19  Cf. Moreh, Live theatre 201–2 (Index; page references of the entires do not always match the actual page numbers of the book).

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In many ways, music making in Ibn Dāniyāl’s Mamluk Cairo was a continuation of the classic Arab musical tradition coming from the east: the Iranian world via Iraq. The influence of this Persian-Iraqi tradition, especially its theoretical framework, is amply demonstrated in his shadow plays. As a working script, the text contains significant instructions as to what modal entity (maqām) should be utilized for the performance. The performers, who had learned the tunes by heart, would pick up the melody and sing it with their own improvisations. As a rule, these musical directions are given in the beginning segment of each play, with the instruction ghanni fī, or “sing in the mode, or tune, of such-and-such,” as general directions for the performers. Thus, for the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl, the designated maqām is the Rāst, the second play, namely, ʿAjīb, the ʿIrāq, and the third, that is, al-Mutayyam, the Iṣbahān (Iṣfahān). Once a principal maqām, or mode, is set up, it is reiterated throughout the play by verbal directions. The principal maqām seldom changes within the play. The only exception occurs in the play al-Mutayyam, when the mode of zarawkand is assigned to one song, in the midst of the play, whose designated principal mode was Iṣbahān.20 In other words, as far as music is concerned, modal coherence, in the one-maqām-per-play pattern, is largely achieved by design. In the tradition of Ibn Sīnā, known in the West as Avicenna, there were twelve principal modes in classical Arab music, many of them bearing Persian names. By the time of Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin al-Urmawī (d. 1294), a celebrated musician in Baghdad, these modes were called the maqāmāt (sing. maqām; not to be confused with the literary genre of the maqāma). In his treatise on octave scales titled Kitāb al-Adwār, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin further divides them into primary modes (sing. shadd), twelve in number, and secondary ones, six in number.21 It is impossible to recreate the sound of the music that was envisioned by Ibn Dāniyāl for his shadow plays. But with the maqāmāt at his disposal, it must be very similar to the ones listed in his Baghdadi contemporary’s manual. While the Rāst, the preeminent maqām among all (and popular in Egypt),22 is a natural and logical choice for the play Ṭayf, the most complex of the three, the musical decisions for the remaining two reveal an apparent inclination towards Iraq-Iran. However, one might argue from the fact that Rāst, ʿIrāq, and Iṣbahān were listed, in that order, by ʿAbd al-Muʾmin as a subgroup of the 20  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 108 (zar wakand; variant: dbrwkand). The spelling of zarawkand is after Farmer, Arabian music 204 (zaurankand), probably a variant for the more common zīrāfkand. 21  Wright, Modal system. 22  Marcus, Music in Egypt, passim; see Index.

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primary modes,23 it is therefore likely that this was a sequential arrangement in line with convention. In other words, the choice of modes had less to do with this supposed Iraq/Persia sentiment than with convention. In the opening of the play ʿAjīb, the performers are given the following introduction: This shadow play (al-bāba) contains the tales of some migrants and tricksters, of the learned type who have embarked upon that peculiar manner, in which they speak the language of the shaykh Sāsān. When you get to the party, start the show, as the curtain arises, with a compliment of the audience, and sing, simultaneously, to the mode/tune of the ʿIrāq….24 The mode of ʿIrāq designated for this play might not be exactly the same as the well-known al-Maqām al-ʿIrāqī, which later developed a sophisticated repertoire with a distinct theatrical legacy. It has been primarily associated with Baghdad, but scholars and musicians believe that its earlier form had long been known in Baghdad, Mosul, and Kirkuk. The rationale behind assigning an “Iraqi” modal entity to this play is self-evident. In other words, a link between the melody and words was established. As shown above, the core lyrics of the play are in fact songs of the Banū Sāsān, whose supposed Mosuli origins are alluded to throughout the script. Thus, the maqām known as “Iraq” sets the tone, literally, for a play that depicts the life of fictional Iraqi immigrants and street-performers in Mamluk Cairo. This music-content symbiosis is also seen in the play al-Mutayyam, about an unfulfilled love affair. The lover, al-Mutayyam, or “the Charmed,” falls for his beloved at first sight, albeit from afar, at a wrestling ring. Despite a series of near-miss encounters with the lad later in a public bathhouse and then at a cockfight arena, his infatuation is never satisfied. In some ways, this is a reworking of the “love from a distance” motif typical in the Persian narrative repertoire. Moreover, it has been noted that some poems/lyrics in the play contain Persian words and expressions, giving the play a more Persian flavor and feel. The choice of music – the Iṣbahān as the principal maqām, and the Zawrakand as an occasional throw-in, both characteristic of the Iranian world – thus feels natural. The re-worked Persian theme is in concert with the apparent Persian tone, although the story is supposed, like all the others, to have taken place in Mamluk Cairo.

23  Wright, Modal system 79–94. 24  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 55.

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As for early and mid-Ottoman era shadow play scripts, the manuscripts in the Paul Kahle Collection are the sole surviving codices. Among them, the oldest, the Dīwān kedes (K1), and other fragmentary pieces (K2), demonstrate a consistent practice in supplementing music notations, albeit in different ways. In K1, oftentimes the headline of the song contains the verse type (only the bullayq was assigned a music note), mode/rhythmic cycle, and the character(s) to sing it. A typical heading declares, “a bullayq-ballad in the mode (min) of al-Ḥijāz by the Drunkard (namely Taʿādīr) and the monk Manja”;25 or “a bullayq by the Drunkard and the Drunkenness (namely ʿAlam), in the rhythm cycle (ḍarb) of Rahāwī.”26 The songs in question are duets between the two characters. And as a rule, the one whose name comes first opens the song with a maṭlaʿ-opening couplet, to be followed by the antagonist, usually a full five-line dawr-stanza. The modes and rhythmic cycles frequently mentioned in the headlines are: Ḥijāz, Ramal, Rahāwī, Kardāna, Jarka, and on one occasion, Dīwānī.27 More music-related terms and contents are found within the texts. In this connection, the terms kadas, or “shadow play texts,” and dukhūl, or “shadow play music,” function as a cue that leads up to the elucidation of technical details of music performance: the right pitch, the rhythmic cycles in question, and so forth (for examples, see below). This is accompanied by a brief description of the musical instruments to be played. Compared with the Ibn Dāniyālian mode, with merely verse meter and maqām tune, the technical terms of music performance in Ottoman manuscripts are substantial. These terms include: mode and tune notations, instruments and players, appropriate song types for certain situations and moods, and elements of a live performance. The following example is typical:28 This shadow play script (al-kadas) has a moral, it carries significant weight. The songs (al-dawākhil) aim at you, waiting for you, O the helpless lover! The tempo (al-ḍarb) is set (maṣmūdī), and the tune (naghma) is Rahāwī.

25  P KF, MSB12 ff. 11b–2b. The manuscript was not fully paginated, except the folios that Paul Kahle was working on. 26  P KF, MSB26 (the manuscript is not paginated). Kurr listed Rahāwī as a mode only; see Wright, Music theory 282. 27  P KF, MSB13 (no pagination). 28  P KF, MSB14 (no pagination).

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In another scene, the protagonist invites a performer:29 Your music (dukhūl) is about to start: set in the right tempo and marvelous tune! The beat is on the Ḥijāz;30 a discorded idiot (nashāz) won’t get it done right. Perfectly expressive melodies to be sung by fabulous bandmates ( jawq). Certain modes seem to suite certain moods, as the protagonist suggests, while crying for a relief from his despair over love lost:31 All I wanted, from shadow masters (ṣunnāʿ) and musicians (ahl al-dukhūl), was letting them help me out with a song in the mode of Rakbī,32 so my sadness would disperse. The tambourine (al-ṭār) player would “fly,”33 with the Egyptian tambourine (al-riqq), on high pitch, in harmony (al-dukhūl). The tempo is set (muṣammad), O lord, it would get some good beats! As can be seen in the above, in addition to rhythmic cycles and modes, valuable information may also be gleaned from the mentioning of music instruments, and in the above-mentioned case, different types of tambourine, ṭār (miṭayyer) and riqq (riqqī, miraqqeq).34 In an often cited opening song (from the play Abū Jaʿfar, a story that centers around a rivalry of two men in music performance), the maestro introduces his troupe in a bashful crescendo:35 29  P KF, MSB30, 17b; both were attributed to al-Munāwī. 30  See Wright, Music theory 281. 31  P KF, MSB12 (no pagination). 32  See Wright, Music theory 282. 33  Note the paronomasia ( jinās) on the root ṭ-y-r: al-muṭayyir, “the ṭār player,” and yaṭīr, “who flies like a bird.” 34  The vocalization is after the manuscript. 35  P KF, MSB14 (no pagination), attributed to Suʿūd; another partially survived version is found in the same manuscript; a third is in PKF, MSB13. This must be a widely performed oepning song.

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I praise those on my stage (minaṣṣatī) – they all are original, as the drummer (lakkāz) pushes the beats “fly.”36 When the piper begins, the audience witnesses his perfect tempo (al-dukhūl). Everyone in our ensemble (maqām) plays with intuition and honesty; they are the back-bone37 of shadow play and music making (al-dukhūl), and they know the beats (ḍurūbāt) and tunes (tankila?).38 Song types, which usually are indicated in headlines, also appear in the lyrics. In the play Abū Jaʿfar, one protagonist boosts his signing skills as the following: I have performed shadow plays (al-khayāl) that would incite hearts and souls. Many a pledge of oath (qasam) have I sung; many a lyrical (manẓūm) have I chanted. Many a bullayq ballad, and many a dakhla ditty have I performed – they are all exquisite! In response, his rival answers the challenge by highlighting his own innate music genius:39 I act (alʿab), play shadow puppets (ukhāyil), and entertain (ushaṭṭiḥ) the crowd of drinking buddies. Not everybody, who plays shadow puppets, could nail it (qaṭaʿa ?),40 doing various song types. Talent in music (al-dukhūl), O people, is innate gift (maṭbūʿ) in a man. The following jargon-laden verses, which serve as a generic opening song of a play, shed considerable light on the dynamics and mechanism in a music performance associated with shadow theatre:41

36  The root l-k-z, “to strike with fist,” or strike with a likāz, “a pin, peg.” 37  maʿdin, literally, “mine, treasure-trove, origin.” 38  tankila was spelled tankilā in another manuscript (MSB13); perhaps for zunkalā /zungūla/ zankūla, a mode; see Wright, Music theory 282–3. 39  P KF, MSB14 (no pagination). 40  Literally, “cut it.” 41  P KF, MSB13 (no pagination).

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Strive hard and show me the high art, full of erudition, if you are a master of eloquence! Talented musicians (ahl al-dukhūl) flock to this stage, with enchanting melody (al-rukūb) in perfect pitch, and fine puppet acting. Sing the lyrics in the tune (midawwar) of Jarka; the audience would be delighted, knowing the melodies (ʿilm al-angham). If I am impressed, I will return the favor, as you wish, by singing a tune with perfect high notes. In final analysis, as the following opening song promises, a successful performance would contain all the elements in harmony:42 This time, I would like to cheer up (asīz/usayyiz),43 for your sake, by performing a musical number, O savvy gentleman! On the stage, they set a melody (yudrikū al-naghma); its high notes (sāz) will make the stupid [rival] dizzy. The tambourine player gives cues44 to the drummer (al-lakkāz); before he sings, he would sound out45 the tambourine. Five rhythmic cycles, all in perfect pitch,46 every listener is enchanted and energized! Sing another ballad, in the incited47 mode of Ḥijāz; the tune and mode will be in perfect match. It should be pointed out that many of the fragmentary pieces of the K2 group that were made later than the codex K1, namely the Dīwān kedes dated in the seventeenth century, do not feature music terms in headlines. By the time of the Qashshāshs of the late nineteenth century, whose sources are represented by the Taymūr codices, the headlines barely contain any music terms, with only one exception, a casual mention of “baḥr al-Ḥijāz,” namely “the meter”

42  P KF, MSB12 (no pagination), attributed to al-Munāwī (fully vocalized); variants are found in PKF, MSB30 (no pagination). 43  Literally, “I will deliver a high note (al-sāz).” 44  yukhbir; in MSB30, yuʿlim. 45  yuḥiss, literally, “to feel, to touch.” 46  kāmil al-ṣināʿa; in MSB30, dākhil al-riqqa. As a music term, dākhil denotes “performing a composition in accordance with the original rhythmic cycle”; see Wright, Music theory 253–4. 47  maḥmūs; in MSB30, dākhil.

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of al-Ḥijāz.48 In other words, marking music notations on shadow play scripts gradually became an abandoned practice over time. To conclude this chapter, we cite the core of a generic opening song that describes various aspects of a shadow play performance and music making. The song is in the form of formal qaṣīda and attributed to one Aḥmad, a frequent contributor of the Ottoman era shadow plays.49 The poem begins with formulaic panegyrics (fourteen lines), and the ensuing is the segment on shadow play proper: Look at the tent, the like of which has never been made! It contains what are equal to rare and precious jewels. The tent for arts, music, and singing (al-dukhūl) – all for entertainment since ancient times. On the basket (al-qawṣara) is a fine lamp, it resembles a lover staying late in the dark night. The pillars are supported by carries (shāʾila) underneath, like a painter who knows how to draw enticing pictures. You see the lover and the beloved, when wine cups make their heads spin; you see an archer, shooting arrow; on his shoulder lays a lion, wasting away.50 Look, look at the props (ʿidda), all lightened up, nothing like it has been done, not even in Syria!51 The stage is a castle for music and singing; the band, playing melodies, enchants all human being. The dancer is riding on horseback, charging at predatory beasts. The jokester (al-mugharriz) is pocking the enemy’s hearts with arrows hungry from night’s fasting! The eager band master promised his crew [a reward] like the lord pardoned his slave boy. With the perfection of a perfect perfectionist, his saliva (rayq)52 will bathe the enemy in a hot shower. 48  T1, p. 84. 49  His name appears often in the manuscripts (T1, T2) as a major “new” contributor to the existing repertoire (see above, chapter 4, and below, chapter 8). 50  These two lines are the staple description of shadow play repertoire at the time; see below, chapter 6. 51  Again, a reference to the origins of the shadow master (for more see below, chapter 8). 52  Manuscript has r-b-q.

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Through his playing, the human limits have been overcome; and they now do things inconceivable! His name is Aḥmad, the cream of his time,53 a servant to artisans and poets. My goal is [to hire] a fine tambourine player, [my another] target is an exquisite and audacious oboe player. People listen to me, appreciate my speech, and enjoy the refined tunes and melody, truly. The poem concludes with four lines of generic praises, marking the end of a night’s worth of entertainment at the shadow theatre.

53  Literally, “the fruit of his era.”

chapter 6

Performance As a time-honored popular performing art throughout history and all over the Arab world, shadow theatre was described by a variety of sources: the playwrights and practitioners, the historians, and the literati. They either participated in the making of a shadow play, or attended a shadow show, or learned of it in some way and wrote about it. However, nearly all of these casual anecdotal accounts are confined to a few selective loci and within a very narrow time zone, and they give away very little, if any, detail about the performance itself. In the following pages, an attempt has been made to sample descriptions of the scenes in order to extract information about the mechanism of performance in Arabic shadow theatre. 1

Scenes from Medieval Cairo

Arabic shadow play is usually thought of as a form of street entertainment, of low comedy. Paradoxically, perhaps because of the nature of our sources, we learn more about its performances at the royal courts and private gatherings of the elite instead. As mentioned above, when a shadow play depicting the hanging of Ṭūmān Bāy (d. 1517), the last Mamluk sultan, was staged for the Ottoman sultan Salīm (d. 1520), better known as “Selim, the Grim,” he liked it so much that he asked to bring the show to Istanbul. It was not always without controversy, though. As mentioned above, Saladin’s vizier – a scholar and jurist – voiced misgivings about the shadow play to be performed for the sultan. The Mamluk sultan Jaqmaq (d. 1453), who had earlier taken a liking to shadow plays, was so concerned with the “lascivious” reputation their repertoire had gained that he banned their performance and ordered the puppets to be burned.1 This, of course, should not give us the impression that the shadow play had, until this incident, been thought of as a “court art.” Still, there is no dispute that shadow plays were indeed performed at court, entertaining many a sultan and his entourage, while offending others at times. On the other hand, puppetry and shadow play must have been enjoyed by the Cairene townspeople. The Fatimid historian al-Musabbiḥī (d. 1029) described the carnival-like celebration of the pilgrimage to the Prison of Yūsuf 1  See above, chapter 1.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_007

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(Joseph) in 1024 when performers of “the khayāl” and other forms (ḥikāyāt, samājāt, tamāthīl) paraded on the streets of Cairo.2 The format of street parades continued to be a favorite type among the Ottoman era shadow masters and a number of plays of this kind have survived. One of these, known as Maghānī al-‘Arab, or “the travelling show troupe (literally, “The mastersingers of Arabs”)” has survived in manuscript (PKF, MSB12; see Fig. 5). Regarding the aspects of performing, direct evidence came from the shadow play scripts themselves. The three plays attributed to Ibn Dāniyāl are perhaps among the best documented sources for information. The performers were given some sort of stage directions in the scripts. In the introduction to his first play, the Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” for example, Ibn Dāniyāl instructed the performers to “sketch the figures (on leather), cut them out in accordance with their parts, find a quiet place for the crowd, and project the figures against the candle-lit screen.”3 The puppets were to be stored in two baskets, one for the living and one for the dead, which also could be interpreted as one basket for the puppets to perform and the other for the used ones. This practice of storing puppets in two boxes has continued over time, as it was described in Mamluk and Ottoman era poetry (see above, chapter 1; also below, Appendix 2). As regards the “theatre,” a performance is described by the playwright in the opening monologue of the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl as “a party (majlis al-surūr).” The term majlis, literally “a sitting place,” is rich in connotations; in classical usage, it denotes a “royal salon,” as it was closely associated with high culture in ʿAbbasid Baghdad. The term, nevertheless, generally denotes a gathering for entertainment of a lofty kind. Aside from the aforementioned majlis al-surūr, literally “joy party,” variants range from majlis al-īnās (or al-uns), “private gathering,” for the play ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” to majlis ṣadr min ṣudūr ahl al-zamān, “a salon hosted by a notable of the age,” for the play al-Mutayyam, or “The Charmed.” The performance of Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays, then, was by and large a private, and most likely elitist, event.4 All acts – speech, singing, and playing with the shadow figures – were to be executed by one person, as made clear at the outset by the script. The play Ṭayf al-Khayāl begins, as the opening statement dictates, “with a song, in the mode of Rāst.” And in this opening song, one finds further instructions: “In the play, there is one single voice, in disguise, / speaking on behalf of each character.”5 Evidently, Ibn Dāniyāl envisioned his plays as narrated and “acted” by one 2  al-Musabbiḥī, Akhbār Miṣr i, 39, 41–3; al-Maqrīzī, al-Khiṭaṭ i, 564. 3  Unless noted otherwise, all translations are mine. 4  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 1, 55, 90. 5  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 1.

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shadow master. So, there is only one voice, through and through. It would be reasonable to suppose that a male (in most cases) rayyis would be doing all the singing and speaking, in falsetto if necessary. At any rate, Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays were, in essence, a one-man show. At least this was what the script dictated.6 We do not know for sure what was the reason behind this strict directive, and whether it had been followed in reality. It certainly set the bar extremely high for the performer. Take the play ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” which, as mentioned above, is loosely structured as a series of song-and-dance numbers by an assortment of stereotypical caricatures: craftsmen-cum-conmen and tricksters, man and woman, young and old, let alone personality and mannerism. Mamluk sources suggest that a shadow play performance at a private party might resemble something of a variety show, featuring puppetry and shadow plays, live theater, music, and dance. Mixing live theatre, puppetry, and shadow play all in one, and performed (voiced) by one person, it demands enormous talent and skills. And, on occasions, this sole performer might well be a female. The poet al-Wajīh al-Munāwī, a Mamluk poet, was mesmerized by a female actor who would step out in front of a live audience, singing, dancing, and flirting, and then retreat behind the screen, pulling off even more tricks with shadow figures.7 A fair maiden, fond of entertaining: here she came, such a beauty! Like flowers in the garden, covered under the calyx. When she sang, I marveled: Ah, the pain of youthful yearning! When she danced, we sighed: like bubbles of wine! She performed a shadow play; in front of her there was a screen (al-sitr), showing the phantom of the sun, behind clouds. She played various characters behind the screen, in the same manner she toyed with men. In this regard, Ibn Dāniyāl’s rayyis-maestro and al-Wajīh al-Munāwī’s female performer present themselves as quintessential Arab rāwī-storytellers, working primarily within the confines of oral performance. With talents and skills, they produced stunning spectacles. 6  Guo, Cross-gender ‘acting’. 7  Cited in al-Ṣafadī, Ghayth ii, 424 (the last two lines); al-Ghazūlī, Maṭāliʿ al-budūr i, 261; al-Nawājī, Ḥalbat al-kumayt 204. For the biography of the poet Wajīh al-Dīn al-Munāwī, see al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt xvi, 371–3; al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-wafayāt ii, 199. No date is known, only that he was a contemporary of Athīr al-Dīn Abū Ḥayyān (d. 1344).

Performance

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Shadow Theatre of the Ottoman Time

The Muslim Empire under the Ottoman ruling ushered in a new era of mass cultural production and popular entertainment. The shadow theatre and its practitioners seem to have eluded the attention of mainstream chronicles and biographical dictionaries. In addition to spotty anecdotal accounts, primary sources of the activities of the shadow theatre and the performance-related matters come nearly exclusively from the scripts themselves, the majority of which remains unpublished. In the Kahle shadow play collection is a manuscript that contains fragments of a text, by various hands and on different types of paper.8 By all indications, this manuscript must have served as a performer’s handbook of sorts – in addition to selections of songs that belong to individual plays, it lumps together a group of general openings songs, six in total, which detail various aspects of the operations of a shadow theatre in Ottoman and early modern Egypt. Following a similar format, these generic openings salute the audience and the patrons (sometimes by name), describe the settings, praise the crew, and preview the plays to be performed. Like a modernday playbill or programme booklet, they ready the audience for the night’s entertainment. Of these generic opening songs, the most remarkable is a zajal song cycle attributed to al-Shaykh Suʿūd, the earliest known shadow playwright from the Ottoman time. Consisting of twenty stanzas (dawr) and an opening couplet (al-maṭlaʿ), this song cycle describes a typical shadow play performance at the time. It also contains a list of the plays in the repertoire, with a brief description of each (a full translation of the poem will be presented below, chapter 8). More details, with more plays, are found in other samples of the same type, namely the performer’s opening song. Among them, one is a zajal in the form of mawāliyā-couplet and the other is in the form of a classical qaṣīda-ode. Similar in structure and content, the former, a much shorter one, focuses on a single play, whereas the latter presents a laundry list of plays. In the first, the zajal version, after the formulaic invocations, the performer announces:

8  P KF, MSB14. The manuscript, at least part of it, is dated 1275/1858–9. Only the first seven folios, which contain the generic opening songs in question, were numbered by Kahle.

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Look at this tent (khayma), it is to your liking, and full of joy and wonders. In this place there are silent phantoms (ashbāḥ), my craft is my turf (ṣunʿatī bīdī) where the leader takes the lead!9 Next comes a vivid description of the scenes on the screen: The king is sitting still, surrounded by his troops – yet the frontiers are having a good time, relaxing. Everybody who comes forward fools him around, telling him, “Commander (qawwād),10 take it easy!” After this intriguing prelude, which hints at a coup in the making, is a brief summary of several seemingly staple, and familiar, storylines of “the lover and the beloved,” and “the lioness and the archer.” The performer then promises more exciting acts to follow, before he calls attention to the following, hence the beginning of the play for the night: Look, O audience members (ahl al-sh-a-t-y-l ?), here is a lamp, lightening in a basket. You will see many shadow figures you’ve never seen, not even in the Kingdom of ʿĀd!11 Look, here cometh a paddler, a skillful fisherman on a fishing boat. He has caught fish in a net; now he picks fish and sorts them out. The play in question, evidently al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” is to be performed. The similar vague and boldly brushed scenes cited above – of the deceived king, the lover and the beloved, and the lioness and the hunter – are perhaps a sampling of the tried-and-true audience-pleasing storylines, of which, however, the scripts seem to be lost. This song confirms the existence of a template, not only does the song cited above share similar content and wording with the aforesaid Suʿūd’s piece, but also it seems to have been widely circulated insofar 9  Two versions of the same poem were found in f. 4 and f. 5. Slightly different wording is seen in the end of this line: li-man rāda (4b), and li-man sāda (5b). A recurrent theme in al-Shaykh Suʿūd’s opening and concluding verses is that he was the best in his profession, unmatched. 10  This could be a pun, for qawwād means “pimp” in medieval Egyptian slang. 11  An ancient legendary Arabian people, mentioned in the Qurʾan.

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as at least two copies of it, as mentioned above, written by different hands, are found in the same manuscript fragments bundle. Another general opening song, this time a qaṣīda, is more elaborate. After formulaic greetings, the performer continues: Look at this tent, there is nothing like it! As if it were showered in cloudy drizzles.12 There is a screen – it attracts joyful spectators to this place. Then the staple scenes – the king and his deceiving guardsmen, the lover and the beloved, and the lioness and the hunter – follow before another couplet with more detail of the settings: Inside the hanging basket is a lamp, glittery, like a star sparkling in dark sky. On all the pillars there hang scenes created by a fine painter, storyteller, and shadow master! The last line perhaps suggests that the shadow master did it all by himself. Here again is an affirmation of Ibn Dāniyāl’s one-man show directive. The performer then goes on with a rather long overview of his repertoire. The synopses described in the poem point to the following plays: al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile”; ʿAjāʾib al-barr, or “Wonders of the land”; al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse”; Abū Jaʿfar; and ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, or “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr.” Some scenes depicted – such as the excursion of the Royal Head Hunter, Emir Shikār (line 7), the celebratory procession of a “Persian” band (line 8), the war prisoners (line 14) – cannot be identified. The unidentified army officer and sea creatures were added into the scenes. Interestingly, in the play ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr, or “Wonders of the Nile,” the character al-Gharrāf the fisherman is mingled with characters of al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile.” It appears that, given the frequency in references, these plays, especially “The crocodile,” “The Lighthouse,” and “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr,” were among the frequently performed Egyptian plays in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

12  Perhaps alludes to the dim lights inside the theatre.

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Scenes from the Early Modern Era

As mentioned above in chapter 2, the most detailed descriptions of shadow play performance in the early modern time are found in the research notes and publications by Orientalists and memories of the Arab cultural elite. In the following pages, their accounts will be summarized according to country and region, in a roughly chronological order. 3.1 Egypt In Kern’s description, a shadow play show usually started around eight or nine o’clock in the evening, and it could be earlier during the Ramadan. When the audience filled in, a group of men and boys began singing various tunes, accompanied by a small band. This was to be followed by songs in praise of the Prophet Muḥammad. Then the featured play would start, often upon the demand of the audience. Several short plays could be performed in one night, between which there were intermissions, around eleven o’clock. Kern observed the exquisite skills required to maneuver shadow figures through long sticks, as well as the reaction from the audience, some of whom were seasoned critics with a watchful eye.13 Prüfer wrote that he attended shadow play shows in the back of a neighborhood coffee house in the midst of the hustling-bustling of downtown Cairo’s Fish Market. Facing the door, on the lower level, was a rectangular space reserved as a makeshift shadow theatre. Against the wall was a stage-like platform, covered by a curtain. Below it there were chairs and cushions. In the audience were men from all walks of life. When the curtain raised, the audience saw a screen, a piece of cloth tightened from all sides. Behind it, a gasoline lamp made of translucent animal skin (known as al-shaʿla) was placed between the performer (called al-usṭā) and the figures. The performer manipulated the figure characters with wooden sticks attached to the back of the movable body parts against the screen. Prüfer also reported that there was a guild (ṭarīqa) of shadow masters in Cairo in the early years of the twentieth century. Around the year 1905, this organization was made up of four puppeteers and shadow masters (usṭā), one of whom acted as its head (rayyis). Prüfer observed that the shadow master single-handedly played and mimicked the dialogues for all characters. This, again, is remarkably in line with Ibn Dāniyāl’s abovementioned directive regarding performance. When it came to singing the show tunes (dawr, pl. adwār), the shadow master was assisted by a small band of musicians, who on occasions also helped 13  Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater.

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with puppets and served as watchdogs for crowd control. Oftentimes the master had to plead the audience to be quiet. Sometimes the disturbances got so bad that the musicians had to result in using sticks to ward off the unruly, and very knowledgeable, audience, who were upset if a favorite skit, or a comic scene, had been skipped. This coffee house shadow theatre, the only surviving venue of its kind, was finally shut down by the order of police in the summer of 1909, Prüfer reported, due to its “notorious reputation.”14 Beyond the coffee-house-turned-shadow-theatre at the Fish Market, there were several other venues. One was at the Azbakiyya Garden, Cairo’s theatre district at the time, where shadow plays were frequently performed at celebrations of the Mulid (mawlid), of Muḥammad’s birthday, as well as that of the Sufi saint Aḥmad al-Badawī and other popular figures. Prüfer observed that in these shows, the shadow figures all appeared in black. Outside of Cairo, shadow plays were spotted in al-Maḥmūdiyya, one of the suburbs of Alexandria, and at the marketplace of Tanta, but that latter venue was shut down by the authorities during a cholera outbreak.15 With the closure of all permanent performing spaces, Egyptian shadow theatre gradually became a street art form, catering to the demands of public and private celebrations. Shadow masters often put on shows in mini theatre-like kiosks. The lower part of the kiosk was usually flashily ornamented, with the performer’s name on it, like a marquee.16 Kahle remarked that at the beginning of the twentieth century, shadow plays were “sometimes performed in Egypt, but not very often.”17 Many blame the movies, which were introduced to Egypt in 1898, for the decline of shadow theatre. The first local film making dates to the 1910s.18 Taymūr recalled the shadow puppetry shows he had seen in the turnof-the-century Cairo: They showed shadow plays in a squared structure erect on wooden panels and covered with curtains (al-khaysh), or something similar, from three sides. On the fourth side was a white screen, tightened up from all four ends, on a wooden frame. On that screen, puppets were shown. As darkness ascends, the performers come to the place. They are usually five; among them one lad (ghulām) who mimics women’s voice and another 14  Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel vi–viii. 15  Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel vii. 16  Prüfer, Arabic drama. 17  Kahle, Arabic shadow play (1940) 21. 18  Shafik, Arab cinema 10–1.

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who sings beautifully. When they put on a show (al-liʿb), they lit up the light, on a lid made of cotton dipped in oil, and hold the light by hand, placing it between the performers and the puppets. The performer moves the puppet with two thin wooden sticks. He holds each puppet in one hand and manipulates the figure with the sticks as he wishes.19 Taymūr remarked that “the last example that merits artistic values with regard to the old ways (al-ṭarīqa al-qadīma) in excellent diction and impeccable execution of the zajal-songs and lively acts of the figure characters was the Ḥājj Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh, and after him, Maestro (al-usṭā) Darwīsh, the son.”20 This assessment echoed German scholars’ observations of the twilight era of Egyptian shadow theatre and the leading performers at the time, albeit with slight differences. In his memoire of theatre life in Cairo in the beginning of the twentieth century, Muḥammad Sayyid Kīlānī (d. ?), a prolific Egyptian cultural critic, recalled the scenes around the Azbakiyya Garden, Cairo’s theatre district in its heyday, where sundry performing arts, including shadow plays, entertained the enthusiastic theatre going crowd. Among the various shows he attended, he singled out one shadow play titled “ʿAlam and Taqādīr,” otherwise better known as “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr.” His description is slightly different from Prüfer’s edition and Kern’s and Taymūr’s summations.21 At any rate, the memoire attests to the continuation of repertory being staged in places beyond the old town where the Qashshāsh family troupe used to perform. Like similar eyewitness accounts to be summarized in the following pages, Kīlānī’s serves as a valuable source for the history of Arab shadow theatre in the late Ottoman and early modern era. 3.2 Syria and the Levant In his memoire published in the 1950s, Fakhrī al-Bārūdī (d. 1966), the National Bloc leader and a powerful political figure in Damascus from the 1940s until the early 1960s, related his own experiences watching shadow plays growing up around the turn of the century. He describes his experiences fondly: Besides ordinary coffee houses, we also hang out at cafés that offered shadow play shows, known to the locals as qahwat Karākūz. It was the 19  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 80. 20  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 19; Khayāl al-ẓill 80–1. 21  Kīlānī, Fī rubūʿ al-Azbakiyya. The spelling of the protagonist, Taqādīr, resembles that of Kern’s.

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predecessor of today’s cinema. The show master set up a cotton screen at the edge of the café. In the mid of the screen was a round piece of cloth (qiṭʿa mudawwara) made of some white material. Below it was a wooden panel on which a ceramic lamp was placed; the lamp burned olive oil. The master stood behind the screen, which was called al-khayma, and on his hands was a thin long stick, by which he moved leather figures around, projecting them to the light so their moving shadows became visible to all. He then began to speak, mimicking characters’ voice. His voice would switch according to the character. This art form (al-luʿba) had ancient roots, but it has changed today (namely the 1950s when he wrote the memoire) to allow for some foul and lewd language. In our days (that is, in his childhood), the Karākūz show was entertainment for all – everyone watched it in the month of Ramadan. And children watched it at night in the rest of the year.22 The popular political leader of his day with acute memories also detailed various aspects of the shadow theatre – the cast, the characters, basic storylines – which confirm the descriptions afforded by other sources. For example, in addition to Karākūz/Karakūz and ʿAywāẓ, sometimes spelled as ʿĪwāẓ (the Arabized Karagöz and Hacivat), as the comic duo around whom all plays unfold, al-Bārūdī described that al-Mudallal was “the smallest and youngest” character, that Qurayṭim often spoke with an Egyptian accent to show off his sophistication, that Ṭurmān often appeared in the shape of a phallus, as a symbol for virility, that the community elderly was known as Abū Arkīla Qashʾū Bakrī Muṣṭafā,23 that the talking donkey was named Karrash (also spelled as Kurrash),24 and so forth. All these persons, of a fixed cast, appeared in nearly all Syrian and Levantine plays (more on the cast of Syrian plays, see below, chapter 10; for the cast of Syrian repertoires, see Appendix 3). It is also significant to note the reform-minded politician, al-Bārūdī, emphasized the importance of the performing arts, including shadow theatre, in entertaining and educating the urban populace. He mentioned famous shadow masters that were active at the time, such as the Ḥabīb family whose members were also talented musicians. Al-Bārūdī seemed to criticize local officials’ indifference toward this folk art and the lack of judicial oversight and necessary censorship

22   al-Bārūdī, Mudhakkirāt i, 112. 23  He might have confused two characters, Ashū/Qashqū and Abū Bakrī Musṭafā, as one. 24  Ibid. i, 112–3.

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of some obscene materials it contained, blaming them as among the factors leading to its eventual decline.25 Similar sentiment and assessment were echoed by Wannūs, the innovative Syrian playwright, who has incorporated shadow play elements into his own writings.26 The art form became noticeably popular in the second half of the nineteenth century, “as if woven into the societal fabric of urban life,” as he puts it.27 It even caught the attention of the Ottoman rulers, according to Wannūs. When Medhat Pasha was appointed the governor of Damascus in 1878, he was dismayed at what he saw as the “moral corruption and decay” evidenced by the wide spread of cafés where people gathered to watch shadow plays, known as ḥikāyāt Karākūz, or “the Karākūz shows.” The Pasha criticized the town’s elites for reducing themselves to this low level, “savoring the shameful salacious farces laced with foul language.” He wanted things to change and ordered the city government to promote “high art” by opening a residential modern theatre in Damascus. But his tenure in Damascus was short-lived. So were his reform plans, as Wannūs recalled.28 Commissioned by Radio Damascus for a cultural programing series in the 1960s, Zoheir Samhoury reported performances of karagöz, “a Punch and Judy show à la Syrienne,” as part of the Ramadan festival activities. At a local “Karakuz café” near Damascus, the master Abou Sayyah (Abū Ṣayyāḥ) introduced himself as mumaththil, or “the actor,” and displayed considerable virtuosity, playing the puppets behind a white screen while speaking and singing – all by himself. In his repertoire there were 366 plays, corresponding to each day of year, to choose from, on demand. But unfortunately, the demand was becoming low. The Damascene native Abou Sayyah had to settle for Harasta, a small town north of Damascus to play his gig. He told the interviewer of Radio Damascus that he was the last living karagöz artist in Syria. Except for the month of Ramadan, it was hard for him to find work, if at all.29 Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, in his dictionary of techniques and crafts of Syria, assigned an entry of al-Karākūzātī, or “shadow master.” It describes a performance as the following: The shadow master works in a coffee house, where he hangs a cotton sheet in the corner. The lower part of the screen is tied up to a wooden 25   al-Bārūdī, Mudhakkirāt i, 112–3. His account will be discussed in detail below, chapter 10. 26  Myers and Saab, Contemporary political theater 22–3. 27  Wannūs, in Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 8 (Introduction). 28  Ibid. 8–9. 29  Samhoury, The explorer 72–6.

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beam the same length as the screen. On it is a lamp that burns olive oil. He stands behind the screen and plays the figures (al-khayālāt). He gives each of them a [particular] language/diction (lugha) and special story (kalām khāṣṣ). He sometimes laughs, sometimes cries, and sometimes sings, according to the movements of the figures. The coffee house is often packed with spectators. Most in the audience are children…. The performer with special talents, such as swift movement of puppets and beautiful singing voice, draws larger crowds of young and mid-aged men. In the winter time, the shadow shows are performed more often. The café owner and the shadow master usually split the earnings.30 Like most of the Arab scholars writing about regional development of Arabic shadow theatre, the Syrian researcher Qaṭāya traces the roots of performance mechanism to the earlier canon of Ibn Dāniyāl, yet takes the published documented materials as the virtual starting point of shadow theatre on the ground. In the case of Aleppo, that would be Russel’s eyewitness account of shadow play performance, which Qaṭāya confirms as of the karagöz type comedy. Thanks to its stature as a major trading center on the Euro-Asia route since the seventeenth century, the city of Aleppo has seen robust theater activities, including shadow play. Published local memories describe the usual venue – the corner of a café where a white cotton screen hangs and colorful caricature figures, flowers, animals roam around, and where Karakūz and ʿAywāẓ crack jokes, often with a socio-political edge, on the screen. Qaṭāya’s fieldwork yielded original materials – textual, visual, and audial – upon which his edition of the Syrian shadow play scripts relied. They will be presented below, in chapter 10. With regard to shadow figures, through interviews, Maestro al-Dabbāgh informed that camel skin was ideal for the manufacture of shadow figures and other products such as lamp shades, because it was semi-translucent, and the colors dyed on it shine nicely against light. Each shadow figure was made up with several cut-off pieces, connected at the joints with a hole by wires, and attached to a thin, long stick by which the shadow master maneuvered it. He often moved several figures at a time, and was assisted by an intern if necessary. He often placed a wooden plate on the ground, behind the screen, where he put puppets to be used. At times, he struck the

30   al-Qāsimī, Qāmūs 384–5. The translation is mine. I thank the anynomous reviewer for his suggestions for fine-tuning certain expressions. A full translation of the entry (N. 310) with an analysis is in Milwright, On the date 61–2.

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wooden plate by foot for special sound effects.31 The Damascene shadow master Abou Sayyah, on the other hand, used cardboard, apparently much cheaper, as material to make puppets.32 As the texts indicate, classical and vernacular (zajal) verses were used in the plays as songs sung by the characters. Maestro al-Dabbāgh usually was joined by a band of musicians, one played hand drum, one lute, and one flute. They performed at select nights, and every night in the month of Ramadan. The audience paid as they wished at the beginning or the end of a show. The shadow master (al-khalīlātī) and his band also performed at private homes, wedding parties, and other venues.33 Ḥijāzī’s fieldwork and edition of shadow plays from the Syrian coastal region have shown that, unlike the Egyptian counterpart, the Syrian branch of the karagöz genre was nearly uniform with regard to dramaturgy, characters, and performance routines.34 Shadow plays from the Syrian coastal region were all called faṣl, literally, “an act.” In Ḥijāzī’s analysis, they were of three kinds, depending on length and content: full play (al-faṣl), short skit ( faṣl qaṣīr, which typically runs within an hour), and war-themed acts ( fuṣūl al-ḥarb). A full play’s running time exceeded two hours, and a description of the performance setting was provided in the beginning of every script. Here is an example: The audience fills in and the door of the café closes. The fees are collected (tanqasim al-nuqūd). The shadow master gets to the staging space, or “the tent (al-khayma),” lowers the curtains, and lights up the screen. He begins with a song ( fāṣil ghināʾī), then ʿAywāẓ appears on the screen (al-maydān), dancing with funny moves. When he is done, there are two strikes on the ground (by the shadow master with a stick). Silence. The play begins.35 Full plays from Syria and the Levant feature a fixed cast, or agential types: ʿAywāẓ, urban, cultured, and conniving, speaks in a higher register language (between classical and colloquial); Karakūz, simpleton, naïve everyman; al-Mudallal, a pageboy; Ṭurmān, a macho man; Qurayṭim, a romantic type; 31  Maestro al-Dabbāgh’s collection was housed in the Museum of Folk Traditions in Aleppo; see above, chapter 4. 32  Samhoury, The explorer 75. 33  Other words used for “shadow master” were al-khayālātī and al-karākūzātiya (plural); Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 26–7. 34  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill. 35  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 37.

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al-Muqaddim Ward, a gang leader, or head of guardsmen; Āshū Aghā (Qushqū in Aleppo), a naïve and good-hearted man; Abū al-Shabāb Bakrī Muṣṭafā, an authority figure; wives, daughters, mothers-in-law for the leading men (also see below, Appendix 3). The shadow master would often add some acts, and skits, to fill in the time slots for an evening’s entertainment. These short acts were of the following types: 1. ghirza: a very short story, usually the snapshot of a full play.36 2. luʿba (liʿb): a teasing match between Karakūz and ʿAywāẓ, usually added in the beginning or the end of a play. 3. ḥikāya: a flash-back type of anecdote, narrated by ʿAywāẓ in the beginning of a play. 4. manām: recollection of a dream, narrated by Karakūz in the beginning of a play. 5. nukta: farcical pranks, often ridden with lewd and silly jokes, inserted within a play; the roles were played by several “agential” characters: Ṭurmān (macho male/phallus), al-Khāzūq (Ottoman authority/horror monster), Karrash (talking animal), and al-Mudallal (singing happy-golucky pageboy).37 Oftentimes, a shadow maestro would conclude an evening’s show by presenting a very short war-themed sketch. These sketches were inspired by staple myths, legends, epics, and other folklores. The heroes were historical and legendary figures and stoic creatures: monsters (mārid, pl. marada), genies/jinns, and devils (ʿifrīt, pl. ʿafārīt). A war-themed act usually features two narrators: Umm al-Dawāhī, or “Mother of Chaos,” and Abū al-Akhbār, or “Newscaster,” who announces a new round of war between the Castle of the seven-headed Seashore Monster Fādūs and the Castle of the two-bellied Karakūz ibn Baṭnān (also spelled as Buṭmān), nick-named “Qāhir al-fursān bi-ḥawmat al-waghā wa-l-jūlān,” or “The victorious champion chavallier at war zones on the sea and the Golan heights.” Several plays published by Ḥijāzī contain these elements within the storylines as well (see below, chapter 10).38 The historical and legendary battles and figures featured in the war-themed acts from the Syrian coastal region include the Persia war (King al-Malik Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan), the war of the Arabian tribesmen the Ghassanids and the 36  This is the act for the technical term mugharriz (migharrez), or “a jockester”; see above, chapter 5. 37  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 27–9. 38  For example, the play al-Māristān, “The asylum,” which contains the episode of the kidnap of ʿAywāẓ’s daughter by the Sea Monster to marry his son.

