/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11415350]

What is the height of Islamic fiction lit? It's all pretty shitty minus a few exceptions of poetry (rumi, shabestari, etc)
I'm talking about actual big dick novels, like an Islamic version of Dostoevsky or Shakespeare or CS Lewis....do such things exist?

[Anonymous No.11415359]

>>11415350
Anything by an "Ibn" desu.

[Anonymous No.11415370]

Frank Herbert's Dune.

[Anonymous No.11415372]

One Thousand and One Nights

[Anonymous No.11415386]

>>11415350
>What is the height of Islamic fiction lit?
The Quran. Non-meme answer, this >>11415372

[Anonymous No.11415399]

>>11415350
This is one of my main issues with Islam which convinces me that it cannot be the true religion.
The art and literature that Islam has produced is nothing compared to that of Christianity. You only need to take one look at the Sistine Chapel ceiling and Islamic calligraphy to know which is the true religion. Same goes with literature.

[Anonymous No.11415404]

Bagh-I-Muattar: The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz

[Anonymous No.11415426]

>>11415399
>more art = Truth
Not defending Islam but that's retarded

[Anonymous No.11415427]

>>11415350
the satanic verses

[Anonymous No.11415439]

>I'm talking about actual big dick novels, like an Islamic version of Dostoevsky or Shakespeare or CS Lewis
The closest you'll get are ISIS videos or descriptions of the Bataclan:
http://takimag.com/article/surrendering_to_death_gavin_mcinnes/print

The only form of beauty Islam is capable of is jihad and terror.
>Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.

[Anonymous No.11415451]

>>11415439
>The only form of beauty Islam is capable of is jihad and terror

Wtf I love Islam now

[Anonymous No.11415460]

Islam only destroys.

[Anonymous No.11415464]

>>11415370

This.

[Anonymous No.11415474]

>>11415426
I never said that, I only said that the art and literature that Christianity inspires is far more profound than the art and literature that Islam inspires, which says something about them.

[Anonymous No.11415477]

>>11415460
Based Islam

[Anonymous No.11415487]

>>11415451
Don't get too attached. The West is superior in beautiful death.

[Anonymous No.11415493]

>>11415474
>This is one of my main issues with Islam which convinces me that it cannot be the true religion.

[Anonymous No.11415519]

>>11415474
You just said the same thing

[Anonymous No.11415522]

>>11415493
Yeah, so? If Islam was true, I would expect the word of God (the Quran) to inspire great works of art and literature that would be superior to the works of the followers of the other religions.

[Anonymous No.11415534]

>>11415519
>more art = profound art
Do you face comprehension difficulties?

[Anonymous No.11415550]

>>11415399
Figure drawing is haram buddy.

[Anonymous No.11415557]

>>11415550
I know, which is retarded.

[Anonymous No.11415579]

>>11415557
Looks like a bukkake scene desu. Admit that the elegant, impersonal curves of muslim art are superior to the pseudo erotica of Judaized paganism, aka Christianity.

[Anonymous No.11415584]

>>11415557
Looks like a bukkake scene desu.

[Anonymous No.11415592]

>>11415399
>judging the truth of a religion based on aesthetics
lmaoing @ ur life

[Anonymous No.11415661]

>>11415550
creating representations of the human form is haram and yet most muslims think taking billions of selfies is ok
weird innit

[Anonymous No.11415691]

>>11415550.
The Arabic language itself looks so damn gaudy. It also doesn't help that minarets are an architectural abomination.

[Anonymous No.11415695]

>>11415350
Rec me some read on why men don't want women to enjoy sex and why men get jealous of a car.

[Anonymous No.11415717]

>>11415695
Female sexuality is inherently hateful and socially destructive, and this stems directly from the manner in which they derive it.

[Anonymous No.11415724]

>>11415350
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is pretty good too, the translator admitted it isn't 1:1 and he changed things for the sake of the rhyme but it turned out pretty well desu

[Anonymous No.11415755]

Bustan and Gulistan by Shirazi. Gulistan is probably the most influential work of Persian prose.

Mahfouz is good but his work is towards more of an Egyptian/Arab slant than a Muslim one.

