The most unexpected submission to the Summer 2020 issue of ArabLit Quarterly — with its focus on crime — was N.A. Mansour’s suggestion that she mash up two translations of devotional literature, Hizb al-Nasr and Du’a’ al-Nasiri:
This “mashing up” of devotional texts isn’t unusual she says, and part of the reason is that — to find one thing unexpectedly inside another — “awakens you.”
Mansour’s translation of the two texts produces a new and strikingly earnest poem-text. One of the reasons she wanted to translate it in this space, she said, was because, “Devotional literature never gets viewed as literature because people assume it’s for devotional purposes.”
“Producing a lovely rhyme is practical, because — like the Quran — it stays in your brain,” Mansour said. “And I think for devotion you need something beautiful.”
Watch the full discussion & reading:
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The Summer 2020 issue of ArabLit Quarterly is available as PDF and EPUB. The print edition is available via Amazon (US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and elsewhere), and in a searchable online edition for Exact Editions subscribers, both individual and institutional. You can also subscribe through Patreon.
The video to which Mansour refers is also available on YouTube.