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Lakhmids (al-Malik al-Nuʿmān, al-Malik al-Ḥārith), wars of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic era (ʿAntara ibn Shaddād, ʿAmr ibn Wadd al-ʿĀmirī, the Roman Patricians). These battle scenes did not always follow a chronological order, but rather unfold in a routine: starting with infantry, then fight on the horseback, to be joined by the monsters, and then some acts of magic and sorcery. The act usually ends on the seven-headed Seashore Monster’s defeat, and his body being cut into seven pieces.39 3.3 North Africa No substantial written records of shadow theatre in the Maghreb have been published, except the early travelogues and drawings by mostly French speaking observers. Their accounts have been summarized above, in chapter 1. Brief descriptions of performance related aspects were presented as part of the Orientalists’ work, summarized above, in chapter 2. 39  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 27–9.

part 3 Repertoires

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Medieval Arabic Shadow Plays: Ibn Dāniyāl and Others Of the vast territories of the premodern Islamicate world, from Central Asia to Muslim Spain, Egypt is the only region that boasts an un-interrupted tradition of shadow play production and performance. This chapter and the next two present an analytical documentation of all known Egyptian shadow plays. To begin: in many ways, the Mosul born and Cairo based Ibn Dāniyāl remains the sole representative figure of the entire history of Arabic shadow theatre in the pre-Ottoman time. The study of Ibn Dāniyāl has also largely been the primary focal point of modern scholarship on Arabic shadow theatre and has been summarized in the previous part of this book (especially chapters 2 and 3). This chapter is devoted to the documentation of his texts. As far as medieval Arabic shadow plays are concerned, an unconfirmed self-claimed “Mamluk era play” that was published in the 1960s will be briefly mentioned just for the record. 1

Ibn Dāniyāl’s Three Plays

These plays depict the life and mores of Mamluk Cairo, with an outrageous comic flavor, featuring naïve storylines, caricatured characters, and foul language. A rare textual reservoir, they retain the special traits of the living language of the time, with elements of the so-called “tongue of the Banū Sāsān,” a hybrid of slangs and argot, a fusion of Arabic, Persian, and Turkic, attributed to a confederation of itinerant shysters. The title of each play contains the name(s) of the protagonist(s), and also alludes to the implied meanings of the words and the metaphorical significance of the subject of the play. 1.1 Ṭayf al-Khayāl, The Phantom 1.1.1 Introduction The first, and longest, play, Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” is a farce about a soldier named Amīr Wiṣāl, or “Emir Mating,” and his journey to redemption, with botched matchmaking as the central plot. His sidekick, Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” keeps urging him to reminisce about his hedonistic past. The historical background, as set forth by the protagonist, is the campaign against © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_008

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vice in Cairo undertaken by the sultan Baybars (r. 1260–77). However, some of the songs in the play turn out to be slightly re-worked poems, which al-Ṣafadī identified as having been composed during the reign of another sultan, Lājīn (r. 1296–9), whose crackdown on drinking and music had a direct impact on Ibn Dāniyāl and his circle. The fact that these semi-autobiographical materials were recycled into the fictionalized context of a play implies a much later dating of the completion of the text and poses the question of art imitating life in Ibn Dāniyāl’s literary output. 1.1.2 Synopsis The protagonist Amīr Wiṣāl, a retired soldier, tells his confidant, Ṭayf al- Khayāl, that he is tired of his playboy lifestyle and is ready to settle down. He summons his secretary, al-Tāj Bābūj, or “Crown-N-Slipper,” and panegyrist, Ṣurra Baʿr, or “Pile-Up-Dung,” to put his finances in order and his mind at peace. The matchmaker Umm Rashīd, or “Mother Guidance,” questions his sincerity by recounting some of his salacious activities that occurred not long ago. The matchmaker begins by reminding Ṭayf al- Khayāl, the Phantom, of “the good old days,” when the Emir “used to fancy boys.” She proceeds to recount a tall-tale about her “landlord” (a pimp), a teacher (actually her husband), and a pupil. The story told by the matchmaker runs like this: the pimp invited the “lovely lad” to his house for a “party, with sweets, candles, and wine.” But the teen said he could come only in the company of his teacher, who in turn explained that he must close his Qurʾan school first. The pimp sings a song encouraging him to come along. The song, in the strophic poetic form of muwashshaḥ, replete with puns, makes fun of an Animal House – like school scene: the teacher drinks, and the pupils learn too little; worse, they learn about things they are not supposed to. The teacher passes out, leaving the pimp to do “his thing with that lad.” The Emir reiterates his determination by renouncing (or recounting) all his past sins. In a languid speech, a verse of eighty-five lines – it is one of the longest poems in the play and a famous piece of satire in the history of Arabic poetry – that parodies the theme of repentance, the Emir recounts, among many incidents, a secret rendezvous with a girlfriend arranged by a go-between. The young woman lives in a crowded quarter amid neighbors’ watchful eyes, so the Emir, in his own words, resorts to “dressing myself like a woman, wearing a scarf / and hiding my beard under a veil.” When he arrives at the door of the woman’s house – for reasons unexplained – he makes a scene. Trying to cover it up, his girlfriend tells the folks gathering around, “This is the daughter of my neighbor, the butcher.” A catfight between the two “women” erupts, but they end up sleeping together.

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The matchmaker then produces a bride, who turns out to be a hideous looking old woman accompanied by a gibberish trash talking baby – her grandson. Insulted, the Emir demands to punish the matchmaker and her husband ʿAflaq, or “Big Pussy, Short Fatty,” the schoolteacher. The husband informs that the matchmaker has just died at the hands of a quack named Yaqṭīnūs, or “Dr. Squash,” who confirms the sad news. Dr. Squash retells the scene at the brothel where the matchmaker-cum-madam is dying. On her deathbed, the Madam performs her final rite and delivers one of the more memorable monologues in the play. In dying, all she thinks of are good business practices and work ethics. Chaos ensues on the Madam’s passing. Several former clients accuse the doctor of malpractice and demand their money back. The doctor resorts to lip service instead, singing a song eulogizing and memorializing the deceased Madam’s life achievements through narration and occasionally mimicking her speech. It is time for the Emir to repent; off he goes to Mecca. 1.2 ʿAjīb wa-Gharīb, Amazing and Strange 1.2.1 Introduction The second play, ʿAjīb wa-Gharīb, or “Amazing and Strange,” is temporally undefined and virtually without a plot. The protagonist and narrator, Gharīb, “Strange,” associates himself with the Banū Sāsān, the urban underworld and the ultimate “strangers (al-ghurabāʾ)” in society, whereas his sidekick, ʿAjīb al-Dīn, a preacher, amuses the audience with his quasi-honorific, “The Amazement of the Faith.” Through the watchful eyes of the narrators, ʿAjīb and Gharīb, the play showcases a carnival-like parade of twenty-seven types of street entertainer-cum-con artists, each performing a song and dance number about his/her/their crafts and world. These songs form a mine of information of the urban society and life in medieval Cairo and have been the subject of extensive studies by modern historians (see above, chapters 2, 3). 1.2.2 Synopsis After the general opening by the two narrators, ʿAjīb and Gharīb, that highlights the self-claimed Banū Sāsān as the players in this play-within-a-play scheme, a legion of characters takes turns to come on stage to demonstrate their professions and talents by chanting, singing, and dancing. They are grouped loosely in three categories. After the quintessential Oriental street performer, the snake charmer, comes the first group, which consists of all kinds of quacks: a seller of medicinal pastes, an herbalist, and an eye surgeon. Then comes the second group, made up of the ones who perform some sort of magic: an acrobat, a juggler, an astrologer, and a seller of block-printed charms and amulets. The climax is reached with the arrival on stage of the final group, the circus, a

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mixture of animal shows and variety shows: a lion tamer, an elephant man, a goat trainer, a tattoo woman who cuts her own and others’ limbs, a cat trainer, a dog trainer, a tamer of beasts, a Sudanese clown, a performer who swallows swords, a monkey trainer, a rope dancer, a conjurer with self-inflicted wounds, a torch-bearer, and a camel driver. The parade goes on. It is near the end of the play that the group’s self-identification as the Banū Sāsān is chanted loudly, when the choir representing the mashāʿilī (pl. mashāʿila), “the torch-bearers, or night watchmen,” sing. The parade ends with the act of a camel driver, who promises to take the Egyptian pilgrimage caravan to Mecca. al-Mutayyam wa-l-ḍāʾiʿ al-Yutayyim, The Charmed and the Wayward Charmer 1.3.1 Introduction The third play, al-Mutayyam wa-l-ḍāʾiʿ al-Yutayyim, or “The Charmed and the Wayward Charmer,”1 tells the story of a middle-aged man, al-Mutayyam, or “the Charmed,” who is originally from Mosul (same as the author), and his young male love interest, al-Yutayyim, “the Charmer” (or “the little orphan”) who is a celebrity-like playboy in Cairo’s infamous al-Ḥusayniyya neighborhood. The play features some fifteen characters, and includes various scenes, in a wrestling hall, a bathhouse, a tavern, a series of bouts of animal fights, and a group of bizarre actors.

1.3

1.3.2 Synopsis After the general opening, al-Mutayyam, “the Charmed,” appears. “Agitated by passion and sickened by love; his body melts away by sleeplessness, thin and fragile. He cries out, with deep sighing in despair,” and begins to recall what he characterizes as “suffering from the dally of a flirtatious dandy, the defeat of a humiliated lover,” namely al-Yutayyim, “the Wayward Charmer.”2 Their first encounter was at a wrestling hall (qāʿat al-ʿilāj), where the lad, fighting while shirtless, enthralled the crowd and then took off abruptly before stealing a kiss on the love-stricken man’s cheek. His former page, now mid-aged himself

1  The title is a cognate word play of mutayyam (passive participle) and yutayyim (imperfect verb), derived from t-y-m, “to enslave with emotion, to enthrall”; it was literally translated as “the Love Stricken One and the Lost One who inspires passion”; see Badawi, Medieval Arabic drama 23–4. Rowson rendered it differently, “The Man Distracted by Passion and the Little Vagabond Orphan,” taking al-yutayyim as a diminutive form of yatīm, “orphan”; see Rowson, Two homoerotic narratives 174. 2  Translations are mine. For a more extensive select translation of the entire play, see Rowson, Two homoerotic narratives 174–80.

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“and rather ugly,” advised him to track down the lad in school and stalk him, but he refused. The next time the two met, it was in a bathhouse. There the Charmed ran into his paramour, whose beauty stunned everyone. Overwhelmed by excitement, he stumbled on the slippery marble floor and was tended by the lad who saw him fall. He placed his hands on the lad’s hip. Offended, the lad pushed through the crowd, leaving him to lie on the ground, naked. In the aftermath, the Charmed ran into Bayram, the Charmer’s pageboy, in a tavern. Bayram rekindled the mid-aged man’s wishful passion by telling him that his master did not totally forget about this ardent admirer. Then the lad showed up, and the two engaged in a long argument, each blaming the other for all kinds of things. The verbal confrontation led to several rounds of animal fights, a popular game in medieval Cairo. In the first round, a cock fight, the Charmer’s rooster was defeated. The second round, a ram fight, the lad’s mother used magic spells to help her son’s ram, but it was defeated. The loser, the Charmer, refused to reward the winner, the Charmed, as promised with a kiss, or some sweet talk. A third round was called, this time a bull fight. The script, in rhymed prose, has this description: “The two bulls lock horns against each other, attacking, fighting. Al-Mutayyam’s bull is crushed by the opponent. The bull falls down on his own ear, breaking his nose, and displacing his shoulders.” At this point, al-Yutayyim’s gang erupts in jubilation, calling the opponent out. They dance a victory lap, and the betting money is collected from the loser. Al-Mutayyam “sits there, head down, and cries.” He asks the shadow master to slaughter the bull and arrange a banquet (in fact a funeral) for all the “like-minded brothers and friends” to enjoy. A gang comes on stage; each one sings a song and performs a dance number. Their bizarre nicknames, and the content of their performance, suggest some specific kinds of sex acts. Finally, a venerable looking man comes on stage and calls all to wake up from a dream-like past. He announces that he is the Angel of Death, and gives a sermon of faith and repentance. Al-Mutayyam, the Charmed, now dead, is given a dignified burial. 1.4 A Note on Ibn Dāniyāl’s Poetry The majority of the songs in Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays were wrought in the classical qaṣīda form. Only seven zajal songs were scripted for the three plays, alongside a few pieces of muwashshaḥ, mawāliyā, and dū-bayt. Of the zajal poems, two appear in Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom,” and al-Mutayyam, or “The Charmed,” respectively, and three in ʿAjīb, or “Amazing.” Taken together, these songs standout as among the most hilarious and outrageous. They are also the most mysterious, on account of the problematic verse type identification

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and the bizarre language, a rare case study of Arabic language registers in medieval time. Even with the few cases where meters and verse forms were found in the manuscripts, confusion remains. The confusion arising from medieval manuscripts trickles down to Kahle’s 1992 version, by far the sole critical modern edition. As a matter of fact, it occurs from the very beginning of the Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom.” In the opening scene, the Phantom delivers a panegyric, responding to the shadow play master’s song in the classical meter of kāmil. Neither the manuscripts nor the edition identify the panegyric to be in the vernacular form of zajal.3 Elsewhere, of the three zajal songs in the ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” one was identified by the medieval scribe(s) (“The tattooing woman’s song”) and two by the editor (songs of “the Nubian clown” and “the monkey trainer”).4 As for bullayq, the situation is murkier. “The cry baby’s song,” in the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl, was assigned a classical meter, wāfir, in the edition, whereas two alternate codices identify it as that of bullayq.5 Moreover, the two vernacular songs that appear in al-Mutayyam, one, “You sweet little lad,” is labeled as a ballīqa in the edition, while the other, “How big is it,” which shares the same rhyme and meter, is not.6 In light that the vernacular songs all share a similar rhyme scheme and verse-form of zajal, the only detectable difference between a zajal proper or a bullayq, besides themes, is perhaps the tempo, in that some songs have longer lines, the longest being “You sweet little lad,” a twenty-eight syllable opening with twelve-syllable main lines, while the shortest, “The Nubian clown,” is of a ten syllable opening with five-syllable lines. It is safe to say that the technical terms of Arabic prosody were applied loosely by the scribes, who themselves were baffled by the “abnormal” elements at hand.7 Nevertheless, verses in the vernacular, be it zajal or bullayq, were used effectively to delineate

3  The edition has the classical meter, mutaqārib (Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays [text] 3, 119 [apparatus]). A word, supposedly ending in letter l, was missing from the principal codex: wa-yarquṣ ʿalā ʿādat al-khayāl wa-yughannī buyūt [al-azjāl] (“he dances, in the typical manner of the shadow puppets, and then sings the following zajal ballad …”). That the song is in essence a zajal is evidenced by the rhyme scheme, of AA, bbbA, cccA; see Guo, Performing arts 160 (after Moreh). 4  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 76–7, 79–80, 81–2. 5  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 41, 131 (apparatus). It is true that the bullayq could also scan classical meters; but the rhyming scheme is different (see above, chapter 5). 6  Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text] 98, 112. 7  Discrepancies beyond simple scribal errors are also witnessed in the spelling of non-classical vocabulary, pseudo names, and made-up words – an indication that the copyists themselves struggled to make out of what they were supposed to write down; see Guo, Performing arts 123–30.

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the linguistic shades of the under-represented groups in the ghetto or on the streets. These men and women acted and spoke differently than the rest. Despite his outlandish writing style and acquired flamboyant persona, Ibn Dāniyāl’s poetic virtuosity also served serious and practical purposes. The Shāfiʿī chief judge, Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Jamāʿa (d. 1333), commissioned him to write an urjūza, a rhymed roster of judges, from the time of the Muslim conquest of Egypt to his own time. Other didactic writings include: a versified manual on medicine titled Urjūza fī al-ṭibb and a commentary on a grammar book, Sharḥ al-Maqṣūd. Ibn Dāniyāl’s other poems were collected in two general anthologies. The better known is a selection preserved in various parts of al-Ṣafadī’s Tadhkira. This anthology contains a significant number of poems that were used in the shadow plays. Another lesser known collection is a cluster of random verses, claiming to be his dīwān, which appears in a majmūʿa-collection. It has a considerable number of poems not found in the shadow plays or in al-Ṣafadī’s Tadhkira. 1.5 Resources 1.5.1 Manuscripts See chapter 4. 1.5.2 Published Material 1.5.2.1 Premodern Bio-Bibliographical Sources al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina iv, 54–6 al-Ghazūlī, Maṭāliʿ al-budūr i, 259 al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab ii, 12, 59–60, 118–9; iii, 191, 220–1, 288–90, 537–8 Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar xiii, 391 Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab viii, 50 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ i/1, 326–30, 438–9 Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira ix, 215 al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-wafayāt ii, 383–92; iii, 259, 330–3 al-Kutubī, ʿUyūn al-tawārīkh xx, 381–2 al-Nawājī, Ḥalbat al-kumayt 204 al-Qurashī, al-Jawāhir i, 129 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-al-Wafayāt i, 227–8; iii, 51–7 al-Ṣafadī, Faḍḍ al-khitām 131, 206 al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ ii, 171 al-Ṣuqāʿī, Tālī 158 al-Udfuwī, al-Badr 330–9 al-ʿUmarī, Ibn Faḍl Allāh, Masālik al-abṣār xix, 379–405 al-ʿUmarī, Amīn Khayr Allāh, Manhal al-awliyāʾ 218–20 al-Yūnīnī, Dhayl Mirʾāt al-zamān ii, 1360–2

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1.5.2.2 Edition See chapter 4. 1.5.2.3 Translations The following check list consists of all known published translations, partial and full, of Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays. They are grouped in three types, arranged according to publication dates. 1.5.2.3.1

Poems (Full Translation Only)

1.5.2.3.2

Partial Translation of Plays

1.5.2.3.3

Full Translation of Plays

“The Sudanese (Nubian) clown’s song” (from ʿAjīb), Jacob, Der Nâtû. “ʿAjīb’s opening song” (from ʿAjīb), Jacob, Ajīb ed-dīn al-wâʿiẓ. “The monkey trainer’s song” (from ʿAjīb), Jacob, Der Qarrad. “The brazier-bearer’s song” (from ʿAjīb), Kahle, Arabic shadow play (1940) 27–32. “The tattoo woman’s song” (from ʿAjīb), Kahle, A gypsy woman. “The death of Iblīs” (from Ṭayf al-Khayāl), Monroe et al., Zajal 144–5. “The death of Iblīs” (from Ṭayf al-Khayāl), Guo, Paradise lost; Performing arts 163–5 (revised). “Complaint about wife” (from Ṭayf al-Khayāl), Guo, Self-mockery. “All the pretty horses” (from Ṭayf al-Khayāl), Shafik, El arte ecuestre; Ḥikāya. “The herbalist’s song” (from ʿAjīb), Chipman, Pharmacy 164–9. “The block charm printer’s song” (from ʿAjīb), Muehlhaeusler, Arabic block prints 566–7. Corrao, Il riso, il comico. Buturović, Sociology of popular drama. Rowson, Two homoerotic narratives. Khawam, Le marriage de l’Emir conjonctif, Les comédiens de la rue, and L’Amoureux et l’Orphelin. Guo, “The Phantom” (Ṭayf al-Khayāl), in Performing arts 157–220. Mahfouz and Carlson, Theatre from medieval Cairo. 2

An Unconfirmed Mamluk Shadow Play

2.1 Introduction There has been a reported but unconfirmed Mamluk-era shadow play, which was inflicted by problematic documentation. No original script has been

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verified. In its stead is a detailed presentation, by the Egyptian polyphyletic author Muḥammad Kāmil Ḥusayn, as a chapter in his pamphlet on ancient and medieval drama. Titled Bābat al-Shaykh Ṭāliḥ wa-jāriyatuhu al-Sirr al-Maknūn, or “Shaykh Wicked and his slave girl named Hidden Secret,” it is a comedy about the attempt of a destitute shaykh, with the help of his resourceful maid, to obtain a judgeship by blackmailing a corrupt head of the local ulema.8 Ḥusayn claimed the script to be another “Mamluk shadow play” in addition to that of Ibn Dāniyāl. Ḥusayn did not cite his source, only that it was “anonymous and undated”; he based his dating of the play to the fourteenth century on the observation that its writing style, in predominantly classical Arabic, was very close to that of Ibn Dāniyāl. To support his assertion, he also pointed out that the play contains ballads of the ballīq (bullayq) type, the likes of which were performed “at several famous occasions in the seventh/thirteenth century,” alongside some poetry by identifiable Mamluk poets. One such versified narrative was, for example, based on Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī’s Risālat al-dār ʿan muḥāwarat al-fa‌ʾr, a popular narrative about the game of cats and mice.9 As for the play itself, Ḥusayn put high marks on its fierce criticism of the hypocrisy of the “religious fundamentalists (al-uṣūlīyīn),” exemplified in its portrayal of the creepy shaykh and the environment surrounding him. He considered the play to be “one of the stronger shadow plays (bābāt) ever written,” on account of its “judicious choice of topic,” its in-depth characterization, and its coherent and focused storyline. However, due to a lack of verifiable documentation, this reported discovery of a supposedly medieval Arabic drama has yet to draw serious attention of researchers, despite having been cited in several publications.10 2.2 Synopsis The play begins with the shadow master (al-mukhāyil) greeting the audience by a formulaic opening monologue that mixes rhymed prose and verse. Then the protagonist appears. The self-claimed shaykh, whose name Ṭāliḥ, “Wicked,” is perhaps a parody of Ṣāliḥ, “Righteous,” gives a long speech. He rants about his unfulfilled life. He has traveled the world in search of wealth and prosperity, but instead he has only acquired wisdom of life and trivial knowledge of all kinds. And he is mad at society at large, which, in his view, has yet to reward him of what he deserves. From here his complaint takes a comic and absurd turn. He recalls that one time he was getting ready for yet another journey, in search of knowledge and elusive wealth; he finds out that the provision, a sack

8  Ḥusayn, Fī al-adab al-masraḥī 229–36. 9  al-Ḥillī, Dīwān 484–91. 10  ʿInānī, Ḥawla khayāl al-ẓill (1) 22; Saʿd, Khayāl al-ẓill 364–5.

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full of wheat, was nibbled away by mice. Angry, he wrote a formal complaint to the King of Cats, urging the felines to wage a war against the Kingdom of Rats. Done with blaming the society for his failures, the shaykh is plotting his own game. He summons his slave girl, tells her that he is tired of traveling, ready to settle into a stable life, that the only way to achieve all this is to secure a lucrative judgeship. The maid asks, “Who do you want to send me to? Is he young, or old? The emir of Samarkand, or the shaykh of Kashghand?” The ensuing conversation between the two reveals that the slave girl has long played the role of a bait “to catch fish” wherever they go. Thanks to her cunning, they have always managed to get away before being caught. Now, the shaykh asks her to coil and enlarge his turban and widen the sleeves of his gown, so he would look the part of the elite ulema, known as “Men of Turbans.” He rides on a donkey and comes to the learned men’s assembly where he flatters with the doyen, al-Shaykh al-Madīd, or “Stretched Out,” by reciting fancy panegyrics. The head shaykh embraces the new-comer, who has more in store for him – a slave girl, his secret weapon, who quickly figures out the new master’s weakness for pretty women, fine wine, and hashish. While the two men socialize often, the slave girl begins stealing money from her new master on behalf of her former lord. When al-Shaykh al-Madīd is elevated to the office of chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt), he appoints his friend, alShaykh Ṭāliḥ, “Wicked,” to be his deputy, at the urge of his favorite slave girl. The dubious relation between the chief judge and this female slave has also become the source of gossip among the commoners. Enraged, the ulema elite in Cairo, who felt slighted by a nobody from nowhere, fight back. They soon discover the true identity of al-Shaykh Ṭāliḥ and bring their grievance to the unnamed sultan. The chief judge is forced to step down, and the people rejoice. The shaykh Wicked and his loyal slave girl have no option but to escape to Mecca, confessing their sins and hoping for redemption. 2.3 Resources Ḥusayn, Fī al-adab al-masraḥī 229–34. al-Ḥillī, Dīwān 484–91.

chapter 8

Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays Arabic shadow theatre of the Ottoman and early modern times witnessed new trends and novel creativity, while carrying on the tradition. Throughout the long-running history, the Egyptian repertoire distinguished itself in a remarkable and significant way, with the continuity of the genuine Arab legacy, the khayāl al-ẓill. Elsewhere, in Greater Syria and the Maghreb, the Turkish import of the Karagöz (in Arabic, Karākūz) monopolized the content and format of shadow theatre. In the following pages, the documentation of Ottoman and early modern era Egyptian plays falls into two chapters. Chapter 8 presents the repertoire with a detailed documentation of Ottoman era masterpieces. Chapter 9 aims at documenting all the known Egyptian plays produced in the late Ottoman and early modern times, based on manuscripts and archival materials. 1 Sources The descriptive inventory in this chapter and the next aims at stock taking that is as comprehensive as possible. There are three types of material to be concerned with: (1) confirmed and identified plays with full documentation; (2) unidentified manuscript fragments; and (3) titles that were spotted in various sources but the contents of which are lost. The present focus is on the first two. (For a checklist of the lost plays, see below, Appendix 1.) The following inventory is built upon three major primary sources, along with occasional new discoveries in the 1970s and 1980s. The first source is the cumulative reservoir of Paul Kahle’s acquisitions and research findings. Equipped with manuscripts and other archival materials, along with a collection of some eighty-plus leather figures, this is the most extensive textual and artifact repository of premodern Egyptian shadow theatre. As far as individual plays are concerned, there are also several “checklists” in the PKF, made by Kahle and by the shadow theatre practitioners: shadow masters and/or scribes. Among these, several lists made by Kahle catalogued the contents and the titles. They are evidently work-in-progress notes instead of a complete inventory of the shadow play materials in Kahle’s possession. In the earliest Ottoman era shadow play manuscript, the Dīwān kedes (PKF, MSB12), a hand-written list made by Kahle, placed within the folder of another

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_009

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manuscript (PKF, MSB14), tallied the plays and numbered the folios of each from the original Dīwān, before it was disseminated (see above, chapter 4). Six plays, written in cursive pencil, were: Abū Jaʿfar; ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr, or “Wonders of the Nile”; Nājī wa-l-Qarwāsh, or “Nājī and Qarwāsh” (the same as ʿAjāʾib albarr, or “Wonders of the land”); al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse”; songs of the so-called “The Marketplace type”; and ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, or “ ʿAlam and Taʿādīr.” The second source is German orientalists’ collective work. Kern first reported four plays he had either seen or learned about: Liʿb al-bayt, or “The household”; Liʿb al-markab (el-merkib), or “The boating (or ferry ride)”; Liʿb al-Nūbī wa-l-Fārisī, or “The Nubian and the Persian [war]”; and Riwāyat Abū Jaʿfar, or “The tale of Abū Jaʿfar.”1 This earliest list was further confirmed and expanded by Prüfer, who published two, Liʿb al-dayr, or “The monastery (same as Liʿb al-bayt and ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr)” and Liʿb al-shūnī, “The ferry ride” (same as Liʿb al-markab), and added some more, with the admission that some were likely “annexed” to others: Faṣl ʿajāʾib al-baḥr, or “Wonders of the Nile”; Liʿb al-timsāḥ, or “The crocodile”; Liʿb al-ʿumda, or “The chieftain”; Liʿb al-ṣayyād, or “The fisherman”; Liʿb al-Shaykh Sumaysim, or “Shaykh Sumaysim”; Liʿb alqahwa, or “The café”; Liʿb ḥarb al-Sūdān, or “War in the Sudan”; and Liʿb ḥarb alʿAjam, or “War with the foreign [navy]” (same as al-Manār, or “The Lighthouse [of Alexandria]”).2 The third source is Taymūr, who relied on the aforesaid German work, alongside the material in his own possession. Taymūr’s inventory of postMamluk Egyptian shadow plays consists of a total of twelve titles. In addition to the German list, more titles were reported: al-Muhandis, or “The builder”; al-Tiyātrū, or “The theatre”; and al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse,” all turned out to be spinoffs of the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr.3 This inventory has long served as a road map for Arab scholars working on the subject. Taymūr’s synopses of these plays contain a great deal of exclusive details with regard to performance, rising from his intimate knowledge of the subject and his first-hand experience watching the shows. A total of some twenty-five Ottoman era and early modern Egyptian shadow plays (or short plays) will be presented in the following pages, in this chapter and the next. The Ottoman plays are mostly based on manuscripts evidence, whereas early modern pieces rely on a variety of sources. The plays in each group were arranged by title in light of the original sources. 1  Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater 100–4. 2  Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel xii–xiii. 3  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 22–9.

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An Original Description of the Repertoire

Finally, no source is perhaps better than the original list made by the authors of the Ottoman plays to be presented below. As mentioned above, a bundle of manuscript fragments (PKF, MSB14) contains a number of generic opening songs for shadow play performance. They reveal a considerable amount of information about the operations of a shadow theatre, along with technical terms and “snapshots” of the plays in the repertoire. Somewhat formulaic in content, these songs were wrought in various verse forms and revealed slight divers in detail. These generic songs proved to be popular, in view that multiple copies in different hands are found in the same manuscript bundle and elsewhere. Among these songs, the longest and earliest was attributed to alShaykh Suʿūd (fl. c. sixteenth century), the first author of the plays preserved in the Dīwān kedes, which in turn is the earliest codex of its kind.4 In many ways, this opening song served, and still serves, not only as a road map of the plays composed and performed at the time, but it also sheds light on the context of shadow theatre within the milieu at large – of the Sufi performative rite, public celebration, and mass entertainment that characterizes the Ottoman era Egyptian shadow theatre. A full translation of this remarkable song is to be presented here as an authentic overview of the plays in question, in the author’s own words. Consisting of twenty stanzas (dawr) and an opening couplet (al-maṭlaʿ), this zajal song cycle details various aspects of a typical shadow play performance at the time. After a routine greeting to the audience, the first two stanzas open the show with the formulaic prophetic panegyric. A lengthy segment on various plays and scenes ensues. The last stanza, which follows a benediction, is the istishhād-authorship clause with al-Shaykh Suʿūd’s name in it. The scorching attacks on professional rivals were a recurrent theme in the shadow play manuscripts produced at the time. Before I begin to speak, O the crowd in presence, I praise the Prophet, the guide, and the guided, on whose behalf God made stones speak.5

4  MSB14; two versions, or copies, exist in the same manuscript. 5  No relevant Qurʾanic and hadith (Prophetic Tradition) references could be identified.

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1 The choicest of the Lord, the Forgiving, the ultimate end of all ambitions. Muḥammad, the pure, the special one, equipped with intelligence, generosity, and miraculous signs. Of the Hashimite stock, [of] Sayyid ʿAdnān, the chosen one, the most noble of the Sayyids. O the vigilent, he is the one, as it is said in the Tradition (al-ṣaḥīḥ), “even trees would strive to serve him!”6 The best! Among his miracles was that underneath his palms rivers flow.7 2 God’s prayer be on him. You are forever profitable; and tomorrow, you will deliver more satisfaction.8 He who prays will never lose, will return, and gain forgiveness. After that, be pleased with [Prophet’s] companions, the best people! The Lord of the lords will grant them plenty, and forever, of knowledge, faith, piety, and pride of the highest high! 3 Having paid tribute to the guide and his companions, I praise the band (al-jawqa) and the performers (al-ṣunnāʿ), and all of you, in the audience. I praise, truthfully, my fellow performers who stand in various arenas.

6  The exact reference could not be found; one mention of ashjār al-janna, or “trees of the paradise,” is in al-Dārimī, Riqāq 144. 7  Cf. “gardens underneath which rivers flow,” Q 2:25; 2:266 (and passim). 8  Note the switch to second person in this line.

Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays

I praise anyone who is not bigoted, and who inundates me with favors. Practitioners of my crafts, I praise them all. My heart is filled with fond memories. 4 All is said – now, O anyone who stays for my show:9 Look at this hanging screen (al-taʿlīq), you see it lightened up, glowing. Then, I will display, in front of your eyes, a boat, sailing.10 You see a man paddle, and the other, against the waves, fishing. Suddenly something jumps [off water] – so frightening, God forbid the unbecoming! 5 Al-Zibrqāsh chases after, trying to catch it with a cane. An hour later, joining him is Shaykh al-Maʿāsh, the most able man. The two chat, nothing too rough, all is fine. After that, look! – a huge crowd of fish surges, by the command of the Almighty! The paddler catches a few; [but] no saw-fish is caught just yet. 6 After that, a man from Tinnīs shows up,11 and tries hard to help.

9  Literally, “stands there listening to my speech.” 10  From here to the end of stanza 6 is a summary of the play al-Timsāḥ, “The crocodile.” 11  A town in eastern Delta, Egypt.

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Then he takes a break and shouts: “Hi, I have brought you a mattress!” He puts the fish on it, and lies down to relax. All of a sudden, the crocodile snatches him. Oh goodness, some kids stumble upon the scene, and they begin to cry; while men want revenge. 7 After that – O people whom I owe praises! – after all that was described above, here come the wild beasts. The Royal Head Hunter (amīr shikār), riding on horse saddler, shoots exotic birds.12 He hunts gazelles in the wadi – good for him! – and slaughters them in the open. He is happy while hunting, full of joy and bliss.13 8 After all that, here comes a loud music band of foreigners (al-aʿjām). They dance to the tune, and the band leader comes out swinging. Following him, while people watch, is a camel cub, black-eyed, ready for a wedding procession. The camel dances, with his behind waggling. A gypsy (al-gharīb) appears, carrying a tambourine.14 He plays the instrument while people are watching – God forbid if there were any shame about it. 12  al-musammaya = CA al-musammāt, literally, “named, identified.” 13  The content is to be identified. The amīr shikār, a confidant of the sultan (sometimes a sultan himself), also served as the Royal Keeper of the Birds; see Shehada, Mamluks and animals 177–8. 14  iṣṭār, usually spelled as ṭār.

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9 Wild geese and dragons come, in this show place (al-maqām) they appear.15 O friend, in front of the sedan, you dance around, no slowdown is near! Long drum joins in; then small drum strikes battle beats (ḥarbī) in the audience. After that, water carriers come to us. And after that, O son of the nobles, comes al-Marmūsh, with nothing to hide! He was chasing (qad sammā bayna) birds.16 10 After them comes al-Qarwāsh; but on the sea, something is happening.17 Al-Ḥāziq runs in, screaming to al-Rikhim, on this same spot. “Get ( jīb) the lighthouse [ready] right now! It is vital, with a glorious status!” He urges him, time and again, “Go climb on the top, and report the newest development!” He (al-Rikhim) climbs up the lighthouse and begins to watch and warn the soldiers of the danger of coming under fire. 11 He reports of the [invading] warship, while the Moroccan, sitting inside, passes the word on. Then the mayor (maymūn ?) shows up; and he shouts out at the townspeople, “Be scared,18 get ready, without delay, to battle the infidel ( jāḥid)!” 15  The content of this stanza resembles that of the play ʿAjāʾib al-barr, or “Wonders of the land” and al-Maghānī al-ʿArab, or “The mastersingers of the Arabs.” 16  As in, “hunts the named (prized?) birds”; also cf. the similar use above, stanza 7. 17  The end of the play ʿAjāʾib al-barr and the beginning of al-Manār, “The Lighthouse” (from here to the end of stanza 13). 18  Literally, “to tremble.”

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Boats (al-shawānī) arrive, carrying clothes and swords. The boatmen sing songs, determined to fight the infidel army. 12 Then a gang of thieves come here to steal water, as it is understood.19 They take it on this spot by tricks and Abū al-Qiṭaṭ20 regrets that. They know Qaṭṭaṭū21 is frustrated; and he gets on, attacking the [thieves’?] boat. He comes to tackle and seize it, quicker than a brink of the eye. They make the boat sink in the water, vanished without a trace. 13 Then comes Ḥirdān, the lieutenant of the shrewd [Egyptian] troops. Al-Rikhim appears; while he (Ḥirdān) ends up dozing off. They capture him, by Almighty’s command. He is soon released, as the deceptive enemy are defeated. Quickly, banners rise high, dancing in the wind; the devoted folks grab them. God has assured the triumph of Islam, in the sanctuary protected by the guide (the Prophet], the chosen one. 14 There come, chained in shackles, [war prisoners] of the defeated (al-musammaya) army.22 19  “The Franks (al-ifranjiyya) stole the water!”; Kahle, Der Leuchtturm (text) 25. 20  That is, al-Rikhim the clown. 21  He is referred to as “the brother of Abū al-Qiṭaṭ,” an anti-type of Abū al-Qiṭaṭ: brave and unselfish. 22  Literally, “the aforesaid, the named” (enemy); the content of this stanza is yet to be identified.

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Spears trample over their heads, firmly held by the protected horsemen, pointing at the prince’s head, while the father is hidden in the crowd. “Where did he go (da-la-wīn)?” The prisoners turn on the target, and he has no ally or helper. The Muslim fellow rejoices, and the traitorous dog is in despair. 15 After that come al-ʿAmrūs and al-Zaʿrab, a pair of countrymen (al-qarn al-dahqān). Between the two are some issues, back and forth, more or less. The gossiper (al-murajjif ) comes down; if you listen to his word – it is rich and colorful.23 Then, here comes the Drunkard; when he appears behind the screen,24 he relates a great deal of morals (maʿānī), his tales ( fann)25 are numerous. 16 From Manja, that monk, of all people, he (the Drunkard) demands a jar of wine, so he would have a good time, and get high (sakra).26 When the monk’s daughter comes out, he gazes at her in such a way! He falls in love, his passion grows, heart-broken. He comes back to lure her out, with his desire in open display for the audience. 23  Literally, “of many knitted shapes and colors.” The first three lines of this stanza cover the content of the play Abū Jaʿfar. 24  From here to the end of stanza 18 is a summary of the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. 25  Literally, “art, act.” 26  A pun, on “getting drunk” and the nickname of ʿAlam (al-sakra, or “drunkenness”), his love interest.

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17 When he sees her, face to face, he lusts her slender waist. He sneaks into her place, so she would yield to what she might hear. He plots tricks on her, but fails one hundred thousand times, altogether! She flirts with him constantly, as he promises to build a house. She toys with him, and plays him around, while he could not stand that, not let go of his passion. 18 After that, he plans a trick, by building and planting a garden, in the hope to achieve his goal, and fulfill his wishes, in a lawful fashion. He gets engaged with her, and marries her, as the wedding is on the way, by all means. He comes in with the bride; and after her, a tambourine becomes audible (tajallā) to him. All is successful for now, and this is the story – no kidding!27 19 I praise Ṭāhā (the Prophet Muḥammad), the finest of the creatures, chosen by his Lord among His servants. He sent him down to the mankind to preach Oneness; O the happy one who has glimpsed his lights! Those who have visited his shrine (maqām) have reached the ultimate goal; All burdens are lifted! May God bless him! May his endeavor be strengthened! May God bless his virtuous family and his noble companions! O Lord, grant us repentance through his deeds, let all the burdens be erased. 27  Literally, “no nap of fabric (zaghbār) in it.”

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20. Author’s signature clause (istishhād) I am Suʿūd, whose fame has reached wide and far. How many magic tricks I pull off,28 as a seasoned shadow master! I am gifted with secret signs (ashāʾir) to crush all competitors. Over the centuries, there has been no task accomplished like the way I did – it’s all by the command of destiny. The ribs of my enemy have been chopped off, piece by piece, O Almighty! I have excellent skills, and here I am: to sing a song, accompanied by drum and flute. 3

Seven Early Ottoman Egyptian Shadow Plays

3.1 ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, ʿAlam and Taʿādīr 3.1.1 Introduction What follows here is an Ottoman era masterpiece and its variant versions. Generally known as ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, or “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr” after the two protagonists, this Egyptian shadow play is the most complex full-length theatric work from the Ottoman Arab East that has survived today. A long-running staple in the repertoire that tackles sensitive themes with social, religious, and cultural implications, the significance of this remarkable play is further underlined by a curious observation that some of its original elements, especially the song-cycles of “The Sane and the Insane,” made their way to contemporary Sufi songbooks. As a matter of fact, of the six manuscripts that contain the content of the play, four – T3, T4, T5, and T6 – were originally Sufi-themed songbooks. On the other hand, some generic Sufi devotional and didactic songs were incorporated in the play as well (for more detail, see below). In addition, this work is a valuable source for the study of Ottoman Egyptian architecture and material culture, on account of its detailed descriptions of a Copt church, house and garden, furnishing and decoration, and commodities in the marketplace. The play is also noteworthy in its multiple-layered composition, which sheds light on the process of cultural production of the Ottoman era. The earlier core of the text, traced to a set of poems made for shadow plays in the sixteenth century, was constantly being revised over time, all the way to the turn of the twentieth century. The manuscript evidence exhibits different layers, or versions, in the play’s long evolution. Each version offers a vantage point 28  ḥawaytu; ḥawā, “to conjure, to make magic tricks” (Hinds/Badawi).

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from which to examine the presentation of the related subjects, of interfaith romance, alcoholism, insanity, and mystical enlightenment, in popular literature and culture at a particular juncture in history. Taymūr described the play as the following: This is the longest shadow play known, and most complicated plot-wise. It was performed at coffee houses all over Cairo, and could stretch to seven nights. A shortened version could also be put on show for one night. One hundred and sixty figures – people, animals, trees, flowers, and houses – were used for the elaborate show. Two narrators, the Presenter, and his sidekick, al-Rikhim, a bodily deformed clown, provide narration and comment, along with comic relief throughout. They play visually stunning tricks and spectacles that add the entertaining value; these include scenes of peddlers selling watermelons on camel’s back, women carrying cages full of chickens on their heads, or on donkey’s back; scenes of the opulent monastery, the lush garden, and the love-nest mansion.29 The appeal of this play lies in the richness of its content and the complexity in its structure. The major acts, or scenes, underline the intertwined tropes – illicit drinking, interfaith romance, and insane love – playing out in the main loci: inside the monastery, at the door of the monastery (namely the streets of urban Cairo), and in the asylum. The tropes hang on a common moral thread, that of borderline transgressions to be cured or redeemed. While the protagonists’ trajectory carries the overarching theme of Islamic triumph, with the formulaic pilgrimage-as-a-cure-for-all trope, it is the transgressions – the “alien exotic woman,” wine, and love induced ecstasy – that propel the plot and constitute the main attraction. For the audience, the appeal of the play, above all, stems from curious gazes across boundaries. The Coptic propensity for building, manufacturing, and appreciating fine things in life, in which the delicate façade, intricate interior, beautiful garden, and the fancily-dressed young lady behind the curtains become the object of the admiring gaze and infatuation from outside. Further, while drinking and insane love are stock themes in classical Arabic literature, the play further entices the audience as an allegoric narrative with an overt Sufi undertone. The link between intoxication and love, a quintessential Sufi theme, is illustrated in a dramatic fashion: a toxic love affair between the lover, nicknamed al-Sakrān, or “the Drunkard,” and the beloved, nicknamed 29  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 23–4.

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al-Sakra, or “the Drunkenness,” and their journey toward enlightenment.30 The male protagonist’s wild swings between sober reality and hallucinatory fantasy highlight the theme of mind and body transcendence, another trope in classical Sufi discourse. Given its rich history of creation, production, and adaptation, three versions of the play will be documented: one will be presented in this chapter, the original Ottoman song version while the other two, the early modern songdialogue version, and the early modern spinoffs, with alternate titles, will be documented in chapter 9. 3.1.2 Synopsis (the Composite Version) The core story starts with Taʿādīr, a merchant of Turk stock and a heavy drinker, trying to buy wine from Monk Manja (the name is also spelled as Munajjā; Fig. 11) at a Coptic monastery. He runs into ʿAlam, the monk’s daughter. Madly in love, he finds excuses, in a myriad of guises (street peddler, magician, handyman, and so forth), knocking on the door to lure her out. She flirts and toys with him. He sneaks into the monastery and is accused of theft, and sentenced to amputation according to Islamic law. He then builds a garden opposite the monastery to attract her attention, and later sets it on fire out of frustration. For that he is sent to an asylum, where he stays for seven years, oscillating between two personalities and two worlds – sane and insane, real and imagined – till a doctor from Baghdad named Kāmil, or “Mr. Perfect,” cures him. He goes back to his beloved, only to realize that the monk has died. The couple is finally reunited. She converts to Islam. On the site of the ruined monastery a mansion erects, to where the lavish dowry is brought in, piece by piece, in celebratory fanfare. They go on pilgrimage and, having been robbed by Bedouins, return home safely to start a new life. 3.1.3 History and Authorship The play commonly known as ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr (it had been known in various titles, see above, chapter 2) has journeyed a long way, going through numerous changes by countless hands. The similar trajectory is witnessed in the preservation, transformation, and revitalization of other plays, which are also known to have circulated in “old” and “new” versions over a time span of more than three centuries. Since the case of ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr is the most complex and extensively documented, in many ways it is representative of the mode and pattern of the textual production of shadow theatre in the Ottoman and early 30  The drunkard (Sarhoș) is also a type in the cast of Turkish Karagöz theatre.

