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Space, Identity, and Genre in 17th century Morocco
Abstract
This paper will address Abu Ali Hasan al-Yusi’s (1631-1691) relationship to place through an analysis of three of his most famous texts written in exile. Al-Yūsī’s al-Risalah al-kubra ila Mawlay Ismāʿīl, al-Muhadarat fi adab wa-l-lughah, and his autobiographical Fahrasah are interpreted as paradigmatic examples of 17th-century Moroccan literature and ideal vehicles to understand al-Yūsī’s various textually constructed spatial identities. Al-Risālah, a dialogue at a remove from its addressee, mixes invective and appeal for aid with subtle shifts in focalization between the misdeeds of the second-person addressee (Ismaʿil) and al-Yusi’s own suffering. In this text, the spaces for which the author longs encompass both his actual place of birth and the larger category of place it represents. Al-Yusi identifies exclusively with an idealized vision of the countryside set in the distant past, complicating the possibility of his return. In al-Muhadarat, al-Yūsī adopts the medium of poetry, creating a poetic persona distinct from the authorial voice of his epistle. Here his spatial identity is more inclusive, extending to cover most of the territories of early modern Morocco. In contrast, his Faharash is read as a rihlah sufiyyah where his space of belonging contracts to that associated with his individual sheikh and brotherhood. Through these texts, I examine the complex relationship al-Yūsī had with the country’s urban centers, rural landscapes, and Sufi orders and how this intersects with the geographies of early modern Morocco and at times begins to reflect something resembling a Moroccan national consciousness.
Discipline
Literature
Geographic Area
Morocco
Sub Area
13th-18th Centuries