Tradition, Modernity and Utopia in Muṣṭafà Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī’s Madīnat al-Saʿādah

Abstract

Abstract Utopian and dystopian writing does not generally belong to the established canon of Modern Arabic prose, which is largely founded upon realism. However, utopian elements appear with relative frequency in the Nahḍawī literary output, as testified by early texts such as Faransīs Marāš’ Ġābat al-Ḥaqq, Faraḥ Anṭūn’s al-Dīn wa-l-ʿilm wa-l-māl and Muṣṭafà Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī’s Madīnat al-Saʿādah. Utopian concepts in these and other similar works are deployed to introduce ideas and debates of modernity to their Arab readers, in a context where entrenched views on how social life should be organized were under deep scrutiny. Utopian writing is concerned with debating and challenging social organizations. While it is sometimes regarded as typical of a Western Modern “critical” tradition of thought, in which it came to be codified into a specific literary genre, most of its features appear in pre-modern literatures as well. This is particularly unsurprising in Islamicate contexts, whose literature and philosophy have been in continuous mutual exchange with the “West” and share with it both Classical (Hellenic) and Abrahamic foundations. I argue that, in the Nahḍah context, utopian writing could have provided an instrument to convey selected “modern” ideas and writing styles while consciously melding them with the local Arabic traditions. This paper analyzes Manfalūṭī’s short story Madīnat al-Saʿādah (The City of Happiness), one of the earliest examples of Nahḍawī utopian writing by a Muslim writer. I show that in displaying, as already known, marked references to the Classical Arabic literary tradition, while incorporating, engaging, and selectively suggesting several ideas central to Western discussions on modernity, this short story exemplifies the richness of Nahḍawī reflection.