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figure 11 The Coptic monk

modern times. In what follows is a survey of all the major phases of the play, as well as its later spinoffs based on unpublished original sources. 3.1.3.1 The Genesis: ʿAlī Saʿd One opening song, found in K1, refers to the original playwright as one “ʿAlī ibn al-Ṣalāḥ,” and in T1 as one “ʿAlī Saʿd, a shadow master (rayyis) from Syria, now calling Cairo home.” T1 goes further to explain that “this play had not been seen in Egypt (infaqada min Miṣr hādhā al-khayāl) for many years” before “[Ḥasan al-]Qashshāsh picked it up ( jābahu).”31 It is also revealed to Taymūr that in the “old play,” the protagonist was named ʿUmar, an Arab, instead. At one point, the 31  K1, the first folio (no pagination); T1 p. 62.

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protagonist refers to himself as having “hailed from Jerusalem (al-Quds), my real hometown.” It is therefore very likely that the original text already featured the basic storylines, possibly with some songs composed. However, except for random references, no text base can be found today of this version.32 It is to be noted that some ingredients of this original version resurfaced in the later staged versions (see below). 3.1.3.2 The Base Version: the Dīwān kedes The first documented text took its shape in the mid-seventeenth century. It features the Monk, his daughter, and the protagonist, now a Turk named Taʿādīr. The earliest codex, the Dīwān kedes (K1), attests to the initial contributions by three poets: al-Shaykh Suʿūd, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, and Dāwūd al-Munāwī alʿAṭṭār. With an abundance of poems, or songs, this version already consisted of a full-length play, although in somewhat disjointed structure. The play, remarked in the headline as “The love story of the Drunkard,” begins with a prelude, when the narrator, al-Ḥāziq, introduces the genesis of the story and the main characters Taʿādīr, also known as al-sakrān, “The Drunkard,” Monk Manja (Munajjā), also called al-jāḥid, “The Infidel,” a staple reference to a non-Muslim character in Ottoman era shadow plays and other popular narratives,33 and the Monk’s daughter ʿAlam, nicknamed al-sakra, “The Drunkenness.” Near the end of the first part of the manuscript (also first act of the play), another narrator, al-Rikhim, is introduced. He is a grotesque-looking clown, who also appears in other plays, in the role of go-between of the two lovers here. Other characters, the warden ʿArfatha and the Doctor, also exist in this base version. By the time of the compilation of the diwan, which also contains elements from several other plays, a set of vocabulary pertaining to dramaturgy was already in place. Noteworthy among these are the terms khurāfa, or “fantasy,” and ṣāḥī, “sober (reality),” that headline the verses, or songs, of a large part of the second act of the play, “The Sane and the Insane.”34 This base version also contains music tunes and modes, often indicated in the captions 32  One general opening song for shadow theatre attributed to ʿAlī Saʿd is found in MSB17, the only surviving piece that bears his name. 33  For example, the Sīrat al-Ẓāhir Baybars, or “The hero epic of Sultan Baybars,” an Ottoman retelling of Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Baybars’ (r. 1260–77) heroic battles against the Crusades. The fictionalized epic features several Christian antagonists, often simply go by the nickname al-jāḥid, “the infidel,” or “the Christian.” Two major versions, one Egyptian and one Syrian, are known to have been in circulation. They do not seem to have had any impact on the contents of the Egyptian shadow play repertoire. For Syrian warthemed shadow play acts, see below, chapter 10. 34  A character identified as “a spectator (mutafarrij)” also appears in this segment. His songspeech was attributed to one Aḥmad, “the poet” (Fig. 12). This character and his song are not found in later manuscripts.

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figure 12 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ

and rubrics. As noted above in chapters 4 and 5, many of the music related technical terms are largely, if not totally, missing in the later manuscripts, for reasons that warrant probe. This base version does not contain any content after the protagonist is cured. The main locations, namely scenes, are already in this version as well: aldayr, the monastery; al-qāʿa, the Grand Hall in the monastery; al-bustān, the garden; al-qaṣr, the new house the groom built; al-janīna, the new garden he set up; and al-māristān, the asylum. Thanks to the consistent practice of embedding the poet’s name in the text (mostly in the istishhād segment, but also within the poem on occasions), this codex also confirms that while all three poets contributed to the project, each was responsible for some major building blocks. Most of the framing story songs, of the Monk and the Drunkard, and love duets, of the Drunkard and the Drunkenness, were attributed to Suʿūd, apparently the earliest among the three,35 whereas ʿAlī al-Naḥla was responsible 35  It is evident that the three were not contemporary. One poem, a eulogy of al-Shaykh Suʿūd, is included by al-Munāwī in K1. Furthermore, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, for example, acknowledged

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for the staples of the second act, that is, the song cycles of the Sane and the Insane. Dāwūd al-Munāwī, the youngest one among the three, brought all the elements together, with his own contributions, some of which overlap with, or revise, earlier masters’ work. Dāwūd al-Munāwī’s add-ups include an episode of a khurāfa, or “fantasy,” or an epilogue of sorts, about the protagonist’s encounter with a Genie (al-jinnī, al-ʿifrīt). In a duet between the two, the Genie queries Taʿādīr about his saga, and responds by revealing his own pain: his love interest, the beautiful she-Genie Qirshāna, has disappeared without a trace. The two vow to help each other on their journey in search of love in this world and in the fantasy land. The poem is attributed to al-Munāwī, but not found in the current K1.36 Evidently some elements that had already been in the original plan were eventually either lost, or partially survived, or abandoned.37 It is also worth noting that Suʿūd’s version contained more sensible interfaith related elements: not only was the protagonist an architect who built the monastery, but he also performed several “tricks,” of which the first one was to leave a basket (al-takht) with a Jesus-like baby in it at the door of the monastery. These elements were evidently eliminated in later circulations. Suʿūd’s version is also distinct in its lengthy love-duets, with extensive Sufi allegorical elements in them. These repetitive, and cliché-ridden, poems were also drastically cut off from later circulations. Further, several other poets who are all named in the manuscript, also made occasional contributions, amplifying the existing body of content. Love songs and jingles of “the marketplace type” made by the protagonist who disguised himself as different peddlers and vendors at the door of the monastery are the most popular venues for their supplementary contributions. These include: Abū al-Khadam Ḥammād al-ḍarīr, “The Blind,” who also contributed a version of the description of the Grant Hall and the confrontation between the Monk and the Drunkard; Abū ʿAffān, who added love duets; and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ḥarīr, who was responsible for several peddler’s songs.38 3.1.3.3 Adaptations: the Qashshāshs Extensive revisions and reworkings were made in the nineteenth century. Our sources of this phase are from two manuscript groups. First, the K2 group in PKF includes a number of fragmentary pieces whose dates are unclear. This K2 group (MSB13, 14, 17, 26, 30) contains considerable supplementary materials, Suʿūd’s original authorship of some poems he was then re-working on after the old master’s passing; see K1 (unpaginated). 36  The duet has survived in T2 pp. 164–79; T5 pp. 214–8. 37  As the case of the fantasy tale of a mutafarrij, or a “spectator”; see above, note 34. 38  This Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ḥarīr’s poems for other plays (masṭara) also appear in PKF, MSB14.

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some of which also bear the name of Qashshāsh. By all indications, most of these fragments were written later than K1 but earlier than those in the Taymūr collection, which, as discussed above, prove to be mostly early modern time copies of the old materials. The K2 group, then, may serve as an intermedium, with testimonials for the transitional phase. In this regard, one manuscript (MSB26), originally owned by the Qashshāsh family, reveals the mechanism and process through which changes were made. It features the first love duet between the two protagonists originated by al-Munāwī and expanded upon by Ḥasan Qashshāsh, with credits to both. Another manuscript (MSB17) contains rare stage-direction-like clauses of the storyline and scenes written in rudimentary and ungrammatical Arabic prose. The significance of this group of manuscript fragments lies not only in the “new” materials offered by later contributors, but also in the variants that can be used to supplement the parallels in K1, some of which are incomplete. Among the new elements are: 1. References to a more current time. In one case, for example, the Monk urges the Drunkard to find alcohol beverages “in the district of foreign consulates” (MSB14). 2. An episode in the aftermath of Taʿādīr’s death (MSB17). 3. Additions to the existing tropes, especially Taʿādīr’s “tricks” to lure ʿAlam out; these include new songs for selling chicken; new items to sell: henna, cats, and salty fish; and a new mask, or guise, as a migrant labor (MSB14, MSB17). The contributors to this phase are numerous, whose names spread over K2 and the T group of manuscripts. Among the new contributors, one Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (al-Raḥīm?) merits special attention. Apparently a much later author and scribe, traces of his work were widely witnessed in this group of manuscripts (for example, MSB26; see above, pp. 67–8) and the T group (see below). He was also responsible for writing, or copying, the expanded new version of the play, which will be featured below (ARC_433), in chapter 9.39 Other contributors include: ʿAlī al-Najjār and one Rajab (MSB14); Ibrāhīm and Ṣiyām (MSB17), who contributed new market type songs and love duets. Most of these later contributors added new and refreshing voice to the existing topoi and themes. In the love duet by Ṣiyām, for example, Taʿādīr expresses his frustrations by hurling insults and epithets at ʿAlam, a discord that is rarely heard from other contributing authors overall.

39  Kahle mentioned this ʿAbd al-Raḥmān in his early report; see Zur Geschichte 3.

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Next, the most significant extant manuscripts are the two complete anthologies (T1, T2), of the Qashshāsh family provenance. Like their predecessor (K1), no single “script” is found. In its stead are song cycles arranged in clusters, each forming a unit (a standing alone mini play; or an act, a scene). Inserted between the units are generic songs, some of which are Mulid (mawlid) and Sufi themed, to be used in this play and in other plays. The main building blocks remain that of the original three poets. Noticeable reorganization, with new material, took place as well. Several revised versions, with varied lengths and selections of songs, are documented in T1 and T2; both of them contain not a single complete text of the entire play, but rather substantial blocks of text in search of a coherent structure. A comparison of the two suggests that while T1 preserves more, and relatively random, materials, that are similar to that of a poetry anthology, T2 tends to be more selective and concise, whose units, or clusters, form several ready-to-stage scripts. Collation also reveals that as far as the intrinsic traits of some poems and headings are concerned, those found in T2 are closer to that of K1 than to T1, namely, with more original, earlier material. It is also evident that the son, Darwīsh al-Qashshāsh, was responsible for the final touch of both codices. While retaining the old frame story, the revised version(s) feature a new set of narrators, chief among them the Presenter (al-muqaddim), interchangeably called al-Rikhim, al-Kābis, or “The Nightmare,” and Abū al-Qiṭaṭ, or “Lord of Cats.” A noticeable addition is a comic pair, Abū Ḥirdān and Abū Qarmīṭ, who would also take a cameo role as the protagonists in a spinoff version (see below, al-Qahwa, or “The café.”). A major addition, among the new characters, is Narjis, or “Narcissus,” ʿAlam’s son, who looms large as a co-narrator in the two staged new versions (see below). With regard to existing characters and plots, expanded contents are: 1. A subtle, and remarkable, shift in the religiosity and faith of the Muslim protagonist, Taʿādīr, through a new emphasis on his affiliation with the local Sufi community. The opening song, for example, of a generic Muslim’s confession to his faith (K1), was replaced by a Sufi saint visitation themed song, where the protagonist declares to be a fellow of the Shādhilī Sufi order (T1, T2; more on this, see below). 2. The confrontation between the Monk (a more neutral nickname al-rāhib replaces al-jāḥid, though the latter still appears in T2) and the Drunkard (a new term al-ʿarīs, “the groom,” is used in one version). In the original (K1), for example, the initial confrontation between the Monk and the Drunkard and the latter’s description of the Grand Hall inside the monastery were lumped together as a one song-cycle titled “the description of

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the grand hall”; whereas in the new version, the two topics were treated separately as two major song-cycles, in much more elaborate fashion. 3. The segment of Taʿādīr’s new house, furnishing, his literary and language skills. 4. Scenes of Taʿādīr’s trials and amputation. Noticeable deletes and omissions are the lengthy sentimental love duets, mostly attributed to al-Shaykh Suʿūd – they were either deleted or trimmed down. The confrontations between the Monk and ʿAlam, where the father uses abusive language to scold the rebellious daughter, were also either eliminated or mitigated. It is also to be noted that, like the earlier Ottoman era version, this layer of the adaptations does not contain any content in the aftermath of the protagonist leaving the asylum. 3.1.3.4 Early Modern Scripts and Spinoffs What Kern, Prüfer, Taymūr, and Kīlānī witnessed in Cairo around the turn of the century – known to them variously as Liʿb al-bayt, or “The household,” Liʿb al-dayr, or “The monastery,” Liʿb al-ḥammām, or “The bathhouse,” Liʿb almuhandis, or “The builder,” and Liʿb al-tiyāsturā, or “The theatre” – were in essence either staged revisions or spinoffs of the original. Many are poorly documented fragments that have caused confusions in identification. Two full scripts of staged revisions have survived: Prüfer’s transcript and the codex ARC_433 in the Kahle collection. The latter, a nearly 400-folio notebook (the back of each page was left for working notes, of transliteration and translation), is authenticated by the above-mentioned scribe (kātib) Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān whose logo, “SA,” appears on f. 159b and f. 186a (bottom). His authorship of verses is documented on f. 191a, and elsewhere. Two salient features of these scripts are to be noted. First is the dialogue, which is absent from all known manuscripts. In this version, melodramatic scenes ridden with comic banter in Egyptian colloquial were incorporated into the old framework of zajal songs. In addition to dialogue, jingles in the colloquial were added as well. Second is a structural streamlining. While the basic storyline remained intact, a substantial number of scenes, or sub-plots, and characters were either added or omitted. For the remaining old elements, drastic changes were made as well. Taken together, the original loci-cum-trope-oriented conceptual framework built on song-cycles is now, in the staged versions and spinoffs, given a new shape through character-and-plot-centered scenes, with more figures and settings. It is refreshingly lean as far as lyricism (songs) is concerned yet elaborate with regard to plot twists. The original sixteenth-century poems were reduced to a minimum and the new verses, attributed to poets of the nineteenth

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century, were also trimmed down. References to exotic new things add urban and “modern” pizzazz – such as the references to “the foreign consulates district,” cafés with fancy names, and the beverages of “Cognac and a beer of the Monique Dante brand,” to name a few. Visually, “modern” looks are on display: Prüfer’s drawings of the characters, with fanciful clothes and hairdos, differ drastically from the stiff and archaic-looking puppets that Kahle purchased in al-Menzaleh.40 With regard to dramaturgy, the theatrics in the staged versions and spinoffs are intensified and the tensions heightened. To help the audience quickly get the point, easy-to-identify faith-based opening songs were chosen for each main character. Added farcical acts and brisk dialogue contribute greatly to the enrichment of character. In this respect, the role of an added character, ʿAlam’s brother Paul (variably spelled būlus or būluṣ), is significantly enlarged. He appears more frequently – for example, in the beginning scene when he tricks the Presenter and later in his arguments against ʿAlam and then his partnership with her in many of the antics and schemes. His stubbornness and pettiness are exacerbated by his profound dislike of Taʿādīr, fueling constant clashes of ideology and personality. The character of ʿAlam is also greatly enhanced; she is more of a person and less of a mere stereotype. The generic songs do show her flirtatious innuendoes and her resourcefulness (or cunning) under the circumstances; yet now added are episodes of her confronting the folks in the monastery, re-enforcing the moral of the story with a forceful personal touch. The early modern version and the spinoffs will be presented below separately. 3.2 Shadow Play Scripts and Sufi Songbooks The special connection between the Sufi devotional rite, featuring music and chanting (samāʿ, dhikr), and shadow play performance is a remarkable phenomenon in the premodern Islamicate world. In classical Sufi discourse, exemplified by writings of Ibn ʿArabī and Ibn al-Fāriḍ (see above, chapter 1), shadow theatre was an ideal metaphor for the negation of the borders between the actual and the hypothetical, the real world and the imagined one. Scholarship has produced a substantial body of work on Sufi ritual and public festivals, the main source material being the qaṣāʾid (ode) and madāʾiḥ (panegyric)

40  Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel 10 (Mennage = Manja), 38 (Taʿādīr), and 58 (ʿAlam). Compare with Kahle’s drawings of the original leather figures, two of which, ʿAlam and Taʿādīr, in Islamische Schattenspielfiguren 295–6 (figs. 35, 36), and one, Monk Munajjā, in Arabic shadow play (1954 no pagination for figures). The original leather figure of the last, currently in Köln, is Fig. 11 of this handbook.

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repertoire in classical norm.41 The paradigm of meditation, affirmation, and supplication, exemplified through the performance of Sufi devotional songs might be the key to understanding the synergy of Sufi songs and certain shadow play acts. Further, with regard to Sufi engagement with popular performing arts such as shadow play, the special link between shadow theatre practitioners and Sufi orders in the Ottoman time has also been noted. Scholars have long noticed that some of the Karagöz puppeteers themselves were known Sufis, who belonged to the powerful Shādhiliyya order and al-Naqshbandiyya order (Nakșibendi tarikat), and their scripts have been well preserved.42 In Egypt, shadow play has long been an integral part of the Layla celebration that can last one to two weeks long, with a marathon of live performances and puppetry, led by the Munshidin, or Sufi singers.43 It is significant to note that the kind of Sufi-themed performative vernacular songbooks is not confined to the shadow play manuscripts in question. In 1893, the French Orientalist Urbain Bouriant (d. 1903) published perhaps the first printed anthology of Arabic vernacular songs. It shared all the features, and even some authors, with the shadow theatre related manuscripts to be discussed in the following pages.44 No information of the compiler is given, except that he was a “street singer.” The authorship clause (al-istishhād) of each poem reveals the name of the poet – several of them are familiar: Abū ʿAffān, [ʿAlī?] al-Naḥla, Aḥmad al-Aʿraj, and Aḥmad ʿAqīda al-Darwīsh, who either wrote for shadow plays or whose verses were used for shadow theatre performances. Similar to the songbooks under discussion, a significant number of the poems in this collection are also theatric. The affiliation of shadow masters, the Qashshāshs and their fellow shadow performers, who formed their own guild, probably within the network of the influential Shādhilī Sufi order in Cairo, was further confirmed by the script of the present play, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. In his opening song, the protagonist Taʿādīr, a Turk by birth, praises all the holy shrines in Cairo, and concludes with a laudatory salute to his “masters (asyādī),” pledging to be a “servant to everyone [of them] who understands the true meaning [of Islam] (khādim kull man kāna dhī maʿānī faṣīḥ).” The song, which was not in the earlier manuscripts (K1, K2), 41  The bibliography on this subject is long and will not be presented here. For Ottoman and early modern era Egyptian Sufi singers, see Waugh, Munshidin; Ritual leadership. 42   Jacob, Türkische Volkslitteratur; Geschichte des Schattentheaters 87; Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel x–xi; Kahle, Zur Geschichte 18–9; Zeʾevi, Producing desire 131. 43  Waugh, Munshidin 59–64 and passim. For a full programme of the Layla celebration that features shadow plays along with other acts, see below, Appendix 4. 44  Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes.

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appears in the two Qashshāsh manuscripts, with slightly different wording and arrangement of lines. It also is featured in Prüfer’s staged script, which added an explanation of the phrase dhī maʿānī faṣīḥ, “a Shādhilī master, that is (Shādhilī yaʿnī).”45 Overall, the play ʿAlam presents itself as a case study of the connection of Sufi rites and shadow theatre in the Ottoman time. From the outset, the play as a whole is rich in staple Sufi images and metaphors of wine, love, and madness; even the nickname of the protagonist, “The Drunkard,” for example, alludes to the unprepared mental state at the Sufi dhikr rite.46 This is not to mention the fact that of all the surviving codices of the play, the majority is found in Sufi themed songbooks in the first place. Most of the parallel material found in Sufi songbooks came from the song cycles of the act of “The Sane and the Insane,” which were evidently appropriated by Sufis at the time as a metaphor or an embodiment of their ideas about the relationship between this world of the senses and the imaginal one suggested by classical Sufi writers. On the textual level, the manuscripts of the Sufi songbook type, namely T3, T4, T5, and T6, in their current state, allow us to look at the nature of the materials shared and the connection between the shadow masters and the Sufi communities in Cairo. What was the relationship between the Sufi poets and the shadow masters involved here? What were the organizational principles of the Sufi songbooks and the reasons to include shadow play songs in them? Three codices, T3, T4, and T5, will be subject to the analysis. According to the records, these manuscripts were filmed around the year 1957. Each volume was preceded by a well-executed Table of Contents that reveal valuable background information, along with marginal notes of corrections and cross-references. It is not clear who made these notes. All of the manuscripts examined here are fully paginated, some by folio (marked by f. below), and some by page (marked by p. below). To facilitate the discussion, only the citations related to shadow plays and shadow masters will be provided. (T3) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 666: Majmūʿ. This Sufi zajal-songbook contains sixty-six song cycles ( jumal zajal). Overall, it appears to be that of a typical Sufi themed verse anthology, with mainly prophetic panegyrics, wine songs, and love songs (ghazal). A whimsical twist is found in the second part of the codex that consists of a series of hijāʾ-assaults, attributed to one Shaykh Ḥasanayn Muḥammad, against another Shaykh, 45  T1 pp. 26–9; T2 pp. 198–201; Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel 28–38 (the verse on Shādhilī masters is on 36–7). 46  Waugh, Ritual leadership 95.

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Muḥammad al-Najjār, presumably a rival Sufi master or a professional competitor. Interestingly, the counter-attacks by this Muḥammad al-Najjār and his fellow Sufis also made their way to yet another shadow play related songbook, namely T5 (see below). The anthology opens with a panegyric attributed to one Muḥammad al-Qashshāsh,47 in praises of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed III Adlī (r. 1595– 1603). Similar to other Egyptian shadow play related Sufi songbooks, the conventional topic, a description of Cairo’s urban quarters (khiṭaṭ Miṣr), is tied up to the classical Sufi theme of visitation to local Holy Shrines. Timewise, the anthology covers a wide range: while the opening panegyric is dedicated to a sultan of the seventeenth century, the final poem is dated in 1295/1878. Three kinds of zajal verses are of interests here. First, poems composed by the poets well known for their association with shadow theatre, such as alShaykh Suʿūd, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, Dāwūd al-Munāwī, among others. Of their compositions featured in the anthology, some are related to the play ʿAlam, some are not. Second, new exclusive material composed specifically for the play. Third, generic verses from the Sufi-themed repertoires that were then used in shadow plays. The anthology is structured in loose thematic arrangements. Most of the units were first arranged according to theme, and then within each theme, every poet’s verses were lumped together. Of the first group, four zajal love song are attributed to Suʿūd (ff. 51–7); two are by Abū ʿAffān, another known shadow master who was also a contributor to the play ʿAlam. Of his two poems, one is a description of wine and other a description of garden and fruits (ff. 144–7). They are not related to shadow plays. Of the seven songs attributed to ʿAlī al-Naḥla, two were related to the play ʿAlam: one being the original composition of “regaining sanity” (ff. 94–104), that is, the fifty-dawr (termed bayt here) song-cycle of learning and knowledge,48 and another a generic ghazal love song (ff. 104b–7a) that was used by the Qashshāshs as the protagonist’s confession for love.49 Amidst a group of songs of wine and love is Dāwūd al-Munāwī’s piece, also from “the Sane and the Insane,” when the protagonist is on the verge of losing his sanity (ff. 150b–2b).50 Of the second group, noteworthy is a zajal, of “the Sane and the Insane,” attributed to one ʿUthmān Mudawwakh (ff. 138b–41b), a new contributor for 47  His relation to the shadow masters, the Qashshāsh family, is unclear; judging from the date of his panegyric, he would have lived in a much earlier time. 48  Opening line: azkā salām allāh ʿalayka yā ʿārif; cited in all manuscripts. 49  Opening line: min āl bikr ghazāl bi-l-liḥāẓ ghazā. This verse is not found elsewhere. 50  Opening line: a bi-hādhā ḥakama rabbi al-nās; cited in nearly all manuscripts.

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the play. Of nineteen dawrs, this song is exclusive, with a date of 1275/1858.51 The song concludes with a panegyric section of one Muḥammad Bey ʿUthmān Jalāl, whose identification is unclear (several poems conclude with a praise of him). Of the third group, one ghazal love song (ff. 118a–20b), attributed to Ibn al-Faḥḥām, was composed in 1104/1692–3. This late seventeenth-century love song was widely circulated, in other shadow play-related Sufi songbooks.52 Also worth noting is a poem (ff. 112–3) attributed to one Aḥmad ʿAqīda al-Burullusī.53 Most likely a generic poem of admonitory warning, it was used as the opening song of the play al-Shūnī, or “The boating (or ferry ride),” which is a cautionary tale of perseverance and endurance.54 (T4) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 776: Safīnat zajal madḥ fī al-nabī. This well-organized and lean Sufi songbook is the only one of its kind that bears a title, “A songbook of Prophetic panegyrics.” All the songs included concentrate on the didactic and ritualistic aspects of devotional performance. The safīna manuscript, namely a songbook in oblong formart, like a ship, was evidently a popular choice for zajal religious songbooks in the nineteenth century.55 The tripartite Sufi themes – Prophetic panegyrics, wine, and love – are presented with some degree of coherence, as they were highlighted in the Table of Contents. Of special interest is the final part of the anthology, which deals with the topic of al-ʿahd and adab, namely the “initiation rites” of Sufi orders and “the protocols in performing” Sufi rituals.56 The songbook concludes with another set of didactic segments, beginning with a song whose lyrics are made of Qurʾanic chapter titles, to be followed by more general panegyrics and a supplication-like prayer. Four songs are identified as excerpts from the play ʿAlam. The first (pp. 13–5) seems to follow a tried-and-true scheme in transplanting a generic Sufi song addressing the Prophet as the beloved to a shadow play addressing a love 51  Opening line: lammā qaruba waṣlī jafānī al-jalīd. 52  Opening line: fī baḥr ʿishqiki wa-l-gharām al-gharīm; T1 pp. 43–7; T4 pp. 129–31; T5 pp. 43–7. 53   al-Burullus is a lake in the Nile Delta region. This Aḥmad ʿAqīda was also known as al-Darwīsh, and al-Faqīr (see below) – all with Sufi connotation – and appears in T1 as the author of several song cycles. 54  Opening line: kam turāfiq yā anā man lā yuwāfiq; T2 pp. 62–5; T5 pp. 2–5 (the opening song of the anthology); also see Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes 94–7 (al-ḥadhariyya). 55  Marcus, Music in Egypt 100–11. 56  For the leitmotif of al-adab and al-ʿahd in Egyptian Sufi singers’ repertoire, see Waugh, Munshidin. In this manuscript, technical terms used in rubrics also include: al-ʿahd wa-lshadd, or “protocols and disciplines”; ādāb al-naqīb, or “the routines of the Sufi ceremony masters”; dukhūl al-murīd, or “the performance of the Sufi initiate”; and so forth.

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interest. In this manuscript, however, the scheme took a reversed turn: it is presented here as a typical Sufi themed panegyric, praising the Prophet in amorous passion as the beloved. The same song appears in another manuscript, but it is designated as a love song by which Taʿādīr confesses his yearning for the beloved, ʿAlam.57 Attributed to one Aḥmad, self-described as the “author of shadow play lyrics” (ṣāḥib al-dukhūl), his identity is further revealed here, in the Table of Contents, as one Aḥmad al-rassām, “Aḥmad, the painter,” perhaps an indication that he also made shadow figures and the settings.58 The second song, the protagonist’s confession to love (pp. 57–60), is an existing version.59 The third love song, by an unknown poet (pp. 60–4), is also found elsewhere.60 The final song related to the play ʿAlam is the popular didactic song, of “regaining sanity,” by ʿAlī al-Naḥla (pp. 173–88), cited in nearly every manuscript. Several generic songs on the theme of visitation to the Holy Shrine of Ḥusayn are included in this anthology as well. One (pp. 101–3) is the same as the aforesaid opening song in praise of the holy shrines in Cairo, through which the protagonist declares his affiliation with the Shādhilī Sufi order.61 The second visitation-themed song (pp. 122–5) is also a staple piece.62 The author is mentioned as one Aḥmad ʿAqīda al-Darwīsh, likely the same Aḥmad ʿAqīda mentioned above. An existing love song is also included by the aforesaid Ibn al-Faḥḥām (pp. 129–31), which was widely circulated as well (see above, note 52). Overall, this anthology is modest compared with the other manuscripts probed here on account of the recycled shadow play and Sufi song material. It does offer some new detail with regard to some authors of the songs in question, and their association with the Sufi communities. (T5) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 667: Majmūʿ. This is the most significant example that underlines the intrinsic traits by which shadow play songs were organically woven into the Sufi performative corpuses. The Table of Contents gives away detailed explanations of the 57  Opening line: khadd ḥubbī qad ḥawā shāma wa-khāla; T1 pp. 4–8. 58  Prüfer mentioned one Aḥmad al-aʿraj, “the crippled,” as the sole leather figure manufacturer in Cairo at the time; see Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel ix. 59  Opening line: qalbī tawallaʿa bi-l-gharām al-gharīm; T1 pp. 143–50; T2 pp. 92–6; Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel 26–8. It is attributed [Abū] ʿAffān al-faqīr (T1) or Aḥmad al-faqīr (T2, T4); Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes 8–11. 60  Opening line: qalbī ʿashiqa nadīm kathīr al-nifār; T1 pp. 150–5 (has rīm for nadīm); Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes 16–9. 61  Opening line: yā Miṣr allāh bi-l-kirām sharrafaka …; T1 pp. 26–9; T2 pp. 198–201; Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel 28–38. 62  T2 pp. 201–3.

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themes and morals under the rubric of which some sixty-three song cycles, also termed jumal zajal, were arranged. The didactic goals were clearly set forth, thanks to two kinds of rubrics – the song type and its theme – designated by the note maker for each song. Preceding the conventional prophetic panegyrics are three jumal zajal song cycles. The designated type – al-ḥadhariyya, or “warning,” al-nafsiyya, or “soulful, meditative (?),” and al-ẓanniyya, or “contemplating” – was assigned to each song, respectively, all under the rubric of the overarching theme, waʿẓ wa-naṣāʾiḥ, or “admonition and advice.” Remarkably, two out of the three “contemplative” songs were used in shadow plays. The first, a “warning” song, which also serves as the opening verse of the entire anthology, was used in the play al-Shūnī, or “The ferry ride,” underlining the moral of the seemingly farcical comedy: alertness and perseverance amidst the chaos of this absurd world. The third, a “contemplative” piece, was attributed to Aḥmad ʿAqīda, the above-mentioned shadow playwright and Sufi. This song also appears in other shadow play manuscripts as a generic opening act.63 The ensuing segments are more of the conventional kind, loosely in the following order: The madīḥ nabawī, or “Prophetic panegyric,” which also includes love songs and occasional naṣīḥa-advice pieces. Two love songs (pp. 43–7, 56–9) used in the play ʿAlam are included here. One is the widely quoted love song by Ibn al-Faḥḥām (see above, note 52); another is an anonymous love themed verse.64 The hijāʾ, or “lampoon,” which also includes dhamm, or “condemnation (of this worldly affairs),” and shakwā, or “complaint (about this earthly life).” The targets of these condemnations and complaints were the mean-spirited people (al-khissīs) in society, the cold and aloof love interest, and marriages gone wrong. One song, for example, takes the form of a conversation between two Sufi shaykhs about treacherous marriages (pp. 91–6). Curously, this lampoon over marriage leads to the next thematic unit where a significant and consecutive cluster of the materials from the play ʿAlam were placed (pp. 96–127). All said, seven songs were listed in a sequence, suggesting that verses were copied as one block, identified as “excerpts from the shadow play (luʿbat khayāl al-ẓill) of Taʿādīr” and that of “the Sane and the Insane.” 63  Opening line: yā laṭīf al-ṣunʿ yā mawlā al-mawālī …; T1 pp. 47–53; Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes 44–7 (al-ẓanniyya). 64  Opening line: narjisī al-laḥẓ sulṭān al-milāḥ …; T1 pp. 108–11.

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It seems that from here onward, the organization of the material reveals a preoccupation with storytelling, in that songs associated with, or related to, some form of narratives were grouped together in units, with some background information about these stories. The cluster of the play ʿAlam, for example, is made up of various themes and genres: the first is labeled as siyāḥa, or “visitation to shrines” (pp. 100–1); then one hijāʾ, or “lampoon,” confrontations between al-Rikhim and the Drunkard (pp. 101–4); and three songs of the ʿāqil wa-majnūn, or “the Sane and the Insane” (pp. 104–13); to be followed by a song titled min kalām Dāwūd al-Munāwī al-ʿAṭṭār, or “excerpts from Dāwūd al-Munāwī[’s shadow play]” (pp. 113–27). The next song is not from the play in question, but thematically related: titled hajw (hijāʾ) rajul wa-marʾatihi, or “lampoon about man and his wife,” by which the protagonist of an unknown narrative complains of his wife and sings about “proper protocols in dealing with women (ādāb mubāsharatihā; pp. 126–34).” It is evident that the concern over the integrity of storytelling oversteps the conventional genre conventions in the organization of this Sufi songbook. In this regard, the next part of the anthology consists of another remarkable segment: of popular stories and cautionary tales, starting with the staples, such as the legend of the Prophet Muḥammad’s mantle (here the story is about the Prophet’s shirt [qamīṣ]), hagiographical tales of early Muslims, and other similar religious themed stories. The change of tone emerges next, with the presentation of a song, described as “from a comic, or silly, story (qiṣṣa hazliyya).” This is to be followed by the duet between the protagonist Taʿādīr and al-ʿIfrīt, the Devil, attributed to Dāwūd al-Munāwī (pp. 214–28), an original piece that has not survived in other manuscripts.65 A wine song follows; it was by ʿAlī al-Naḥla (pp. 228–33). The segment also includes song-cycles of “a story of cat and mice” (zajal al-qaṭṭ wa-l-fa‌ʾr); of celebrating the spring festival known as Shamm al-nasīm, or “smelling the spring breeze,” and other popular type. The final part of the anthology consists of miscellanea. Verses of various verse types and themes were brought together, such as al-dhamm wa-l-ṣarḥa, or “condemnation and warning”; ghazal-love song; and jidd-wa-hazl, or “sober and silly, tragedy and comedy.” A considerable amount of these verses was attributed to the above-mentioned al-Shaykh Muḥammad al-Najjār, the target of the lampoons preserved in T3, another shadow play-related Sufi songbook. This coincident, or serendipity, is of course beyond the present scope. It is, however, relevant to note here that this kind of personalized touch, seen in the Sufi anthologies, echoes the sentiment one often finds in the istishhād-statements by the Ottoman era Egyptian shadow playwrights such as al-Shaykh Suʿūd, among 65  Opening line: ayyuhā al-ins inhaḍ wa-khabbir-nī….

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others, attacking their professional rivals.66 More didactic verses, such as a song of the Arabic alphabetic letters, were placed at the end of the volume. Altogether, some ten songs originated from shadow plays were incorporated into the songbook, reorganized uder various rubrics. Speaking of religious songbooks, a curious observation is to be registered here. One song, the Monk’s opening (pp. 100–1), listed in the Table of Contents as jumal zajal siyāḥat sayyidinā ʿĪsā, or “Songs about the visitation to our lord Jesus,” was “missing” from the manuscript, as a note on the margin states. It is not clear if the poem was misplaced by incident, or on purpose. Compared with the above-mentioned anynomous songbook pubished by Bouriant, of the thirty-three vernacular songs ( jumal zajal) it contains, the majority is of Sufi devotional type, while a few miscellaneous pieces touch upon light topics: profane love, food fight (a confrontation between watermelon and dates), even marketplace scenes (a man’s ventures in Cairo’s al-Azbakiyya district). Similar major tropes, of al-shadd, or “strength, discipline,” al-ḥadhariyya, or “warning,” al-nafsiyya, or “meditative,” al-ẓanniyya, or “contemplating,” al-iʿtibāriyya, or “reflection,” al-istighātha, or “supplication,” and al-khamriyya, or “wine,” are featured. Some themed songs, such as of “the sane and the insane (ʿāqil wa-majnūn),” one attributed to Aḥmad al-Aʿraj, or “Aḥmad, the Crippled,” and another anynomous,67 also were included. Further, several generic songs in this anonymous collection overlap with those found in the shadow play related songbooks in question (especially that of T1 and T5).68 They all belong to the same pool, of Ottoman era Sufi-themed narrative songbooks; and versified shadow play script was part of it. To sum up: the above analysis of the textual materials of the Ottoman-era Egyptian shadow plays preserved in Sufi songbooks shed light on the link between these two bodies of corpuses. The common interests in the didactic function provided the grounds for sharing performance materials for Sufi dhikr rite and shadow theatre. The classical Sufi themes, of love, wine, and imagined world, found an ideal venue of expression in shadow theatre. In return, the shadow masters, some were Sufi themselves, willingly participated in the process by contributing their acts into the framework of Sufi performative rites. In this connection, it must be pointed out that this interaction between Sufi rites and shadow theatre evolved over time. If the history of the present case, that is, the play ʿAlam, is any indication, the link became much clearer with 66  See above, the last stanza of a general opening song by al-Shaykh Suʿūd. 67  Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes 8–11, 16–9. 68  Both are attributed to Aḥmad ʿAqīda al-Darwīsh; Bouriant, Chansons populaires arabes 44–7; 94–7.

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the Qashshāshs and their associates in the nineteenth century and onward, evidenced by the six codices in the Taymūr collection and other early modern samples discussed above. 3.3 Resources 3.3.1 Manuscripts All manuscripts related to the play are poetry anthologies; no dialogue is found. In these codices, poems are loosely arranged in separate clusters compiled in different times, attributed to no less than twenty poets, chief among them the original three, Suʿūd, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, and al-Munāwī. There is no one single complete base text, but rather a shared common base storyline to unfold in scenes with mostly tailor-made songs. Therefore, one finds four versions of the opening confrontation between the Monk and the protagonist, the Drunkard, no less than five variants of the chicken seller’s (the protagonist in disguise) song, and countless love duets. The materials related to the play are in two collections: the Paul Kahle Fonds (PKF) and the Taymūr Collection. Manuscripts, mostly fragments, in the PKF are mostly unpaginated, so only the catalogue number of each piece will be referred to here. The titles will appear the way they were transcribed in the Turin PKF online catalogue. Folio and/or page references in the six Taymūr codices will be cited accordingly. 3.3.1.1 The Paul Kahle Fonds A total of nineteen items are associated with the play (those marked with an * were the items erroneously listed under different titles in the online catalogue). They are: Ten manuscript pieces (eight were catalogued under the proper titles) 1. MSB12, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “A” (4, 8) 2. MSB13, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “B” 3. MSB14, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “C” (7) 4. MSB15, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 6 5. MSB16, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 5 6. MSB17, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 7. MSB18, ʿĀqil wa-Majnūn 8. MSB23* 9. MSB26* 10. MSB30, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr Nine archival items (with the exception of ARC_433, they were mostly Paul Kahle’s working notes, transliterations, and translations of parts of the manuscripts)

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1. ARC_433, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 2. ARC_434, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 3. ARC_436, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 4. ARC_437, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr 5. ARC_438, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr (zajal al-qanādīl) 6. ARC_441, ʿĀqil wa-Majnūn 7. ARC_442, ʿĀqil wa-Majnūn 8. ARC_443, ʿĀqil wa-Majnūn 9. ARC_472, a transcription of the colophon of Dīwān kedes What follows here is a documentation of the contents of the play in the manuscripts. (K1) MSB12: Of 215 folios in the current state, some 170 folios are related to the play; some seventy-five song cycles are attributed mostly to Suʿūd, ʿAlī al-Naḥla, and al-Munāwī. The main narrator al-Ḥāziq opens the act. He sings only one song. A second narrator, al-Rikhim, appears near the end of the first act; he sings three songs, all are duets with ʿAlam. The two narrators do not come back in the second act of the play, namely “The Sane and the Insane.” MSB23: Of four folios, the last folio starts the beginning of the opening song (to be continued onto MSB12). (K2) MSB13: Two folios, written in a very elegant hand, contain two songs. MSB14: A cluster that includes some old texts, chief among them two opening songs attributed to Suʿūd, along with new elements. At least two songs, of confrontations between the Monk and the Drunkard, bear the scribe alSayyid ʿAlī’s signature authorship phrase. This fragment is also noteworthy for adding some exclusive material, especially the variants of the “marketplace type” songs. Other contributors who left their names in the manuscript are: ʿAlī al-Najjār and Rajab. MSB17: This manuscript contains some exclusive material. Three clusters include ʿAli Saʿd’s generic song, the only surviving piece attributed to him, and verses attributed to several “new” poets: Ṣiyām and Ibrāhīm. The third cluster features rare “stage directions,” in naïve and sub-standard prose. MSB26: Of six songs, the first love duet was originated by al-Munāwī, and expanded upon, indicated by a second istishhād, attributed to Ḥasan Qashshāsh. The chicken seller’s song is credited to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. The milk seller’s song is followed by a love duet, where two blanks spaces, marked by

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the word istishhād, are left, suggesting that the copyist chose to wait until the confirmation of the authorship. MSB30: All eleven songs are existing lyrics related to the play ʿAlam, most of them are complete. 3.3.1.2 The Taymūr Collection Six manuscripts that contain full or partial text of the play. For a detailed discussion of shadow play scripts, like the present ones, in Sufi songbooks, see above. (T1) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 785: Kitāb al-Rawḍ. Two clusters contain the contents of the play. I (pp. 2–202): the cluster is made up of two parts of the manuscript: the first part (pp. 1–156) is complemented by the second part (pp. 165–202). Inserted between the end of the first part of the manuscript are several blank folios and a copy of the song of “seven tongues.” The second part begins on page 165 and picks up where the first cluster left. II (pp. 257–66): supplementary songs of the play. (T2) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 970: al-Sirmāṭa. Contents of the play are divided in clusters. I (pp. 1–31): the beginning part of the play. II (pp. 66–122): This is a relatively complete text standing on its own, condensed, nevertheless. The opening song (istiqbāla) introduces the presenter/narrator(s) as “Ḥasan Qashshāsh and his son Darwīsh Qashshāsh,”69 an indication that this is a working script for performers. It also has headlines that highlight the scenes. III (pp. 131–5): ʿAlam teases her lover. IV (pp. 164–81): subtitled jumal zajal fī kalām Taʿādīr wa-l-ʿifrīt, or “songs from the story of Taʿādīr and the Devil,” this is another substantial cluster, covering the later phase of the play. V (pp. 194–203): exchanges among the Monk, the Drunkard (Taʿādīr), and al-Kābis (al-Rikhim). (T3) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 666: Majmūʿ. (see above) Two song cycles: f. 94, Taʿādīr gone mad; ff. 138–41, 150, The Sane and The Insane. (T4) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 776: Safīnat zajal madḥ fī al-nabī. (see above) Two song cycles: pp. 57–60, the Sane and the Insane; pp. 173–88, Taʿādīr in asylum. 69  The letter q is spelled with alif.

