Please post your short responses to the first part of Book of Khalid and the Fatihah. You might consider a brief comparison of the Fatihah and Whitman's preface to Leaves of Grass.
Submitted by micklethwait on Fri, 09/16/2005 - 12:05pm.
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Micklethwait E 314V
The book of Khalid is an interesting piece of literature, in that, it seems that the writer is narrating the experience of Khalid and Shakib as seen from different angles,though, it is somewhat confusing whose voice it is that is been presented.
The main synopsis from this chapter from the book of Khalid follows a poet and his intimate friend, also a poet on their journey to the United States of America. As the narrator stated that it is not important that one gives the details of one's humble beginnings as is the manner of other writers/poets of the day; he rather gives a brief account of their pre-departure from Lebanon after breaking a statue of the Virgin Mary. The narrator describes the entry into the port and how they settle on "the best trade in the world" - peddling, which later on Khalid deems immoral. The irony of the decision he makes (in burning his livelihood) and then settling as a law office clerk can not be ignored, as it is something that even troubles Shakib.
In comparing Al-Fatihah and the preface to Leaves of grass, there is a similar pattern behind what Rihani and Whitman are trying to bring across. In some form or the other Whitman descibes who an American poet is, while Rihani describes Al-Fatihah as "the chart and history of one little kingdom of the soul-the soul of a philopher, poet and criminal." Al-Fatihah seems to state that everyman has the potential for being his own leader, "...the time will come,..when everyone will be his own guide and dragoman."
Here's a useful list of Arabic terms you'll encounter in the first parts of The Book of Khalid.
Saki: n. a young man who either bears a cup or a jug of wine to serve at court.
Muhdi (or mehdi, mahdi): n. a divinely guided leader.
Chobok: n. hash pipe.
Al-Farid, Omar ibn (or al-Fared): 12th-century Sufi poet.
Rumy, Jelal’ud-Deen (or Jellalidin Rumi): 13th-century Sufi poet.
Abd’ul-Hamid: Ottoman Sultan ruling over the Middle East at the turn of the last century.
Bulbul: n. nightengale.
Sakka: n. like a saki, a peddler who sells drinks from a jug on his back.
Muazzen: n. the person who calls out the time of prayer.
Wali, pasha: n. a political distinction, those who have a privileged seat in the court; a wali is a sort of regional governor.
Arak: n. a licorice-flavored distillate of grapes, drunk with ice and water.
Najma: n. a star.
Billah!: exclamation meaning, “By God!”
Ksarah (or Ksara): a wine region in Lebanon.
Juhannam (or Gehenna): Hell in Arabic, historically a smoldering trash heap outside of Jerusalem.
Allahu akbar: exclamation meaning, “God is greatest.”
Bismillah: exclamation meaning, “In the name of God.”
Jinn: Genies; in Islamic cosmology, the jinn were created by God like humans, but live in a plane of existence somewhere between Earth and the other world.
Iblis: the Devil in Arabic.
Izraël: the Angel of Death.
Mojadderah: a dish of lentils, onions and rice.
Torquemada: First Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition (15th century).
Boheira: A Syrian monk who educated the prophet Muhammad.
Mashallah: exclamation meaning, “What God wills!”
Zikr: n. a Sufi ceremony, literally “remembering.”
Aba: n. an Arab gown, worn by men.
Huris: the oft talked-about virgins that await Muslim men in Heaven.
Al-Hadith: stories about the prophet Muhammad, transmitted from eyewitnesses by word-of-mouth until recorded several centuries after his death.
does this work? i think so. sweeet.