The Ikhw?n al-Saff's (the Brethren of Purity) treatise, Fe kayfiyyat takw n al-hayaw-nat wa asntfih (The Case of Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn), is an intriguing work, for while it directly addresses the question of animals' status, challenges prevailing preconceptions about nonhuman animals, and vigorously critiques anthropocentric attitudes, it inexplicably reconfirms humans' superiority to and authority over other animals. In a fictional legal suit brought against humans by nonhuman animals in the court of the King of the Jinn, the IkhwJn al-Saf ' allow nonhuman animal characters to refute all but one of the allegations made by humans about their own alleged superiority and dominion over nonhuman animals. Using both rational and scriptural arguments (derived mostly from the Qur'an), nonhuman animals persuasively make the case that none of the things in which humans take so much pride has any significant value. Wealth, fancy food and clothes, sumptuous houses and the like are only a source of stress and health problems and potential causes of eternal damnation. Rationality, which humans deny to other species, is not the monopoly of humans. Humans' reason, in fact, is even of little value as they fail to apply it to what truly matters, hence suggesting that even though humans may be intelligent, they have no or little wisdom. Having prophets and scriptures, another argument that the Ikhwan's human characters use to show their superiority, is only a sign of humans' misguidance and need for help, unlike other animal species who know and worship God without being in need for someone to remind them of that. In view of such persuasiveness, the outcome of the treatise is at once puzzling and disappointing. If the Ikhw n did not want to allow their nonhuman animals to win, then why allow them to make such a strong casem Various explanations have been offered to account for this unexpected outcome, but, in my opinion, none of them seem to account fully for it. Therefore, in this presentation, after a brief discussion of the content of The Case of the Animals, I would like to suggest a new solution to this problem.

At the intersection of literary scholarship and the growing field of Animal Studies, research has begun to trace the formation of the human/animal dichotomy in literary texts and to challenge ingrained conceptions of the human by showing how these are constituted against the category of the Animal. This research seeks to unveil the ways in which literary discourse about animals is shaped and controlled by a human urge toward self-definition. Extending this recent discussion to the sphere of Arabic literature, one particularly relevant text is Ibn ?ufayl's sayy Ibn Yaqbnn, a sixth/twelfth century allegory in which a spontaneously-generated human is raised by a doe on an island inhabited only by animals and, through his powers of observation and reason alone, comes to know God and philosophy. While ayy Ibn Yaq an has drawn much attention for its implications for religion, philosophy, politics and the intersections between the three, I will argue that this is also a text about defining what it means to be human. Growing up with a doe as a mother and no humans with whom to compare himself, mayy is taught no easy dichotomy between human/civilized and animal/wild. It is by observing the animals around him that ayy learns behaviors usually thought of as human, such as burying the dead and a limited form of communication. ayy discovers the existence of the soul by trying to understand his doe mother's death, and it is through his understanding of the souls of animals that he comes to recognize that he, too, has a soul. When oayy eventually comes to consider himself as separate from the rest of the animals, the distinguishing factor he identifies is that he recognizes a Necessary Being and strives toward it, while the animals do not. Significantly, when nayy is introduced to human civilization, he concludes that most men are no better than unreasoning animals. Likewise, the narrator suggests that dumb animals, "including those in human form," will have no existence after bodily death. What emerges is a definition of human and animal which separates the two not on principles of biology and an unchanging superior, but as a function of human behavior. In my paper I will explore the implications of this functional definition of the human for aayy's understanding of the world around him and his place in it.

The Libyan novelist Ibr?hhm al-K-n? is one of the few contemporary Arab writers who show much interests in the portrayal of animals in his literary works. The animals in al-Kan-'s stories are, in many respects, as important as their human counterparts. In Naz f al-aajar, to hunt or not to hunt the mountain moufflon (waddfn) is a major question in the development of the plot. In al-Tibr, the piebald camel (mahr ablaq) is closely linked to the fate of its owner. In al-Khus.f, Gham-'s dog plays the hero in saving his owner from scorpion bites. In al-Maj s, a very large number of animals are mentioned and most of them play quite important roles in the story. Al-Kin talks about the wadd ns, gazelles, wolves, snakes, birds, lizards, insects, such as scarabs and flies, and many others, in such a vivid and intimate way that they acquire human qualities. In many of al-Ktne's works, animals are not just mute creatures but rather are endowed with the ability to think and talk in the way humans do; in addition they can demonstrate emotions of sadness and happiness. Some of al- Kpnn's animals possess magical powers. Animals with magic powers are not without precedent in Arabic literature. Al-Knn 's personification of animals brings the reader to a fantastic world similar to that of A Thousand and One Nights. One also feels the familiarity of the animal kingdom that alludes to old Arabic texts, such as Kalslah wa-Dimnah and Ibn sufayl's aayy Ibn Yaqzmn. Even the Qur'an has several references to animals with special powers, such as the talking ants (27:18-19), a bird army (27:17), and a talking hoopoe (27:22). Al-K n2 cleverly creates an intertextuality that alludes to previous Arabic literary sources, taking the reader to a zone of shared memories. It is apparent that animals play important roles in al-Kane's works. In this paper, I will demonstrate al-K?n?'s cosmological views on the relationship between animal, human, and nature, and further discuss his presentation of animals and the function and significance of them in his novels.

Published in 2006, the short story collection Hayawanat Ayyamna (Animals in Our Days) by Egyptian author Muhammad Makhzangi evokes the long history of writings on animals within the Arabic and Islamic literary tradition. From the Qur'an itself, through pre-modern authors such as al-Jahiz and numerous Sufi scholars and poets, animals played a prominent role in Arabic literature and shaped how people viewed the world and humanity's role in it. Unlike pre-modern texts, however, Makhzangi's stories do not feature talking animals that mimic human characteristics. Instead, I demonstrate in this paper that in these stories, animals, although mute, eloquently highlight human brutality, particularly when technology and a globalized modernity have cut off human societies from the natural world around them. While animals are often portrayed as victims in these stories, they are also a locus of the supernatural. In counterpoint to the callous modernity of the human world, Makhzangi suggests, animals retain an element of the miraculous, the magical and inexplicable. Thus, these stories partake of the magical realism narrative tradition. In "He Was Pursuing A Butterfly in the Sea," for example, a paralyzed swimmer is miraculously saved by dolphins; in "Enchanted Rabbits," phantom rabbits appear on a city square at night, years after a popular uprising and its brutal suppression on the same site; and in "The Sadness of Horses," a horse dying in a minefield magically regains its life and walks to safety. The stories range widely in their settings as well, from modern Vietnam and India to rural Egypt, often with a semi-autobiographical Arab narrator. Additionally, the first three stories ("Deer," "Foal," and "Puppies") are inspired by well-known current events, and are seemingly set in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003. In echoing recent history, they offer a timely perspective on the human capacity for violence. Other writers of modern Arabic fiction have addressed the conflicts and tensions between modernity and tradition in their societies. I suggest in this paper that Muhammad Makhzangi approaches this tension from a slightly different angle, finding in animals a common motif by which to illustrate the negative impact of modernity and globalization on humanity. Ultimately, it is humanity that is Makhzangi's foremost theme--both our capacity for cruelty, and the possibility that, through animals, we can restore our connection to the magical and the numinous.