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(T5) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 667: Majmūʿ. (see above) Three units: (1) two long song cycles (pp. 43–7; 56–9); (2) a multiple song sequence (pp. 96–127), “The Sane and the Insane”; (3) one song cycle (pp. 214–28), Taʿādīr’s duet with the Devil (al-ʿIfrīt). (T6) Taymūr shiʿr, no. 668: Majmūʿ azjāl qadīma. One song cycle (ff. 38–53): the Drunkard at the asylum. 3.3.2 Published Material Guo, The monk’s daughter. Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 77–81. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 23–4. 3.4 Abū Jaʿfar, The Story of Abū Jaʿfar 3.4.1 Introduction This is an early Ottoman Egyptian shadow play that had long been in the repertoire, in various versions. Commonly known as “Abū Jaʿfar,” it is often referred to in the manuscripts as “al-Qūr wa-l-Qibs,” after the two protagonists. A comic pair, al-Qūr (a.k.a. Abū Jaʿfar; also known as al-ʿAmrūs) is a tall man and al-Qibs (also known as al-Zaʿrab)70 is small in stature and the former’s archrival. The play unfolds through their banters and fights in a series of situations and dilemmas (waqʿa). This play had its genesis as a sixteenth-century text composed by al-Shaykh Suʿūd, whose name was embedded in the opening song and the final elegy, but primarily by Dāwūd al-Munāwī, whose istishhād-authorship signature appears in many songs from the earliest manuscript (MSB13), with occasional contribution by ʿAlī al-Naḥla. This early version, however, does not seem to have contained the dramatic scenes as described by Kern and Taymūr. A new, and expanded, version is found in MSB14, attributed to one ʿAlī al-Najjār, with storylines similar to Taymūr’s synopsis. Overall, instead of a central storyline, the play evolved into a series of talk-show like skits, with its namesake,

70  The term al-qūr, “a rounded hole cut in the mid of a curtain/screen,” appears in Ibn Dāniyāl’s Ṭayf al-Khayāl. In the opening scene, the Phantom is called upon by the presenter to “come out from a makān al-qūr (variant: al-masṭūr)”; see Ibn Dāniyāl/Kahle, Three shadow plays (text) 1. Some Egyptian scholars attribute this nickname to Ibn Dāniyāl’s text; see Abū Zayd, Tamthīliyyāt khayāl al-ẓill 220.

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the two narrators-cum-protagonists, fighting over all kinds of things, significant and trivial. According to Taymūr, it requires fifty shadow figures for the performance. Presumably the rivaling pair would improvise a great deal of acting out to pull it off. The lack of apparent dramatic tension and coherent storyline is to be compensated by the farcical scenes and humor centered around the physical contrast between the two, one tall and one short, hence “high” and “low” in social status, manners, tastes, and so forth. In this regard, the lengthy poems contain certain narrative elements, perhaps to be used in some play-within-play schemes. The appeals and entertaining value seem to lie in the witty, comic, and perhaps imaginative, exchanges between the two protagonists. The early version (MSB13) tends to be more of a high literary affair, made up by lengthy songs commenting on virtue and merit, philosophizing of youth and aging, and arguing over the art of singing. Later versions (MSB14, T1, T2) reveal a more parodic, and outlandish, approach to the original material. 3.4.2 Synopses There is some vagueness regarding the exact main storyline. Two versions have been reported. Each is supported by some manuscripts evidence. Version 1 (after Kern) The play takes place at a funeral, featuring a young man, supposedly an undertaker and a “corpse,” which is actually alive and manages to fool the morgue handler around with funny tricks. The play ends with a traditional sword-andarmor dance. The description found in the Turin online catalogue was apparently based on this synopsis. Version 2 (after Taymūr) The play centers around a series of feuds over a bridal scheme (Abū Jaʿfar promised to marry his sister off to al-Qibs), a wedding that went wrong (all turned out to be a hoax), and a funeral (Abū Jaʿfar dies during a fight with al-Qibs). 3.4.3 Resources 3.4.3.1 Manuscripts PKF. MSB12 (Dīwān kedes). In the folder titled “ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, part ( juzʾ) 4” are two folios that contain the concluding duet of Qūr and Qibs and the elegy by Suʿūd, all incomplete. PKF. MSB13. A cohesive block of the play is found in this manuscript, mistakenly labeled as ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “B” in the current online catalogue. One

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folder (perhaps misplaced here), bearing Kahle’s note, “Ḳūr u Ḳibs,” contains some twenty poems (song-cycles) that belong to the play. It does not cover the wedding scenes and the funeral. Placed within the folder is a list of the poems, made by Kahle. The folios, a total of sixty, were numbered by pencil (most likely by Kahle). The beginning part of the play is missing. PKF. MSB14. It is somehow mistakenly listed as ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr “C” in the current online catalogue. Clusters (separated by blank paper band) belonging to ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr and this play (marked as “Qūr wa-Qibs”), along with others were placed together in the blue notebook that bears the title of “ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, part 7.” It presents a later version, by ʿAlī al-Najjār, with the storyline of a bridal scheme and the wedding, and the fight. PKF. ARC_447, 448, 449, 467, 470. Current catalogue title: Abū Ǧaʿfar. The bundle includes all the materials (transcription, transliteration, translation) concerning the play, to quote the current catalogue: “This play describes the funeral of the hero and is a perfect reconstruction of funeral ceremonies that were used in Cairo in the late nineteenth century.” T1. The manuscript has two clusters that are related to the play. I (pp. 226–35): three song cycles. II (pp. 266–82): the funeral scene. It is alluded to that it is Abū Jaʿfar’s dead body to be handled here. Originally this was perhaps a separate skit, of twenty dawr-stanzas; altogether three songcycles are found in this cluster. T2. The manuscript has two clusters that are related to the play. I (pp. 36–43): songs by al-Qibs and Abū Jaʿfar, attacking each other at a wedding. The final bullayq song mocks the bride they are to sing for. Noteworthy is the mention of “the art of al-Munāwī” (p. 36), a reference to the playwright. Two song-cycles. II (pp. 152–64): two song cycles. 3.4.3.2 Published Material Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 25. 3.5 al-Timsāḥ, The Crocodile 3.5.1 Introduction Known as Liʿb al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” or al-Timsāḥ wa-Zibrqāsh, or “The crocodile and [the fisherman] Zibrqāsh,”71 this is one of the most popular premodern Egyptian shadow plays, beloved by audiences for its outlandish storyline and lively animation. The play is set on the edge of the Nile and presents a 71  Yūnus also gave an alternate title as Ḥusn ẓannī, or “Good guessing,” but with no further explanation; see Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill 85.

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satiric portrait of the Egyptian fellah life and humor in rural areas. Like the big whale in Moby Dick, the resourceful crocodile is a symbol of nature’s menacing power and omnipotence. This popular Egyptian play has enjoyed a long run since its original creation in the sixteenth century and is also among the very few Ottoman-era shadow plays that have been published by Kahle, based on manuscripts in his possession (the text is incomplete, made up of several song cycles only). Kahle’s translation was staged by a German shadow troupe in Stuttgart. In Taymūr’s description, twelve shadow figures, including a crocodile and a big fish, are needed for the show. In Yūnus’s account, it developed into a longer play of three acts. The following synopsis is based on their accounts. For an eyewitness report of its performance in Cairo in summer 2015, see below, Epilogue. 3.5.2 Synopsis Al-Zibrqāsh is a simpleton fellah who is out of luck in life (in Taymūr’s witty description, fallāḥ ghayr mufliḥ).72 Having been kicked out of house by his father, he now catches fish for living. For the lack of experience, he keeps losing fishing hooks in the water. The Presenter introduces him to al-Ḥājj Manṣūr, also known as Shaykh al-Maʿāsh, to learn fishing skills. In the first outing, a crocodile swallows the poor fellah, up to the middle torso. The Presenter’s sidekick, al-Rikhim, looking for the fisherman, finds him stuck in the gator’s mouth. He calls upon two dark skinned Berbers, al-Ḥājj Kāshif and ʿUthmān, to serve as human baits in an effort to distract the crocodile. A Moroccan passerby, al-Ḥājj Qaddūr, offers to help. The Berbers and the Moroccan haggle over monetary reward. Amidst the chaos and confusion, the crocodile jumps over and eats Kāshif as well. The others, crying for help on the riverbank, now are joined by fisherman’s wife and his baby. After much maneuvers, verbal (to trick the crocodile who only understands codes in village dialect) and physical, that all fail, two more Moroccans (who always play the role of magic makers in Egyptian shadow plays) are summoned over to wrestle down and catch the crocodile. With the villagers cheering, the crocodile is carried off the screen. Yet, as a last hurrah, it is sneaking back, in front of the screen, to the delight of the frightened audience. 3.5.3 Resources 3.5.3.1 Manuscripts Two manuscripts and numerous archival materials are preserved in the PKF, under the series title al-Timsāḥ (or Liʿb al-Timsāḥ). The cluster includes all the 72  A pun on the root f-l-ḥ.

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materials related to Kahle’s publication in 1915. It also preserves materials, all fragmentary, related to the play translated into German by Kahle under the title “Das Krokodilspiel” and performed in Stuttgart November 19, 1924. Kahle’s edition is a combination of verse version in Arabic (manuscripts) and notebooks of performance in transliteration, which contain dialogues. PKF. MSB19. Manuscript leaves preserving Liʿb al-Timṣāḥ “C” As stated by Kahle, the text was written by ʿAlī al-Najjār in 1118–9/1707–8; of thirty-seven leaves. PKF. MSB22. Manuscript folios related to the play al-Timsāḥ Ms “B” and Ms “C” Kahle held the sheets together with a strip of paper on which he wrote that Ms B has 6 leaves, Ms C has 1 leaf. The leaves are kept inside a cardboard envelope of DSK, bearing the title “Timsah ms.” PKF. MSB14. Contains several generic opening songs, three were for this play. PKF. ARC_424–432; ARC_453; ARC_481. Copies and notes of the above-mentioned manuscripts by Kahle. T1. Three zajal song cycles, Manṣūr, al-Zibrqāsh, and al-Kābis (al-Rikhim), pp. 218–22. T2. Five zajal song cycles in three clusters. I and II (pp. 43–62): two versions in different hands are lumped together. The contents of pp. 43–7 and pp. 57–60 overlap. III (pp. 135–52): under a rubric kalām al-timsāḥ, in a coarse yet clean hand. 3.5.3.2 Published Material Kahle, Das Krokodilspiel. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 25. Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill 85–9. 3.6 ʿAjāʾib al-barr, Wonders of the Land 3.6.1 Introduction This is one of the plays partially preserved in the second part of the Dīwān kedes, the earliest Ottoman-era shadow play manuscript. It tells the adventures of a young man, Qarwāsh (or al-Qarwasha) and his master, Nājī (nickname: al-Marmūsh), a hunter. The play features an assortment of “wonders of the world”: scenes of urban drama, wildlife, hunting, and food. The play has not survived in entirety. The title is probably supplied by Kahle. The fact that some elements were included in K2 (by a new contributing poet) and T2 (with exclusive material) indicates that the play continued to evolve and stayed in the repertoire. The basic storyline reminiscences of the frame-story of the 1001 Nights – the incidental discovery of the wife’s infidelity with a black slave named Masʿūd; and

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the protagonists’ male-bonding trip to the wildness – with comic twists. Also noteworthy is the casual reference by one character to Cairo’s al-Ḥusayniyya neighborhood, the “Red Light District” of Cairo that gained its infamy as a hotbed for un-savory activities since medieval time, through Ibn Dāniyāl’s depiction in his play al-Mutayyam, or “The Charmed” (see above, chapter 7). Some uncertainties remain as to the play’s full scope. A probable prelude, titled Maṣṭarat al-Marmūsh bayna al-Ḥāziq wa-l-Rikhim, or “A short play about al-Marmūsh, in the form of a duet between al-Ḥāziq and al-Rikhim,” has survived in another manuscript (MSB14; see Fig. 6), attributed to al-Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (al-Ḥarīr). In addition, two substantial clusters, in fact two versions of the same play, both disjointed and incomplete, are found in the main manuscript of the Dīwān kedes (MSB12), attributed to al-Shaykh Suʿūd and Dāwūd al-Munāwī respectively. The two clusters are separated by a group of songs that feature a variety show band called Maghānī al-ʿArab, or “The mastersingers of the Arabs,” an itinerary troupe. It is unclear whether the troupe was part of the play or a separate act (see above, chapter 4). In light of the above-mentioned opening song by al-Shaykh Suʿūd (stanzas 8, 9), the former appears be the case. 3.6.2 Synopses 3.6.2.1 The Main Story (Old Version) The master hunter, Nājī, who also goes by al-Marmūsh, hires an apprentice, Qarwāsh, to run errands while he is busy chasing the wildlife. He sends the boy home to fetch some provision, but the boy comes back quickly and explains that once he got there, he saw some strange men. “There was a lad lying in the bed,” the boy reports, to that the hunter says, “oh, that’s my nephew.” Then the boy reveals, there was “a huge black man,” to which the hunter says, “ah, it’s our servant Masʿūd.” The boy continues, there was also “a short white guy,” a Jewish eye-doctor. Now alarmed, the hunter dispatches the boy back to spy on things, “good and bad.” But the plan backfires when somehow an explosion erupts in the house. The hunter fires the boy, whose nickname happens to be Farqaʿ alLayl, or “The Night Cracker.” Later, he runs into the boy in the wildness, alone. They talk about exotic animals and the joy of hunting. The hunter offers advice to the boy, encourages him to let go of his laziness and to aspire higher pursuits such as poetry and Sufi-style singing. 3.6.2.2 An Extra Episode (or Prelude) This is a short act titled Maṣṭarat al-Marmūsh, or “A short song play about al-Marmūsh,” which is mainly a duet between al-Ḥāziq and al-Rikhim. The exchange involves an opening scene, that reminisces of the Aesop fable of the Blind Man and the Elephant, when al-Rikhim the clown guesses what he sees

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(or touches?) to be an elephant, with “a huge trunk.” His sidekick, al-Ḥāziq, tells him that it in fact is a large goose (al-bajaʿ) and encourages him to play with the big bird. And he plans to sell it or make delicious dishes out of its “fat” and “juice.” Al-Rikhim replies that he would rather harvest fruits and make candies instead. They continue to argue about hunting wild geese and other games. 3.6.3 Resources 3.6.3.1 Manuscripts PKF. MSB12. Two versions of the same play that bears no title. Two clusters, of a total of fourteen zajal song-cycles, attributed to al-Shaykh Suʿūd and Dāwūd al-Munāwī, respectively. PKF. MSB14. This manuscript contains the above mentioned Maṣṭarat al-Marmūsh, along with several general opening songs about the shadow theatre repertoire that describe the contents of both the play proper and the extra material related to it (see above). Details such as the geese, the elephant, and the hunter’s nickname, have been confirmed by these supporting sources. PKF. ARC_450. Current online catalogue title: ʿAǧāʾib al-barr This is a handwritten copy of the relevant part from K1 (MSB12), with Arabic text, transcription, and translation in German by Kahle. The material has not been published. T2. One song (pp. 129–31). A duet between Nājī and Farqaʿ al-Layl, the pageboy, on hunting. The short poem is exclusive. 3.7 Maghānī al-ʿArab, The Mastersingers of the Arabs 3.7.1 Introduction Several fragmentary clusters consist of two versions of an act titled in the manuscript (K1, MSB12) as Kalām al-Nājī wa-l-Qarwāsha, or “The story of al-Nājī and al-Qarwāsha,” namely, the above-mentioned play, also known as ʿAjāʾib albarr, or “Wonders of the land.” Inserted between the two units are a cluster of songs of the “marketplace type” – of a hashish seller, a candy seller, and a shaykh – the beginning of which is missing. This is in addition to another group of some ten songs that are marked with a rubric of Maghānī al-ʿArab, literally “the mastersingers of the Arabs,” a touring troupe, or a show caravan. In light that these verses are placed between the two versions of the ʿAjāʾib al-barr, Kahle transcribed all of them in the original order, as seen in the manuscript, into one notebook (ARC_450), with the uniform title ʿAjāʾib al-barr, assuming they all belong together. Although a conceivable link between these disjointed elements appears to be elusive, the assumption that they loosely belong to one story was supported by the above-mentioned song by the author al-Shaykh

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Suʿūd himself (stanzas 8, 9), in that the scenes were described by him in seemingly one unit. To facilitate further probe, the segment of the Maghānī al-ʿArab is presented here as a separate unit. 3.7.2 Synopsis There is no dramatic plot. The common theme of “wonders of the land” is discernable, with regard to the abundancy in wildlife and foodstuff, yet the unit could stand on its own in that the ten-song sequence would form an independent program of a variety show. The opening song is a quasi-sermon (khuṭba) by the mastersinger, rayyis Maghānī al-ʿArab, which is a panegyric devoted to “God-sent provisions (rizq),” namely an abundance of food. More praises of food follow. First is a classical ode (qaṣīda) dedicated to “visitors to my house”: bananas, bread, cheese, sweets, and so forth. This is to be followed by a zajal love song paying tributes to garden variety of fruits. The master singer then gives way to an all-female performance, led by a female master singer, rayyisa, who assumes the role of “the beloved” in the quasi-ghazal, speaking and later dancing, on behalf of the enchanting foodstuff. Among the performers is a female acrobat named Jāribat Mismār, or “she who plays with nails,” the detail of whose act is not clear (the song itself is a love-themed jingle with some gibberish refrains). The female master singer then performs several dance tunes (raqṣa) before concluding with a song to solicit fees (dukhūl al-ṭalab) from the audience. 3.7.3 Resource 3.7.3.1 Manuscript PKF. MSB12. The original Dīwān kedes (see above, chapter 4) Twelve zajal songs: the first is of the “marketplace type,” the beginning is missing; the remainder of the cluster consists of eleven songs of the “Mastersingers of the Arabs.” 3.8 al-Manār, The Lighthouse (of Alexandria) 3.8.1 Introduction Commonly referred to as Liʿb al-manār, or “The Lighthouse,” this is a betterknown play among the Egyptian repertoire. Like many other plays produced in the Ottoman era, it is known to have had at least two versions, both of which have been edited by Kahle: a mostly verse version, which he termed “the old play,” and a script nearly entirely in dialogue, “the new play.” The reproductions of the shadow figures in Kahle’s possession and published in 1910–1, of the lighthouse, the shipyard, sailors, and war boats, have been widely cited as valuable historical artifacts. Kahle’s edition of the “new play,” namely the

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figure 13 Manuscript page, al-Rawḍ

dialogue version, has also become a case study of the Ottoman Egyptian colloquial Arabic. Overall the storylines in both versions are clumsy, while “the old play” is more convoluted and incongruous. The scripts consist of bulks of song and conversation that form a series of sketches of happenings. In addition to the scenes of war boats and shipyards, the linguistic humor in scenes that dramatize the miscommunications between Egyptians and the foreigners is also a high point for laughter (Fig. 13). 3.8.2 Synopses 3.8.2.1 The “Old” Play In the opening scene, al-Ḥāziq and al-Ṣāniʿ, the shadow master, talk about the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Al-Ḥāziq’s description of the exterior and interior of the lighthouse is followed by a discussion between him and al-Rikhim, who goes by al-Ḥājj Aḥmad now, about the use of the lighthouse to monitor dubious

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activities in the harbor. Al-Rikhim reluctantly climbs on the lighthouse, reports seeing sharks, winds, and high waves. The shadow master suspects a Moroccan passer-by to be an enemy spy. The Moroccan responds that he comes to report the new developments on the Western front, of the possible “Christian invasion,” namely Crusade naval forces. Al-Ḥāziq calls on the mayor (? maymūn) to mobilize the townspeople. The shadow master and his depute Shaʿth spot strange looking boats on the sea and are alarmed. Al-Ḥāziq declares that his fellow townspeople are ready to fight, while al-Rikhim and his friends are just gathered in the harbor to savor some seafood and the hustling-bustling in the city. Their comic back-and-forth is peppered with language jokes, especially the distorted foreign (Persian or Italian, depends on the version)73 words. Al-Rikhim and al-Ḥāziq board a war boat. Tired of being teased as a “coward,” al-Rikhim is determined to redeem himself in the war. A Christian sailor, actually the only Christian character in the play, assures al-Rikhim that they come here to trade and bring prosperity to all. Al-Rikhim is tempted to jump on the enemy’s ship (here the manuscript is damaged with lacuna, the detail is unclear). The battle finally starts. The Muslim war boat, known as “The Crow (al-ghurāb)” for its shape that resembles the bird’s peak and flies in water like a bird in sky, launches an attack. A Muslim sailor, Ḥirdān, is captured. Al-Ḥāziq and al-Rikhim negotiate with the Christian captain for his release. The play ends with a victory lap when the Egyptians sing a song that praises the glory of Muslim naval power. The “New” Play (Known as Ḥarb al-ʿAjam, or “The War against Foreign [Invasion]”) The Presenter salutes the clown al-Rikhim, who has now acquired the name al-Ḥājj Aḥmad, and warns him of a foreign (ʿajamī) naval invasion to the port of Alexandria. The two get into a usual comic banter. Al-Rikhim calls upon his sidekick, al-Ḥāziq, about the impending attack. Al-Ḥāziq goes to the military governor (nāẓir al-ḥarbiyya) and comes back with the general’s order to assign al-Rikhim to coordinate the surveillances. They summon a Turk named ʿUdāma al-Nāḍūrjī to watch the fleet’s movements from above the lighthouse. Alarmed by what he sees, he calls for war preparations. Al-Rikhim assembles a group of workmen for the task, including carpenters, sawyers, porters. But when ʿUdāma comes to inspect their progress, he finds all of them asleep on the job. He confronts the head of the shipyard Muḥammad by withholding the 3.8.2.2

73  In Kahle’s edition, based on the Dīwān kedes, the “foreign” language was Italian; in T1 (see Fig. 13), it was Persian.

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commission owed. When he finally pays the bill for the work done, thirty days have passed. The Egyptians are now ready. Al-Rikhim and al-Ḥāziq stand at the gate of the Lighthouse, while ʿUdāma, looking from the top of the Lighthouse through a binocular, announces the arrival of the foreigners. The invading vanguards claim to be Muslim who come here just to tour the port. Al-Rikhim challenges them to chant a song in Arabic, but they fail. In the meanwhile, the invading fleet has arrived at the harbor. The fight starts. The Egyptians have initially suffered heavy loss on the sea. Then an Egyptian war boat, “The Victorious Black Crow,” emerges, launching a series of attacks, destroying all of the invading war vessels. 3.8.3 Resources In spite of the relative fame of the play, the documentation in the manuscripts (the verse-only version) is actually very thin, amounting to a few poems (see below). In other words, the original sixteenth-century play has not survived in its entirety. The reconstruction of the “new” version, also fragmentary but preserved in the archival section of the PKF (ARC_416–420), was largely based on the performance notes and scripts whose provenance traces back to the same Cairene masters, the Qashshāshs. 3.8.3.1 Manuscripts PKF. MSB12. The original Dīwān kedes (see above, chapter 4) A cluster of poems that occur in the second part of the original Dīwān kedes. The beginning of the play, only a few lines of verse of the opening song, follows the end of the play al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” on the same folio. Since the fragments were dispersed, no records of them appear in the current online catalogue. What follows here is a brief summary, in light of Kahle’s own description of the manuscripts that accompanies his publication of the play in 1928–30. Kahle mentioned MS “A,” “B,” and “C,” which could not be found in the current PKF, except the above-mentioned folio left in MSB12 and the archival material (ARC). MS “A”: Originally of thirty-four folios, the base text of Kahle’s edition, were part of the Dīwān kedes. However, except for the folio on it are the opening song and the first solo, the remaining thirty-three folios are now un-accounted for. It appears that Kahle kept the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr, the longest play in the manuscript (now catalogued as MSB12) intact and dispersed the cluster of this play, the second longest, into separate folders which were misplaced somewhere. The current Turin online catalogue only lists, under the title al-Manār, the archival materials, namely Kahle’s working notes and drafts.

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A special remark is that, in light of Kahle’s edition, the original text contains some dialogue, which is rare, as far as the known Ottoman period Arabic shadow play manuscripts are concerned. The speakers are marked by red ink whereas the dialogues in black ink. Apparently, there were two versions of the original script, or “old play,” one by al-Shaykh Suʿūd, and the other by Dāwūd al-Munāwī, whose re-work is usually marked with a term thānī, namely a “second, alternate” version in addition to the older one by his predecessors. MS “B”: Two bullayq song cycles. MS “C”: Two musaṭṭara, or masṭara, verse units. This fragment also contains a copy of Ibn Dāniyāl’s “The death of Iblis.” PKF. ARC, a group of items under the title al-Manār. The sub-sub-sub-series “al-Manār” includes all the materials concerning the play that regards the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Modern sources also refer to it with the title Ḥarb al-ʿAjam. Eight items are catalogued. Among the eight, five are transcriptions and translations of parts of the play: ARC_416 (zot_427), 417 (zot_428), 418 (zot_429), 419 (zot_430), 420 (zot_431). Three are drafts of Kahle’s 1930 publication. ARC_467 (zot_478). Current online catalogue title: Transliteration of various shadow plays. Notebook containing the transliteration and partial translation into German by Kahle of various shadow plays, after one “Samāni Derwish.” Among the plays transcribed is Ḥarb al-ʿAjam. T1. Songs from the play (pp. 210–2). Two short poems are identified to belong to the play, spelled here as Ṭaqm al-manāra, or “A short play of the Lighthouse.” It is noted that these songs, all exclusive, place the linguistic jokes squarely within an Arabic vs. Persian schism. One song is a bullayq jingle (pp. 210–1; see Fig. 13) that mocks Persian ghazal-love verse, with lewd puns; another is a dū-bayt (pp, 211–2), cursing Arabs, in Persian. 3.8.3.2 Published Material Kahle, Der Leuchtturm von Alexandria.  The book consists of Das moderne Leuchtturmspiel and Das alte Leuchtturmspiel. The Arabic text of the latter starts from the back with a title Manārat al-Iskandariyya al-qadīma fī khayāl al-ẓill al-Miṣrī: Liʿb al-manār. The book cover in Arabic bears a publication date of 1928, whereas the German cover has the date of 1930. ʿAlī, Liʿb al-manār.

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3.9 Munādamat Umm Mujbir, Courting Umm Mujbir 3.9.1 Introduction This is an early Ottoman-era Egyptian shadow play that has been preserved in manuscripts in the libraries of Paris and Vienna. It was discovered by the Egyptian researcher Muḥammad Z. ʿInānī in the 1970s and has since drawn some scholarly attention in the Arab world and the West. The play is a comic take on domestic life and gender relations with zajal songs and humorous puppets acts. Little is known about the author, ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Isḥāqī, also known as al-Isḥāqī al-Manūfī, except that he lived in the sixteenth century (d. c. 1600), was a provincial judge, historian, and poet based in the Nile delta area. His sole surviving work, the Dīwān sulāf al-inshāʾ fī al-shiʿr wa-l-inshāʾ, is preserved in two manuscripts, at least one of which (MS Vienna) is an autograph. This anthology contains a wide range of genres and themes. Noteworthy are the poet’s correspondences, in verse, with Shaykh Muḥammad al-Badrī, the famous Sufi master-singer (munshid). This al-Isḥāqī is not to be confused with the historian Muḥammad al-Isḥāqī (d. 1650) whose works are better known. This play is categorized by the author as a masṭara (or musaṭṭara), namely a shadow play skit, or selected scenes of a play. The term also appeared in other Ottoman-era shadow play scripts (see above). As for the cause of this composition, ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Isḥāqī had this to say: “I was asked to compose a shadow play skit (masṭarat khayāl), which I called ‘Courting Umm Mujbir (munādamat umm mujbir).’ The story is about four people: the shadow master (al-rayyis), a man named al-Qilāʾī, the boy, and Umm Mujbir.” But in the preserved text, “the boy” is replaced by al-Malīḥa, the protagonist’s new wife. This suggests that the original play consisted of more characters and plot lines, that the verses quoted here are just some of the high lights, a masṭara-skit. An alternate explanation would be that multiple versions exist. The text is also a little clumsy with regard to role assignments: the Presenter often speaks on the protagonist’s behalf, an arrangement that is often seen in Ottoman Egyptian plays, which is somehow confusing. For modern reader, the sexism is in open display. The entire premise of the play, along with all the jokes, builds upon a slew of shouting matches, rich in verbal colors and farcical acts, between the husband and Umm Mujbir, and between the two wives. It is worth noting that the structure of this text is in line of the known norm of the Ottoman-era Egyptian shadow plays witnessed elsewhere, in the contemporary manuscripts by others (see above): the main narrative consists of a series of zajal-song cycles, often introduced by a madīḥ, namely praises

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saluting the audience, and concludes with an istishhād, where the author signals his name. It is also curious to note that the name Umm Mujbir also appears in a contemporary work, al-Shirbīnī’s famous rural narrative, the Hazz al-quḥūf,74 which suggests that “Umm Mujbir” was perhaps a type, on a common cast member, in folklore tales. 3.9.2 Synopsis The story starts with the shadow master (al-rayyis), in the role of narrator, speaks on behalf of the protagonist, al-Qilāʿī, or “Sailor,” of his wife Umm Mujbir, whom he refers to as “that old hag.” He sings two songs, detailing the horror of his life with Umm Mujbir, whose name may be tentatively rendered as “Mother Mighty.” Near the end, he lets out a sigh of relief, revealing the first surprise in the plot: She is actually dead. The husband, again, voiced by the shadow master, then sings another song, celebrating a new phase in his life. He describes his beautiful young wife, thanking God’s blessing on this newly found marital bliss. The shadow master, now back to himself, first congratulates him then commends him on the joyful and pleasant atmosphere at his house. He wastes no time to reveal the next surprise: The old woman has come back. Now, the husband is in shock. Umm Mujbir, or her ghost, appears, “after ninety years buried under, in a desert.” The husband scolds the “dead” woman for, among other things, bearing a son, Mujbir, or “the Forceful” (described as “an unruly brat”), who is by all accounts a disaster with horrible body deformation. The husband then goes on to launch a laundry list, of her own physical flaws. Umm Mujbir responds by mocking his lack of manhood and virility, drawing on her own verbal arsenal to match. She calls him out, describing him as a “cat,” to have abandoned a beautiful woman as she is. She then dares him “to man up, take your cloth off!” implying his impotence. He then calls out Umm Mujbir: “Tell me from where you came back to me, and who are your father and brothers?” Umm Mujbir fights back by listing an impressive lineage of her forefathers and her son Mujbir, with comic punning on names. She then challenges the husband, “Show me that tramp, your new wife; let me see her, with naked eye.” The husband summons the new wife, al-Malīḥa, or “Pretty.” Now it is the new wife’s turn. After greeting the husband and pledging her obedience to his wishes, she begs to be spared from “that she-ghoul, and mother of all ghouls.” To highlight her delicacy and sensibility, the new wife sings another song, with descriptions of her various body parts that are agile and sensible, contrasting to what Umm Mujbir has to show for. The old woman is not done talking yet. 74   al-Shirbīnī, Hazz al-quḥūf i, 32–3, 377 (note 66).

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Her last song is full of vulgar and grotesque rants about her own grotesque “beauty,” as opposed to the fine and fair images projected by the young pretty woman. 3.9.3 Resources 3.9.3.1 Manuscripts 1. ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Isḥāqī, Dīwān sulāf al-inshāʾ fī al-shiʿr wa-l-inshāʾ, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, arabe 4852, ff. 142–4a. 2. ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Isḥāqī, Dīwān sulāf al-inshāʾ fī al-shiʿr wa-l-inshāʾ, MS Vienna, no. 494 (Flügel’s catalogue). The Vienna Arabic manuscripts catalogue, vol. 1, 485. 3.9.3.2 Published Material ʿInānī, Ḥawla khayāl al-ẓill. The sanitized edition was based on MS Paris alone, although MS Vienna is mentioned. Moreh, Live theatre 170–78; revised Arabic edition (based on MS Paris alone) and English translation, titled “The Companionship of Umm Mujbir.” al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar ii, 289. al-Muḥibbī. Nafḥat al-rayḥāna iv, 589–90.

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Late Ottoman and Early Modern Egyptian Plays This chapter presents Egyptian shadow plays that were composed and produced in the late Ottoman period and early modern time. Some of them were new versions, re-works, or spinoffs of the older long running plays, whereas the rest were new compositions. Most of the Ottoman-era source materials are of the Qashshāsh family provenance. They were all dated later than the Dīwān kedes, a seventeenth-century codex. As for early modern works, a substantial bulk stemmed from Kahle’s archival materials – acquired pieces in notebooks, his own notes and copies, and other items. Despite the diversity in topics, stories, and characters, all of these plays have one thing in common: instead of the verse-only versions of early Ottoman Egyptian plays, these new works were either of mixed medium, of verse and dialogue, or, for early modern plays, entirely dialogue-driven drama. On account of their time and genre, the seventeen plays are to be documented in two groups. The first four plays, of earlier dates, feature both verses in zajalsongs and dialogues in Egyptian colloquial. The second group, consisting of thirteen titles, are nearly verse-free dramatic scripts of one act shadow plays. The drastic changes in the medium, from verse only, to mixed, to prose dominant, marked noticeable shifts and turns in the composition, preservation, and performance of Arabic shadow plays, the causes and aspects of which call for more study in the future. 1

Four Egyptian Shadow Plays of Late Ottoman Time

1.1 ʿAlam and Taʿādīr (the New Version) 1.1.1 Introduction A unique notebook is found in the PKF. Unlike most of the “archival” materials (ARC) that consist of Kahle’s own working notes and drafts, this notebook of 400 pages contains a full script, under the title ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. Written in pencil by one kātib-copyist Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (al-Raḥmān ?), whose logo, “SA,” occurs on a blank sheet between pages 159 and 160 and ­elsewhere, the bulky notebook seems to have been envisioned as a drama script with modern day conventions, such as the division of manẓar, or “scene, act,” and the bracketed brief cues for characters’ actions. However, the original ambitious plan was apparently abandoned, or tuned down, early on, in that the division

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_010

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of scenes did not continue after the first thirty pages, up to “Scene 11.” There are some corrections made in black ink as well as notes about the meter of the verses (most likely by Kahle). The basic storyline remains the same, but the plots and sub-plots were much expanded with Paul (Būluṣ), ʿAlam’s brother, who takes over the father, Monk Manja, as the main antagonist throughout, with more bickering over “faith,” and other issues. Scenes were greatly expanded with a larger cast, consisting of some twenty named characters and a barking, dancing dog. Many original long zajal-songs were retained nearly verbatim, along with the original istishhād-authorship attributions. Many short jingles and ballads were added. In many ways, this new expanded version shares similarities with Prüfer’s script, only much longer and on a larger scale. This apparently is a stage version that could have ran for seven nights, as Taymūr described. What follows here is a layout of the new elements added in this “new” play, including the cast, plot episodes, and scenes. 1.1.2 The Cast Narrator(s): The Presenter (al-muqaddim); his cohort al-Rikhim. People of the monastery: Paul (Būluṣ); Monk’s mother; Antonia, Monk’s wife; a dog. Construction crew and working girls: architect (al-muhandis); contractor (al-qarārī); Upper Egyptian day-labor; workers (al-bannāʾ) in the choir; ʿAzīza; Bahiyya; Tafīra; girls (al-banāt) in the choir. In the new garden and the asylum: Sufi singers (al-maddāḥīn) in the choir; a singing nightingale (bulbul); al-Shaykh Jarrād; al-Shaykh Bīlaḥ. At the wedding: Moroccan passerby (al-Maghribī); bathhouse attendant (al-ballāna); bathhouse attendants in the choir; light fixer (ḍawwī);1 carriage driver (ʿarbajī); musicians, female singers (al-ʿawālim), and drummers (al-ṭabbālīn); movers (al-shayyālīn); Fayṣal, movers’ boss; al-Ikhtiyār, wedding planner; wedding attendees. On the pilgrimage routes: camel driver (ʿakkām); Bedouins (al-ʿArab) in the choir; Salmān and Zaydān, Bedouins; Berbers; highway robber (al-qalīṭa); pilgrimage caravan leader (al-amīr); prisoner.

1  Perhaps a person whose job was to carry a candle/torch as a night guide. In Mamluk sources, these were street sanitation workers whose duties also included lightening up the street lights; Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ v, 246 (al-ḍawwiyya bi-al-mashāʿil).

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1.1.3 Synopsis 1.1.3.1 Building the Monastery The Presenter and the Monk meet. They get into a dispute over the latter’s building project of a new monastery and the commissions owed to the former.2 The Presenter goes to the builders to negotiate a deal; they fight over design, budgets, and fees. The builders hire a group of women to help with the job. The “girls” flirt with the men, while complaining about the pay. The Presenter comes to the newly built monastery to collect commissions owed to him; the Monk and his son, Paul, refuse. The Monk’s mother suggests payment in kind – a dog. The Presenter leaves and uses the dog to “pay” for beverages, food, and clothing at various establishments. Unleashed, the dog runs away. 1.1.3.2 Falling in Love Bent on revenge, the Presenter calls out Taʿādīr, pointing at the monastery as where he may get wine. Taʿādīr argues with the Monk over prices and plucks the Monk’s beard. Paul watches in horror. ʿAlam rushes out, screaming at the attacker. Smitten at the first sight, Taʿādīr bribes Paul to sneak his sister out. He takes her to his house but claims that his mother took the key. He asks Paul to rent an apartment and bring ʿAlam for a rendezvous but refuses to pay for it. 1.1.3.3 Lovers’ Endeavors They turn to other means for secret meetings. Taʿādīr comes to the monastery in varying guises, playing ḥīla (pl. ḥiyal), “trick, tactics.” This is the most elaborate reshaped segment of the play. Along with old materials, of chicken seller, milkman, magician, astrologist, and lamp seller, the new “tricks” include: a repairman of household items; a baker selling sweets on camelback; a magician who utilizes “worms of wisdom” out of a bottle to tell fortune; sellers of blankets and sheets, thread box, Egyptian clover, geese, herb, and watermelon. Two magical acts, one of the “wisdom worms,” and other a sorcery play (siḥr), follow. ʿAlam’s mother, Antonia, also makes a cameo in one scene. Taʿādīr invites a band of singers to entertain ʿAlam and Paul. A reference is made that the band belongs to the Dimirdāsh Sufi order. With the help of Paul, ʿAlam continues to flirt and toy with Taʿādīr, ordering various dishes and snacks through the window, to be lifted by a basket (al-quffa) or a basket of palm-tree leaves (al-julla). She always manages to take the goods without paying, retreating safely back to the monastery. Hoping for good luck, Taʿādīr visits the Holy

2  This segment grew into, or was inspired by, a separate skit ( faṣl) titled al-Muhandis, or “The builder.”

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Shrine of Ḥusayn in downtown Cairo. He presents ʿAlam with a branch of fresh grapes, along with a nightingale, who sings on cue of a buzz word. 1.1.3.4 Turning Mad The second part of the play, “The Sane and the Insane,” retains a substantial portion of the old materials, of trial and amputation; burning the new garden; and the asylum. The role of Dr. Kāmil, or “Dr. Perfect,” is expanded, with his interactions with Taʿādīr throughout the lengthy didactic verses. In the midst of treatment, Taʿādīr is allowed to attend the Friday prayer at the downtown mosque, to be accompanied by two Sufi shaykhs. 1.1.3.5 Wedding ʿAlam argues with her father and brother over Taʿādīr’s marriage proposal. The Monk finally caves in, giving ʿAlam his blessing. People in the monastery lament the departure of ʿAlam, but also celebrate her engagement. They go to the bathhouse to prepare for the wedding. ʿAlam and Taʿādīr sign the marriage contract. ʿAlam is pampered by the bathhouse manager and attendants and tips them lavishly. Taʿādīr is sent home on a camel, paraded to the monastery, now in gradual decay. He prepares ʿAlam for becoming a Muslim’s wife, with Paul’s constant distractions along the way. They go to the bathhouse, where the bathhouse attendant flirts with a Moroccan passerby.3 They travel to Alexandria for a joy ride. The dowry (al-jihāz) is being delivered, piece by piece, amidst chaos caused by all vendors involved. Al-Rikhim emerges for the first time. He helps the Presenter, who acts like a guardian to the groom, to plan the household chores and the wedding banquet. Taʿādīr himself dictates a list of some ten plus names of Sufi-singers and asks the wedding planner to book each of them for a Layla celebration.4 Altogether, seventeen nights of music and variety shows are planned (for a full programme, see below, Appendix 4). The groom gives instruction, “Hey Presenter, let the variety shows (al-malāʿīb) go first, and the songs (al-aghānī) to follow. The last night is going to be strictly lawfully orthodox affair (al-ḥanafī al-sharʿī).”5 In the midst of the chaos (the cook hired by the Presenter and alRikhim has never showed up and the wedding attendees are starving), ʿAlam screams “four times,” before giving birth to a son. Taʿādīr names him Narjis. 3  This episode later developed into, or was inspired by, a full skit, al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse.” 4  For a detailed description of the layla, as an activity that “serves as a positive reinforcement of Egyptian social cohesion,” see Waugh, Munshidin 59–63 (the quote is on p. 61). 5  This could form the base of the separate skit, titled al-Tiyāsturā, or “The theatre.”

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1.1.3.6 Pilgrimage The couple takes the newly born son go on pilgrimage. Robbed by Bedouins, Taʿādīr pleads for mercy by telling his story, hence all the loose ends are tightened up. He tells his capturers that he was originally from Baghdad, that his real name was ʿUmar, an adherent of the Shāfiʿī teaching; that he has since embarked upon a quest for true love and has overcome the challenges along the way, becoming a Sufi. The couple and their son are let go. More troubles ensue, with more robbers and internal fights amidst the pilgrims. The family return home safely. The Presenter, al-Rikhim, and the wedding planner, al-Ikhtiyār, wait at the door, with all the furnishings ready. People, including Paul, come to celebrate. Yet ʿAlam and Taʿādīr begin to argue again, now as husband and wife. Taʿādīr sings the final song, reminding the audience that a shadow play is “like a dream, through which one learns life’s lessons, in both serious and comic ways.” 1.1.4 Resources 1.1.4.1 Manuscript PKF. ARC_433, ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. 1.1.4.2 Printed Material Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel. Guo, The monk’s daughter. 1.2 al-Shūnī, The Ferry Ride 1.2.1 Introduction This relatively simple and short play is preserved in two versions: a song-only skit, preserved in manuscripts and a tailor-made stage version, with dialogues in various dialects. The former is a complete set consisting of a duet between the narrator and the captain, with refrains of “iḥzir iḥzir yā anā …” throughout. The first six stanzas are the narrator’s monologue through which he reflects on the lessons learned through life’s ups and downs. The remaining six stanzas constitute the boat man’s argument with him. In the Sufi songbooks (see above, chapter 8), the poem is placed in the thematic segment on the virtues of patience and perseverance. The script with dialogues was made by Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh. This is the version recorded by Kern and Prüfer. In light that they did not have access to Taymūr’s manuscripts, their synopses differ from the verse version. In addition, Taymūr’s summary contains more details (for example, the names of the fellah family), that are not found in German scholars’ summary, nor in the available

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manuscripts, which suggests the existence of other versions, the whereabouts of which are unknown today. The appeal of the play relies on the performers’ linguistic skills in mimicking various speech patterns and idioms: the peasants’ Egyptian fellah expressions, the Turk soldier’s heavily accented Arabic, and the Moroccan’s hard-to-understand exotic tongue. Prüfer pointed to the similarity of this play with a Turkish karagöz titled Kajyk, “The boat.”6 1.2.2 Synopsis The play begins with the scene of a Nile ferry getting ready to carry passengers across the river. The passengers arrive. Among them is a fellah family of three: al-Kattātānī, a peasant; Khamrāna, or “Toxic,” his wife; and al-Natn, or “Rotten,” their son.7 The passengers also include a Turk soldier, a Berber, and a Moroccan. However, the boat is far from the shore, due to a lack of docking facilities. So, the narrator (rayyis) demands the captain, Shūlaḥ, a boater from Sudan (al-Nūtī), to carry them one by one on the back to get to the boat. After much bickering, fighting, and swimming, everybody gets on board, ready to go. 1.2.3 Resources 1.2.3.1 Manuscripts T2. The complete song-cycle of the short play; two poems numbered consecutively in the manuscript (pp. 62–5), twelve dawrs altogether. Author’s name is embedded in the last stanza. T3. ff. 112–3; a song contemplating of life; it follows a zajal on the challenge of marriage in the original songbook. T5. pp. 2–5; in this Sufi songbook, the content of the play is featured as the opening song of the entire anthology, under the rubric of “warnings and advises (al-ḥadhariyya, waʿẓ wa-naṣāʾiḥ)” (see above, chapter 8). 1.2.3.2 Published Material Jacob, Türkische Litteraturgeschichte. Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater 102. Prüfer, Das Schiffsspiel. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 26.

