Reading Canon of Arabic literature
On behalf of Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought we embarked on this project Afdal ma qara’t in 2018 to promote good reading within the Arabic world.
Twenty-nine intellectuals and personalities of the Arab world, included one German, contributed to this project.
The list contains 378 titles: 234 literary works and 144 non-fiction books, which we now present. The project in book format (download) or page.
Our list covers many author generations from Millennium BC to the present day. Surprisingly, one of the most recommend book was ‘The Epistles on Forgiveness’ by one of the greatest Arab poets of the Abbasid period, Abu l-Ala al-Ma’arri (973-1057), which illustrates that classical works do not necessarily lose their importance in the present time.
Our long-term ambition is to compile a ‘literary canon’.
To enable this to happen we request your support and contributions, as this list is still under construction and will be updated regularly, with the ultimate aim to be a useful reference for both schools and universities.
We would like to thank all the contributors of this first edition, without whose cooperation the project would not have come about:
Salih Almani, Laila al-Atrash, Asmahan Azzouni, Mohammed Abu l-Fadl Badran, Atta El-Battahani, Mahmoud Choucair, Rawan Damen, Faisal Darraj, Khairy Douma, Mansoura Ezz Eldin, Hartmut Fähndrich, Khalid Mohamed Farah, Salam Kawakibi, Hassan Khader, Mohammed Abdul Aziz Al-Hajin, Alnoor Hamad, Aref al-Hijjawi, Ahmed al-Madini, Mohamed Mahmoud, Ibrahim Malik, Ali al-Muqri, Habib Abdulrab Sarori, Khalil Shaikh, Ibrahim al-Sha’er Zaqout.
Enjoy reading.
The project team:
Abier Bushnaq, Nabil Bushnaq,
Fadia Foda, Hamid Fadlalla.
Contact:
afdal-ma-qarat@ibn-rushd.net
Ibn Rushd Fund e. V., Berlin