The Baburnama, the memoirs of the Mughal emperor Babur, are a must-read. They're akin to the confessions of St. Augustine but written by an Islamic Napoleon.

[Anonymous No.11415758]

>>11415724
Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat is pure kitsch.

[Anonymous No.11415779]

>>11415717
t. man

[Anonymous No.11415801]

>>11415717
More pls

[Anonymous No.11415840]

>>11415350
Wow good thing you circled that, wouldn't know where to look otherwise.

[Anonymous No.11415965]

>>11415661
Selfies are halal because photography captures nature instead of emulating it.

[Anonymous No.11415985]

>>11415965
sophistry. in what way does a painted portrait "emulate nature"? what about video games, VR, holograms etc?
also there are islamic authorities who say selfies are haram. see e.g. https://islamqa.info/en/365

[Anonymous No.11416055]

>>11415985
>what about video games, VR, holograms
All haram bucko. When you draw or create things out of your mind you emulate nature, thus transgressing into what is the domain of god who alone has the right and power to create.

[Anonymous No.11416096]

>>11415399

>Jesus teaches not to worship idols
>Christian art is literally a bunch of idols and it was made in part just to recruit more people to the church

You're ridiculous Anon. Ironically, Michaelangelo didn't even support the Catholic Church and he left little jokes within the painting to show that. Read the Quran before you talk shit about what is or isn't truth. Your means of evaluating it is probably one of the most ignorant comments I've ever read on this site and that's saying a lot. Do you even worship God yourself? Or do you call yourself Catholic for the title and the culture so you can compete with other people on this board and say "mines better than yours?". Anyone who has truly had an experience with God, especially as a follower of Abrahamic religion, should know much better than to make that foolish assertion you just did.

[Anonymous No.11416116]

>>11415522

Idol worship is restricted in Islam. We don't draw a bunch of pretty pictures of God and other human like images because that's just a distraction from what you're actually worshipping. God is not a white man, God is not a man, we aren't going to draw God as a man. And we aren't going to draw anyone else from the stories to incorporate in the religion because again, it'd just be an idol. A depiction of something but not the real thing. There's thousands of beautiful Islamic poetry that is divinely inspired and very moving. And of course the Quran, written by God himself (im sure you'll challenge this by saying something like 'well it's not as pretty as the Bible', but the verses in Arabic are truly a miracle of literature due to their complexity and profundity). So ya, the literature is certainly there, except it's mostly poetry because that's a better medium for conveying mysticism anyway. As for paintings? Idol worship Anon, it's haram.

[Anonymous No.11416149]

See pic related.
Influenced local historiographies and mythologies from Iran all the way to Turkestan

[Anonymous No.11416281]

>>11415350
>>11415399
The thing is that most of the great Muslim literary classics throughout history has been Sufistic or mystical, and the Sufi code is that literature has no worth in itself besides helping awaken the mystical consciousness in its reader. This is why, as >>11416116 says, it’s mostly poetry, poetry is a better medium for conveying mysticism. The real Sufis didn’t tell stories for the sake of telling stories, they were extremely devoted to their faith. They told parables and fables and allegories and myths and wrote odes and ghazals and such all having a mystical meaning of union with God, being submerged into God like a drop of water into the ocean. So the great Muslim poets have been figures like Rumi, Attar of Nishapur, Hakim Sanai, Hafiz, Saadi, and so on, none of whom have done anything like a “Paradise Lost” but have rather written seemingly scattered and disjointed works filled with a bunch of odes to union with God, philosophizing, and, as I’ve said, parables. However, this doesn’t mean it’s strictly didactic, dull, uninspiring. The works are heavily aestheticized because the poetic beauty is itself meant to facilitate bringing the reader to a higher state of consciousness. It’d be insipid, for the Sufi poets, to try to represent in a work of literature the beauty of God in an un-beautiful style.