6  Prüfer, Das Schiffsspiel xii–xiii. 7  In Kern’s version, he is a cotton merchant instead.

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1.3 Shaykh Sumaysim, The Sufi Shaykh 1.3.1 Introduction This is a less known short play preserved in two manuscripts. Taymūr remarked that the entire play “is made up of (mabniya ʿalā) zajal songs alone.” 1.3.2 Synopsis The protagonist, Shaykh Sumaysim, whose name is the diminutive form of “sesame (simsim),” is a Sufi master who has been setting up a tent for the annual rituals in a public place. He is now facing a dilemma: the land has been purchased by a lady, Jāziyat Ḥarīr, who tells the shaykh he can no longer set up his tent unless he agrees to marry her. She also brings her son ʿAbdallāh to bear witness that the boy’s father passed away a long time ago. The shaykh at first frowns upon the proposal, for the woman is less-than-attractive, but finally caves in for practical reasons. The Presenter and his sidekick al-Rikhim play the matchmaker and wedding planner. Then the husband of the landlady, who is alive, emerges. He threatens to spoil the party, lodging a complaint to the judge. The ensuing saga involves the police chief, among others. 1.3.3 Resources 1.3.3.1 Manuscripts T1. The content of the play is in one cluster (pp. 236–57): a bullayq-song by al-Shaykh Sumaysim (pp. 236–41) and a song-cycle condemning “the meanness” in society (pp. 241–57). T2. One cluster that contains the verses from the play (pp. 31–5): The cluster begins with a bullayq-song by Sumaysim, on the enchantment of Sufi love. After the opening (al-maṭlaʿ), he launches into a song-sequence which switches between praising (madḥ) and condrmnation (dhamm). 1.3.3.2 Published Material Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 28–9. 1.4 ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr, Wonders of the Nile 1.4.1 Introduction This is a set of annexed skits, or short acts, that tells the story of Nile fishermen. Unlike the more popular al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” these short acts (sing. faṣl) have largely been forgotten. The only surviving documentation is found in Taymūr’s synopsis and Kahle’s unpublished transcribed draft. Taymūr stated that the play was based on a series of zajal songs. This verse version has not survived. In Kahle’s archives is a notebook that contains two short texts in transliteration after Munajjid ʿAlī Muḥammad, a student of

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Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh. One, titled al-Gharrāf, is a six-page transliteration of the play. It consists mostly of dialogue in Egyptian colloquial among al-Gharrāf the fisherman, the Presenter (al-muʿallim/miʿallem), and ʿAjība, an intern boy. The notebook also includes a drawing, of a fishing hook called al-mishkāk. The other short text is titled Ṭa‌ʾm (Ṭaqm) al-sarḥa, or “A short play of freely roaming (fish?).”8 Of merely two pages in length, it is incomplete. It also is accompanied by a drawing of a dolphin (darfīl). 1.4.2 Synopses 1.4.2.1 al-Gharrāf The play opens with al-Gharrāf, the fisherman, singing songs about his bad luck in catching fish. All of a sudden, marvelous things happen – a torrent of fish, of all kinds, emerges in the water. Now the Presenter appears in the guise of a competitor, a seasoned master fisherman (al-miʿallem). He hires a slave boy to steal the fish from al-Gharrāf. Every time the fisherman catches a big fish, the Presenter claims his half share. When the fisherman refuses, the Presenter plots to have a mob beat him up to death. 1.4.2.2 Ṭa‌ʾm al-Sarḥa The act (ṭa‌ʾm = ṭaqm) consists of a dialogue between the Presenter, also in the role of a master fisherman (al-miʿallem),9 and Abū Ḥirdān. The latter describes the sea creatures, fish, dolphin, and so forth, he ever witnessed. The Presenter pushes him to compare them to animals, such as gazelle, deer, and so forth, in the wild. 1.4.3 Resources 1.4.3.1 Manuscripts PKF. ARC_453. Current online catalogue title: Ḫaiâl aḍ-ḍill 1) al-ġarrâf 2) es-serḥa A notebook containing only the transcription by Kahle of the Arabic text of the plays: al-Gharrāf and ṭa‌ʾm al-Sarḥa (or al-Sirḥa). 1.4.3.2 Published Material Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 26. Kahle, Das Krokodilspiel 292. 8  The root meaning of s-r-ḥ denotes going freely about one’s livelihood, or animals pasturing freely. 9  The similar scheme, of the Presenter playing the role of the male protagonist at the same time, is also seen in the play Maṣṭarat munādamat Umm Mujbir; see above.

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Short Plays from Early Modern Egypt

The thirteen short plays presented in the following pages have come down to us from two major sources: (1) field reports by Kern, Prüfer, and Taymūr; and (2) Kahle’s unpublished archival materials. They will be presented according to these two groups. For the first group, all of the seven titles have been known before, and have since been corroborated by new manuscript findings. These findings have yet to be synthesized until now. For the second group, virtually nothing has been reported. Six in number, they are to be made public for the first time. All of these early modern shadow plays are predominantly, or nearly exclusively, scripted in dialogues. The characters speak to each other in Egyptian colloquial, with various targeted accents and at times in purposely distorted ways. They seldom burst into zajal ballads – only when the occasion arises. The plays will be arranged in the order of the Arabic alphabetic. (1) Short Plays (reported) Among the titles mentioned by scholars in the early twentieth century (Kern, Prüfer, and Taymūr), several are now believed to be spinoffs of the above-mentioned Ottoman era masterpiece, the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr. And they are, in the order of plot sequence: Liʿb al-muhandis, or “The builder”; Liʿb al-ḥammām, or “The bathhouse”; Liʿb al-ḥajjiyya, or “The pilgrimage journey”; Liʿb al-qahwa, or “The café”; and Liʿb al-tīyāsturā, or “The theatre.” In this connection, the above-mentioned new version of the play ʿAlam (PKF, ARC_433) is particularly significant, for it contains substantial contents that run parallels to several short spinoffs in question here. A considerable number of these short plays depict aspects of urban life in the turn of the century. Variably known in sources as liʿb, faṣl, or ṭaqm, they may better be characterized as some sort of “filling-in” material, serving as preludes, intermissions, or epilogues, between main acts. They often lack plots, while showcasing eye popping scenes – public fanfares, marketplace, street parades – with banter and caricatures. All the titles were reported by Kern, Prüfer, and Taymūr, with scanty textual testaments. 2.1 al-Awwalānī, The Nile Watchman 2.1.1 Introduction First reported by Taymūr, this short play has long remained mysterious, with regard to the meaning of the title, and the lack of adequate manuscript evidence. A play with a similar title, al-Markab al-awwalānī, in transcribed text

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with German translation, was found in Kahle’s archives, based on a collection of scripts possessed by one Samānī Darwīsh. The word, al-markab, or “boat,” helps to explain the meaning of the vague term, al-awwalānī, namely the “first, earliest” boat, or boater, on the Nile to sail in the morning, having stayed overnight to watch over fishermen’s properties and belongings. 2.1.2 Synopsis The first scene is a small fishing boat in the Nile. The Presenter is approached by a Turkish soldier asking him about the night watch patrol – because some fishermen have been stealing his fish. The Presenter tells him that night watch is not his business. He brings in a resourceful Berber who is perfect for the job. But the hired Berber servant renders more services to the stealing fishermen instead, letting them run amok on the river. The soldier is outraged. He releases the Moroccan from the night watch duty, and takes him home for other chores. They end up playing a round of ḍāma, a chess like game, and the servant keeps winning. The angry Turk master starts beating the servant, who piles a chair on another chair, and places them on a tray so the master can use them to give him a sound beat and calm down. At the bottom of the Egyptian joke are the inapt Turk authority and the stupid Berber slave. 2.1.3 Resources 2.1.3.1 Manuscript PKF. ARC_481. A list of plays, which includes the present one. PKF. ARC_467. Current online catalogue title: Transliteration of various shadow plays A notebook containing the transliteration and (only in few parts) the translation into German by Kahle of various shadow plays. Kahle numbered in pencil the pages of the notebook, and on the first page added an index of the titles of the plays he transcribed. Of seven plays transcribed, on the authority of one Samāni Derwish, this play, spelled by Kahle as “el-merkib elʾawwalāni,” is the last on the list. 2.1.3.2 Printed Material Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 26. 2.2 al-Tiyāsturā, The Theatre 2.2.1 Introduction and Synopsis The skit has no storyline. It is reminiscent of Ibn Dāniyāl’s ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” where various live street performances are staged with puppetry, singing, and

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dancing. In Taymūr’s summary, this act, a play within a play, is part of ʿAlam’s wedding celebrations. It is likely that this skit will be performed as a sequel to the play al-Ḥammām, or “The bathhouse,” also a spinoff of the play ʿAlam. 2.2.2 Resource Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 27. 2.3 al-Ḥajjiyya, The Pilgrimage Journey 2.3.1 Introduction No manuscript that bears the title is known to have survived, except for Taymūr’s brief description with the current title. A similar story line, of highway robberies on the Pilgrimage routes, is also featured in the play ʿAlam, in both the original and the later versions. In Taymūr’s description, the performance required eighty pieces of puppet figures: people and animals. A Moroccan singer, among the pilgrims, entertains the crowd with zajal songs accompanied by a rabāb-fiddle. 2.3.2 Synopsis This is a comic take on the long and treacherous pilgrimage journey. The caravan is made up with a group of people of varied background, among them are musicians. Along the way one of the pilgrims lingers behind, due to an injury in the leg, and is captured by two Bedouins, the infamous highway robbers on the Pilgrimage routes. The two Bedouins, named ʿAjwa and Bazābīz, do not believe his story at first, suspecting the Egyptian hiding money under his pants. After much ado, he is let go. 2.3.3 Resources 2.3.3.1 Manuscripts PKF. ARC_481. A list of plays, which includes the present one. PKF. ARC_467. Current online catalogue title: Transliteration of various shadow plays Notebook that contains several plays on the authority of Samāni Derwish; a skit titled Ṭa‌ʾm al-ḥeggîis (sic. online catalogue), namely Ṭaqm al-Ḥajjiyya, is among them. PKF. ARC_433. Current online catalogue title: ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr In this predominantly dialogue version, the content of ff. 360–95 is a much elaborate act of the couple’s pilgrimage journey, placed within the play “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr.” The plot is similar to the present one, featuring two highway robbers. T1. A song of the Pilgrimage routes (pp. 190–8): A zajal song-cycle by the shadow master Ḥassān, titled Waṣf darb al-Ḥijāz, or “A description of the

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Pilgrimage routes.” It does not name the characters or the play in which the song is to be used. 2.3.3.2 Printed Material Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 27. 2.4 Ḥarb al-Sūdān, War in the Sudan 2.4.1 Introduction The historical background of the play is the British occupation of the Sudan in the late nineteenth century, following the collapse of the Mahdī dynasty, with battlefield scenes. No detail is known. 2.4.2 Resource Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 29. 2.5 al-Ḥammām, The Bathhouse 2.5.1 Introduction and Synopsis The episode of ʿAlam’s preparation for wedding at a bathhouse grew into a separate play. The spinoff begins at the door of the bathhouse where an attendant (ballāna) is waiting for the bride and her entourage to come. A young Moroccan passerby engages her in a chit-chat in zajal songs that turns from flirtatious to confrontational. This is to be followed by the bride’s arrival, her bathing, and a lavish bridal procession. 2.5.2 Resources 2.5.2.1 Manuscripts PKF. ARC_452, the title is mentioned on a list of short plays. PKF. ARC_433, an early modern version of the play ʿAlam. Two episodes are placed within this new expanded version of the play: the bathhouse (ff. 312–7) and the bridal procession, parade of dowry (ff. 317–34). 2.5.2.2 Printed Material Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel 112–28. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 27. 2.6 al-Qahwa, The Café 2.6.1 Introduction The protagonists, Abū Ḥirdān and Abū Qarmīṭ, are among the narrators of the play “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr” in one version (T1). Along with al-Kābis and Narjis, they open the play with songs contemplating love and its consequences. In this play, they are simply called Ḥirdān and Qarāmīṭ. The Presenter (muqaddim)

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and his sidekick, al-Rikhim (variably as al-Kābis, or Abū al-Qiṭaṭ), usually play the devil’s advocates. In this play, the Presenter gets Qarāmīṭ in trouble, similar to the way he leads Taʿādīr to the monastery, which sets the whole story in motion. Taymūr commented that in light of its sexually explicit material, this skit was not suitable to be performed at weddings or other formal celebratory events. 2.6.2 Synopsis Ḥirdān, a womanizer, and his beau, Qarāmīṭ, who struggles with his attraction to young men, meet in a café to play a game called al-musājala and carouse around. Qarāmīṭ hits on a busboy while Ḥirdān flirts with a girlfriend he brings in. The two begin an argument, in zajal songs, about the virtues of each one’s sexual preference. Each wins some points; but eventually Qarāmīṭ gets a hunch of the right guidance and is “rehabilitated.” He vows to do the right thing and to start carrying on with women. His first target at the café, unbeknown to all, happens to be Ḥirdān’s wife. After a rendezvous, the wife has Qarāmīṭ wear her husband’s cloth to sneak out, only to be recognized by the Presenter, who in turn warns the husband, Ḥirdān, to keep a close eye on his wife. The vigilant husband eventually catches the cheating pair, while Qarāmīṭ, in disguise, pretends to be the neighborhood baker who comes to the house only to collect dough, as it was a common practice of the time. He is let go. Still furious, the husband sends the wife back home to her family in preparation for divorce. The father of the wife calls on the three, the husband, the Presenter, and Qarāmīṭ, to the house to settle the matter. Each man tells a bizarre story he ventured through. When it comes to his turn, Qarāmīṭ the reformed-pederast-turned-cuckold, tells all without naming the woman, to the delight of the audience. The play ends with the separation of the couple. In the last scene, Qarāmīṭ summarizes the story as a cautionary tale of love and misplaced passion. 2.6.3 Resources 2.6.3.1 Manuscripts PKF. ARC_481. A list of plays. A play titled Ṭa‌ʾm al-ʾahwa (ṭaqm al-qahwa) is among a group of short plays listed. PKF. ARC_467. Current online catalogue title: Transliteration of various shadow plays The play is transcribed by Kahle, after Samāni Derwish, with the title Ṭa‌ʾm el-ʾahua.

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T1. A duet between the two protagonists (pp. 2–5): general opening songs of Abū Ḥirdān and Abū Qarmīṭ, who were also narrators of the play ʿAlam in this manuscript. 2.6.3.2 Printed Material Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 28. 2.7 al-Muhandis, The Builder 2.7.1 Introduction and Synopsis This title was first reported by Kern and Prüfer, and later described by Taymūr – all reporting it as a separate play. But its link to the play ʿAlam is wellestablished. In Kern’s version of Liʿb al-bayt (namely ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr), the protagonist Taʿādīr is a builder by profession. Prüfer’s version alludes that Taʿādīr was a builder whose job was to install a lantern (sirāj) for ʿAlam, although it was he, not the Presenter (muqaddim) and others, that built the monastery after all. All of these different accounts seem to be supported by separate textual evidence from the manuscripts.10 2.7.2 Resources 2.7.2.1 Manuscript PKF. ARC_433. An early modern version of the play ʿAlam. An episode, of the building of the monastery amidst chaos, is placed within this new version (ff. 16–30). Major players include the Presenter, the builder, the contractor, the crew, and working girls. 2.7.2.2 Printed Material Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater 100–1. Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel 10–22; an argument between the Presenter, as the contractor and builder, and the Monk, as the client, over the construction of the monastery opens the play. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 27; the house to be constructed by Taʿādīr, the builder, is for the newlyweds themselves. (2) Short Plays (reported for the first time) In Paul Kahle’s archives are several notebooks and folders that contain six complete short shadow play acts ( faṣl). The majority comes from the same 10  In K1, in a poem attributed to Suʿūd (no pagination), Taʿādīr describes the Grand Hall to ʿAlam by saying: “I have built for you a (new) monastery….”

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provenance, one Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbbāsī, whose (self-)portrait is found on the cover page of one notebook (ARC_452; see Fig. 7). These mostly one act plays have much in common. They are comedic farce, featuring non-Egyptian protagonists, with overtly anti-Ottoman authorities and anti-colonial undertones. The dramatic tension is heightened by the protagonists’ struggles with modernity, in laughable ways. Language barrier plays a central role for comic relief. The weakness of these plays is also the same: naivety and caricature-nature in characterization and plots. 2.8 al-Būsṭa, The Post 2.8.1 Introduction This absurd, and somehow disturbing, play depicts the life of European expats in Cairo in the early modern era. The typical “servant-from-hell” trope plays out around an Egyptian country boy’s difficult adjustment to various aspects of modern urban life – in this case, the post service. The anti-colonial sentiment is mixed with the thinly-veiled fascination and awe of modern Western lifestyle. A great deal of jokes stems from the miscommunication between the expats who speak broken Arabic and the local people who are unwilling to help. Some of the make-up expressions maybe slangs circulated at the time. 2.8.2 Synopsis Curtain rises with the khwage11 Mr. Mattox’s (? m-t-k-s-h) monologue. He tells the audience that he is “one million years old,” has a son and a daughter. The son is long gone, on some lucrative business overseas and has not written back since. The other day, the khwage recalls, he went to the train station to buy a ticket so he can go see his son but did not know in what country the son lives. He is sitting home now waiting for his son’s letter. He dispatches the servant boy Ḥāfiẓ to the post office to see if there are any letters. The boy goes to the post office. His stupidity leads to a series of mistakes. He comes home empty handed. Mr. Mattox asks the boy to stay home while he himself goes to the post office. The mailman comes to the street and runs into Ḥāfiẓ, who wonders how the “post office (al-būsṭa)” is now a walking “mailman (al-būsṭajī).” He asks the mailman if there are letters for Mr. Mattox, of which the mailman could not find any. Ḥāfiẓ demands to keep all the letters, and, after being rejected, beats the mailman up. A police officer is called upon and threatens to take Ḥāfiẓ to the police station after hearing the mailman’s complaint of him stealing “government papers.” 11  A common Ottoman era epithet for a foreigner.

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Mr. Mattox comes home empty handed and begs the police to let go of the innocent, yet stupid, servant boy. Later, the mailman comes back, this time to deliver a letter from Mr. Mattox’s son Alexander, informing the father that he is coming home. Overjoyed, Mr. Mattox summons his daughter Julia to prepare a lavish welcoming dinner party. While he and Ḥāfiẓ go out buying groceries for the dinner, Alexander comes home and is warmly greeted by Julia. Exhausted (he reveals that his ship had wrecked in the sea and he walked home on foot), he leans on the sofa and dozes off, while Julia does the same. When Ḥāfiẓ comes home, he discovers the young man lying next to Julia, and reports this to Mr. Mattox, who, failing to recognize his much-changed son, asks Ḥāfiẓ to get a kitchen knife and stabs the young man to death. When Julia wakes up to the horror, she tells the father the dead man is her brother. Mr. Mattox plunges the knife to his own chest. Julia kills herself as well. The servant boy Ḥāfiẓ stands alone, trying to comprehend what has just happened. He figures that the masters killed themselves because they owed him four months’ worth of salary and he wonders whether he should die with them as well. He falls on the ground, murmuring, “God have mercy!” 2.8.3 Resources PKF. ARC_439. Current online catalogue title: Faṣl elbosta Blue folder of DSK notebook containing the transcription by Paul Kahle in Arabic. Enclosed is a manuscript page containing an excerpt. The source is not indicated. PKF. ARC_440. Current online catalogue title: Faṣl al-bōsṭa Manuscript pages containing the transliteration of the play. The name of the author (or scribe), Ḥusayn Najīb Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbbāsī, is marked. 2.9 Jumʿa, [The Servant Boy Named] Jumʿa 2.9.1 Introduction This comic skit tells a servant-from-hell story, with the typical fellah humor. Yet the audience will not fail to recognize the satiric jab at the Ottoman ruling elite and their cozy relationship with the colonial power. Also noteworthy is the instruction of “curtain rises” and “curtain falls,” at the beginning and the end of the script, which hints at the possibility that the shadow play script could be performed in live theatre as well. 2.9.2 Synopsis The Pasha Ala‌ʾ Efendi and his wife are expecting a notable guest, the khwage General Monsieur Fox, in their opulent home in Cairo. The servant, a country boy named Jumʿa, sleeps on the job and is warned by the housemaid. He

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quickly sweeps the floor and places the chairs and end tables in place – all upside down – before he goes back to sleep. A series of missteps and comic moments ensue, which infuriate and amuse Ala‌ʾ Efendi and his wife. Jumʿa knowingly, or innocently, misunderstands the instructions for the “complicated” household chores, such as unfolding the table cloth, answering the door, making coffee, and chopping vegetables. He mistakes a beggar for the guest and confuses the chauffer with the chef. The Pasha orders the chef to cook a “very special meal” for his honorable guest. Overexcited, Monsieur Fox excuses himself to “empty his stomach” so he can enjoy the treat. After all is said and done, the guest comes back to find an empty table – Jumʿa has eaten all the “left overs.” 2.9.3 Resource PKF. ARC_451. Current online catalogue title: Transcription of faṣl ǧumʿa The text is preserved in a notebook in the PKF archives. The first page has a list of characters and two names, presumably the authors (or scribes): Sayyid Aḥmad Abū al-Naṣr and Sayyid ibn Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (“SA”). The Arabic text is written in pencil on the left side, and Kahle’s transliteration, in black ink, is on the right. 2.10 al-Rājil al-ʿayyān, The Sick Man 2.10.1 Introduction This shadow skit tells a somehow disturbing story of a family feud turned violent and fatal. The basic plot is similar to that of the old play, al-Shaykh Ṭāliḥ, or “Shaykh Wicked,” only darker and more cynical. The protagonist, a shaykh named Fatḥ al-Bāb, or “Open the Door” (perhaps a sinister twist of “Open, sesame” from the “Story of Ali Baba and Forty Thieves”), comes up with a scheme to hasten the death of his brother, who is gravely ill, and to steal his money. With the help of his servant, the plan spills out of control and evolves into a murderous farce on a larger scale. The play also details the process of a funeral, which is reminiscent of a central element of the Ottoman era play Abū Jaʿfar, along with other scenes that depict domestic family life in an urban setting. The political undertone is unmistaken: it is the European doctor who kills the sick man, with the help of Egyptian conspirators. 2.10.2 Synopsis Curtain rises to reveal Shaykh Fatḥ al-Bāb, alone, worries about his squandered fortune and contemplates of seizing a larger-than-usual inheritance from his brother, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Karīm, who is “very rich and very ill.” He sends his servant Ḥāfiẓ, a country boy, to check on the brother. “Just in case he dies,” the shaykh commands the boy, “report back quickly.” His niece Farīda and nephew

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ʿAzīz come to complain that the shaykh has not visited their sick father. The servant boy flirts with Farīda and this enrages her brother. The three youngsters get into a fist fight. The shaykh sends them to fetch the ill brother, promising to call a doctor to treat him at home. In the meantime, he comes up with an idea to rewrite the brother’s will. Shaykh ʿAbd al-Karīm shows up. He is helped by his two children while the servant boy Ḥāfiẓ is riding on his shoulders and cursing him to “die quick!” He complains of illnesses, in every part of his body, and the servant boy teases him with all kinds of “remedies,” actually physical abuses, while the shaykh and his niece and nephew are out looking for the doctor. The sick man falls from the couch to the floor. When the shaykh comes back, he, along with Farīda and ʿAzīz, the niece and nephew, give the body lying on the floor a bad beating – mistaking it for the servant boy. After much confusion (a male nurse is brought in first), the doctor, a khwage, or “foreigner,” comes and cuts a deal with Shaykh Fatḥ al-Bāb. He injects some poison into the sick man’s body and kills him. The shaykh arranges a funeral and hires a gravedigger, who refuses to wash the corpse. A group of schoolteachers are hired to chant the prayers, with Shaykh ʿĀshūr being the leading singer. They, too, refuse to wash the dead body. The scenes change, with the servant boy Ḥāfiẓ singing, playing, and interacting with others in the funeral parade, which turns festive. The parade arrives at Shaykh Fatḥ al-Bāb’s house, expecting to be paid. Inside the house, the shaykh brings out a jewelry box and some cash and tells Farīda and ʿAzīz that these are their father’s, and they may take what they need. ʿAzīz and Farīda reply that they would rather be happy with their father’s will. Shaykh Fatḥ al-Bāb strangles the boy and girl to death and asks the servant boy to throw the bodies in a well. 2.10.3 Resources PKF. ARC_446. Current online catalogue title: Transcription of “al-rāǧil al-ʿiyān (sic.)” In the initial part, Kahle added a few notes in pencil. PKF. ARC_452. A list of plays, including the present script. 2.11

al-Ṭura‌ʾī, The Street Inspector

2.12 al-Ṣaʿādī, The Southerner 2.12.1 Introduction Two scripts are housed in the PKF, with a rarely seen author’s identification of each. According to the notes by Kahle, the author of the first skit, al-Ṭura‌ʾī, or “The street inspector,” is Abū Rabīʿ, and of the second, al-Ṣaʿādī (sic. for Ṣaʿīdī?), or “The Southerner,” is Aḥmad al-Fār. These two short skits depict the tidbits

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of urban life in the turn-of-the-century Cairo, especially some aspects of the municipal management and services. Resembling the formula of the Turkish Karagöz and diverging from the Arabic khayāl al-ẓill norm (which is seldom seen in Egyptian repertoires), these skits lack significant dramatic elements. Like a stand-up comedy, they feature one protagonist, a man about the town, and one antagonist, often a simple-minded flirtatious woman. Laughable moments stem from the variations of the “wrong-place-at-wrong-time” type of coincidental and often bizarre and silly situations, as well as funny exchanges between the characters. 2.12.2 Synopses 2.12.2.1 al-Ṭura‌ʾī The torch carrier (shaʿlajī), whose job was to lighten up torch poles, the street lights of the time, salutes the audience and introduces the protagonist, the street inspector (al-ṭura‌ʾī = al-ṭuraqī), played by the shadow master (rayyis). The street manager, along with his co-worker, the revenue collector (muʾābil = muqābil), take turns to harass and con an anonymous lady whose husband is away. After a series of hilarious interactions, all is well that ends well. 2.12.2.2 al-Ṣaʿādī The quintessential Egyptian bottom of the joke, a country bumpkin from Upper Egypt, is the antagonist, al-Ṣaʿādī (Ṣaʿīdī?), or “Southerner,” in this short skit. Due to the language barrier – he speaks with heavy Upper Egypt accent – and his rural fellah mannerism, the countryman runs into troubles in Metropolis Cairo. First, problems with a porter with whom he shares a room; the roommate’s snoring makes the fellah miserable. Next, confrontations with the revenue collector (al-muʾābil) seeking to retrieve some debts owed; the clerk’s frustration is exacerbated by the clueless country fellah. 2.12.3 Resources PKF. ARC_470. Current online catalogue title: Abu rabia faṣl eṭ-ṭura‌ʾa faṣl eṣ-ṣaʿādī Two notebooks contain the Arabic text and the transcription of the plays faṣl al-ṭura‌ʾī and faṣl al-ṣaʿādī. A drawing of a ḥalla (cooking pot) is found within the first play. 2.13 Lūrata, Loretta 2.13.1 Introduction This is a comedy of seduction and revenge with a twist. At the center is an Egyptian Christian woman who seduces three officers (of military police) for

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personal gain. The trope, of a mysterious lady throwing a handkerchief through the window, is a long running leitmotif in Arabic folklore.12 Yet this play spins the old tale with some unmistaken zeitgeist: early modern street scenes of Metropolis Cairo, the treacherous ways in negotiating the urban jungle, and the language humor at the expense of the Turkish authority figures speaking bad Arabic. The obvious political undertone is perhaps the reason this play has not been known widely. 2.13.2 Synopsis The first part of the play consists of several scenes, each opened by one officer’s monologue. First, a soldier (shāwīsh) named Khamīs, or “Thursday,” recalls his encounter with a young lady by chance. On patrol route, he passes by a house on al-Ẓāhir street (he pronounces ḍ for ẓ), the lady throws a head scarf out of the window. She says her name is Loretta, and the head scarf is a token of admiration. If he wants to marry her, one hundred Egyptian pounds would be the dowry. The soldier promises to come back with the money. Next, a corporal (onbaşı) named Jumʿa, or “Friday,” recalls that when he passes by a building in the Ismāʿīliyya district, a silk handkerchief, with a rose embroidered on it, falls from a balcony (tarasīna, Italian terrazzino). He picks up the handkerchief and goes on about his business. An hour later, he comes back to the building and blows two whistles. A young lady comes down, introduces herself as Loretta, and repeats the same demand to the corporal, and leaves him with an address. Then their boss, the officer (al-ḍābiṭ) named Sabt, or “Saturday,” comes out and reveals that while he conducts inspections around the ʿAbbāsiyya street, he is hit by a metal stove that falls from a high building. He knocks on the door and threatens the woman on the rooftop with a citation for random garbage disposal. His Arabic is so poor (he speaks Arabic the worst among the three) that he cannot get the woman’s name straight. He suggests that if she agrees to marry him, then the citation will be waived. She, in turn, demands a dowry down payment upfront instead, and tells him her name is Loretta. Now Soldier Thursday and Corporal Friday have a problem with the boss, Officer Saturday, regarding the patrol schedule tomorrow – the day the dowry is due. They realize they have all fallen prey by the same woman and decide to confront her. They come to the house on al-Ẓāhir street and send one knocking on the door at a time, according to the ranks. She pretends to recognize the one at the door, calling others a dog, a mule, and a pig. She asks each to come 12  Cf. Haddawy (trans.), The Arabian Nights 301 (The tailor’s tale); Lyons (trans.), 1001 Nights 161 (The story of ʿAzīz and ʿAzīza).

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back in uniform to prove their identity. When it is Officer Saturday’s turn, he introduces himself as “the pig” to which she answers, “No, you are a Pasha, like a Count.” He declares his love for her and announces that since he is the boss, the other two should obey his will. He then takes out the weapon, a Turkish sword, and strips himself from the uniform, the Ottoman turban (ṭarbūsh); he throws them on the ground, and carries the lady into the house, leaving the other two outside in dismay. 2.13.3 Resources 2.13.3.1 Manuscripts Preserved in two notebooks currently in the PKF, the first notebook contains the original draft, in pencil, and many corrections made on the pages. The second notebook is a revised transcribed draft, in black ink, by Kahle. PKF. ARC_444. Current online catalogue title: Transcriptions of “Lūraṯa”/“Lūrata” Two notebooks, Arabic text in cursive hand, with corrections all over. Contains one name “Ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad,” the scribe (or author). PKF. ARC_445. Current online catalogue title: Faṣl Lauretta Manuscript pages containing the transliteration of the play. The Arabic text was copied by Kahle in black ink on the left side.

chapter 10

Syrian and Levantine Plays 1

An Overview

About the long and rich tradition of shadow theatre in Syria and the Levant, known historically as Greater Syria (bilād al-Shām), which includes today’s Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine, the eminent contemporary Syrian playwright Saʿd Allāh Wannūs once observed: When it comes to popular entertainment enjoyed by the Syrian people, among the most brilliant and enchanting are perhaps storytelling, the timeless tradition of the ḥakāwatī, or “storytelling,” and khayal al-ẓill, or “shadow play,” or khaymat Karākūz, namely “Karākūz theatre,” as it is called in Damascus. Compared with the free-wheeling and impromptu one man show, namely the ḥakāwatī-storytelling, the art of shadow play is a complicated operation. The shadow master, or al-Karākūzātī, and his associates set the performance stage (khayma, literally, “a tent”) in local cafés where they manipulate the stiff, and awkward looking, shadow figures, tell stories, and interact with the audience – all at the same time.1 The short shadow plays discovered and published by Enno Littmann around the turn of the twentieth century follow the same format: mainly a comic conversational duet between Karākūz (or Karakūz) and ʿAywāẓ (or ʿĪwāẓ), the Arabized duo of Karagöz and Hacivat, along with a usual cast, often a woman with loose virtues or a man who is a trouble maker, among others (more detail on the cast of regional plays, see below, Appendix 3). In other word, in many ways they strictly followed the winning formula of the Turkish Karagöz in all the basic ingredients: the cast, the structure, and the dramaturgy. Only this was an Arabized version, in language, culture, and social settings (Fig. 14). The caricatural scenes and acts built upon multi-language humor, depicting daily life situations with a sarcastic swaying and plenty of regional flavors. Alongside the nearly uniform format, among the distinct traits of the shadow theatre tradition in Greater Syria is the interconnectedness of the Shāmī repertoire on account of their common sources. In this regard, the early documentation, by Orientalists Littmann and Saussey, sheds light on the genesis 1  Preface, in Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 7–22 (quote is on 8–9).

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figure 14 Replica of Syrian Karakūz figures

and textual lineages of the Syrian-Levantine repertoire. For example, various productions of the popular play such as al-Khashabāt, or “Pieces of wood,” first reported by Littmann, were seen in Beirut, Jerusalem, and Aleppo, and have been edited and published later as a local product of each region, respectively. As the regional scripts published by Abū Shanab, Qaṭāya, Ḥijāzī, and Kayyāl can attest, a considerable number of plays that were known to have originated from different regions turned out to be recycled materials that had sprung from the same original proto-types. With regard to timeline, many of the Syrian-Levantine plays published after World War II were evidently springing from certain original scripts dating before, and around, the turn-of-thecentury. That means many of them, if not all, could be dated in the nineteenth century, or earlier. Another distinct trait shared by the Syrian-Levantine repertoire is its indebtedness to the rich non-Arabic popular narrative traditions in the region: Turkish, Armenian,2 and Persian. Speaking of Persian elements, it is particularly visible, for example, in the sea monster themed plays from the Syrian coastal region. The Persian theme of “falling in love from afar,” illustrated through fantastic fairytales of human and sea creature romance, also found its way to

2  Littmann, Das Malerspiel.

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several Syrian coastal region plays.3 In this connection, the influence of the 1001 Nights, a collection of tales originated in the Arab lands, yet with ample Indian and Persian ingredients, is unmistaken. However, in the Syrian shadow play adaptations, more comic twists were added. In the play al-ʿIfrīt, or “The Devil,” for example, the leading lady is named Shahriyār, the namesake of the blood-thirsty king in the 1001 Nights, whereas her lover, the male protagonist, goes by Darnīzāda (or Durnīzāda), the mock-name of the sister of Shahrazād (Scheherezade), the quintessential story teller in the 1001 Nights. In another play, al-Māristān, or “The asylum,” Darnīzāda is the gender proper name of the daughter of the King of the sea world.4 This kind of gender reversed name calling, apparently aimed at laughter, is also seen in the play al-ʿUrs, or “The wedding,” where a flirtatious lady in the marketplace introduces herself as Kisrawān (Chosroe), a menacing reminder of the mighty Sasanian emperor. The link between Persian elements via the 1001 Nights and the Syrian coastal area shadow plays may be easily explained away by geography. Sea and sea creatures featured in the Syrian costal region shadow theatre lend the plays overtly local coloring and flavors, while maintaining the common traits of the collective Syrian-Levantine repertoire. The thirty-eight plays to be presented in the following pages were of various provenances. Despite that they share significant commonalities in form, content, and style, as discussed above, they carry unmistaken regional characteristics as well. For the integrity of documentation which may also help to map-up the trajectory of scholarship on this arena, the plays are arranged according to the locations of their reportage, roughly following a chronological timeline of their publication. 2 Lebanon 2.1 Amūn, Madame Amūn 2.1.1 Introduction This is the longest among the Lebanese plays discovered and published by Littmann (and the only edition in Arabic script). Littmann reported that he saw the show in Beirut and obtained a manuscript from the maestro Rashīd 3  Irwin, Arabian Nights 74–9 (general Persian influences), 101, 200, 211; Haddawy (trans.), Arabian Nights 464–518 (The story of Jullanar of the sea). 4  The spelling of Darnīzāda is after the edition. The original name of Shahrazād’s sister is usually either Dunyāzād or Dinarzāda. In Syrian shadow plays, the mock name is variably spelled as Dūrnīzādā, or Darnīzāda (see below).

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ibn Maḥmūd. The content, about the ventures of the comic pair Karākūz and ḥājī ʿAywāẓ at the home of a lady of dubious reputation, seems to be of a proto-type – its similarity with certain Turkish karagöz tropes have been noted by scholars.5 2.1.2 Synopsis Having strolled around on a night’s outing, three friends, Karākūz, ʿAywāẓ, and al-Afyūnī, or “The Opium Addict,” check into Madame Amūn’s garden house, a popular Inn, for the night. In sleep, al-Afyūnī releases himself on the mattress and is scolded by the Madame. He then finishes it up in Karākūz’s fez and cleans himself with the latter’s beard. The two get into a fight and go back to sleep. A young man comes in. Madame Amūn tells him the room is full, so he can only spend the night behind the door. The young man is scared off by the menacing looking Karākūz and decides to leave. Another youth named Ashqa (also spelled as Ashū Aghā) comes in. He flirts with the Madame and promises to come back before heading off for the bathhouse. On his way out, he awakens the three. Karākūz warns his comrades that Aghā Bakrī Muṣṭafā, an old client of the Madame, is here. Madame Amūn turns the elderly away, with the excuse that the room keys are missing. Outraged, the old man drops a plate of pastrami he brought over and storms out. The plate falls on al-Afyūnī’s hand. Still sleepy, he takes Karākūz’s bald head as a fire stove, and begins to blow it, getting ready to grill. 2.1.3 Resource Littmann, Ein arabisches Karagöz-Spiel. 2.2 al-Shaḥḥādhīn, The Beggars 2.2.1 Introduction A similar version from Aleppo was also reported and published in the 1970s by Abū Shanab and Qaṭāya, both based on the original script and the gramophone records made in the 1930s. The two versions share the basic storylines with slightly different regional flavors. In the Aleppo version, the pair first talk about stealing shoes left by worshipers at the doors of mosques to resell them 5  For the Turkish Orta Oyunu trope, a gang of men camp inside the house of a woman of loose virtue, adopted in Syrian-Levantine shadow plays, see Landau, Arab theatre 35. The Orta Oyunu, or live street theatre, is believed to be among the indigenous theatric traditions that contributed to the development of the Turkish Karagöz, also known as Hayal Oyunu, after the khayāl al-ẓill, an Arab import from Mamluk Egypt; see Zeʾevi, Producing desire 127–8. Similar scheme is seen in the play al-Shaḥḥādhīn, “The beggars,” in the next.

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but give up the idea. In the Damascene version, as described by Kayyāl, the pair plays different tactics. 2.2.2 Synopsis Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ talk about hardship in life. ʿAywāẓ informs his friend that from now on he is going to take beggary for his day job. He brags that he is good at this because he can ask for food in Greek (al-Rūmī), English, French, German, and all other tongues. He promises to share. The two set up a trial practice. Karākūz is dismissive of the items on ʿAywāẓ’s wish list, such as hummus and bread. You can do better, Karākūz says. The duo knocks on the door of a woman for “charitable donations.” The lady (muḍāma) explains, in a thick Armenian accent which confuses ʿAywāẓ, that her husband will give to charity when he returns home. The problem is that he is on a trip to Istanbul. ʿAywāẓ suggests her to send a telegraph, a new thing in town. At this point, Karākūz has had enough; he hits his helplessly clueless friend on the head, “Telegraph … now?!” 2.2.3 Resources Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele 16–23. Abū Shanab, Faṣl al-Shaḥḥādhīn. Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 149–56. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 105–9. 2.3 Afranjūn (or al-Ḥakīm), The Foreign Doctor 2.3.1 Introduction This play has a similar alternate version from Aleppo (Qaṭāya) and Damascus (Kayyāl), both titled al-Ḥakīm, or “The doctor.” The message is not lost on some modern critics who read the play as a political satire aimed at the arrogant and negligent European colonizers and the ignorance and complacence seen in some quarters of the colonialized population.6 2.3.2 Synopsis Karākūz is ill in the stomach, having eaten too much, “one thousand and five hundred cakes,” as he reveals. ʿAywāẓ advises him to go see a European doctor who has just opened a clinic in town. Karākūz and his wife arrive at the clinic, to be accompanied by ʿAywāẓ. There a series of mishaps happen due to the lack of knowledge of modern Western medical terms, especially on the part of the wife. The doctor himself does not appear at all – playing his role is 6  Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 57–8.

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ʿAywāẓ, who hides behind the hospital curtain and pokes fun at the patient and his wife. The whole skit consists of dialogues amidst the three, with mostly scatological jokes. 2.3.3 Resources Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele 24–35. Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 115–24. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 53–6. 2.4 al-Afyūnī, The Opium Addict 2.4.1 Introduction The character of al-Afyūnī is an archetype, or a fixed cast member, in the Syrian-Levantine Karākūzāt tradition. Variations are seen in Tunisia and Libya as well.7 He often plays the role of punch-bag for the comic duo. 2.4.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ recommends al-Afyūnī to Karākūz for a night out together at a garden party. He sings praises of the cool fellow, who can sing “in seven tunes” and is a master in cracking jokes. Karākūz agrees and falls asleep. ʿAywāẓ and al-Afyūnī arrive at the garden first. They smoke opium, sing, and have a good time before dosing off. Karākūz comes, drunk, and begins to beat them up. The two wake up and ask why he is beating them, to which Karākūz answers: “I am drunk, my brain tells me to knock you guys off.” 2.4.3 Resource Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele 36–43. 2.5 al-Ḥammām, The Bathhouse 2.5.1 Introduction The bathhouse appears to be a staple subject in Arabic shadow theatre. This Beirut version has its own local flavor and plot twists. There are versions from Damascus and Aleppo as well (see below). 2.5.2 Synopsis Karākūz invites ʿAywāẓ to accompany him to the bathhouse, to which the latter agrees and asks which one to visit so he can prepare. Karākūz names a few, all are names of real bathhouses in Damascus and Beirut at the time, and decides 7  For example, the Tunisian play Hindāwī (Quedenfeldt, Das Turkische schattenspiel 923), and the Libyan play al- Ḥashshāshī (Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 113–9).

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on one, which is “somewhere on earth.” They arrive at the door. The bathhouse attendant asks whether they have brought the “must have stuff” for bathing. The list includes: water, fire, a blanket, a long stick, a hood, a rod, ten loaves of bread, a dagger, and an armor. To each item ʿAywāẓ answers yes. Karākūz, stunned, asks why? The bathhouse attendant says: You must bring in water, because the bathhouse has none. You must bring your own fire to heat it. The blanket is to cover the naked body – the bathhouse is just too cold. The long stick is to remove spider webs on the walls. The hood (al-ʿabūwa bi-jirās)8 is to catch rats and the rod (nabbūt al-shūm) is to drive away cicadas. You need the bread to feed the canines so they won’t bite you. As for the dagger and armor, they are absolutely necessary: four thieves are taking residence in the bathhouse currently. Karākūz says, I am going to bathe in the lake. 2.5.3 Resource Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele 44–9. 2.6 al-Sahra, The Evening Party 2.6.1 Introduction A similar version was found in Aleppo (published by Qaṭāya in Arabic), known as al-ʿAzīma, or “The banquet.” The two versions are only slightly different in the beginning. 2.6.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ tries to disinvite Karākūz to an evening party at a friend’s house. Karākūz insists that he really wants to go. Reluctantly, ʿAywāẓ caves in, on the condition that he himself goes first and Karākūz may catch him up later. When Karākūz arrives, he tells the house servant that he is a friend of ʿAywāẓ, who in turn denies knowing him at all. The host orders to bring out a stick and kick the party crasher, Karākūz, out. 2.6.3 Resources Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele 50–5. Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 61–8. 2.7 al-Khashabāt, Pieces (or A Cargo) of Wood 2.7.1 Introduction This play depicts everyday life in a quasi-realistic way and seems to have been very popular on account of the widely circulated variants in the Levant. The 8  Literally, “a hood with rings.”

