Islamic literature

Islamic literature is a vast and diverse field of writing. It includes works written by Muslim people or literature shaped by an Islamic cultural perspective. It can also include stories that portray the Islamic faith. There is no single way to define this category. Some scholars group any work from a majority-Muslim nation into this category. This would include Indonesian, Somali, Pakistani, or Persian literature. Other thinkers argue that the identity of the author is the most important factor. They believe a writer's Muslim identity remains part of their work even if they do not write about religion. Other definitions focus on specific themes. These include works centered on Islamic values or stories about people mentioned in the Quran and hadith.

Fiction is one of the most famous parts of this tradition. The most well-known collection is The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. This is a compilation of folk tales told by a Persian Queen named Scheherazade. The collection took shape during the 10th century and reached its final form by the 14th century. Many tales in this collection influenced Western fantasy. Elements like genies, magic carpets, and magic lamps became common in modern stories.

In the 12th century, Ibn Tufail wrote a novel called Hayy ibn Yaqdhan. It tells the story of a self-taught child on a desert island. This novel was meant to show the harmony between religion and philosophy. Later, Ibn al-Nafis wrote Theologus Autodidactus as a response. This second novel defended the idea of prophetic revelation. Both books used the idea of a feral, self-taught child living in seclusion.

Poetry is another major pillar of Islamic literary history. It is often influenced by Islamic metaphors and local regional forms. The Arabic tradition includes the Qasida, which dates back to pre-Islamic times. Persian poetry is also highly influential and has spread to languages like Urdu and Bengali. One common form is the ghazal. A ghazal is a short, love-themed poem consisting of seven to twelve verses. It uses a specific monorhyme scheme where a vowel is followed by a single rhyming letter. In the 15th century, Bengali poetry began exploring themes like Islamic cosmology and internal conflict. Authors like Alaol and Daulat Qazi mixed Bengali folk styles with Perso-Arabian themes.

In earlier centuries, a specific type of writing was called adab. Today, adab is a general word for literature. However, in the past, it meant something much more specific. It referred to the knowledge a person needed to be seen as cultured and refined. Adab included learning about ethics, morals, and proper etiquette. It even related to Islamic law regarding how to greet others. Scholars created important anthologies of these works. These included the al-Mufaḍḍaliyyāt by Al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ḍabbī and the al-ʿIqd al-Farīd by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih. These books helped people learn how to act with courtesy in society.

Scholars have studied how different genres helped the process of Islamisation. This refers to the way individuals and communities adopted Islamic social and political behaviors. This was often done through literature like Muslim historiographies or advice books. These writings helped legitimize new social and cultural ways of life. By reading these stories and histories, people could connect their own lives to a larger religious framework. This connection helped shape the cultural identity of many different regions over many centuries.

Many writers from this tradition have achieved global recognition. Naguib Mahfouz from Egypt was the first Muslim author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He received the prize in 1988 for his realistic and nuanced narrative art. He described himself as a pious Muslim believer. Orhan Pamuk from Turkey won the Nobel Prize in 2006. His work explores the clash and mixing of different cultures.

In 2019, Jokha Alharthi from Oman became the first Arabic-language writer to win the Man Booker International Prize. Her novel, Celestial Bodies, explores the history of slavery in Oman through the lives of three sisters.

Even famous Western works have connections to this literary world. Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy, which is a great Italian epic. Many parts of his description of the afterlife came from Arabic works. These included the Hadith and the Kitab al-Miraj. The Kitab al-Miraj describes Muhammad's ascension to Heaven. It was translated into Latin in 1264. These Islamic writings provided a foundation for how many people imagined the spiritual world. This shows how deeply these literary ideas have traveled across borders and through time.