The closest to a great and somewhat systematic work of literature like you ask for amongst the Muslim classics are probably Attar’s The Conference of the Birds (long mystical allegory about 30 birds who seek the ancient fabled Simurgh, a mythological great bird representing God) and The Thousand and One Nights; however, tellingly enough, both of these are rather made up of stories within stories and digressive fables and so on. You should all know about the premise of the 1,001 Nights hopefully, and Attar’s work is mostly made up of the leader bird of the group, the hoopoe, telling a lot of allegories about the mystical path to the other birds as they go on their search. There is a definite odd tendency towards “scattering” in the Muslim poetic classics, much more like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Ovid’s Metamorphoses or maybe even Dante’s Divine Comedy. (Chaucer and Boccaccio incorporated versions of stories which originally seem to have been Sufi, by the way, and it’s seen as probable in scholarship that Dante was influenced by Sufi sources and theologians like Ibn Arabi).

[Anonymous No.11416291]

>>11415350
>Shakespeare
>novel
Please leave.

[Anonymous No.11416292]

>>11416096
>You can only read the quran in Arabic
Dropped.

[Anonymous No.11416296]

>>11415557
Agree, though a lot of Christians are just as retarded about it, like Calvin.

Though as far as I know he didn't actively urge people to destroy artwork, which is at least one plus.

[Anonymous No.11416574]

>>11416292
It’s true though. Kys, monolingual translationfag.

[Anonymous No.11416584]

>>11416055
so taking a selfie is ok
but if i take a ton of selfies and make them into a 360 degree VR setting, that's haram
muslims really are fucking weird
how about x-rays? i mean it's just a special kind of photograph

[/glg/ No.11416589]

>>11415399
Truth is haram and that is true.

[Anonymous No.11416590]

>>11416574
>muh special uniquely untranslatable book
oh fuck off
if the quran is the word of god why isn't it programmed directly into our brains? if i was a deity i'd make sure that every one of my creations could unambiguously understand exactly what i was talking about

[Anonymous No.11416753]

>>11415557
t. idolator

[Anonymous No.11416763]

>>11415661
Wow muslims are just like other millenials. Photos are actually fround upon and selfies are essentially self worship.

But nobody practices islam wholly.

[Anonymous No.11416772]

>>11416584
its not haram dont listen to him. There are very strong arguments against selfies but thots dont care about that as long as they cover their hair.

Muslims are dumb like christians they only follow obvious rules like no pork.

[Anonymous No.11416787]

>>11416590
>wah wah, why doesn't God do what I think he should do!?

[Anonymous No.11416872]

>>11416753

God was pretty specific in his decoration plans.

[Anonymous No.11416879]

>>11416872

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+25-26&version=NKJV

[Anonymous No.11416881]

>>11415350
>What is the height of Islamic fiction lit?

Some Muslims have written larper fiction about if they were actually civilized and not goat-humping savages, which takes an impressive stretch of the imagination.

[Anonymous No.11416884]

I think Tolstoy made a novel about the chechens

[Anonymous No.11416892]

>>11416881
Kafir pls

[Anonymous No.11416894]

>>11415350
Dostoevsky and CS Lewis are polemic authors who wrote in order to persuade their contemporaries to return to traditional religion. Islam never really had this problem, because it has a much tighter grasp on its adherents than Western Christianity, given its rigorous sociopolitical tenets that are entirely absent even in Catholicism. Catholics go to mass once a week and fast every so often. Muslims pray multiple times a day in a specific ritualized way, ritualistically wash themselves, worship in the SAME EXACT language that the Quran was written which means no connotation is lost, etc etc

Christianity put all of its talent points in developing an actually good religion, to the detriment of developing actual believers

Islam put all of its talent points in retaining membership through elaborate requisite ritual

[Anonymous No.11416977]

>>11416590

Whats funny is the Quran frequently speaks on the thing you're complaining about. In the Quran, God constantly references people complaining about what sign he sends them when they ask for signs, people are unable to be satisfied with his method regardless of which he uses. If you read the Quran, you'd see that the message is very clear as to how to appease God and better your life tremendously.

[Anonymous No.11416990]

>>11416281

good post anon

[Anonymous No.11416994]

I found a copy of Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih at my local book store. I hear it’s good

[Anonymous No.11417008]

>>11416894
>Islam put all of its talent points in retaining membership through elaborate requisite ritual

it's right there in the etymology:

from Arabic islam, literally "submission" (to the will of God), from root of aslama "he resigned, he surrendered, he submitted," causative conjunction of salima "he was safe," and related to salam "peace."