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basic premise resembles al-Ḥarīrī’s Damascene Maqāma, about a conman’s (the narrator’s sidekick Abū Zayd in disguise) tale that involves some failed cargo delivery. In addition to the Lebanese version, Littmann also reported a production in Jerusalem. An Aleppo version was published by Qaṭāya, whose main source was Maestro M. Marʿī al-Dabbāgh (d. 1973), the last working shadow master in the city of Aleppo. Qaṭāya also consulted gramophone records made in the 1930s, performed by Maestro Muḥammad Shaykh ʿAlī. Kayyāl recorded a Damascene version. 2.7.2 Synopsis Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ are unemployed. A broker named Āshū (Qashqū in Aleppo version, also a cast member) offers to help. The job is to transport a cargo, or shipment, of wood pieces to the coastal town Antioch, and they will be paid upon delivery. The duo comes up with a plan to con the naïve broker and the chandler. In a series of tricks, they demand advance payments and deposits, usually ten cents apiece, for the wood pieces that never arrive. They always find excuses for the delay. At one point, ʿAywāẓ claims that Karākūz is dead and asks to borrow a full lira, a huge amount for him, for the expensive burial. ʿAywāẓ takes the money and disappears. Karākūz shows up in front of the astonished Āshū. When asked whether he is dead or alive, Karākūz replies that indeed he is dead, but the tailor-made corpse cloth is too small for his size, as it is perfect for none but ʿAywāẓ. Since the duo shares everything, they will rotate the role in death: Karākūz will serve “the summer term” of death and ʿAywāẓ “the winter term.” The broker Āshū is left wondering, “Huh, guess one dies at any time as he pleases.” 2.7.3 Resources Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele 56–63 (manuscript from Beirut), 64–7 (a summary of the Jerusalem version). Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 130–4. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 63–8. 3

Syria, Damascus

3.1 al-ʿĀshiq wa-l-maʿshūq, Lovers of Amasia 3.1.1 Introduction This elaborate Damascene shadow play features a Christian woman as the leading lady. Unlike the Copt women portrayed in the Egyptian repertoire, ʿAlam and Loretta, that were presented as somehow cunning and manipulative, the

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female protagonist in this Syrian play is depicted entirely in positive lights – free spirited, kind (to human and animals), and devoted to love. The storyline is of the concept-driven chaste romance type, with a clumsy ending: the doomed couple only met once while alive, and never spoke a word to each other; all the communications are delivered through songs in absence.9 Visually attractive highlights, such as the young lady riding on horseback, the wildlife on the mountaintop, street parades, and funerals, enhance the appeal of the play. A significant number of songs are mostly of the conventional topoi, of love and yearning. The dialogue is typical of the Syrian Karākūzāt comic type. 3.1.2 Synopsis The play is divided to two parts. In the beginning of part 1, Karākūz (spelled as Qarākūz in the edition) complains to ʿAywāẓ (spelled as ʿĪwāẓ) about the tiresome mountain trekking routes they are taking. ʿAywāẓ tells him this is Mt. Amasia, and beyond it is the town where the beautiful daughter of the Abbot of the monastery (ṣāḥib al-dayra) resides. The next scene shows the young lady, Sitt Shīrīn, begs the mother to allow her go hunting in the mountains. The mother advises the daughter stay home and play with her jewelries and diamonds. The daughter says she would rather run on the mountaintops and befriend wild animals. Carrying a falcon, mounted on the horse, she roams on the hills, chasing a gazelle. Karākūz tries to catch the falcon and is knocked down by the bird; he flees in pain. A young man, Dālī Faraḥāt, comes down from the mountain; he picks up the falcon and returns the bird to Shīrīn. Stricken by her beauty, he is frozen in place, speechless. Shīrīn runs away. Falling hard, Faraḥāt speaks to a matchmaker, Umm Shukrdum, about his interest. Shīrīn, on her part, is also smitten. Umm Shukrdum talks to the lady’s mother about the young man, “a prince of the princes of all Syria.” Shīrīn’s mother reveals that there have been so many suitors for her daughter’s hand, but all have gone away empty handed because her husband, the community leader, insists on one thing in lieu of the dowry: that the groom-to-be must cut open the high mountain to build a channel for the sake of the people in town. After the initial shock, Faraḥāt agrees to the demand, asking the marital contract to be drafted. In the meantime, Karākūz, ʿAywāẓ, and their families dream of the prospect of having fish “from fresh water” on dinner table. The servant boy al-Mudallal teases them by asking whether they prefer “Islamic water or Christian liquid” 9  Cf. Haddawy (trans.), Arabian Nights 356–415 (The story of Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Bakkar and the slave-girl Shams al-Nahar). For a discussion of the trope “falling in love from afar” in Persian narrative tradition and its impact on the 1001 Nights, see Irwin, Arabian Nights 74–9.

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to go with the fish. Part 1 concludes with Faraḥāt bringing with him a crew, ready to dig in the mountain. Part 2 opens with Karākūz, ʿAywāẓ, and al-Mudallal descending on the town of Amasia, dressed up in colorful costumes as a traveling performing troupe. They are hoping to earn some easy money by performing at the Ramadan festivals and weddings. In the meantime, having accomplished the task of cutting the mountain and building the channel, Faraḥāt sings songs, expressing his happiness for the upcoming wedding. Umm Shukrdum tells him everything is ready, except for the down payment promised to her. Faraḥāt angrily refuses. The matchmaker leaves. She is then pressed by Shīrīn’s mother about the marriage proposal, now that the conditions, of building a mountain canal, have been met. To her surprise, the matchmaker turns against the young man, claiming he is an ill-tempered faith less unworthy rascal. The best way to get rid of the contract is simply announcing the death of her daughter. Upon hearing the news, Faraḥāt is beside himself and dies, heartbroken. Shīrīn is brought over to see for herself. Overwhelmed, she passes away, lying next to his body. Instead of performing at the wedding, Karākūz and his company help dig the tombs of the two lovers. They sing songs, lamenting the tragic ending of a true love story. The play ends with the famous motto: “I saw in this shadow play a great lesson….” 3.1.3 Resources Shafik, A vueltas. Wetzstein, Die Liebenden. 3.2 al-Ḥammām, The Bathhouse (II) 3.2.1 Introduction One of the very few original Arabic texts discovered and made public for the first time by Saussey in the 1930s, this play shows a more sophisticated, or convoluted, storytelling, with a larger cast, of the Syrian Karākūzāt branch. The bathhouse in this play is a microscopical world populated by various types of low-life, the poor, the sick, and the desperate. The saga of the comic and confused duo managing a run-down bathhouse is a cautionary tale of the problems in a society of random morality. In addition to this Damascene version is a rendition from Aleppo, edited by Qaṭāya, based on gramophone records made in the 1930s. The Aleppo version is closer to the Beirut version than to the Damascene version, with a leaner cast (with no sub-story line of Qurayṭim and others) and shorter running time. The text published by Kayyāl is a shortened version, with slight differences, less characters, and reduced plot twists. It has al-Qammīmī in place for al-Mudallal, and bathhouse waxing soap ladies (sing. ballāna) instead of the old female attendants.

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3.2.2 Synopsis Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ plan on a new venture by leasing a bathhouse in town. They pay a visit to the owner, Dazzūn ibn ʿAqbūn. The owner’s mother receives the visitors and calls the son to come down. Dazzūn asks his mother to prepare a slew of things to ready himself for the day: the clothes, the breakfast items, the hookah (al-arkīla), the make-ups, and “two pistols, two daggers, and ten bombs.” “Is he going to war in Moscow or what?” Karākūz quips. The mother turns to another son, Tuffāḥ al-Shalabī, who signs the leasing papers and hands out the keys to the duo. They go to the bathhouse, which has long been shut down, and find inside a gang of former employees – the pageboy al-Mudallal, the hookah guy, and the guardsman Ṭurmān – playing games. After several tries, the new leasers kick the gamblers out. ʿAywāẓ asks Karākūz to wait for the plumber to come and fix the water pipes. While they are chatting, al-Mudallal sneaks into the bathhouse again. Karākūz sits in front of the door and is spooked by the strange sounds coming from inside. He thought the bathhouse were occupied by a ghost, who in fact is al-Mudallal. The pageboy then tricks Karākūz into thinking of him being possessed by the spirit of the ghost. In the struggles, Karākūz breaks the boy’s neck. He complains to ʿAywāẓ, who ridicules him. The plumber comes. He asks questions about the facility, using the common technical terms, which Karākūz fails to understand. After much confusion, the plumber leaves in frustration. Then comes Qurayṭim, the local dandy, who asks for a toilet, using all the fanciful terms, of which Karākūz knows none. He lets the visitor in. When he finally realizes what is happening, it is too late; for he is again being scolded by ʿAywāẓ as the intruder locks himself inside and refuses to come out. Rather, he invites Karākūz to come in so they could “enjoy some intimacy.” Karākūz curses him but remains helpless. All of a sudden Qurayṭim cries for help – a ghost is harassing him. Karākūz reports this to ʿAywāẓ, who is concerned at last. In the meantime, they also hear the loud noise of prayer inside – then a group of Bedouins come out, singing and dancing. Turned out they have been hidden inside the bathhouse all along. Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ begin to suspect the inside work of al-Mudallal, the pageboy. They go to his home and are told by his mother he is in mosque. They come back to the bathhouse and run into alMudallal, who explains that the Bedouins are his cousins who need a place to stay. Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ give the boy a hearty beating, and fire him for good. They also finally drag out the other intruder: Qurayṭim, the dandy. The bathhouse is ready for business. A foul-mouthed old woman comes in, asking to book the entire northern wing (al-īwān). She gets into an argument with Karākūz and strikes him with her cane, hitting him in one eye. Karākūz complains to ʿAywāẓ, who, as always, does not believe his story. The woman

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comes back, Karākūz tells her the northern wing was already rented out. She strikes again, hitting him in the other eye. Karākūz complains to ʿAywāẓ, begging him to return the bathhouse to its owner, “before I lose both eyes.” ʿAywāẓ promises he will choke the old women to death and leaves. Two old women, Umm Shukrdū and Umm ʿAṭāʾ, come in; each of the two claims to have booked the wing, which surprises Karākūz. The old women get into a fist fight among themselves. Karākūz tries to intervene and receives most of the beating. He lies on the floor, motionless. ʿAywāẓ comes back to witness all this. Karākūz vows he will never manage a bathhouse again. He farts toward the bathhouse and flees. 3.2.3 Resources Saussey, Une farce de Karagueuz. Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 81–9. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 57–62. 4

Syria, Aleppo

The thirteen plays from Aleppo published by Qaṭāya in 1977 were of various provenances. As the segment above has amply demonstrated, several of them are evidently variants of the above-mentioned Levantine plays published by Littmann around the turn of the century and the Damascene play edited by Saussey.10 What follows here are descriptions of the plays that are exclusively of the Aleppo provenance. The plays were arranged in the order of their first publication. 4.1 al-Ta‌ʾṣīl, The Origins of Shadow Play 4.1.1 Introduction The rather odd title suggests it was made up, aimed at showing the origins of the Syrian-Levantine shadow theatre through a play-within-a-play scheme. The bulk of the actions were reenacted through ʿAywāẓ’s monologues. A similar, and much shortened, version is found among the Syrian coastal region repertoire published by Ḥijāzī (1994).11 A Damascene version was published 10  The overlaps are: al-ʿAzīma (al-Sahra), al-Ḥammām II (the Damascene version), al-Ḥakīm (al-Afranjūn), al-Khashabāt, and al-Shaḥḥādhīn. They will not be described in separate. 11  It was titled Karakūz wa-ʿAywāẓ. There are some slight differences: (1) the sultan is kinder in the coastal version; (2) it does not feature the character of Shaykh al-Shushtarī; (3) the famous quote is only paraphrased by ʿAywāẓ in his monologue.

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by Kayyāl (1995). The Damascene version does not contain the last segment, of the shaykh and the famous quote about shadow theatre. The play’s indebtment to a Turkish archetype has been pointed out by scholars – another link between the Turkish karagöz and the Arabic khayāl al-ẓill.12 4.1.2 Synopsis Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ reminiscence about the good old days when the latter was a court jester. ʿAywāẓ recalls how he gained the king’s favor with funny jokes and amusing acting, and how things took a turn for the worse when he invited his friend, Karākūz, a failed merchant who had nothing left to do, to join him in a final comic skit. It turned out to be a disaster; and for that he attributes to Karākūz’s “stupidity and silliness.” They argue about who is to blame. Lights off. When the lights are on again, the scene is in the past, a flash-back, when the duo devised a prank on the king, meant to entertain him. Karākūz alerted his partner that the king was not in a good mood, but ʿAywāẓ insisted that he knew how to please the old man. The unprepared king was spooked by the sudden intrusion – a prank orchestrated by the duo. Fuming, he ordered the vizier to behead the two clowns. The vizier tried to persuade the king to show lenience; when refused, he asked for a signed decree before he carried out the execution. The next morning, the king was in a good mood, and asked about his favored jester, ʿAywāẓ, and was informed that he and his partner had been beheaded at his order. The king demanded to bring back the dead or the vizier was to lose his own life. The vizier swirled into a deep despair when his friend Shaykh al-Shushtarī paid a visit. The shaykh promised to rescue the vizier. He asked the vizier to prepare camel leathers and cut off figures of ʿAywāẓ and Karākūz from the painted colorful leathers. He then went to the king and offered to perform a play, through which ʿAywāẓ and Karākūz would come back to life, so the vizier’s life would be spared. The king watched the shadow play, and was glad to see ʿAywāẓ and Karākūz resurrected. But soon he realized it was Shaykh al-Shushtarī who was behind the screen, moved the figures depicting ʿAywāẓ and Karākūz, and spoke in their voices. Confronted by the king, the Shaykh explained that as for the two poor fellows, ʿAywāẓ and Karākūz, you had killed them, and they were gone forever: “I just made up their figures so you may see them alive.” Outraged, the king ordered the Shaykh’s execution. The Shaykh said, “Let me sing a song and then you can kill me.” This song is the time-honored famous couplet-motto (see above, chapter 1):

12  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 7–25.

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In shadow plays lies the great lesson, for anyone who is a truth seeker. Characters and figures come and go, all will fade away; only everlasting is the Mover. 4.1.3 Resources Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 69–80. Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 35–46. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 45–52. 4.2 Luʿbat al-kilāb, A Game of Dogs 4.2.1 Synopsis Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ are bored, so they decide to play a game in which they disguise as dogs and roam around for fun. Each man adopts a dog’s name: as a dog, Karākūz goes by Ḥumūr, or “Donkey,” and ʿAywāẓ the dog would be called Daʿbūl, or “Little Puppy.” They stop at an alley (ṣaqāq = zuqāq) where the door of a house is open. ʿAywāẓ pushes Karākūz to sneak in so they might steal some food. A girl comes out and sees Karākūz, the dog. The mother instructs the girl to shut the door and to get a hook (al-sāmūk) to hang the meat her father just brought home. Karākūz is locked inside and asks ʿAywāẓ to help him out. The housewife sees ʿAywāẓ, the dog, and takes him in. She pampers him and calls him Daʿbūl, “Little Puppy.” Karākūz now tries to sneak back to the house, but is discovered by the housewife, who takes a dislike of him, calling him Ḥumūr, “Donkey.” Karākūz argues he is really a dog. She asks, “Then where is your tail?” “Been cut off.” “Where is your fur?” “Been wiped off.” The housewife kicks him out. 4.2.2 Resource Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 90–6. 4.3 al-Ḥimār, The Donkey 4.3.1 Introduction In Kayyāl’s Damascene version, the play is titled al-Dibs, or “Syrup.” It also adds a plot line with a group of Bedouins getting involved and concludes with a song by the chorus accompanied by a Qānūn-zither. 4.3.2 Synopsis Karākūz intends to travel to Aintab to sell his donkey and use the money to invest in syrup (al-dibs) and grapes business. ʿAywāẓ offers to contribute

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two Syrian liras for a joint enterprise. When Qurayṭim (spelled as Urayṭim in Kayyāl’s edition) passes by, he volunteers a hundred liras to take part in the capital venture. The money, he says, is tucked away in his turban. ʿAywāẓ incites Karākūz to kill Qurayṭim and seize the money. Karākūz refuses. The three discuss the routes; and it turned out none knows how to reach Aintab. At this point, the donkey begins to talk, and says he can lead them to their destination. ʿAywāẓ, bent on revenge, proposes that some of them walk and some of them ride. “Here is my brother Karākūz – let everybody ride on him for an hour, and then he will walk the donkey for another hour.” The donkey, perhaps pitiful for his master, replies, “No, no, everybody rides him for an hour, and then on me for four.” Karākūz says, “I better just walk.” In the Damascene version, it was the chief of the Bedouins who ordered the duo to walk, and ʿAywāẓ says, “Aint’ you going to walk or not, Karākūz? May God blacken your face!” 4.3.3 Resources Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 97–101. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 69–76. 4.4 Biddī kharjiya, Begging for Pocket Money13 4.4.1 Synopsis Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ bet on who can get some quick money from their mothers. ʿAywāẓ has it the easy way – his mother agrees immediately. However, instead of the “Egyptian money” he prefers, she offers Syrian “Ottoman” liras. For that he is ridiculed by his friend. When it is Karākūz’s turn, he is afraid that his mother is “overbearing and abusive.” So ʿAywāẓ coaches him to threaten her with various alarms of hurting himself if she declines to hand him the money. True to form, the plot is backfired. Karākūz ends up being kicked out by his enraged mother. 4.4.2 Resource Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 102–6. 4.5 Gharīb wa-biddū yatajawwaz, A Marriage Proposal14 4.5.1 Introduction A Damascene play titled al-Arnab, or “The rabbit,” is a similar revenge story with a twist. In this version, Karākūz caught ʿAywāẓ’s wife flirt with a young 13  The title, in Syrian dialect, literally means, “I want some pocket money.” 14  The title, in Syrian dialect, literally means, “a stranger wants to get married.”

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man and teamed up with her to reveal her husband’s dishonesty, using a hunted rabbit as a bait. 4.5.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ comes up with the idea of a prank to tease Karākūz’s fidelity. He tells his friend that he has overheard a young lady tell her mother that every time she passes by, she sees a man murmuring, “I am a stranger, and alone. I want to get married, but only lawfully.” ʿAywāẓ dares Karākūz to repeat his prayers, begging for a wife, as the young lady is approaching. Karākūz yields to the temptation. ʿAywāẓ encourages him to improvise, so every time Karākūz paraphrases the wish, he adds more salacious details about his misery and loneness at home. ʿAywāẓ then goes to Karākūz’s house and tells his wife about Karākūz’s suspicious behavior. They go to the place to hear Karākūz crying out, “Woe to me, a stranger, and alone; I want a bride, as my wife Umm Karākūz was beaten to death! …” Karākūz sees ʿAywāẓ and asks him, “Where is the bride-to-be?” ʿAywāẓ says, “What bride-to-be? I thought you were a family man.” Karākūz’s wife steps forward, in disguise as the young lady. She asks Karākūz where his wife is, to that he replies, “Drop dead.” The wife unveils herself and threatens to beat him with a shoe. Karākūz flees and hides in the chimney, and is spotted by his daughter. The wife drags Karākūz down and kicks him out. 4.5.3 Resource Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 107–14. 4.6 Ajīr al-ḥalawānī, The Candyman’s Help 4.6.1 Introduction A similar Damascene version, a play titled al-Laḥm, “Meat,” has meat, instead of candy, for the bait. 4.6.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ tells Karākūz that in the marketplace he overheard two ladies talking about the leftovers from last night’s dinner party one of them hosted for the other. The hostess said that there were seven plates of sweets and she has asked the Candyman Ramaḍān Bey to dispatch a delivery boy to bring them back to the shop. ʿAywāẓ suggests the duo pretend to be the Candyman and his delivery boy, Rajab, and grab the sweets for themselves. They come to the hostess’s house and ask for the seven plates of leftover sweets. However, Karākūz forgets the names of the delivery boy and his boss. Then he must come up

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with an explanation as to why she has never seen them before. Finally, Karākūz comes clean and, for the first time, turns the table on the perennial plotter, ʿAywāẓ. 4.6.3 Resources Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 125–9. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 187–96. 4.7 Ibn al-Turk, The Son of a Turk 4.7.1 Introduction The premise and plot, of language barrier between Arabs and Turks, is similar to that of a Damascene play, Ghuristān, or “Orchard.” 4.7.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ asks Karākūz to take care of his watermelon ( jabas) orchard while he is away for dinner. He teaches him several Turkish words to use on the job. Soon a Turk comes to buy watermelons, and Karākūz uses all the Turkish words wrong. The Turk is insulted and beats Karākūz badly. When ʿAywāẓ comes back, Karākūz tells him that things went very well, and he even received a big tip while speaking the “right” Turkish words. So ʿAywāẓ uses the same expressions next time he deals with a Turk customer and ends up being beaten to near death. 4.7.3 Resources Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 135–43. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 181–6. 4.8 al-Shayṭān, Satan 4.8.1 Synopsis The play begins with Karākūz’s wife complaining about her husband’s wetting habit. Karākūz in turn blames his wife. At night, when they go to sleep, a Satan comes to Karākūz’s dream, ordering him to pee in the bed. At first Karākūz refuses; but every time he goes back to sleep, the Satan returns to his dream to haunt him, and lure him with food and soap. Finally, Karākūz wets again in the bed. When the wife wakes up, he explains that a Satan visited him in the dream and ordered him to pee. The wife says, “He better brought some soap.” “Yes, he did.” It becomes clear that the Satan is no one but ʿAywāẓ in disguise, who has just pulled off another trick to prank his friend.

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4.8.2 Resource Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ 144–8. 5

Syria, the Coastal Region

Ḥusayn Salīm Ḥijāzī’s 1994 book on shadow plays of the Syrian coastal region is a cumulation of the author’s decades long research of the traditional Syrian-Levantine shadow theatre repertoire. According to Ḥijāzī’s own statement, at his disposal was a collection of some sixty shadow plays ( faṣl) originally in the possession of the shadow master known as al-muʿallim Abū ʿAbd al-Laṭīf. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Ḥijāzī published four plays in the Damascene magazine Theatre Life (Majallat al-ḥayāt al-masraḥiyya). The 1994 anthology publishes nine more (one overlap). The edited Syrian coastal region plays published in this anthology are significantly longer than the parallels, or similar versions, from Beirut (Littmann), Aleppo (Qaṭāya), and Damascus (Kayyāl). They belong to the type of “long play” by Ḥijāzī’s definition, namely a play whose performance time exceeds two hours, as oppose to a “short play,” with no more than three characters and runs within one hour.15 As regards the rationale to include this group of relatively later texts in the present handbook, the cut-out time of which was set around 1900, an argument can be made that a trend of turning old comic shadow skits into fulllength plays was witnessed in Syrian shadow theatre during early 1900s. As the examples cited above demonstrate, the newer compositions of the early- and mid-twentieth century could have originated from older base scripts that date back to the nineteenth century and earlier. For that reason, and in light of the dearth of reported primary materials from Syria, brief descriptions of these plays from Syrian coastal region are to be presented in the following pages. It is clear that these texts in question were more crafted, with convoluted storylines and an expanded large cast. They also shed light on seldom exposed aspects about the plays, the performers and the audience. Thanks to its sole provenance, all the plays were arranged in a sequence designed by one shadow master, Abū ʿAbd al-Laṭīf. Sixty or more in number, they were supposed to be performed in the order of this sequence. In addition to the usual banter between Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ, their interactions with the real-life performer, Maestro Abū ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, whom they refer to as “our shadow master,” were recorded as well. All are formulaic: each play opens with a generic zajal song, 15  Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 27–8.

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by ʿAywāẓ, and concludes with a punchline, often delivered by Karakūz. Stage instructions, along with Maestro Abū ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s presence, embedded in Karakūz’s and ʿAywāẓ’s speech (songs and dialogues) were supplied throughout. The audience reactions, either scripted or recorded, are also included. More often than not, the audience sided with the underdog, Karakūz. Judging from the scripts in their current state, the spectators participated in some acts, lending their voices to the high drama. Each play ends with a reminder of next night’s show. Noticeable also are a number of overlaps with the Syrian plays described by Kayyāl, with different titles and slightly varied contents – another evidence of a shared Syrian and Levantine pool of original materials. 5.1 al-ʿUrs (or ʿUrs Karakūz), The Wedding 5.1.1 Introduction Two versions exist. In Kayyāl’s script, the young woman is called “the girl (albint),” which was a fixed cast member of the Damascene repertoire. Persian names were added in the Coastal version. Supporting characters include: al-Afyūnī and Khimkhim. 5.1.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ is approached by a beautiful young lady named Kisrawān (Chosroe in Persian; a man’s name), who solicits his opinions about every part of her body. After a few rounds of implicit sexual innuendo, ʿAywāẓ eagerly proposes to the young lady. She says there is just one problem: her widowed and overbearing mother, al-Ḥājja Fātiqa, insists on marrying the daughter off only after she, the mother, finds a new husband for herself. ʿAywāẓ cuts a deal with Karakūz, who in turn falls in love head to toe, after hearing the mother’s enchanting singing behind the wall. So, the two friends will marry mother and daughter, as the plan goes. Karakūz urges ʿAywāẓ to hasten things up. On the wedding night, the bride-and-mother-in-law-to-be unveils herself as utterly unpresentable.16 Then Karakūz’s wife gets into a fight with this new co-wife, who beats the groom-tobe so bad that he runs for cover. In the meantime, ʿAywāẓ rushes to his young bride and the two consummate the nuptial right on the spot. Karakūz, fleeing from his “bride,” walks in on them, and beats ʿAywāẓ nearly to death. When ʿAywāẓ wakes up, he sings a song about lessons learned through his saga.

16  This is reminiscent of the infamous wedding scene in Ibn Dāniyāl’s Ṭayf al-Khayāl, when the bride, a grandmother carrying a crying baby, unveils herself.

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5.1.3 Resources Ḥijāzī, Faṣl al-ʿUrs. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 159–67. 5.2 Karākūzān wa-ʿAywāẓān, Two Karakūzes and Two ʿAywāẓes 5.2.1 Synopsis The play centers around a scheme set up by two strangers who claim to be Karakūz and ʿAywāẓ. A series of events arise due to confusions resulting from mistaken identities of two Karakūzes and two ʿAywāẓes, one real and one fake. Supporting characters include the spouses of the real Karakūz and ʿAywāẓ, the community elder man Abū al-Shabāb Bakrī Muṣṭafā, Āshū Aghā, Ezra the Jew, Ṭurmān, al-Mudallal, the doctor Hudhād, and a robber and his victim. This play was published for the second time (edited) in 1994. 5.2.2 Resources Ḥijāzī, Faṣl Karkūzān wa-ʿAywāẓān. Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 385–433. 5.3 Ḥajjī Babā, The Pilgrim Haji Baba 5.3.1 Synopsis A Sufi Derwish named Ḥajjī Babā is about to take on a pilgrimage journey. On the eve of departure, ʿAywāẓ invites him to stay with him, but the Derwish insists on sleeping outside, next to ʿAywāẓ’s house. A bandit, al-Muqaddim Ward, and his associate come and steal the Derwish’s horse carriage. When the Derwish wakes up, he accuses ʿAywāẓ of the crime, to which ʿAywāẓ vehemently denies. He enlists his friend Karakūz to help exonerate him. Karakūz unleashes a dog to follow the traces of the thief and catches him. Karakūz, who is carrying a gun, shoots the thug to death. After that, the bandit Ward’s associate drives the horse carriage and comes by. Karakūz shoots him dead, too. He brings the horse carriage back to ʿAywāẓ’s place. ʿAywāẓ now believes Karakūz to be the culprit of the whole plot and encourages him to keep the booty. Karakūz refuses and returns the carriage to the Derwish. However, under ʿAywāẓ’s constant pressure, he changes his mind. He goes home, picks up a sword, and kills the Derwish. ʿAywāẓ threatens to take him to the community elderly Abū al-Shabāb Bakrī Muṣṭafā for the crime committed. Karakūz is left with his wife to lament the unpredictable turns of events, “He who kills, walks in front of the funeral of the dead.” 5.3.2 Resource Ḥijāzī, Faṣl Ḥajjī Babā.

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5.4 Ḥamātī shālālūb (or shililib), O Mother-in-Law, Blah Blah Blah … 5.4.1 Introduction The similarity between the play and the anonymous medieval French tale, La Farce de Maitre Pathelin, and a medieval Arab anecdote has been pointed out by some scholars.17 The basic premise is a man mimicking animal barking to avoid paying debt. In the Damascene version published by Kayyāl, the gibberish is spelled shililib, which also closes the play. 5.4.2 Synopsis Karakūz is under enormous pressure from his demanding wife and his menacing mother-in-law. The women blame him being a good-for-nothing, and the wife often beats him relentlessly. Karakūz results in borrowing some money, with the help of ʿAywāẓ, to buy house items to please the women. However, when the debt collector comes, he has to hide in a big jar in the house. Finally, he is caught, but all he manages to do is utter a gibberish, “shālālūb (or shililib)!” Neighborhood deal makers such as Abū al-Shabāb Bakrī Muṣṭafā and Āshū Aghā try to intervene but to no avail. Giving up, they let him go. ʿAywāẓ comments that, at last, he has learned a thing or two from Karakūz. 5.4.3 Resources Ḥijāzī, Faṣl Shālālūb. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 121–33. 5.5 Jahannam, Hell 5.5.1 Synopsis Karakūz tells ʿAywāẓ that he is sick. ʿAywāẓ believes he is just faking illness to avoid work and to take advantage of a friend’s sympathy. He comes up with a plan to prank him. He advises his beau to hypnotize himself so the illnesses will be alleviated. At first, Karakūz dreams of scenes that resemble paradise and relates all what he sees to his amazed friend, who in turn alludes to the dark side of nightmares. Karakūz begins to dream of horrific fires in the hell, and all the bad things, to the amusement of ʿAywāẓ. ʿAywāẓ asks him, “What did you see?” “Your father, and his beard gets burned!” ʿAywāẓ gives Karakūz another slap on the head. 5.5.2 Resource Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 47–66. 17  Saʿd, Khayāl al-ẓill 239–40. For the Arabic anecdote, related to one Abū al-Ḥasan, see Ṣidqī, al-Masraḥ fī al-ʿuṣūr al-wusṭā 178–9.

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5.6 Ṭurra wa-naqsh, A Game of Tossing Coins 5.6.1 Synopsis The game of tossing coins was popular in the region. The ṭurra is the face of a coin, with pictures and figures, and the naqsh is the back of a coin, with inscriptions and logos. The play centers around Karakūz’s and ʿAywāẓ’s game with a Franc coin. ʿAywāẓ cheats on Karakūz, who is often confused with the exact side he is betting on. Enraged, Karakūz tosses ʿAywāẓ in the air like a coin, which lands face down in his own courtyard, surprising his wife and daughter. 5.6.2 Resource Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 67–101. 5.7 Sandarliyya, The Chandelier 5.7.1 Introduction This long play with a convoluted storyline is about a chandelier, a symbol of fantastic wealth unreachable to the majority of society. A remarkable shadow figure of a chandelier was in the shadow figures collection of the Museum of Traditions, Aleppo (see above, chapter 4). The base story grew into several spinoffs. A similar version, titled Sarāyat ʿAywāẓ, or “The mansion ʿAywāẓ built,” was included in Kayyāl’s Muʿjam anthology. In this version, it was his wife’s complaints about other women guests’ showing off of their wealth at a wedding – jewelries, diamond, and golden necklets, of which she had none – that prompted ʿAywāẓ to build a make-believe mansion, only to be robbed once the thieves get the word. The new mansion’s owner has also acquired a fancier name, with a Persian flavor: ʿAywāẓ Shalabīzādā, and a new status: ṣāḥib al-ṣandirlāya, “the owner of a chandelier.” 5.7.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ decides to tear his house down and build a new mansion. He speaks to various people about the project: Karakūz, his wife, al-Mudallal, who lands on his head while making the entrance to the stage,18 and Ṭurmān, who in turn lands on Karakūz’s head on his way in. The wife reluctantly agrees, with one condition: the new house must have a chandelier “that has never been seen elsewhere.” In the next scene, a mansion is erected in front of ʿAywāẓ’s house, with a chandelier on the ceiling. Karakūz passes by and is stunned by the chandelier. He knocks on the door. A black servant, Sunbul,19 shows him 18  Per the instructions given in the script, characters often fly in and out, instead of walking. 19  The servant’s name is Jawhar, or “Jewel,” in Kayyāl’s version. The word chandelier is spelled al-ṣandirlāya.

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around, while hitting him on the head with a stick every time he points to a new feature of the magnificent edifice. Karakūz’s mother-in-law comes to visit, sees the chandelier with envy, and ridicules her son-in-law, who in her eyes is a good-for-nothing. Karakūz then gets into a fight with ʿAywāẓ, who brags about his wealth but refuses to give away any. They fight when policemen, alMuqaddim Ward and al-Muqaddim Saʿd, come to intervene. Karakūz enlists a simple-minded street thug named Shabnīkū to steal “from the mansion with the chandelier.” Shabnīkū sneaks into the mansion and is confronted by a cat, a dog, among other obstacles in his way. The ensuing scenes show the opulence of the mansion; and Shabnīkū and Karakūz are mesmerized. They are caught by the police, who end up joining them in robbing jars of gold from the storage room. ʿAywāẓ calls the police and accuses a passerby, Āshū Aghā. In the end, everyone is let go free. Karakūz dances a victory lap, and chants “all life long, Karakūz lives in palaces (al-sarāyā)!” ʿAywāẓ announces, “Now, the end of the Play of the Palace (Faṣl al-Sarāyā).” 5.7.3 Resources Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 103–68. Kayyāl, Muʿjam 77–84. 5.8 al-Awanṭa, The Deception20 5.8.1 Synopsis Karakūz borrowed one hundred liras from ʿAywāẓ but now denies ever having received the full amount and therefore refuses to pay the loan back. Both accuse the other of cheating. ʿAywāẓ seeks the mediation of the community elderly Abū al-Shabāb, who dispatches Āshū to investigate. Karakūz pretends to be the honest and pious one, claiming he is leaving for the pilgrimage journey, and therefore gains the arbitrator’s trust to the chagrin of ʿAywāẓ, the usually wining and more sophisticated one. Supporting characters include Karakūz’s wife, three policemen, al-Muqaddim Ward, al-Muqaddim Dirk, and Kharṭū. A donkey named Karrash also appears in one scene. 5.8.2 Resource Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 169–233.

20  From the Turkish avanta, “swindle, trickery, deceit.”

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5.9 al-ʿIfrīt, The Devil 5.9.1 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ tells Karakūz that he had a dream where he saw a black crow attack a white dove.21 While the two are talking about the legendary Monster of the Seashores (ʿifrīt al-sawāḥil), the seven-headed Fādūs, the real Monster emerges and swallows them, one by one. Several characters meet the same fate, and they are: Qurayṭim, Ezra the Jew, a young man named Darnizāda, and his lover Shahriyār.22 Back home, Karakūz’s wife and son and ʿAywāẓ’s wife and daughter are looking for the men who have not returned. They ask the pageboy alMudallal to go find his masters. Al-Mudallal runs into the Monster, too. He plays with the Monster, jumping over Monster’s body. Every time the Monster grabs him, he manages to slip away from his fingertips. Eventually, the Monster swallows the young boy in his huge belly, where all the others are sitting still. The boy is able to flee through the Monster’s anus, thanks to his small stature. He goes to ʿAywāẓ’s and Karakūz’s houses and tells the families the whereabouts of their loved ones and promises the rescue. He goes back to the Monster and is swallowed by him again. Inside, he begins to execute the plans. He pocks the Monster’s throat to make him vomit. The first to let go is Shahriyār; she gives al-Mudallal a kiss on the cheek, upon his request, and is spewed out. Next to be spitted out is Danirzāda. When it is the turn of Ezra the Jew, his long beard gets stuck, and has to be pulled out by Karrash, the donkey. Qurayṭim and ʿAywāẓ also have made it out the same way. Finally, Karakūz manages to get out, after more twists and turns. 5.9.2 Resource Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 235–308. 5.10 al-Māristān, The Asylum 5.10.1 Introduction This is another shadow play that deals with the topic of insanity, featuring a mental hospital.23 The extensive literary inferences are also seen in the marriage of human and sea creature and the episode of the Syrian seashore monster and his archrival, Karakūz ibn Baṭnān. In the Damascene version (Kayyāl’s edition), the title is al-Majānīn, or “The mad,” with a slightly different cast

21  This is also a recurrent trope from the 1001 Nights; see Haddawy (trans.), The Arabian Nights 509, 511. 22  For a discussion of the cross-gender naming scheme witnessed in some Syrian coastal shadow plays, see above, the beginning of this chapter. 23  Cf. The Egyptian play ʿAlam; see above, chapter 8.

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(the daughter is called Darnīzāda; Urayṭim, namely Qurayṭim, replaces alMudallal) and much leaner storyline, without the episode of the Sea Monster. The seven-headed sea monster Fādūs and his three associates, al-Khayrqān, ʿAfīsha, and Kalbūn, are recurrent figures in war-themed shadow skits which usually were performed as the finale of an evening’s show. 5.10.2 Synopsis After a night of partying, ʿAywāẓ wakes up the next morning and goes to visit Karakūz. He tells his friend about his recent dream, where a lovely dove was attacked by three black falcons (for this recurrent trope, see above, note 21). They visit the sorcerer, Thurayyā al-Ḥamrāʾ, or “Red Pleiades,” al-Mudallal’s mother, for consultation, with the knowledge that al-Qamariyya, or “Moon Lady,” the mother of the ancient King Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan, is staying with her. When ʿAywāẓ is relaying his dream, he begins to hear a voice, telling him that his daughter, Miʿwaẓa, will be kidnapped by three monsters to a faraway land. Scared, ʿAywāẓ calls al-Qamariyya for help. Lady al-Qamariyya, who hovers over the screen, instructs him to “leave your daughter in a castle, guarded by her uncle, Karakūz ibn Baṭnān.” ʿAywāẓ delivers his daughter to Karakūz and proposes to marry her off to Karakūz’s son. The daughter stays in her new home; then three monster-like men force their way in and seize the girl. Karakūz panics and calls on all for help, but none – al-Mudallal, ʿAywāẓ’s wife, and Karakūz’s wife – believe in his, and ʿAywāẓ’s, story. They send him to a mental hospital. The hospital ward Abū ʿAlī ties Karakūz with a pig. Karakūz cites days of the week, an old trick, to prove his sanity,24 but is given the shock therapy, a knocking on the head, anyway. The anxious ʿAywāẓ comes to check on Karakūz, and they talk and dose off. Half-asleep, Karakūz sees Miʿwaẓa’s head pop up from the underground. She tells Karakūz that three demons took her to the sevenheaded Seashore Monster Fādūs, to be married off to Monster’s son Mirwasī. And the sea creatures ask for her uncle Karakūz’ head as dowry. She then disappears before Karakūz wakes up. ʿAywāẓ was doubtful of the story and is now convinced that Karakūz is indeed insane. The two get into a fight. With the cheers from the audience, the ward releases Karakūz, and ties ʿAywāẓ to a pig, to be treated for insanity. The pageboy al-Mudallal comes and argues with the menacing hospital ward. In the fight, he grabs the latter’s two testicles and squeezes one after 24  Counting weekdays as a proof of one’s sanity is a trope seen in the 1001 Nights; cf. Haddawy (trans.), Sinbad and othe stories 224 (The story of Qamar al-Zaman). The episode also resembles that of the Egyptian play ʿAlam, when the protagonist does the same to prove his sanity; see above, chapter 8.

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another. The last scene shows the pageboy flashing his butt toward the mental hospital with an utterance: “Insanity comes in all forms (al-junūn funūn)”; and with a “puff,” the asylum vanishes, along with its stick waving menacing ward. 5.10.3 Resources Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 309–83 Kayyāl, Muʿjam 197–204. 5.11 al-Wazīr al-khāʾin, The Traitor Vizier 5.11.1 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ and Karakūz talk about the crisis that is looming on the horizon: The King is about to take on a pilgrimage journey, while his vizier is plotting to seize the beautiful Queen for himself. The two retreat from the limelight, and watch the events unfold. The vizier has failed at several attempts, with the help of his bodyguard Masʿūd and the old lady in waiting al-Ḥājja Fātiqa, to seduce the Queen. The Queen, who is pregnant, has remained loyal to her husband and finally renounces the vizier’s conspiracy when he falsely declares the death of the King on the journey. Frustrated, the vizier has forged documents to accuse the Queen of treason and orders General al-Muqaddim Ward to escort her out of the palace. The sympathetic general gives the Queen fifty golden liras and urges her to take on the pilgrimage journey to catch her husband. The Queen escapes the palace, and along the way, gives birth to a baby inside a grotto. A gazelle approaches and cares for the baby. Finally, the King returns from the Hejaz and is surprised to learn that the Queen is no longer in the palace. The vizier continues to conceal the truth, while the King goes hunting. In the wildness, his hunting dog catches the sight of a gazelle, who in turn leads King’s entourage to the cave, where the Queen and the royal boy are. Overjoyed, they return home safely. Karakūz and ʿAywāẓ come back to the stage, celebrating the triumph of the King and the royal family. At one point, Karakūz places the vizier in the mouth of a canon, and shoots the man out of the screen, chanting an old saying, “What goes around comes around.”25 Supporting characters include: Jawhar, the Queen’s bodyguard; two other viziers; al-Afyūnī, and Khimkhim. 5.11.2 Resource Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill 435–544. 25  mithl mā bi-tadūs bi-tandās, literally, “like the way you trample, you will be trampled.”

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Other Syrian Plays

Kayyāl’s Muʿjam anthology contains twenty-three Syrian-Levantine shadow plays, collected during the 1950s. Among these, more than half are similar to the plays from various regions and published earlier, on account of the main content, but different in title and details. They were documented alongside these plays earlier in this chapter. The remainder titles might divert from the known plays in significant ways, but many of them still demonstrate an affinity with the old materials. For the record, the remainder eleven plays are presented here, each with a brief introduction and summary. 6.1

Sarāyat ʿAywāẓ, The Mansion ʿAywāẓ Built

6.2 Sarāyat Karkūz, The Mansion Karkūz Built 6.2.1 Introduction These two plays form another episode of the fantasy mansion-themed shadow play series. At the center is a chandelier, a symbol of wealth and status. Titled Sarāyat ʿAywāẓ, or “The mansion ʿAywāẓ built,” and Sarāyat Karkūz, or “The mansion Karkūz built,” they follow up the known grand sarāya-palace themed plays discusses earlier, such as “The chandelier” and others. They are on a long line of this theme-and-variants sequence, of the grandiose dreams and crushing failures due to the comic duo’s miscalculations and mismanagements. The play Sarāyat ʿAywāẓ is basically the same as “The chandelier” (cf. above), whereas the Sarāyat Karkūz has a new storyline, which is to be summarized in the following pages. This play features a character who is a Persian pilgrim, and another character, the master of a performing troupe who only speaks Turkish. Language humor, another staple element, delivers the comic relief. 6.2.2 Synopsis The play begins with a stranger riding on a donkey knocking on Karkūz’s door. He tells Karkūz that he is a pilgrim from Khurasan on his way to the Hejaz and asks to stay at his house for the night. Karkūz beats him up, telling him to go away. ʿAywāẓ passes by and intervenes and advises his friend to let the uninvited guest stay. The Persian (ʿajamī) reveals he has money and is willing to spend it along the way. Karkūz’s wife is happy to host a visitor with a deep pocket. She prepares a lavish meal and hands the husband a knife, so the guest can cut the meat. Karkūz has never used the knife to savor a meat dish himself (“wish every day a visitor came by, so the wife would cook us some good food!”)

