Novelizing the Muslim Wars of Conquests: The Christian Pioneers of the Arabic Historical Novel

Abstract

During the Arabic cultural renaissance of the nineteenth century known as the nahda, Christian Arabs made a substantial contribution to the development of fiction and journalism. Among these pioneers, Salim al-Bustani, Jurji Zaydan, and Farah Antun were inspired by translations of European fiction to write the first historical novels in Arabic. Their narrations of the Muslim wars of conquest are carefully constructed blends of history and fiction that emphasize the cultural and religious values that Christian and Muslim Arabs hold in common. In their novels, these authors celebrate the historical achievements of the Arabs and seek to inspire a new sense of Arab cultural identity, open to Christians and Muslims alike and based on shared language, history, territory, values, and aspirations for reform. In this way, these authors respond to the sectarian tensions of their time, European imperialism, and the challenges of modernism with ideas that would become central to Arab nationalist discourse in the twentieth century.