[Anonymous No.11417010]

>>11415350

There were some great Muslim poets but for the most part, Islams artistic merit is as good as the civilisations they have conquered. Once the place is completely converted and the original resources used up, and fundamentalised, there is no room for artistic expression.

The same could be said in part for christianity but because you are to become christlike, there is more room for artisic interpretation as far the divine goes whereas in Islam you are to be more like its phrophet.

[Anonymous No.11417017]

historically the average muslim could read and write while the christian was ignorant peasant

[Anonymous No.11417024]

>>11417017

Yeah, but theyc ould only read and write one book.

[Anonymous No.11417034]

my diary desu

[Anonymous No.11417044]

>>11417034
show us a snippet of this great work please don't deprive the world from such beauty

[Anonymous No.11417056]

>>11415399
>how do i into iconoclasty
>the aesthetics of catholicism has a logic beyond decadent seduction

keep it hyperreal, pleb bro

[Anonymous No.11417064]

>>11416281
this

[Anonymous No.11417084]

>>11417010
>same could be said for Christianity
No, it certainly cannot. The high points of Western art came long after Christianity had attained dominance.

[Anonymous No.11417144]

>>11415399
You don't hate islam you hate arabs.

[Anonymous No.11417149]

>>11417084

>in part
>misquoting me

[Anonymous No.11417168]

>>11417144
Arabs are like this because of Islam.

[Anonymous No.11417177]

>>11417084
Hahaha, you christfags are delusional!

[Anonymous No.11417225]

>>11417168
If anything, Arabs became more civilized after Islam

[Anonymous No.11417343]

>>11415439
>The only form of beauty Islam is capable of is jihad and terror.
911 was pure kino tho

[Anonymous No.11417353]

>>11415439
Read some Sufi poetry and metaphysics you soulless piece of plastic

[Anonymous No.11417363]

>>11415965
muslim women really love to cake their faces with make-up

[Anonymous No.11417382]

>>11417168
Being anti-Islam in the West is totally fine.
Being anti-Islam in general though is one of the gayest things you can be.

[Anonymous No.11417725]

>>11415965
>muslim logic
Cameras do actually distort nature in some way or the other, and this is also true about selfies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zumV39nm60

[Anonymous No.11417761]

>>11415474
>>11415522
Agreed, it seems obvious in such a simple way.

>>11417144
The other way around.

[Anonymous No.11417812]

>>11416116
>>11416281
>>11416055
Following this, couldn't it be considered haram to attempt to create beautiful literature? Just like painting humans would be idolatry and an attempt to imitate God's creation, couldn't creating art in the written form be considered an imitation of God's creation (Quran)?

[Anonymous No.11417843]

>>11417812
Interesting point.
The thing is Qur'an is very adamantly saying over and over again that it isn't poetry (which really it is, considering the context in which it came to be).
On the other hand, pictures are confusing. A full body person is not allowed but half a person (i.e. portrait) is, at least according to some. And I don't know to what extent a painter can be considered the imitator of the creator. Perhaps Anglo culture is generally so pagan that the word creativity has taken hold of them, but what a certain hadith says is that those who draw living creatures will be asked to blow life/soul into their drawings, and will fail (since they aren't God). But is a painting today the same as an icon/idolatry art?

[Anonymous No.11417972]

>>11416894
>Islam never really had this problem, because it has a much tighter grasp on its adherents than Western Christianity

Actually, Muslims do have such problems, but instead of resolving it by writing literature like C.S. Lewis and Dostoevsky, they choose to resolve it by bombing each other. This is why you see Shiite and Sufi Mosques getting bombed by Salafi groups such as Daesh, because Shiites and Sufis are not really following the traditional religion. This is not something that is new and you can see this in the writings of earlier commentators such Ibn Kathir and Ibn Taymiyyah, where they basically show evidence from the Quran and hadiths that the killing of Shiites and Sufis would be halal.

A clear classical example of this is when Mansur Al-Hallaj, a Sufi Muslim, was executed for simply saying, "I am the Truth." There have been many other instances where Muslims killed each other for not following the traditional religion.