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and in confusion slips the knife and kills the Persian pilgrim by incident. He uses the money left by the dead to build a dream mansion. ʿAywāẓ comes back and is shocked to find a mansion erect. In front of the mansion is his proud friend, against whom he thought he has just pulled off a prank. The owner of the new mansion, now wishing to be known as Karkūz Aghā, or “Sir. Karkūz,” feels like entitled for a rich man’s life. He dispatches ʿAywāẓ to run chores for his new horse racing business. Along the way, he also wants some entertainment. He hires a troupe to perform at the mansion. But the band master is a Turk whose gibberish baffles Karkūz Aghā. During a fight, the irritated host shoots the Turk dead by the gun, which is supposed to be props for the show. Before he flees, Karkūz Aghā laments, “Oh poor Karkūz, doomed to be on the run the entire life – no mansion, and no chandelier!” 6.2.3 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 85–93. 6.3 Saksawān wa-Sharbkān, Two Sisters 6.3.1 Introduction and Synopsis This is a comic farce about love and revenge, with a great deal of forced nudity and scatological jokes. The main characters, the love triangle, all bear Persian names. Dūrnīzādā, the playboy and neighborhood dandy, flirts with Saksawān and Sharbkān, at the same time. The two sisters plan to seek revenge against him. They meet with him for rendezvous, one by one, at the shadow theatre (khaymat Karkūz), where they beat him up and take his clothes away. The young man is left butt-naked and crying. Karkūz comes to work and sees the young man. Angry with the girls, who left a mess in his shadow theatre, he confronts them and is beaten up by them and stripped naked, too. Ashamed, he hides behind the young man, his head stuck between the latter’s thighs. ʿAywāẓ passes by and is delighted to see his friend get himself in trouble, again. To further humiliate the poor fellow, he calls upon the neighborhood dignitaries, Qurayṭim and Bakrī Muṣṭafā, to bring the chaos to an end. All is good, until the elderly asks what kind of clothes should be retrieved from the hidden places. Karkūz declares: “a hundred and fifty shirts, two hundred plus two hundred plus a hundred pullovers (kanza), five hundred pairs of underwear, seven hundred trousers, and fifty turbans, …” Bakrī Muṣṭafā cuts him short, “and … ?!,” to which Karkūz replays, “oh yes a ṭarbūsh-turban, leather shoes, and boots.” He gets one more round of beating.

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6.3.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 95–104. 6.4 Sharʾ al-labaniyya, A Milk Dish26 6.4.1 Introduction and Synopsis This is another variant on the theme of “men camping at a lady’s house” that frequents the Syrian-Levantine repertory. In this telling, the wife of the neighborhood authority figure, Bakrī Muṣṭafā, also goes by Abū al-Shabāb, invites ʿAywāẓ, who carries a bucket of milk, to come over. She promises to cook him a milk dish and the two may spend the evening together. ʿAywāẓ asks about her husband. “He is on a trip to Hurran,” the wife says. Unbeknown to ʿAywāẓ, she also invites a legion of men – the usual cast: al-Mudallal, Qurayṭim, and Karkūz. A peddler is also invited. They bump into each other on their way to the lady’s house. Each has some excuses. The husband comes home and tosses ʿAywāẓ in the air and drops him to the ground, dead. The husband then turns to the wife, who explains that she was just making fun of those men. 6.4.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 111–9. 6.5 Shamm Arīn al-sāḥira, The Witch Shamm Arīn 6.5.1 Synopsis The daughter of Shamm Arīn falls in love with Dūrnīzādā. But the feeling is not mutual. The young woman asks her mother, the witch, for help. The witch casts a spell on the young man, who is transformed to the daughter’s room. But he still does not reciprocate the affection the witch’s daughter has for him. She locks him inside and leaves for the marketplace. The young maiden comes. After listening to the young man’s complaint, she, who also possesses magic power, turns the daughter to a she-ass once she comes home. The young man and the maiden run away. Karkūz comes and finds the she-ass. He rides on her and comes across ʿAywāẓ. The witch appears to her daughter’s rescue. She casts a spell on Karkūz, who morphs into a donkey. The witch mounts on him for a ride. ʿAywāẓ, who always knows his friend’s secret, kicks the donkey for fun. Through their conversation, the witch realizes the identity of ʿAywāẓ and turns him into a donkey, too. Other usual cast members, al-Mudallal and Qurayṭim, 26  The etymology of the word sharʾ is unclear. In the text, a colloquial term sharʾa is used to denote “a piece of …” (Kayyāl, Muʿjam 111, note 139).

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come to ride on the “donkeys.” The witch takes a pity on them and turns ʿAywāẓ back to human form. The daughter, perhaps finally coming to the realization that love cannot be forced, asks the mother to show mercy and release Karkūz from the magic spell as well. 6.5.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 135–42. 6.6 Ṣūfyā, Sofia 6.6.1 Synopsis The beautiful Sofia and her lover, Dūrnīzādā, briefly meet. Sofia tells the young man that she cannot stay long because her mother, a famous midwife, is dispatching her to check on a pregnant woman. If the woman is about to labor, she must rush back to tell the mother get ready for making house call, which usually will last two days. When the mother is away, Sofia promises, then they will have plenty of time together. Karkūz, the perennial womanizer, who has long had an eye on Sofia, decides to sabotage the young lovers’ plan. He solicits the help of his friend ʿAywāẓ to lure the mother away, and brings Sofia to his own house to check up on “a woman about to labor” – to the dismay of Sofia and the surprise of his own wife, the “pregnant woman.” 6.6.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 143–8. 6.7 al-Ṭāḥūn, The Mill 6.7.1 Introduction and Synopsis The plot and visual appeal of this play is the installation and operation of an old mill. Karkūz’s wife asks the husband to set up a mill, which she inherited from her family, so he can run a business as a miller. A passer-by young woman flirts with Karkūz, while ʿAywāẓ steals the mill. A slew of neighborhood friends, including Ṭurmān, the strong man (at one point they use his erect phallus in lieu of a pole to grind the mill stone), and others are involved. Their wives also engage themselves in the chaotic process. They try to install and operate the mill and it turns out to be an arduous nightmare. Everybody involved gets injured. Karkūz comforts them by claiming that he will anoint them with the blood of lizard, which the folklore believes will ease the pain. At the end of the day, the mill is still left idle.

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6.7.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 149–57. 6.8 al-ʿUmla ḍirāṭ, Money is Gone with the Wind27 6.8.1 Introduction In this unusual play, instead of being the perennial bottom of the joke, Karkūz becomes an unsung hero who confronts the authority figure, the bey, with profanity laced outburst. The confusion over and the abuse of Ottoman and colonial Franc currencies is a recurrent theme seen in several Syrian plays. 6.8.2 Synopsis Fisherman Abū ʿAlī and his wife struggle to put food on the table for their children. Karkūz and ʿAywāẓ offer to help with their own ulterior motives. They promise to provide the family with provision in exchange for the fish the fisherman may catch. But Abū ʿAlī goes to the bey’s house to sell the fish instead, in the hope to earn some cash. However, every time the bey takes the fish, he gives the fisher man a loud “pfff (ṭizz)!” in lieu of paying anything. After a riot at the marketplace, where townspeople are confused with this new form of “currency,” Karkūz petitions to have an audience with the bey. The bey wonders what is Karkūz’s business regarding the five fish he took from the fisherman, paid for by five utterences of “ṭizz …” Karkūz replies: It is he that the bey owes the debt, the real money; and he is damn mad, “ṭizz!” 6.8.3 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 169–80. 6.9 Mawt Karkūz, the Death of Karkūz 6.9.1 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ runs into a snake while walking and is spooked. The snake tells him she is not men’s enemy and has been misunderstood. Plus, her bite is really not a big deal – simply apply lizard’s blood on the wound, one will be cured. She comes to town only to play with people for fun. ʿAywāẓ brings the snake, in a bag, to prank Karkūz, who is first tricked, and then uses the snake to play on the young pageboy, al-Mudallal. Angered, al-Mudallal plots to instigate a fight 27  Literally, “the money (vowelled el-ʿimle in edition) is just a fart,” or “the payment is made of a puff,” in reference to the interjection of “ṭizz (or ṭuzz)” uttered by the bey to avoid paying for the fish he stole.

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between Karkūz and ʿAywāẓ. In the fight, Karkūz rides on ʿAywāẓ’s shoulders and falls to his death. At the funeral, townspeople realize that with Karkūz gone, no one is left to run the shadow theatre (khayma). Karkūz resurrects to the cheer of all. 6.9.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 205–12. 6.10 al-Mawtā, The Dead 6.10.1 Synopsis Karkūz and ʿAywāẓ overhear two thieves talk about their plan to rob townspeople and kill them. Scared, they decide the better way to escape is to lie on the ground, pretending to be dead. A slew of the usual cast, al-Mudallal, Dūrnīzādā, the unnamed girl (al-bint), and the Aghā pass by and comic moments ensue. At the end, the Aghā curses the “dead.” 6.10.2 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 213–9. 6.11 al-Wazz (al-wuzz), The Goose 6.11.1 Introduction “A dinner promised yet never eaten” has been a time-honored trope in classical Arabic literature since Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī’s (d. 1007) al-Maqāma al-Maḍīriyya, or “The tale of the Maḍīr dish,” when a talkative host exhausts every guest’s patience with hilarious digressions about the meal that is never to be. In this Ottoman era shadow play version, the desired-and-never-to-be feast is a goose banquet. The storyline, of wildlife, food, and a rebellious wife, also resembles that of the earlier Egyptian play known as ʿAjāʾib al-barr, or “Wonders of the land,” as well (cf. above, chapter 8). 6.11.2 Synopsis ʿAywāẓ runs into Abū Ḥusayn the hunter, who has just caught a goose. He fancies about throwing a goose-meat banquet to show off his hospitality but is only willing to pay the hunter a barghūt, an Ottoman penny, for the goose. He also asks the hunter for more. He comes home to instruct the wife get ready to cook a lavish goose dinner, describing all the stuffing and trimmings he has in mind about the meal, “just like the way you do with chicken.” Incredulous, the wife replies, “Since when have you brought home a chicken for dinner, you good-for-nothing!?” ʿAywāẓ invites everyone in the café for the treat: the usual cast, who also bring their wives. The hunter never shows up, while the host’s

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wife flirts with one of the guests, the handsome playboy Dūrnīzādā. Karkūz kidnaps the young man so he can get a chance to be alone with ʿAywāẓ’s wife, thinking also of the goose meal all for himself. When all is revealed, Karkūz brings in a boy with a metal club. ʿAywāẓ flees, with a broken leg. 6.11.3 Resource Kayyāl, Muʿjam 221–31.

chapter 11

North African Plays Despite the intense interest, or perhaps largely curious gazing, from the West, scholarly documentation of original materials of North African Arabic shadow theatre has not been made public until the late 1950s. Reasonably complete texts are to be found in Hoenerbach’s anthology, which covers only one region: Libya. Our knowledge of the shadow theatre scenes in Algeria and Tunisia prior to the turn of the century is still limited to the fragmentary synopses provided by Georg Jacob, Max Quedenfeldt, Otto Spies, and Kurt Levy.1 Morocco remains a lacuna. In this chapter all the available materials will be presented. They are roughly in the order of their publication. 1

The Maghreb: Tunisia and Algeria

1.1 al-Urjūḥa, The Swing 1.1.1 Introduction and Synopsis Jacob called attention to a play called Luʿbat (laʿbet in Tunisian pronunciation) al-Urjūḥa, or “The swing,” seen in Tunisia and made the comparison to a similar Turkish karagöz act of Slincak. In this play, Karākūz tries to make some money by charging a fee for anyone who wants to ride on his swing. The comic moments arise when an old lady falls off the swing, and a soldier refuses to pay. Karākūz ends up being beaten badly. Similar scene is depicted in Charles-Théodore Frère’s now iconic oil painting published in 1840 (Fig. 2; also see above, chapter 1). 1.1.2 Resource Jacob, Geschichte des Schattentheaters 135–6. 1.2 Hindāwī, The Indian Man 1.2.1 Introduction and Synopsis Quedenfeldt’s ethnographical work yielded eyewitness accounts of two shadow plays he saw in Tunisia. The first, Luʿbat Hindāwī, or “The Indian man,” is a variant of the Turkish Orta Uyunu staple trope of “men stalking a damsel in 1  Summaries of five plays (after Quedenfeldt, Spies, and Levy) are to be found in Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 76–85.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_012

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distress at a house.” In this version, Karākūz kidnaps a lady, who sings beautifully, from the hands of Hindāwī at a garden party. A legion of men flock to his house, where the lady is kept, for the rescue. They consist of the usual members of the cast: a servant, al-Afyūnī, or “The opium addict,” a mute, an African (al-Zinjī), a Maltese, and an Algerian. The latter manages to get into the house and drag Karākūz out. Finally, a monster comes for revenge against the kidnaper Karākūz, who supposedly holds out inside the house. Unbeknown to him, he attacks the Algerian instead. 1.2.2 Resources Quedenfeldt, Schattenspiel im Magrib 922–3. Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 76–8. 1.3 al-ʿArūsa, The Bride 1.3.1 Introduction and Synopsis The second play Quedenfeldt reported is Laʿbat al-ʿarūsa, or “The bride.” Karākūz tells his friend Ḥājīwān (who replaces ʿAywāẓ in North African repertoire)2 that he is out of luck in life, reduced to sleeping alone at night in the company of a lame donkey. Ḥājīwān offers to marry his daughter off to his friend. On the wedding night, the daughter gives birth to a boy who is talkative from the moment he comes to this world. The baby nags his father, Karākūz, to get him a bride immediately. The father shakes the talking baby so severely that the baby urinates on him. Disgusted, he throws the baby on the ground and kills him instantly. Panicked, Ḥājīwān and Karākūz try to cover up, but the daughter discovers the truth. She calls upon the neighbors who take Karākūz to the court. 1.3.2 Resources Quedenfeldt, Schattenspiel im Magrib 923–4. Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 78–80. 1.4 al-Qariṣ, The Citron 1.4.1 Introduction The Luʿbat al-qariṣ, or “The citron,” is one of the four Tunisian shadow plays documented by Spies with a summary, selected dialogues in transliteration (no 2  The North African branch seemed to adhere to the original Turkish elements closer than the Syrian counterpart: compare Ḥājīwān (North African)/Hacivat (Turkish, originally Haci Ayvad) with ʿAywāẓ (Syrian); and in Libya, the cast of Shilbī/Çelebi (another Turkish cast member), often replaces the usual sidekick ʿAywāẓ.

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Arabic text), and German translation.3 Similar scenes, of resurrection and the rite of mourners striping in public, were also reported by Paul Arène in his travelogue Vingt jours en Tunisie, and found in the Egyptian shadow play Abū Jaʿfar (see above, chapter 8).4 1.4.2 Synopsis In Spies’ synopsis, the play is of two acts. In act one, Karākūz attempts to seize the season’s harvest, lemon, from the orchard owned by Ḥājīwān, but now leased to a citron dealer. He ends up being killed during a fight. In act two, Karākūz resurrects from death during his funeral. He erects in the coffin, strikes the mourners with a stick, and forces them to strip in front of the public. 1.4.3 Resources Spies, Tunesisches Schattentheater 697–8. Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 80. 1.5

Ṣayd al-ḥūta, A Fishing Tale

1.6 al-Markab fī al-biḥār, A Fishing Boat on the Sea 1.6.1 Introduction The two plays, Luʿbat ṣayd al-ḥūta, or “A fishing tale,” and the Luʿbat al-markab fī al-biḥār, or “A fishing boat on the sea,” are related. It is also similar to the script of a Tunisian shadow play edited by Kurt Levy, titled Luʿbat al-ḥūta, or “A fishing tale.” In this version, a man, supposedly Karākūz, and his black servant named Masʿūd fight on a fishing trip. The latter deliberately rocks the boat, causing the fish to flee.5 What follows here are variants sprung from a basic plot. 1.6.2 Synopses The Luʿbat ṣayd al-ḥūta, or “A fishing tale,” is described by Spies in three acts. The premise is that Karākūz, who is not allowed to be on board of the fishing boat owned by Ḥājīwān, attempts to go fishing. But things do not work out. The two fight. The Luʿbat al-markab fī al-biḥār, or “A fishing boat on the sea,” also consists of three acts, with an added sub-plot, in which Karākūz tries to bribe a black fisherman, who rents the boat from Ḥājīwān. He promises the latter a larger share of the fish caught. The back-and-forth arguments and fights among the three lead to a violent end. 3  The lexicon definition of qariṣ is “nettle” (Spies, “zitronen”). 4  Also see Landau, Arab theatre 42–3. 5  Also see, Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 82–3; Landau, Arab theatre 44–5.

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1.6.3 Resources Spies, Tunesisches Schattentheater 698–700. Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 83–5. Levy, Laʿbät Elhōtä. 1.7 al-Ḥammām, The Bathhouse 1.7.1 Introduction and Synopsis In this North African version of the bathhouse story, which Spies reported to have staged in the historical city of al-Qayrawān (Kairuan), Karākūz and Ḥājīwān open a bathhouse for business. Karākūz tries to sneak into the bathhouse when it is scheduled on the day for women and is turned away by Ḥājīwān’s wife. However, she allows other men to come in, men of all kinds: Arab, Indian, Maltese, and even a Jew. She hangs their clothes one by one and lets them roam free. When Karākūz comes around the second time, he is denied entrance again. Outraged, he calls the police to report the prostitution activities in the bathhouse – or “whorehouse,” as he calls. But when the law enforcement men arrive, all is resolved, with laughter and comic relief. 1.7.2 Resources Spies, Tunesisches Schattentheater 700–1. Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 80–1. 2 Libya The ten short plays published by Hoenerbach were based on his field notes after the shadow master (al-mukhāyil) Muḥammad al-Wasṭī, known as ʿammī al-Wasṭī, of Tripoli. In Hoenerbach’s view, the repertoire stemmed from the shared pool of stock of the neighboring Algeria and Tunisia. The Libyan plays also distinguish themselves with a tweak in the cast, in that Ḥājīwān is replaced by another cast member, Shilbī (Çelebi in the Turkish Karagöz theatre). The Arabic texts of several plays were prepared by ʿAbdallāh al-Būṣīrī and published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The transliteration was based on the Libyan pronunciation and spelling in Hoenerbach’s edition. It has been adjusted to the MSA convention in this handbook. 2.1 al-Ḥashshāshī, The Hashish Smoker 2.1.1 Introduction The play is similar to the “Hindāwī” from Tunisia (similar scenes of an untitled play were also reported in Algeria). The North African version also resembles

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the Turkish Orta Uyunu trope, of a gang of incapable and thuggish men trying to rescue a damsel in distress. A cast of routine characters appear in supporting roles. 2.1.2 Synopsis Al-Shilbī (who replaces Ḥājīwān in the Libyan repertoire) and his wife, alShilbiyya, are in the garden, where the husband enjoys wife’s beautiful singing. Karākūz tries to crash the party and is being turned away twice. On the third try, he manages to be alone with the wife and kidnaps her. A legion of men flock to his house for rescue. They include: a Bedouin from al-Tarhūna; a Maltese; a man named Kālūz; a man from Jirba; a man from al-Ghariyān; and a hashish smoker from Tunisia named Ghāmbūr Mastūr. It seemed that all are under the influence of drugs and are incoherently stoned. Finally, Bābā Khawānib, “The Cleanser,” whose role is lifting all the puppets and closing the show, goes in and takes al-Shilbī’s wife out. 2.1.3 Resources Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 87–95. al-Būṣīrī, Luʿbat al-ḥashshāshī. 2.2 al-ʿArūsa, The Bride 2.2.1 Introduction and Synopsis This is a variant of the Tunisian play with the same title. In the Libyan version, al-Shilbī’s daughter, Minnāna, gives birth to a boy on the eve of her wedding night. The boy begins to talk outrageous gibberish,6 and the bride asks the groom, Karākūz, to shut the baby up. A Bedouin from al-Tarhūna shows up, inquiring about the baby. He reveals that he is the father of the newborn and grabs him. Ghāmbūr, the hashish smoker, comes and tries to help Karākūz wrestle down the Bedouin and take the baby back. In the chaos, the baby is incidentally killed by Karākūz. At this moment, Kālūz, the wife’s brother, comes in and mistakenly tells Karākūz that the baby is with his mother, who in turn denies it. Kālūz gives Karākūz a bad beating till Bābā Khawānib intervenes. All that is well ends well. Supporting characters include a maid and a midwife. 2.2.2 Resources Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 97–101. al-Būṣīrī, Luʿbat al-ʿarūsa. 6  This episode is similar to Ibn Dāniyāl’s infant fatale in the play Ṭayf al-Khayāl.

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2.3 al-Sāniya, The Orchard7 2.3.1 Introduction The play is about a labor dispute in the orchard managed by the comic duo Karākūz and Ḥājīwān. It is similar to the Tunisian play “The citron.” A snake makes appearance as well. 2.3.2 Synopsis The play starts when Karākūz and al-Shilbī argue over the division of responsibility between the two in running a co-owned orchard. Al-Shilbī calls upon two black farmers, Barka and his cousin Masʿūd. When Barka comes, he bargains with Karākūz over pay and invites his cousin to join him in labor. But Karākūz is not satisfied with their work and refuses to pay. He says he must wait till the trees the two planted bear fruits. A fight erupts. Barka runs away. Eventually, al-Shilbī has managed to get lemon trees, fruits trees, and vegetables planted. Al-Shilbī and Karākūz discuss about hiring a guard, should he be a city man or a Bedouin? Al-Shilbī prefers a Bedouin, and calls one from al-Tarhūn for the task. When al-Shilbī is away, Karākūz chats with the Bedouin and is shocked to learn that he has “ten daughters, fourteen sons, nine camels, fifty sheep, forty goats, four cows, four donkeys, four dogs, and a horse.” As for the pay, Karākūz proposes a wrestling duel: only if the Bedouin wins will he get paid. The Bedouin is killed by incident during the match, and Karākūz flees the scene. Al-Shilbī comes back and finds the dead body. He drags the corpse near the door of Karākūz’s house. Karākūz returns the favor by moving the body to al-Shilbī’s place. The two confront each other and decide to drop the dead body in the mid distance between the two houses, with the blessing of Bābā Khawānib.8 2.3.3 Resources Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 103–11. al-Būṣīrī, Luʿbat al-Sāniya.

7  The classical Arabic lexicon definition of sāniya is “water scoop”; Hoenerbach rendered the title as “Das Spiel vom Garten.” 8  The episode, of tossing a deadbody around in the neighborhood, resembles the base plot of a tale from the 1001 Nights; see Haddawy (trans.), Arabian Nights 248–356 (The story of the hunchback).

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2.4 al-Ḥammām, The Bathhouse 2.4.1 Introduction The premise of this Libyan bathhouse-themed shadow play is similar to the Tunisian rendition, only with differences in localized details and flavors. 2.4.2 Synopsis Ḥājīwān, who now goes by al-Shilbī, and Karākūz co-own and run a bathhouse. Al-Shilbī entrusts his wife, al-Shilbiyya, to manage the bathhouse on the days reserved for women. Karākūz visits the bathhouse deliberately on these days and is turned away by al-Shilbiyya repeatedly. In the meanwhile, she allows a slew of men to come in. They include: the hashish smoker Ghāmbūr; the man from al-Ghariyān; an Egyptian; a masked black dancer Bū Saʿdiyya; and a Jew named Abraham. Karākūz tries in different guises, as a flower peddler and a tomato seller, but to no avail. He accuses al-Shilbiyya of running a prostitution ring and blames the Jew of stealing. Al-Shilbī comes back, and beats Karākūz for his mishaps. Bābā Khawānib shows up and puts everything under control. A chameleon makes appearance as well. 2.4.3 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 113–9. 2.5 (Fallūkat) al-Ḥawwāt, The Fishing [Boat] 2.5.1 Introduction The boatman’s tale shares the common plotlines with the Tunisian play, Laʿbat al-ḥūta, or “A fishing tale,” published by Levy. 2.5.2 Synopsis The Libyan version consists of four acts. In act one, Ḥājīwān, now goes by al-Shilbī, buys a boat from an old fisherman for thirty pounds. In act two, al-Shilbī and Karākūz fight over the price paid as co-investors. They reach an agreement to share all the fish caught. The next act, which is similar to the Tunisian play, presents the fisherman, Bāsa Ghūffa, and his black slave boy, Ibrāhīm, on the boat, perhaps hired by the pair. The slave boy, who holds a grudge against his master, shakes the boat violently, sabotaging the fisherman’s attempts. The final act has al-Shilbī and Karākūz on the boat. Al-Shilbī catches a big fish and lays it between him and Karākūz, per the agreement of sharing. However, everyone around has an eye on the unattended fish; they are: a cat, the hashish smoker, the masked black dancer, Bū Saʿdiyya, the Bedouin from

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al-Tarhūna, and the fisherman’s slave boy Ibrāhīm. They get into a fight. The masked dancer takes the fish. Karākūz accuses al-Shilbī of stealing and beats him. As always, Bābā Khawānib arrives and all is fine. 2.5.3 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 121–7. 2.6 al-Kātib, The Clerk 2.6.1 Synopsis Karākūz has earned some money by gambling and feels entitled to lead a rich man’s life. He asks al-Shilbī to find him a clerk, who is good at writing, cooking, and preparing tea. Al-Shilbī and the hashish smoker Ghāmbūr recommend Kalūzā’s son Ibrāhīm al-Bakkūsh, who is mute, one-eyed, and crippled. The clerk starts the job and manages to smash items in Karākūz’s shop and injure the owner. Al-Shilbī admits he is behind all of this, out to avenge against Karākūz for some past offenses. Besides, he says, Bābā Khawānib ordered him to take away Karākūz’s dirty gambling money by all means. The Bedouin from al-Tarhūna also makes a cameo appearance. 2.6.2 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 129–35. 2.7 al-Khābiya, The Magic Jar 2.7.1 Introduction and Synopsis This is a North African version of “Aladdin’s Magic Lamp.” The play begins with a scene of a jar full of gold. In the next scene, Karākūz complains about his poverty. Ḥājīwān, now goes by al-Shilbī, blames it on his friend’s gambling addiction. He shows the magic jar and tells Karākūz to utter the magic spell, “O Manjī!” and he would follow up with “Āmīn, Āmīn …,” then the jar will grant them their wish. On the first try, the Genie (ʿifrīt) of the jar turns al-Shilbī into a sheep. Karākūz takes the sheep to a butcher with an asking price of ten pounds; the butcher only agrees on three. When it comes to Karākūz’s turn, he is turned into a donkey. Once al-Shilbī rides on it, the magic disappears, and both are morphed back to human shape. The two then decide to open the jar, full of gold, and are successful this time. Before they split the gold, al-Shilbī dozes off, leaving Karākūz with the jar. When al-Shilbī wakes up, he fights with Karākūz who refuses to tell him where the jar is located. Al-Shilbī calls upon Bābā Khawānib, while Karākūz flees.

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2.7.2 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 137–42. 2.8 al-Ghūla, The She-Ghoul 2.8.1 Synopsis Al-Shilbī walks alone at night and encounters a she-ghoul. He faints. A road patrol man wakes him up and laughs off his story of running into a she-ghoul. Then Karākūz comes to hear the same story but does not believe it either. All of a sudden, a she-ghoul appears in front of the two. Al-Shilbī faints again while Karākūz runs away. Karākūz relates the story to his friends. Al-Ghariyānī does not believe it until he sees for himself. The hashish smoker doubts it to be a prank by Karākūz. He beats Karākūz up. After Karākūz flees, the she-ghoul appears again – this time to haunt Kalūzā, who blames Karākūz’s prank as well. He asks her true identity and is confirmed that it really is a she-ghoul. Kalūzā falls on the ground, and begs the Egyptian, who passes by, to take him home. 2.8.2 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 143–9. 2.9 al-Qanṭara, The Bridge 2.9.1 Introduction This short skit has all the familiar ingredients and fixed cast of the Libyan repertoire, in which a group of men harass, taunt, or try to help a woman in trouble. This time it is with an unusual twist – a Jew is the main character and he is not the bad guy. 2.9.2 Synopsis The play begins with the Bedouin from al-Tarhūna singing a song at the bridge leading to the marketplace. Al-Shilbī’s wife, al-Shilbiyya, passes by on her way to the marketplace and is told by the Bedouin that she has to pay a fee to cross the bridge. A Jewish merchant, Abraham (Brāhim), comes and tells the lady not to bother with the trip to market. They agree on a purchasing deal at the bridge. But when the Jewish merchant brings his goods, some fabrics, al-Shilbiyya’s dog chases him around and bites him in the leg. She runs after the dog, leaving the money on the street. Karākūz comes by and the Jewish merchant tells him what has happened. Karākūz urges him to go find the lady while he safeguards the goods. Hashish smoker Ghāmbūr stops by asking Karākūz what to do with the fabrics. Karākūz says he will resell them to ladies in town. Ghāmbūr alerts him of the money left on the street. While Karākūz is

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busy picking up the money, Ghāmbūr catches up with the Jewish merchant to return him the goods. Bābā Khawānib comes to close the show. 2.9.3 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 151–5. 2.10 al-Waṣīf al-maksūra rijluhu, The Servant with a Broken Leg 2.10.1 Synopsis Al-Shilbī is in distress – his black servant (lūṣīf = al-waṣīf ) broke his leg this morning while doing chores. Karākūz offers to supply a medicine that will cure the broken leg quickly. The problem is that it is very expensive, and he will not give it to al-Shilbī unless a full payment is made. Al-Shilbī leaves on a trip and puts the broken legged servant on the back of his donkey, led by the Bedouin from al-Tarhūna. Along the way, the donkey buckles, and throws the boy to the ground. Karākūz brings over the medicine, with the help of Kalūzā. The slave boy is cured, but the donkey becomes the source of a new round of contention. All in the presence – the Bedouin, the slave boy, the hashish smoker, Kalūzā, and Karākūz – fight over how to deal with the misbehaving and barking donkey. Bābā Khawānib comes and settles the things for all. 2.10.2 Resource Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater 157–65.

Epilogue

Notes from the Field Arabic Shadow Theatre Today

On July 31, 2015, I attended a shadow show by the Wamḍa, or “Beam of Light,” Puppetry and Shadow Play Troupe in Cairo. It took place at a charming historical building, the seventeenth-century el-Sehemi House (bayt al-suḥaymī), in Cairo’s old town, a stone’s throw from the hustling-and-bustling of the Khān al-Khalīlī bazaar, and right on the corner of the Amīr al-Juyūsh Street, where the Qashshāsh family used to live and perform. By the time the door opened around 7:00 p.m. in a sultry and steamy summer night, jubilant children accompanied by their parents flocked in. The stage is set, with a jamb-TV-size screen and a platform (for the arājūz-puppetry show) in the center. Before show time, the courtyard of the historical house, which has been utilized by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture as a multifunctional performance and education facility, is standing room only (Fig. 15). The evening’s program begins with two “warm up” acts: first, a singing contest, when children in the audience are encouraged to come up to the stage to perform arājūz-puppetry themed jingles. Next a mid-aged magician pulls off his tricks to the delight of the now raucous crowd. The screen is lit up, with a scene of waves in the bottom, houses on the left, and a sun, or moon, in the sky. A fellah appears on the shore of the Nile and sings a song. He is approached by a Sudanese fisherman who complains that his fish has been stolen at night. The villager blames a crocodile and offers to watch over, but at a price. The two argue over the exuberantly high fees. The villager’s attempt at the crocodile ends up having himself been swallowed by the beast. Now the light is off. End of act one. A puppet, known as the arājūz, appears above the platform set next to the screen. A routine number of him jabbing at, and wrestling with, a retired Janissary (al-futuwwa) results in the Arājūz’s promise to salvage the greedy villager who is in the belly of the crocodile. The screen is lit up again. Act two of the shadow play. The villager’s son calls for help. The Sudanese fisherman rushes into his aid. They beg the crocodile for mercy, chanting, “We are all brothers!” And now the audience is also chanting along, “We are all brothers! …,” pleading for mercy. The crocodile finally releases the victim – or rather spits him out of her huge mouth. Boys and girls in the audience join the puppets in dancing and singing.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_013

Notes from the Field

241

figure 15 Audience waiting for a shadow play performance by the Wamḍa Troupe, Cairo (2015)

242

Epilogue

Altogether, the program lasts less than an hour and half, with the featured shadow play, al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile,” taking up nearly twenty minutes, and generating the loudest laughs. There are four performers for the shadow play and the puppetry portion of the program. The blind performer, Ṣābir al-Maṣrī (d. 2019), who sits behind the platform, runs the one-man arājūz show. Three young actors, all graduates from Cairo’s College of Performing Arts, perform the shadow play. They manipulate the figures, speak and sing (one plays the drum as well), all the while providing special effect, such as the sound of the Nile waves, the splashes caused by crocodile’s motions, and so forth (Fig. 16). After the show, I spoke to the performers briefly. One of them, ʿAlī Abū Zayd, who doubled as the drummer, explained to me that Dr. Nabil Bahjat, the founder of the troupe, who was at the time serving as Egypt’s Cultural Attaché in Kuwait, choreographed the show in order to suit today’s audience. This is not only seen in the mixing of different genres, cutting the shadow play short, but also adding songs, along with impromptu interactions with the audience. It is also important to note that the moral of the story, about greed and friendship, is also a modern one, compared with the old play, which was in essence about ventures (see above, chapter 8). It is to be noted here that the moral of this modern telling extends to the awareness of environment preservation and a harmony between wild life and humans. The audience reacted positively to the message that the crocodile is not to be hunted, and that all the humans and animals are “brothers” as God’s creatures. During an appointed visit on August 7, 2015, I conducted a brief interview with two members of the group (altogether there are seven). ʿAlī answered my questions about the founding of the troupe and its missions. He told me that they have all learned the arts of shadow play from Dr. Nabil Bahjat, that the process has been greatly facilitated by their passion for this folk art (they did private fundraise before receiving state support), and their background in performance (in college he studied drama direction and acting, for example). I noted that all the three performers I saw did multiple tasking – in speaking, singing, playing the drum, while manipulating the puppets. Their professional theatre performance training must have helped learning the special skills for shadow play. He agreed.1 When asked about their repertoire, he listed twenty-four plays they have staged so far. Three of them are “old”: al-Timsāḥ, or “The crocodile”; Ṭayf al-Khayāl, or “The Phantom”; and ʿAjīb, or “Amazing,” the last two by Ibn 1  The Egyptian newspaper al-Ahrām published an article about the troupe; al-Ahram online, 6–12 March 2008, Issue No. 887, “Theatre of Shadow,” by Amira el-Noshokaty.

Notes from the Field

figure 16 Shadow play performers of the Wamḍa Troupe, Cairo (2015)

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Epilogue

Dāniyāl. I asked him about the way to handle the sexually explicit material of the play, which he called bābat ṭef l-khiyāl. He said they actually kept the original elements intact. In fact, they use Ḥamāda’s edition, which was sanitized already. He did emphasize that teaching “morals and values” through entertainment has always been the central core in adapting and re-working the old material and creating new ones. It is also important, ʿAlī emphasized, to maintain the integrity of performing art in that no recorded music and any artificial sound effects have been used for performances. The troupe has also been actively engaged in after school education programs. Another member, Musṭafā, who was to lead the weekly workshop that day, showed me the registration forms, with participating students’ contact information for future networking, as the outreach program is financed by the Ministry of Culture. The program has attracted a steady flow of students, who come here to learn about the making of shadow figures and performing shadow plays. As I was leaving the place, a group of eager children were already waiting at the door accompanied by their teachers and parents. That night’s performance consisted of the similar combined-program with some changes in form and content; after the singing “warm up,” it started with the arājūz-puppetry show. The Arājūz is flirting with a feisty diva, Mufalfil, or “Spicy,” and gets a sound beating. He calls for police (shāwīsh). And then the puppet morphs into a figure in the shadow play, where he meets Juḥā, the legendary funny man in Arab folklore. The shadow play scenes of Juḥā had no dramatic plot. The show builds upon jibes and rants exchanged between the figures. The skit, which lasted twenty or so minutes, continued the element of the preceding puppetry show, where the Arājūz failed to learn how to count numbers correctly. In the shadow play, the character’s constant errors presented themselves as teaching moments with laughter, and the audience responded enthusiastically. Another teaching moment comes when Juḥā lectures on calendar: days, weeks, months, and years, with deliberately wrong answers and the audience interrupted to correct him on the spot. Again, boys and girls in the audience interacted with the performance in a lively manner, as the children often completed the shadow puppets’ sentences. The evening show concluded with the magician’s act.

appendix 1

Arabic Shadow Plays: an Inventory This inventory lists all the known titles of pre- and early modern Arabic shadow plays. The majority is confirmed by manuscripts and fieldwork reports from all the regions concerned. Tables 1, 3, and 4 tally the titles either published or confirmed. Table 2 contains the Egyptian plays that have been mentioned in various sources, but cannot be verified with textual evidence. They are presented here for future inquiry. To facilitate the reader, the transcribed Arabic titles are arranged in the alphabetic order of English. The tentative translations, all of my own and keep as literal as possible at the expense of erudition, are also attached for quick reference. Of the listed titles, some turned out to be alternate ones of the same plays, still some were spinoffs of long running plays. For example, several early modern short acts, “The builder,” “The café,” “The bathhouse,” and “The theatre,” proved to be spinoffs of the play “ʿAlam and Taʿādīr” (see above, chapter 8). As regards the titles uncounted for, a few could have been stemming from an error in the first place. For example, it has been suggested that the supposedly missing play Liʿb al-Nūbī wa-l-Fārisī, which was first reported by Kern, who described it as a play about the naval battle “between the Nubians and the Persians,” may well be a mix-up with the play “The Lighthouse.”1 In Syrian repertoire, worth noting are some of the overlaps, namely modern plays that share the same storyline with earlier plays but bearing different titles (see above, chapter 10). table 1 Egypt

Title

Translation

Alternate title(s)

Type

Abū Jaʿfar Abū Rizq ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr

Abu Jaʿfar Abu Rizq Wonders of the Nile Amazing and Strange ʿAlam and Taʿādīr

Qūr wa-Qibs

liʿb, riwāya liʿb faṣl

ʿAjīb wa-Gharīb ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr

al-Gharrāf; al-Sarḥa

al-Bayt; al-Dayr

bāba

Publication

*

liʿb, riwāya

1  Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater 102. Saʿd suggested that this might have stemmed from a confusion over the Sudanese/Nubian (al-nūbī) who joined the Egyptians to battle with the invading “foreigners,” referred to as al-aʿjām, a vague term that encompasses a wide range of non-Arab ethnic groups such as Frank (Crusade) and Persian; Saʿd, Khayāl al-ẓill 667.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_014

246 table 1

appendix 1 Egypt (cont.)

Title

Translation

Alternate title(s)

Type

ʿAjāʾib al-barr

al-Qarwash

liʿb

al-Būsṭa al-Dayr

The post The monastery

al-Markab al-awwalānī ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr; al-Dayr

liʿb

al-Bayt

Wonders of the land The Nile watchman The household

al-Gharrāf

Fisherman al-Gharraf Pilgrimage tales The bathhouse War with foreign invaders [The servant boy] Jumʿa Loretta The lighthouse (of Alexandria) The ferry ride The builder Courting Umm Mujbir The Charmed and the Charmer The café The sick man A man from Upper Egypt Shaykh Sumaysim

al-Awwalānī

al-Ḥajjiyya al-Ḥammām Ḥarb al-ʿAjam Jumʿa Lūrata al-Manār al-Markab al-Muhandis Munādamat Umm Mujbir al-Mutayyam wa-l-Yutayyim al-Qahwa al-Rājil al-ʿayyān al-Ṣaʿādī

al-Shaykh Sumaysim Shaykh Wicked al-Shaykh Ṭāliḥ wa-jāriyatuhu al- and his slave girl named Hidden Sirr al-Maknūn Secret

ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr; al-Bayt ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr

al-Manār

Publication

liʿb faṣl liʿb

*

faṣl ṭaqm liʿb liʿb, ṭaqm faṣl

Ḥarb al-ʿAjam; Ṭaqm al-Manāra al-Shūnī

faṣl liʿb, ṭaqm

*

liʿb faṣl maṣṭara

*

bāba

*

liʿb, ṭaqm faṣl faṣl liʿb bāba

*

247

Arabic Shadow Plays: an Inventory table 1

Egypt (cont.)

Title

Translation

Alternate title(s)

Type

al-Sarḥa

ʿAjāʾib al-baḥr

faṣl, ṭaqm

al-Shūnī Ṭayf al-Khayāl al-Timsāḥ

Free roaming (fish) The boating The phantom The crocodile

al-Markab

liʿb bāba liʿb

al-Tiyātrū al-Ṭura‌ʾī

The theatre Road guard

al-Timsāḥ wa-l-Zibrqāsh; Ḥusn ẓannī

Publication

* * *

liʿb faṣl

Major sources: Kahle, Zur Geschichte des arabischen Schattentheaters. Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater. Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel. Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill.

table 2

Egypt (lost plays)

Title

Translation

Reference

al-Ajazjāna al-Antīka (?) Badīʿa al-Bint al-maghṣūba Burghī (?) al-Dhawq al-Faṭāṭirī al-Gharābiṭa al-Ḥaqqāniyya (?) Ḥarb al-Shīn (?) Ḥarb al-Sūdān al-Ḥuṣarī al-ʿIfrīt al-Jazāʾir al-Jazmajī al-Junād

The pharmacy The antique shop A woman named Badia The abused girl

# # # # # # # # # # K, P, T, # # # # # #

The taste The pastry baker The Moroccansa

War in the Sudan The reed mat maker The little devil Algeria (?) The shoemaker The soldiers

248 table 2

appendix 1 Egypt (lost plays) (cont.)

Title

Translation

Reference

al-Junaynār al-jadīd al-Lūkanda al-Madām Rajīn (?) Maḥlūl bayk al-Malik al-ḥājjī al-Muʿallim al-Muṣawwirātī al-Muzayyin (?) Nimrat wāḥid wa-nimrat ithnayn al-Nūbī wa-l-Fārisī al-Rajul al-karīm al-Sarāʾir (?) al-Ṣayyād al-Ṭabbākh al-Tājir wa-awlāduhu al-Thalāthat al-awanṭajiyya Tūtiya (?) ʿUmda al-Wazīr al-khāʾinb Yānī (?), Yanā (?)

The new plane-tree The hotel Madam Rajin (?) Mahlul Bey The king The master The photographer The barber (?) Number one, number two The Nubian and Persian (war) The noble man

# # # # # # # # # K # # P, # # # # # P, # # #

The fisherman The chef The merchant and his sons Three swindlers The mayor The traitor vizier So … ?

Major sources: K = Kern, Das egyptische Schattentheater. P = Prüfer, Ein ägyptisches Schattenspiel. T = Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill. # = PKF, ARC_452. a The word gharbūṭī (sing.) was used in one script as a reference to a Maghribī; T1, pp. 267, 269. b The same title is found in Syrian repertoire (see Table 3 below).

249

Arabic Shadow Plays: an Inventory table 3

Syria and the Levant

Title

Translation

Alternate title

Place

Publication

al-Afranjūn al-Afyūnī Ajīr al-ḥalawānī Amūn ʿĀshiq wa-l-maʿshūq

The foreign [doctor] The opium addict Candyman’s help Madame Amun The lover and the beloved The deception Begging for pocket money Syrups A marriage proposal

al-Ḥakīm

L L Sc L Sd

* * * * *

Sc Sc

* *

al-Ḥimār al-Arnab

L Sa

*

Shililib

Sc Sc

* *

L Sa Sd Sa Sa Sd Sc Sa

* * * * * * * *

L P Sc S

* * * * *

S L

* *

al-Awanṭa Biddī kharjiya al-Dibs Gharīb wa-biddū yatajawwaz Ḥājī Babā Ḥamātī shālālūb al-Ḥammām al-Ḥammām al-Ḥammām II al-Ḥimār Ibn al-Turk al-ʿIfrīt Jaḥannam Karākūzān wa-ʿAywāẓān al-Khashabāt al-Khashabāt II Luʿbat al-kilāb al-Māristān Mawt Karkūz

The pilgrim Mother-in-law, blah blah blah The bathhouse The bathhouse The bathhouse The donkey The son of a Turk The devil Hell Two Karakuzes and two Aywazes Pieces of wood Pieces of wood A game of dogs The asylum The death of Karkuz

al-Mawtā al-Sahra

The dead The evening party

al-Laḥm

al-Dibs al-Ghūristān

al-Majānīn

250 table 3

appendix 1 Syria and the Levant (cont.)

