Constitutionalism in Poetry, Poetry in Constitutionalism: Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm’s Imagining of Contemporary Constitutional Movements

Gösken, Urs (2021). Constitutionalism in Poetry, Poetry in Constitutionalism: Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm’s Imagining of Contemporary Constitutional Movements. Die Welt des Islams, 61(2), pp. 181-215. Brill 10.1163/15700607-61010012

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In this paper, we shall deal with the sociocultural and historical context in which the Egyptian poet Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm imagined and represented constitutional movements going on in the Islamicate world in his lifetime, with a focus on developments in the Ottoman Empire and in late 19th to early 20th century Egypt, back then – at least nominally – still a part of it, and including Iran‘s Constitutional Revolution. References, in Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm’s poetry, to constitutionalism in Japan will also be discussed in order to point up that the poet, while closely following up constitutional movements in the Ottoman Empire and in Iran, in fact viewed constitutionalism as an historical process transcending geographical and cultural boundaries. Therefore, we shall also try to identify the general idea of history underlying Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm’s portrayal of constitutionalism. Comparative references to constitutional poetry in Iran of that time are intended to point out the supra-regional dimension of both constitutionalism itself and of poetical modes of imagining it - a dimension going beyond borders of language and literary tradition. Likewise, this approach is designed to make the point that constitutional poetry in the Islamicate world at that time was more than just poetic comments on constitutional movements, but itself part of them.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institut für Studien zum Nahen Osten und zu muslimischen Gesellschaften
UniBE Contributor:	Gösken, Urs
Subjects:	200 Religion > 290 Other religions
ISSN:	0043-2539
Publisher:	Brill
Language:	English
Submitter:	Urs Gösken
Date Deposited:	08 Jun 2020 11:09
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 15:38
Publisher DOI:	10.1163/15700607-61010012
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/143233