Also, Islam might seem to have a tighter grasp on its followers because most of its followers are indoctrinated and are not allowed to really question Islam or read about other religions and philosophies. I think it is also an issue for Muslims to speak against or leave Islam since apostates get the death penalty.

[Anonymous No.11418009]

>>11415370
> Islamic

[Anonymous No.11418029]

>>11417972
This is literally the most ignorant thing I've ever seen.
Mansur al Hallaj was in the first few centuries of Islam. His death became the martyrdom story on which the sufi tradition was also built.
Ibn Taymiyyah, however, came waaay later, and was imprisoned for his anthropomorphism. He was not and still is not mainstream, also becayse he is so against logic and sufism.
Sufism and shiism have such a long history in Islam that even they in their own way (the former as part of Sunni Islam but also within shiism) have an orthodoxy.
About Muslims blowing people up instead of writing, you might have a point but i dont care enough to think about it

[Anonymous No.11418090]

>>11415350
>What is the height of Islamic fiction lit?
Season of migration to the north by Taleb Saleh

[Anonymous No.11418126]

>>11415399
>Christianity
>Catholicism
>true religion

At least Musilms won't rape my kids anus because they get to have wives.

[Anonymous No.11418137]

>>11415474
>thinking that portraying your gods isn't idolatry

The reason Islam doesn't have the same kind of art is that portraying god is considered to be haram, in Islamic art there is no portrayal of religious figures or god because they cannot be reduced into petty human art.

Now compare that with your shitty Medici-funded decadent Catholic art that was the backdrop for orgies and all kinds of nepotistic debauchery.

[Anonymous No.11418229]

>>11418126
>In Islamic law (Sharia), Ma malakat aymanukum is the term for slaves or captives of war. The purchase of female slaves for sex was lawful from the perspective of Islamic law, and this was the most common motive for the purchase of slaves throughout Islamic history.

LMAO. I bet you support immigration and cuckoldry and want to be killed by Mudslims so that your wife and kids be slaves to Ahmed just like Muhammad did with Safiyyah bint Huyayy.

[Anonymous No.11418262]

>>11416096
Not all images are not idols. Ffs in the Old Testament God commands golden seraphim (angels, basically) to be made on the Ark of the covenant. Also, God commanded Moses to make the golden serpent Nehushtan.

Try actually reading the bible.

[Anonymous No.11418284]

>>11418137
>in Islamic art there is no portrayal of religious figures or god because they cannot be reduced into petty human art
<3

[Anonymous No.11418319]

>>11418229
Jesus... I'm always surprised how alpha muslims are compared to christfags. The absolute mad men mujahideens basically do whatever they want.

[Anonymous No.11418340]

>>11415386
Im only detecting meme answers

[Anonymous No.11418390]

>>11418284
Maybe I should've mentioned that's Noah?

Here's one of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) being guided by the four archangels (peace be upon them).

[Anonymous No.11418408]

>>11418390
Shia kafir get out

[Anonymous No.11418504]

>>11418408
>kafir
>If a man calls his brother a kafir, then one of them will have deserved the description. (Bukhari)

If you think Dostoevsky and CS Lewis are the height of Christian writing then it is obvious why you can't find the great literature of the Islamic tradition.

If you are referring to modern novels (like Naguib Mahfouz), then as one anon pointed out they are obviously more country specific.

[Anonymous No.11418542]

>>11418390
well his face is shrouded so i guess it counts

[Anonymous No.11418550]

>>11418542
It's not here.

[Anonymous No.11418605]

>>11416977
self justifying logic. "the quran is correct because it says so in the quran"
most religious books say pretty much the same sort of thing
also i've read it, it's shit

[Anonymous No.11418624]

>>11417017
this is bollocks
example, the most populous muslim country in the world is indonesia
even in the 80s about a third of the population was illiterate
the same goes for most african muslim countries

[Anonymous No.11419450]

>>11418009
>son of very wealthy aristocrat
>trained by secretive military-like organization
>escapes into the desert filled with massive underground resource deposits
>launches massive jihad
literally bin Laden???

[Anonymous No.11419454]

>>11415350
The Quran