Latest Review: "A Muslim Suicide" by Bensalem Himmich
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Sarah Two, on Bensalem Himmich’s A Muslim Suicide, which is translated from the Arabic by Roger Allen and is available from .
Here is part of her review:
It is a well-known phenomenon that widespread condemnation of a book will only serve to increase its allure. It then follows that when Ibn Khaldun (a Fourteenth Century historian) attempted to ban Escape of the Gnostic, he may have been doing the text a favor. In a legal opinion, Ibn Khaldun wrote, 鈥渢he decision regarding such works and their ilk should involve taking all copies and putting them in the fire, then washing one鈥檚 hands so that all traces of their contents are erased.鈥 The author of the clearly controversial Escape of the Gnostic, Ibn Sab鈥榠n, is the narrator and focus of Bensalem Himmich鈥檚 novel, A Muslim Suicide (translated from the Arabic by Roger Allen). Born in Andalusia during the Reconquista, Ibn Sab鈥榠n practiced Sufism, a mystic dimension of Islam that encouraged self-examination as a means to spiritual enlightenment. A firm proponent of separating religion from the state, he also cautioned against the growing trend of fanaticism in the Arab world. In his day, Ibn Sab鈥榠n鈥檚 beliefs were scandalous enough that he was forced to flee first his birthplace, and then his adopted home of Maghrib. He eventually made his way to Mecca, where he supposedly slit his wrists and bled to death in the sacred Ka鈥榖a. This provocative death inspired Roger Allen鈥檚 title for the English translation, a choice that he justifies in his afterword. Though the original Arabic title translates to 鈥淭his Andalusian,鈥 Bensalem Himmich initially wished to call it 鈥淪uicide Inside the Ka鈥榖a鈥 and requested that the Allen restore some of the controversy.
The novel opens with a lament: 鈥淲oe is me! Woe is me for what I have lost, leaving a huge void inside me. I have been asked to explain the nature of this loss by a voice that I鈥檝e grown used to hearing in my dreams.鈥 Indeed, Ibn Sab鈥榠n鈥檚 tale is held together by his yearning for the loss of Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), the loss of his beloved philosophical manuscript, and the loss of 鈥渟piritual nourishment鈥 in the Arab world. In the first third of the novel, the missing manuscript is felt most acutely, and Ibn Sab鈥榠n copes with his grief by seeking out sex. This came as a bit of a shock to me, given that he is characterized as a devout Muslim. Still, it is consistent with his character as he makes it clear that though he is religious, he feels no obligation to live the life of an ascetic. As a partial explanation of his promiscuity, he observes that the deterioration of the Spanish state has inspired sexual boldness in its women, even those of faiths that promote chastity. As a result, Ibn Sab鈥榠n encounters Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and polytheist women who color his life with both sexual intercourse and religious discourse.
Click here to read the entire review.
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