Title

Translation

Saksawān wa-Sharbkān Sarāyat ʿAywāẓ Sarāyat Karkūz al-Shaḥḥādhīn Shamm Arīn al-sāḥira Shandarlīya Sharʾ al-labaniyya al-Shayṭān Ṣūfyā al-Ṭāḥūn al-Ta‌ʾṣīl Ṭurra wa-naqsh al-ʿUmla (el-ʿimle) ḍirāṭ al-ʿUrs al-Wazīr al-khāʾin al-Wazz (al-wuzz)

Alternate title

Place

Publication

Two sisters

S

*

The mansion ʿAywaẓ built The mansion Karkuz built The beggars The witch Shamm Arin The chandelier Sarāyat ʿAywāẓ A milk dish Satan Sofia The mill The origins of shadow play A game of tossing coins Money is gone with the wind The wedding ʿUrs Karākūz The traitor vizier The goose

S

*

S

*

L S

* *

Sc S Sa S S Sa

* * * * * *

Sc

*

S Sc Sc S

* *

P = Palestine L = Lebanon S = Syria Sa = Aleppo Sd = Damascus Sc = Syrian coast Major sources: Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill. Kayyāl, Muʿjam. Littmann, Arabische Schattenspiele. Qaṭāya, Nuṣūṣ.

251

Arabic Shadow Plays: an Inventory table 4

North Africa

Title

Translation

Alternate title

al-ʿArūsa al-ʿArūsa II [Fallūkat] al-ḥawwāt al-Ghūla al-Ḥashshāshī

The bride The bride The fishing [boat]

T L L L L

al-Ḥammām al-Ḥammām II Hindāwī al-Kātib al-Khāniya al-Qanṭara al-Qaris al-Sāniya Ṣayd al-ḥūta

The she-ghoul The hashish smoker The bathhouse The bathhouse The Indian The clerk The magic jar The bridge The citron The orchard A fishing tale

al-Urjūḥa al-Waṣīf al-maksūra rijluhu

The swing The servant with a broken leg

al-Markab fī al-biḥār

A = Algeria T = Tunisia L = Libya Major sources: Hoenerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater. Jacob, Geschichte des Schattentheaters. Quedenfeldt, Schattenspiel im Magrib. Spies, Tunesisches Schattentheater.

Place

T L T L L L T L T T, A L

Publication

appendix 2

Shadow Theatre in Premodern Arabic Poetry What follows here is a sampling of premodern Arabic poetry as a testimonial to shadow theatre and other forms of popular entertainment. Mostly of the Mamluk, and some Ottoman, period, they represent a panoramic overview and artistical presentation of the scenes of shadow theatre and related activities in the past. The verses are divided into two major thematic categories. Taymūr cited many of the poems in question, whereas Moreh selected a few to comment on, with his own translations.1 All translations in the following pages are mine.

1

The Prime Metaphor: God, Reality, and Shadow Play

The Ayyubid poet Sayf al-Dīn al-Mushidd (d. 1258):2 I saw in shadow play a great lesson (aʿẓam ʿibra)3 for the lofty truth seeker ( fī awj al-ḥaqāʾiq rāqī).4 Puppetry characters and voices confront (yukhālif ) one another, acting out (afʿāl) inconsolably.5 They come and go, from one marvel (āya)6 to the next; all will vanish, while the Player (al-mudabbir)7 stays, ever.

1  Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill 78–81; Moreh, The shadow play 51–2. 2  al-Mushidd, Dīwān 118. A slightly varied anonymous version is found in al-Ṣafadī, Ghayth ii, 424; Ibshihī (d. c. 1446), Mustaṭraf ii, 252. Moreh’s reference to Wajīh al-Munāwī, based on al-Kutubī, was a mistake (see: The shadow play 51). Al-Kutubī’s Fawāt al-wafayāt contains an entry on this Mamluk poet, who wrote about a female shadow performer (see above, chapter 6); but this poem was not included. 3  al-Ṣafadī: aʿjab manẓarā, “most marvelous spectacle.” 4  Literally, “a climber onto the peak of the truths”; al-Ṣafadī: fī ʿilm al-ḥaqīqa rāqī; Ibshihī: fī ʿilm al-ḥaqāʾiq rāqī. 5  afʿāl, literally, “[their] acts”; Ibshihī: ashkāl; in al-Ṣafadī, the line reads: shukhūṣ wa-ashkāl y-z-h-r-h (verb form unclear) baʿḍuhā / li-baʿḍ bi-aṣwāt hunāka diqāqi, or “puppetry characters and figures confront (?) / one another; in voices that carry some subtlety.” 6  al-Ṣafadī, Ibshihī: bāba, or “play.” 7  al-Ṣafadī, Ibshihī: al-muḥarrik, or “the mover.”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_015

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Anonymous, via al-Ṣafadī:8 The universe (al-kawn) for me is truly a shadow show (al-khayāl), on account of its outlook (shakl), its generals and specificities. Puppuetry figures appear as if they were speaking; yet the Real Speaker (al-nāṭiq al-faʿʿāl) is not among the characters (shukhūṣihi). The Ottoman poet Aḥmad al-Bayrūtī (? fl. c. late seventeenth century):9 I see this existence (al-wujūd)10 as a shadow play, the Mover being the forgiving Lord. The box (ṣundūq) on the right is Eva’s womb, the tomb is the box on the left side. Aḥmad al-Bayrūtī:11 A shadow play is nothing but a lesson for the inquisitive mind (man iʿtabara). Take my word for it – you will find it worth contemplating (muʿtabara): Life is full of shadow characters (shukhūṣ), as they appear in sight. They come and go, in blink of an eye. The Ottoman poet Aḥmad Ibn ʿArūs (fl. seventeenth century):12 Your world is one full of deceptions, just like the happenings in a shadow play (lāʿibāt al-khayāl). 8  al-Ṣafadī, Ghayth ii, 424. 9  al-Murādī, Silk al-durar i, 132–3, after ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731), who mentioned his encounters with the poet in 1093/1682 and 1105/1693–4 to hear him recite the verses in person. The poem was also quoted in al-Khafājī, Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ i, 163, but anonymously (“by some Syrian poet”). Al-Khafājī also speculated that the original idea (maʿnā) stemmed from Ibn ʿArabī. Moreh (The shadow play 51) repeated Ḥamāda’s mistake (Khayāl al-ẓill 45) that dated this Aḥmad al-Bayrūtī to “the sixth century A.H.,” which is obviously wrong. 10   al-Khafājī, Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ i, 163, has: al-kāʾināt. 11   al-Murādī, Silk al-durar i, 133. 12  Ibn ʿArūs, Dīwān 12–3.

254

appendix 2 Vanished in palaces, were those men who used to be masters. They lied to you, and then threw you to the ocean with no shores in sight. You regret, as none comes to rescue. You are forgotten by them altogether!

The Ottoman poet Shihāb al-Dīn al-Khafājī (d. 1659):13 If the shadow play were truly a life lesson for us, how nice, then, would it soon show prettier vistas than the current ones! Shihāb al-Dīn al-Khafājī:14 It is this world that the shadow play aims at emulating. Destiny drives (yuḥarrik) and designates its plot. If not for the screen already set up, by chance, nothing would be left to entertain, or to enchant. The Ottoman poet al-Nābulusī (d. 1731), in a takhmīs-paraphrase of the famous couplet:15 I saw in shadow play a great lesson, for the lofty truth seeker. On everything, the sword of my determination is unsheathed. The night of ignorance16 is, by the dawn of knowledge, enlightened. All the mankind, after that, would not make me satisfied. Puppetry figures and phantoms come and go, all vanish; the Mover will stay, forever. 13   al-Khafājī, Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ i, 164. 14   al-Khafājī, Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ i, 164. 15   al-Nābulusī, Dīwān al-ḥaqā‌ʾiq 341; al-Murādī, Silk al-durar i, 133. The poem, and a second one (next), are in the chapter under the rubric, “On speculative contemplation of the Existence (al-wujūd).” The takhmīs, literally, “making it pentagonal,” is a device to paraphrase a canonical verse into a five line poem. The original couplet is quoted here in italics. 16  ghaybī, literally, “[my] absence, hiding,” from the light of truth.

Shadow Theatre in Premodern Arabic Poetry

255

al-Nābulusī:17 I saw in shadow play a great lesson, to acquire perfect wisdom. It reveals a sign (āya) of truth, about everything, for the lofty truth seeker. Puppetry figures and phantoms come and go, no safeguard for them, regarding God’s ordinance. They make some movements, then turn idle and silent – all vanish; the Mover will stay, forever.

2

Performance as Illusions Making and Performer as Illusionist

Sayf al-Dīn al-Mushidd:18 Didn’t you swear to God that you don’t care if He went tough on you for what’s been said?! You come wearing a different beard (liḥya) every time, as if you were some shadow player (ṣunnāʿ al-khayāl). The Mamluk poet Muḥammad al-Tilimsānī, known as al-Shābb al-Ẓarīf (d. 1289):19 A shadow player, I am afraid that he will flee – I don’t see him wanting my fancy. I am used to this pang in the heart; so why am I today fearful of a shadow actor. al-Ṣafadī, on a male shadow master:20 I fell hard for a performer (khayālī), whose stature resembles a twig: when it swings, it stirs up the nightingales perching on it. The blade of his piercing gazing makes the admirers bleed; and then, he plays tricks (yukhāyil) on them, one by one.

17   al-Nābulusī, Dīwān al-ḥaqā‌ʾiq 341. 18   al-Mushidd, Dīwān 130. 19   al-Shābb al-Ẓarīf, Dīwān 226–7. 20   al-Ṣafadī, Ghayth ii, 424; al-Nawājī, Ḥalbat al-kumayt 204.

256

appendix 2

al-Ṣafadī:21 Here is a shadow player (mukhāyil), around him signs (makhāyil) of the full moon hover. His plays (bābāt) show you of various fantasy and beauty. His touch (waṣl) feels so real: the finest for anybody ever to imagine! The Mamluk poet Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Qīrāṭī (d. 1379):22 What a player (mukhāyil)! on his cheeks fresh beard (al-ʿidhār) grows; such a beauty, to the eye of beholder; around him signs (makhāyil) hover. Once he saw me content with his shadow show/illusions (qāniʿan bi-khayālihi),23 he let the beard grow black on his face. The Mamluk poet Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, known as Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī (d. 1470–1), on a male shadow player:24 A shadow player (khayālī) – I fell in love with him and sold my limb (wiṣlī) for [his] magic lantern ( fānūs); but he shunned my company (wiṣālī). I persisted, with the hope that the apparition of this shadow player will appear, in a fantasy.25 Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī:26 A shadow master (mukhāyil) – after the tryst, he refused to go sleep. I sang praise songs, on account of his superb skills. I might not always content with the assignation, on top of him; but today, down under, I am pleased with the shadow/illusions (khayāl).27 21   al-Ṣafadī, Ghayth ii, 424. 22   al-Nawājī, Ḥalbat al-kumayt 204. Beardless boy is the stereotypical attraction in Arabic homoerotic poetry. 23  That is, since the poet could not gain intimacy with the performer in person, he would settle for (q-n-ʿ) his performance. This trope, of shadow player as an illusionist, would be borrowed by other Mamluk poets; for example, Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī (see below). 24  Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī, Thalāth rasāil 12. 25  The second hemistich contains a multiple pun of the root kh-y-l; the edition has: … wakuntu arjū / al-khayāl min al-khayāl min al-khayāl. I read the last word as al-khayālī, “shadow player,” instead; it fits the context and makes a better rhyme with the previous line. 26  Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī, Thalāth rasāil 12. 27  For this borrowed trope, see above, note 23.

Shadow Theatre in Premodern Arabic Poetry

257

Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī, on a female shadow player:28 I called upon a lady shadow performer (al-khayāliyya), and soon fell for her. “You have stolen the sleep of the one who has failed to win your intimacy. I would settle for the show (qanūʿan bi-l-khayāl); because in sleep, there is no your touch, nor your apparition (khayāliki).”

28  Ḥijāzī, Thalāth rasāʾil 45. The caption has muḍamminan, namely “with an insersion of other poet’s line.” The original is unknown to me.

appendix 3

The Cast The repertoires of Arab shadow theatre in the Ottoman and early modern era shared a common formula: a fixed cast consisting of two main narrators who tell the story along with a set of stereotypical characters known by nicknames who act out in different roles. While the two-narrator scheme traces back to the Maqāmāt tradition and Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays, the supporting cast with certain fixed types (ethnic, neighborhood, and so forth) was a new trend witnessed in the Ottoman era repertoires. In Egypt, this formula was somehow loosely followed, and the narrators often morph into characters on demand. Whereas in Greater Syria and North Africa, emulating the Turkish Karagöz formula, the cast became uniform with a few, if any, exceptions.1 It consists of the duo of Karākūz and ʿAywāẓ, along with a set of ethnic and neighborhood types.

1 Egypt al-Muqaddim (el-miʾaddem), the presenter, sometimes acts on behalf of male protagonist al-Rikhim, a bodily deformed clown, acquires various personalities, as al-Kābis, Abū al-Qiṭaṭ, or al-Ḥājj Aḥmad al-Ḥāziq, the performer who speaks in a high-pitched voice, sometimes he plays the role of a shadow character (as in the case of the Ottoman version of the play ʿAlam) and interacts with the puppets on screen2 Ḥirdān, or Abū Ḥirdān, a womanizer and clown Qarāmīṭ, or Abū Qarmīṭ, a friend of Ḥirdān, an effeminate figure

2

Syria and the Levant

Karākūz, a simpleton, good-hearted, but short-tempered, has a weakness for young women ʿAywāẓ, a friend and neighbor of Karākūz, more urban and sophisticated; is betteroff financially; oftentimes pranks Karākūz, and falls victim of his own making 1  The cast scheme in Turkish Karagöz theatre was also presented briefly in Zeʾevi, Producing desire 135–7. 2  Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill 36.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_016

The Cast

259

Karākūz’s wife (and occasionally daughter, or son) ʿAywāẓ’s wife (and occasionally daughter, or son) al-Mudallal, the naïve apprentice, the youngest cast Qurayṭim, the dandy, often speaks with an Egyptian accent to show off his sophistication Ṭurmān, a symbol of virility, often appears in the shape of a phallus Abū Bakrī Muṣṭafā, most likely the equivalent of Tuzsuz Deli Bekir in Turkish karagöz, the watchman-bully, and voice of authority Ashū/Qashqū, the thuggish strong man Karrash (or Kurrash), a talking donkey

3

Tunisia and Algeria

Karākūz and his wife, similar to the Syrian mode Ḥājīwān and his wife, similar to the Syrian mode al-Afyūnī, “the opium addict,” a troublemaker al-Hindāwī, an Indian al-ʿArab, a Bedouin al-Zinjī, an African a Jew an Algerian (in Tunisian plays) a Maltese

4 Libya Karākūz and his wife al-Shilbī, replacing Ḥājīwān; after Çelebi in Turkish karagöz, usually a rich dandy al-Shilbiyya, his wife a Maltese a Jew named Abraham a Bedouin from al-Tarhūna a man from Jirba a man from al-Ghariyān Ghāmbūr Mastūr, a hashish smoker from Tunisia Kālūz, a thuggish strong man Bābā Khawānib, “The Cleanser,” who closes the show and lifts all the figures into a box

appendix 4

The Programme of a Layla Celebration Shadow play has long been a part of a larger frame of festival celebrations and entertainment. The early modern adaptation of the play ʿAlam wa-Taʿādīr is, for example, an expanded version with a great deal of add-ups (PKF, ARC_433, ff. 348–50; see above, chapter 9). Among these new elements is the elaborate wedding party that features a Layla celebration which stretches to seventeen days and nights. As a core component of this long running feast, the groom, Taʿādīr, asks the Presenter, who serves as the wedding planner, to book a large number of performers, singers (al-mughannīn), and acrobats “for fourteen nights.”1 What follows here is a translation of the full programme of the celebration. First night: the Ṣirḥajiyya group (al-jamāʿa al-Ṣirḥajiyya).2 Second night: the Sufi dhikr-rite, in the [way of the] Rifāʿiyya Sufi order,3 with drum salutary (daff al-salām). Third night: the Qādiriyya group (al-jamāʿa al- Qādiriyya),4 with a banner show (? ḍarb al-bandīr). (Apparently, the first three nights’ performances were led by Sufi munshidin-singers.) Fourth night: performance by ʿAlī Kāka.5 Fifth night: the country clown (khalbūṣ al-fallāḥīn).6 Sixth night: the Arabian acrobat (ḥāwī ʿArabī).7 Seventh night: Syrians (al-shuwām) “dancing on finger tips and toes.” Eighth night: the “Jewish treasure chest” (kanjī, kaleidoscopic?). Ninth night: “Turkish theatre (tiyāsturā),” acrobatic acts on wires and ropes. Tenth night: “Rural variety show (taqālīʿ baladī),” by Aḥmad al-Fa‌ʾr. Eleventh night: Italian (ifranjī) acrobats. 1  The performers to be booked are: Muḥammad ʿUthmān, ʿAbduh al-Ḥamūlī, Muḥammad Sālim, al-Shaykh Yūsuf al-Minbalāwī, Aḥmad Ṣābir, al-Shaykh Khalīl Muḥarram, al-Shanṭūrī, al-Maslūb, al-Maḥrūqī, al-Shaykh Ramaḍān, al-Shaykh Sayyid al-Ṣafaṭī (?), ʿAbd al-Ḥayy, and Dāwūd; each was to perform one night. 2  The reference is unclear. Judging from the programme, this was likely a Sufi group. 3  One of the most popular Sufi orders; Waugh, Munshidin 218 and passim. 4  One of the most popular Sufi orders; Waugh, Munshidin 218 and passim. 5  An actor who plays various roles, mostly as animals, in Mulid (Mawlid) shows; Moreh, Live theatre 57–9 (citing al-Bustānī, Prüfer). 6  Moreh, Live theatre 77. 7  Snake charmer, juggler, magician, etc.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_017

The Programme of a Layla Celebration

261

Twelfth night: a shadow play (khayāl al-ẓill), titled taḥkum (? or taḥakkum) ʿAlam bakra, or “The virgin ʿAlam rules.” (It is curious that the bride’s story appears here.) Thirteenth night: “Italian variety show (taqālīʿ ifranjī),” with music (tabʿ al-muzīka). Fourteenth night: “Umm al-Shuʿūr slaughters a lamb on the rope,” acrobatic skit (?). Fifteenth night: a showgirl named Minyatī, or “My Dream,” who “dances on the rope like a robot (bi-ṣifat al-ālāt),” acrobat, dancing doll (?).8 Sixteenth night: “Arab theatre,” somersault and dancing on horseback. Seventeenth night: “Impersonating Abū Khalīl al-Qabbānī,” a layla-show by Shaykh Salāmat Ḥijāzī. Finally, the groom gives the instruction, “Hey Presenter, let the variety shows (al-malāʿīb) go first, then the songs (al-aghānī) to follow. The last night is going to be of strictly lawful acts (al-ḥanafī al-sharʿī).”

8  Literally, “like a machine.”

appendix 5

Glossary (Arabic – English) This glossary documents technical terms from sources available: medieval sources (Ibn Dāniyāl’s plays), Ottoman and early modern sources (manuscripts from the Kahle and Taymūr collections), and other materials in world libraries. They are overwhelmingly of Egyptian provenance and far from being comprehensive. Only those directly related to shadow theatre are listed here. The focus was on the terms that could not be found in classical lexicons, or the specific uses that could not be derived from conventional lexical roots. Vowel signs were supplied in the way they appeared in the manuscripts.

‫أ‬ ‫ � ب�و ا �ل��ق�����ط�ط‬

‫�ز‬ ‫ز‬ ‫الاي��ا ر‬, ‫ الا ا ر‬ ‫ �ا ���ة �ا �ا ت‬ � ‫بب ج بب‬ ‫� � �ه�ا ن��ة‬ � ‫بر‬ ‫ ���ل�ق����ة �لا ��ل� ق‬، ‫ ���ل� ق‬ �‫ب ي� ب ي ج� ب ي‬

‫ �م���ا ��ع��ة‬ ‫بي‬ ‫ ا �جل‬ ‫��ا ح�د‬ � ‫ ج �م�ل �ز�ج �ل‬ ‫ن‬ � ‫ ح�ا ج��ي� وا‬ ‫� �ز ق‬ ‫ ا �ل‬ � ِ ‫ح�ا‬ ‫ح�����ة‬ ‫ �ي ل‬ ‫ خ� ��ة‬ ‫ر�ج‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ �رو ج‬ � ‫ خ� ا ف���ة‬ ‫ر‬ ‫�لخ ا ت‬ � �‫ ا ���لي��ل ي‬ ‫�ز‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ �ي���ا ل الا ا ر‬ ‫ظ‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ �ي���ا ل ا �ل����ل‬ �‫ خ�ي���ا ل ا �ل�عر ب‬ ‫خ‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ مخ‬ )�‫� ي���ا ل� (�����ل‬, ‫��اي�ل‬ ‫ي يي‬

nickname of al-Rikhim, Presenter’s sidekick in Ottoman Egyptian repertoire screen; also see ‫ا ر‬

a full shadow play

‫خ����ا الا �ز‬ ‫يل‬

a song type a common vernacular verse type often used in shadow plays bargaining scene at the market place “Infidel,” a non-Muslim character a song cycle (often an act, a scene) Ḥājīwān (Hacivat), Karakūz’s friend, in Libyan plays one of the narrators in Ottoman Egyptian repertoire trick, tactic “taking off,” a song type out of rhythm (in music performance) fantasy story shadow master (Syria) shadow play shadow play shadow play shadow performer

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004436152_018

Glossary (Arabic – English)

‫خ ت‬ �‫ ا �ل�ي���ا لا �ي‬ ‫ خ��م��ة‬ ‫ي‬ ‫خ‬ ‫� �ز‬ ‫ �ي�م��ة ك‬ ‫�را كو‬ ‫�خ ة‬ ‫�خ �خ‬ ‫ د �اي�ل‬،‫ د �ل�� ج� د وا �ل‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ د�ول‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ د وا �ل‬،‫ ج�و� د وا �ل‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ ��د �ل�ل‬،‫ ��د ��لي��ل‬ ‫ د ور‬ ّ ‫ ا لمِ�د ور‬ ��‫ ا خ‬ ‫ِ�لر ِ م‬ ّ ‫ة‬ �� ‫ ر�ي س‬،‫ راي���ي��س‬،��‫ ر�ي��س‬ ‫ ا ��س��ة‬،‫ ئا ��س��ة‬ �‫ري‬ �‫ر‬ ‫ ا ل�م �ّ��س��ة‬ ‫ِري‬ ‫ ق� ص��ة‬ �� �‫ر‬ ‫ا ل �ق‬ ‫�ّق‬ ‫م‬ ، � � � �� �� ‫ر‬ ‫ص‬ ‫ ِ�مر ص‬ ‫�ّق ق �ق‬ �‫ ر ي‬،� ‫ ا ل�ِمر‬ ‫ ��س �م�ا ط��ة‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ا‬ � ‫س‬ ��‫م‬ ‫ط‬ ‫ �م��س��طر� ج� � ر‬ ‫ّز‬ ���‫ ّ��سي‬ ‫ش���خ‬ ‫ ش ����ص‬ ‫ ���خ‬ ‫�و�ص‬ ّ ‫ت‬ ��‫ � ش�����ط‬ ‫ح‬

‫ الا ��س��ت ش�����ه�ا د‬ ّ ‫ �م����ص���مود‬،‫ �صم�د‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ �ص ن���ع��ة‬، ّ‫�ص ن���ا‬ � ‫ �ص�ا �ع ج� � ع‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ ���ن ا � �ص ن���ا‬ ‫ل��� ّع‬ ‫ �صور‬ ‫ض‬ ‫���ة‬ �� � ‫ح �ك‬ ‫�ض� �ا ت‬ � ‫ �ض� رو ب� ج� روب‬،�‫ �ض� ر ب‬

shadow performer (Syria) “tent,” shadow theatre shadow theatre (Syria) a song type music making, singing in tone musicians in the troupe “flirting,” a song trope rhythmic cycle; stanza a singer al-Rikhim, sidekick of the presenter in Ottoman Egyptian repertoire shadow master performing a shadow play shadow theatre a song type “the dancer,” shadow performer tambourine player collection of shadow play songs shadow play skit to hit the right pitch in music performance moving the shadow puppet shadow figures “messing around,” shadow figure dancing (on the screen) author’s witness clause, signature of authorship to set up a beat (rhythm), the beats are set up practitioner(s) of shadow play the art of shadow play making a shadow figure “teasing,” a song type beat, pitch in music performance

263

264

appendix 5

‫�ة‬ ‫ طرد‬ “chasing [a love interest],” a song type ‫ ط����ق‬ a short skit of shadow play ‫م‬ ‫ة‬ “begging, chasing,” a song type �‫ ط�ل� ب‬،���‫ ط��لب‬ )‫ ط�ا ر = (ا �ص��ط�ا ر‬tambourine ّ tambourine player ‫ ا لمِ��طي��ر‬ ‫ظ‬ shadow performer �‫ ا �ل�����لي‬ ‫�ت‬ “contemplating,” a song trope ‫ ا �ع� ب���ا ر‬ “passing through,” a song type ‫ �ع��بور‬ ‫ّ �ة‬ props for the shadow theatre ‫ ع�د‬ ‫خ‬ � “the bride,” female character in a shadow play ‫ �عرو��س ا ل�ي���ا ل‬ ‫ ا ��لت��ع��ل� ق‬screen �‫ي‬ ‫ �ع�� ا �ظ‬ ʿAywāẓ, Karakūz’s sidekick, in Syrian-Levantine and ‫يو‬ َ‫َ م‬ ‫ �ع� �د‬ ‫�غ� �ز �ة‬ ‫ ر‬

‫ ا ل��م�غ� ّ �ز‬ ‫ِر‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ ����ص�ل‬ ‫ �م��ق���ا ���س��ة‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ ا ����ست��ق�����ا ���ة‬ ‫بل‬ ‫م��������ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ ا ����ست��ق�� ب���ا �ل�� � ش ترك‬ ّ ‫ �ِم��ق���د‬ ‫ق م‬ ‫ ���س‬ ‫ق ةم‬ ��‫ �����ط�ع‬ ‫قف‬ ‫ ��������ص‬ ‫ �م��ق����ل ��ة‬ �‫وب‬ ّ‫ق‬ ‫ �م������ل‬ ‫ت قِ ع‬ �‫ ������ا ��لي‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ا � ق ص �ة‬ ‫ ل����و� ر‬ ‫ �م��ق���ا‬ ‫م‬ �‫ ا �ل ك‬ ‫�� با���س‬

North African plays

“pole,” shadow theatre (North Africa) a joke, teasing, an interlude in shadow play performance prankster, joker a short shadow play “arguing,” a song trope opening solo opening duet presenter, the narrator of a shadow play “oath,” a song trope a short song a box, a chest to store shadow puppets “debate,” a song trope a shadow theatre variety shows within a shadow play performance date-basket to hold lamps for shadow play lightening shadow theatre nickname for al-Rikhim, the presenter’s sidekick

Glossary (Arabic – English)

‫ف‬ ‫ ���ن ا �ل �ك‬،‫��د��س‬ ‫ ك‬ ‫��د��س‬ ‫� �ز ت‬ ‫ ك‬ �‫�را كو ا �ي‬ ‫� �ز‬ ‫�رك‬ ‫ ك‬، ‫�و�ز‬ ‫ ك‬ ‫�را كو‬ ‫كا‬ � ‫خل م‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ �ل�ع� ب� ا �ل�ي���ا ل‬، ����‫ �ل�ع ب‬ ّ‫ث‬ ‫ مم���ل‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ � ز� ول‬ ‫ ا ل��ن ص��ة‬،‫ �م��ن ّص��ة‬ ��� ‫��� م‬ ‫ ن���ط ق‬، ‫ �م��ن��ط ق‬ � � ‫ن‬ ���‫ �م��ن ظ‬، ‫ � ظ����ا‬ ‫م ن ق وةم‬ ��‫ �������ط‬

shadow play lyrics (in the vernacular) shadow master (Syria) Karakūz, the Arabized Karagöz, the leading man in shadow play “speech (songs)” in a shadow play, a play a play, a shadow play actor (shadow play and live theatre) “entering, coming out,” a song type stage, a space for shadow play performance diction in performance song, lyrical verse (in classical form) fees, donations (to be collected during, or after, a performance)

265

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ʿAbbasi, ʿA., Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey between the years 1803 and 1807, London 1816. ʿAbd Allāh, I. (et al. eds.), al-Multaqā al-ʿArabī li-funūn al-dumā wa-khayāl al-ẓill: wathāʾiq al-multaqā al-ʿilmī al-ʿArabī li-funūn al-dumā wa-khayāl al-ẓill (10–11 December 2013, Sharjah), Sharjah 2014. ʿAbd Allāh, I. (et al. eds.), al-Multaqā al-ʿArabī li-funūn al-dumā wa-khayāl al-ẓill: wathāʾiq al-multaqā al-ʿilmī al-ʿArabī li-funūn al-ʿarāʾis wa-khayāl al-ẓill: al-dawra al-thāniya (20–25 December 2014, Tūnis), Sharjah 2014. Abou Merqem, N., Le theatre Algerien, in Nouvelle Critique, 112 (1960), 133–7. Abū al-ʿAlāʾ, M., Muḥammad Ibn Dāniyāl al-Mawṣilī: dirāsa mawḍūʿiyya wa-fanniyya, Alexandria 2002. Abū Shanab, ʿĀ ., Masraḥ ʿArabī qadīm: Karakūz, Damascus 1964 (?). Abū Shanab, ʿĀ ., Aḍwāʾ ʿalā masraḥ ʿArabī qadīm: faṣl al-shaḥḥādhīn, in Majallat al-maʿrifa, Damascus, 10 (1970), 287–97. Abū Zayd, ʿA., Tamthīliyyāt khayāl al-ẓill, Cairo 1982. ʿAlī, F.Ḥ., Athar al-sharq fī al-gharb, khāṣṣatan fī al-ʿuṣūr al-wusṭā, Cairo 1946. ʿAlī, F.Ḥ., Qiṣaṣunā al-shaʿbī, Cairo 1947.

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Index ʿAbbāsī, Aḥmad, ḥāfiẓ (scribe) 69, 70, 190, 196 ʿAbd al-Dāʾim, al-Muʿallim 8 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Sayyid Aḥmad (“SA”), scribe-playwight 68–9, 100–1, 146–8, 159, 176, 198 Sayyid ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (son?), scribe 192 ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, Maḥmūd ʿAlī, scribe 78 Abū ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, Sulaymān Ḥājj ʿAbd alLaṭīf, performer 46, 214–5 Abū ʿAffān, poet-playwright 145, 150, 152, 154 Abū al-Khadam, Ḥammād al-ḍarīr, poet-playwright 145 Abū Nuwās 84 Abū Rabīʿ, playwright 193 Abū Ṣayyāḥ (Abou Sayyah), performer 112, 114 Abū Shanab, ʿĀ dil 45, 82, 198, 200 Abū Zayd, ʿAlī Ibrāhīm 48–9 Aḥmad, Abū al-Naṣr, scribe 192 Aḥmad, ʿAqīda al-Darwīsh, poet 150, 153–5 Aḥmad, al-aʿraj, performer 100–1, 143–4, 150, 154, 157 Aḥmad al-Fār (al-Fa‌ʾr), performer 193, 260 Aḥmad, al-rassām, performer 154 Ahmed I, sultan 58 ʿAlī, Fuʾād Ḥasanayn 47 ʿAlī, Muḥammad, shaykh 204 ʿAlī al-Naḥla, poet-playwright 58–71, 73, 90, 143–4, 150, 152, 154, 156, 158–9, 161 Amīn, Aḥmad 28–9 And, Metin 12, 31–2 Arabian Nights (1001 Nights), the 11, 49, 86–7, 90, 165, 192, 195, 199, 220–1, 235, 237 Arène, Paul 16, 232 Aristotle xi, 5 Armenian 18, 23, 84–5, 198, 200 Arslān, Shakīb 22, 27 ʿĀshūr, Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ 49 al-ʿĀyyāshī, ʿAbdallāh 11 al-Azdī 36

Badawi, Muhammad Mustafa 32 al-Badrī, Muḥammad, Sufi singer 173 Bahjat, Nabīl 13, 81, 242–3 al-Bājūrī, Ibrāhīm 11–2  al-Bakhkhāsh, Naʿʿūm 11 Bakhtin 35, 37–8 ban, censorship, prohibition 9, 16, 34–5, 102, 111 Banū Sāsān, the 34, 39, 89, 95, 119, 121–2 See also, guild al-Bārūdī, Fakhrī 110–1 Baybars, sultan 120 al-Bayrūtī, Aḥmad 253 Bosworth, Edmund 39–40 Bouriant, Urbain 150–8 Buturović, Amila 36, 37–8 Carlson, Marvin 33 Ceccato, Rosella D. 40 Champfleury (Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson) 15–6 Christian 9, 143, 170, 194, 204–5 colonial, colonialism xi, 13–4 anti-colonial 16, 23, 30–1, 190–1, 201, 227 Coptic xiv, 19–20, 84, 139, 140–2, 204 Corrao, Francesca 36, 37–8, 40, 55, 80 al-Dabbāgh, Muḥammad Marʿī, performer  82, 113–4, 204 Darwīsh, Samānī (Samani Derwish), scribe  69, 172, 185–6, 188 al-Daywah’chī (al-Dīwahjī), Saʿīd 43, 51 Diʿbil 3–4 Didier, Charles 17 al-Dulaymī, Muḥammad Nāyif 43, 57 Farīd al-Dīn ʿAtṭạ̄r 6 Frère, Charles-Théodore xiv, 13–4, 230 al-Ghazālī 5 al-Ghazzī 11 guild (ṭarīqa), of shadow masters in Cairo  108, 150 code (sīm) 13, 39, 73, 83, 89–92 See also Banū Sāsān 

281

Index Guo, Li xiv, 34–5, 38–40, 92 Guys, Henri 17 Ḥabīb, family of performers, the 45–6, 111 ʿAlī, father 46 Khālid, son 46 al-Ḥakīm, Tawfīq 28 Ḥamāda, Ibrāhīm xiv, 13, 32, 41–2, 48, 56, 244 Ḥassān, performer 186 Hebrew 18, 84 Ḥijāzī, Ḥusayn Salīm 45–6, 114–6, 198, 208–14, 214–22 al-Hilālī, Taqīeddīn (Taqī al-Dīn) 22, 27, 51 al-Ḥillī, Ṣafī al-Dīn 86–7, 127 Hoenerbach, Wilhelm 25, 82, 230–9 Horovitz, Joseph 24 Ḥusayn, Muḥammad Kāmil 43–4, 75, 126–7 Ibn al-ʿArabī 6–7, 149 Ibn ʿArūs, Aḥmad 10–1, 233–4 Ibn Dāniyāl 5–9, 19, 21–2, 24, 27–9, 31–3, 48–50, 73, 75–7, 83–90, 113, 119–27, 166, 172, 185, 215, 234, 242, 258, 262 manuscripts 55–7 music 93–5 performance 103–4, 107–8 studies 33–40, 41–44 Ibn al-Faḥḥām, poet 153–5 Ibn al-Fāriḍ 7, 24, 83, 149 Ibn al-Haytham 5 Ibn Ḥazm 5, 7 Ibn Iyās 8–9, 87 Ibn al-Jawzī 5–6 Ibn Mawlāhum, shadow master 8 Ibn al-Rūmī, Muḥammad, poet 10 Ibn al-Ṣāḥib, Badr al-Dīn 6 Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) 94 Ibn Sūdūn 8, 50 Ibn Taghrībirdī 9, 87 Ibn Ṭūlūn, Muḥammad 10, 76 Ibrāhīm, poet-playwright 66, 146, 159 ʿInānī, Muḥammad Z. 44–6, 74, 173 al-Isḥāqī, ʿAbd al-Bāqī 33, 44, 74, 173 Italian (ifranjī) 170, 195, 260–1 al-Jabartī 10 Jacob, Georg xiv, 13, 18–9, 20–1, 23–4, 31, 34, 71, 81–2, 230

Jaʿfar al-rāqiṣ, “the Dancing Jaʿfar” ix, 4 al-Jammāl, Aḥmad 50 Jaqmaq, sultan 9, 102 Jarīr 3–4 al-Jazzār, Abū al-Ḥusayn 50 Jesus 8, 145, 157 Jewish, Jew 85, 166, 216, 220, 233, 236, 238–9, 259, 260 Juḥā 16, 38, 244 Kahle, Paul x, xi, xiii, 19–22, 25–7, 31–2, 34–7, 39–40, 49–51, 75, 96, 105, 109, 124, 129–30, 148–9, 158, 163–8, 171, 177, 182, 184, 189, 191–3, 196, 262 manuscripts 55–71 shadow figures 77–9 Kayyāl, Munīr 46, 50, 198, 200–4, 206, 209–14, 215–24 Kern, Friedrich 19–20, 75, 108, 110, 130, 148, 161–2, 180, 184–5, 189, 245 al-Khafājī, Shihāb al-Dīn 10, 254 Khalīl, Muḥammad Maḥmūd (Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil) 13 Khalīl, Ashraf, sultan 8 Khamīs ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, performer 25 Kīlānī, Muḥammad Sayyid 110, 148 Krämer, Jörg 56 Lājīn, sultan 120 Landau, Jacob 18, 30 Lane, Edward 17 Levy, Kurt 25, 82, 230, 236 Littmann, Enno 17, 22–3, 39–40, 45, 197–8, 199–204, 208, 214 Lux, Jean 16 al-Maqāmāt 38, 42, 87, 258 illustrations 77–8 al-Hamadhānī 36, 228 al-Ḥarīrī 36, 204 al-Maṣrī, Ṣābir, performer 242 al-Menzaleh (al-Manzala) xiv, 11, 42, 58, 65, 71, 77, 141 Menzel, Theodor 31, 47 el-Merghani, Bahaa, and Said Abu Rayah, puppets makers 81 Monroe, James 34 Moreh, Shmuel 4, 32–3, 74, 252

282 Mudawwakh, ʿUthmān, poet-playwright 152 Muḥammad, ibn Qaytbāy, sultan 9 Muḥammad Jād [ibn] Mūsā, scribe 74 Muḥammad, Ḥasanayn, poet 151 Muḥammad, Munajjid ʿAlī, scribe 182 al-Munāwī, Dāwūd al-ʿAṭṭār, poet-playwright 58–71, 73, 90, 92, 143, 145–6, 152, 156, 158–9, 161, 163, 166–7, 172 al-Munāwī, al-Wajīh 104 al-Musabbiḥī 102–3 al-Mushidd, Sayf al-Dīn 252, 255 music notes, in shadow scripts 31, 83, 89–91, 93–101

Index Rowson, Everett 35, 39 Russel, Alexander 12, 113

al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil 5, 7, 102 Qashshāsh, family of performers, the xi, 65, 67, 69, 99, 140–7, 152, 171, 176, 240 Ḥasan, father 13, 20, 68, 72–3, 77, 90, 110, 142, 146, 159–60, 180, 183 Darwīsh, son 20, 26, 58, 72–3, 77, 110, 147, 150–1, 158, 160 al-Qashshāsh, Muḥammad 152 al-Qāsimī, Jamāl al-Dīn 112–3 Qaṭāya, Salmān 40, 45, 113, 198, 200–4, 206–14 al-Qīrāṭī, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbdallāh 256 Quedenfeldt, Max 24, 230–7

Saʿd, ʿAlī, shadow master 65, 66, 142–3, 159 Saʿd, Fārūq 50–1, 81–2 al-Ṣafadī 28, 35–6, 43, 57, 120, 125, 253, 255–6 Said, Edward xi, 42, 48 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin), sultan 5, 7, 44, 102 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ḥarīr, poet-playwright 145, 166 Ṣāliḥ, Aḥmad Rushdī 47 Salīm (Selim), sultan 9, 49, 102 Sallām, Muḥammad Zaghlūl 50 Saussey, Edmond 24, 45, 197, 206–8 Shaʿbān, sultan 8–9 al-Shābb al-Ẓarīf (Muḥammad al-Tilimsānī)  255 Shafik, Ahmed 36, 38, 40 al-Shaʿrānī 10 Shihāb al-Ḥijāzī (Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad) 256–7 al-Shirbīnī 11, 174 Sibṭ Ibn al-Taʿāwīdhī 4 Ṣiyām, poet-playright 66, 146, 159 Spies, Otto 25, 230–7 Sufi 6–7, 10, 20, 72, 76, 83, 147, 157, 166, 179–80, 182, 216 performative rites 29, 71, 131, 149–57 songbooks with shadow play material 71, 73–4, 84, 139, 150–8, 180 singers 150, 153, 173, 177, 179, 181, 260 Sufi orders, Shādhiliyya 147, 150–1, 154 al-Naqshbandiyya 150 Dimirdāsh 178 Ṣirḥajiyya, Rifāʿiyya, Qādiriyya 210 images and metaphors 6, 24, 140–1, 145, 151, 153, 157 Suʿūd, Shaykh, poet-playwright 58–71, 73, 90, 105–6, 131, 139, 143–5, 148, 152, 156, 158–9, 161–2, 166–8, 172

Rabelais 37–8 Rajab, poet-playwright 146, 159 Rashīd ibn Maḥmūd, performer 23, 199–200 Ritter, Hellmut 12, 24, 31

Ṭāhir, ibn Maḥmūd, performer 25 Taymūr, Aḥmad Pasha x, xiv, 4, 25–7, 29, 40, 42, 48, 57–8, 71–4, 75, 99, 109–10, 130, 140, 142, 146, 158, 161–2, 164, 177, 180, 182, 184, 186, 188–9, 252, 262

al-Nābulusī 254–5 al-Najjār, ʿAlī, scribe-playwirght 67, 146, 159, 161, 163, 165 al-Najjār, Muḥammad, poet 152, 156 Perolari-Malmignati, Pietro 17 Persian xi, 6, 16, 18, 84, 94, 107, 119, 130, 170, 172, 198, 210, 218, 223–4; literary tropes  95, 198–9, 205 Plato 6 Prüfer, Curt 19–20, 26, 40, 75, 108–9, 110, 130, 148–9, 151, 177, 180–1, 184, 189

283

Index Ṭūmān Bāy, sultan 9, 102 Turkish xi, 6, 16–8, 23, 25, 84, 119, 198, 213, 219, 223, 260 karagöz ix, 12, 16–8, 23–4, 29, 31–2, 35, 42, 113, 129, 141, 150, 181, 194, 197–200, 209, 230–1, 233–4, 258–9

Wannūs, Saʿd Allāh 42, 46, 112, 197 al-Wasṭī, Muḥammad, performer 82, 233 Wāthiq, Muḥammad 48 Wattār, Muḥammad; Société orientale du disque Wattar 45 Wetzstein, Johann Gottfried 23–4, 206

al-Urmawī, Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin 94

Yūnus, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd 47, 49, 163–4

von Maltzan, Heinrich 16 von Pückler-Muskau, Hermann Fürst 13

Zaydān, Jurjī 28 Ze’evi, Dror 35, 259

Wamḍa Shadow Play and Puppetry Troupe in Cairo, the xiii, xiv, 81, 240–4