/lit/ - Literature

>>2772292
>Those books aren't islamic literature.

I'd much appreciate legit islamic literature, specially poetry and philosophy (religion included).

I'm all for the inclusion of Narayan and 1001 nights. are you planning on collating all of these themes into one chart though? Are you open to recommendations?

wow, i'm watching the reproduction of orientalism in real time

this thread so far has listed only western authors writing about orient/middle east/islamic, not actual authors from the area(s).

how did you not have the koran, how did you not have ibn kaldhun

>>2772327
>Poetry
Attar
Rumi

>Philo/Religion
Ibn Arabi
Averroes

>Other
The travels of Ibn Battutah is the writing of a traveller from Morocco (or Algeria, one of those two) who travelled extensively throughout the muslim world, which meant his travel spanned north africa, almost all of asia including china and the maldives, and even parts of europe (ukraine).

wow, i'd be really intrested in something like this, not sure about the flashman tho'

Does anyone know if there is any noteworthy lit from the asian islamic countries? To my knowledge there are more muslims based in that region than the middle east.

>>2772352
Thank you, but are Attar and Rumi not persian?

i dunno if you guys wanna throw india in there too, but Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is definitely worthy of inclusion

>>2772371
They were muslims

>>2772386
>and constantine was a christian.

Hahah if you guys want actual Islamic literature, then sure.

(There may or may not be translations of some of these)

Akbarnama (Book of Akbar, the Mughal Emperor)
Baburnama (Book of Babur, the Mughal Emperor)
Hamzanama (Book of Amir Hamza, this is like the Iliad or Odyeesy, but with Islam)

Persian Sufi Lit:
Poetry by Rumi

Sindhi Sufi Lit:
Poetry By Shah Latif

Punjabi Sufi and Non Sufi Lit:
Poetry by Shah Hussain
Poetry by Baba Bulleh Shah
Poetry by Waris Shah
Poetry by Mian Muhammad Baksh
Poetry by Farid Ganj Shakar
Poetry by Amrita Pritam
Poetry by Shiv Kumar Batalvi
Poetry by Anwar Masood

For Urdu lit, see:

Aalama Iqbal (Two of his most famous pieces being Shikwa and Jawab E Shikwa) Shikwa is a complaint to god, Jawab E Shikwa, is god's response. This is Poetry.
Amir Khusro
Nizamuddin Auliya


Some other names I can list that might merit inclusion:

Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Sahir Ludhianvi
Rabrindanath Tagore
R.K. Narayan

Also for more Sufi lit, see:
Ali Hajwiri
Chishti order of Sufism
Guru Nanak (and thus the creation of Sikhism and how Sufi lit was incorporated into Sikh scripture)
Lal Shahbaz Qalandar

>>2772332
These are just ideas I have at the moment, totally open to suggestions and thoughts on the matter.

>>2772340
Kipling, though was born in Bombay, so I personally always include him as an Indian writer.

>>2772421
This looks like a good collection, OP. Even if I have almost no knowledge on the subject.

>>2772421
Now, with Sufi literature (mostly poetry), in these three main languages (Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu) we find the lyrics being set to music. There are different styles of course.

To see some of what I'm talking about, google:
Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, He was a famous Pakistani Qawwal. It's through his music and music of other singers that you really understand sufi literature, imo.

>>2772435
For those of you interested in exploring the musical side of all this stuff, see:

Islamic:

Qawwali
Nazam
Naat

Sikhism:

Kirtan
Shabad
Gurbani
Kavishree

Hindu:

Bhajan

Recommendations for all of these can be provided, should the interest be there.

>>2772423
I think you should separate things by themes, like your previous post would make a good "sufi lit chart" if you used the subdivisions that you provided. I think that would be better than having a persian lit chart that is subdivided into orthodox islamic, sufi, philosophy, etc.
Similarly with Indian I think it would be useful to separate religious texts (upanisads, sutras, etc.) from epics (ramayana, mahabharata) folk tales (panchatantra, jatakas, arabian nights (this could be put in pretty much any list you've mentioned in the OP)) and modern and contemporary stuff (Narayan, Rushdie, etc.)

>>2772397

>Thinks Attar and Rumi weren't devout Muslims

People still think this garbage? Educate yourself, fool.

>>2772450
You're more than welcome to help out when and if we actually get to organizing the stuff. One thing I'm not too good with is sorting and presenting in an organized matter. It'd be a clusterfuck if I personally did it, lol

You also seem quite knowledgeable, which is nice. I'm not the only one, eh?

>>2772454
You do not understand the point I am making.

How about:
>Islamic lit: Notable literature by Muslim writers. Rumi, etc.
>Middle East: Notable literature written by Middle-Eastern and diaspora writers. Khalil Gibran, etc.
>Oriental: Notable literature written about "the Orient'. So, Kipling, etc.

?

>>2772456

I suppose not. What did you mean?

Hermiticsm I reccomend Shams al-Ma'arif wa Lata'if al-'Awarif aka The Book of the Sun of Gnosis and the Subtleties of Elevated Things by Ahmad al-Buni. Mulla Sadra, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, and Al-Ghazzali are great for Philosophy. There were different schools of though in Islamic Philosophy. There were the Illuminationist, Transcendent, Logic schools. The Brethren of Purity were a secret group of Philosophers. They did great works. They wrote 52 epistles.

>>2772454
He probably read Coleman Barks translations lol!!!

>>2772455
Okay, I will try to find you if you make another thread about it. I made a recommendation chart before, mostly religious stuff, but not very much indian and islamic stuff, mostly japanese buddhist and christian stuff. There used to be a really cool Muslim poster here, I don't know if he still posts, but he was very knowledgeable about it, he recommended William Chittick's books on Ibn Arabi and Rumi, and warned about the "translations" of Daniel Bell and Coleman Barks.

Does Henry Corbin qualify for Islamic lit?

>>2772473
Sounds good. I may set up some sort of google docs or something, that we can all meet at and discuss stuff.

I should say, that mostly due to my roots and interest in those roots, I know very little about literature from anything south of Punjab (I'm Punjabi from North India). Thus I know quite a bit about the Islamic and Sikh stuff, but almost nothing about the Hindu stuff.

I also go apeshit over 1001 Arabian Nights (Have 14 different versions, including 2 in Urdu, lol) So I know a bit about those also.

>>2772480
Cool, my family are originally from Kerala, from a portuguese ex-colony r catholic part though.
I've been reading Nehru's discovery of India lately, it has taught me a lot, should also be included if it's made.

>>2772421
Now if we want to talk about the Indian/Pak independence movement, I can probably find some of my old notes on that subject as well.

>>2772478
I personally think so, yes.

>>2772496
On the subject of Indian independence, here are some names I came up with off the top of my head

Rani Jhansi
Mangal Pandey
Michael O'Dwyer
Udham Singh
Bhagat Singh
Sukdev
Raj Guru
Subhash Chandra Bose
Chandrashekhar Azad
Ramprasad Bismil
Lala Lajpat Rai
Nehru
Gandhi
Jinnah

Cool thread OP, but you were right when you said you were a scatterbrain about making suggestions.

Could you make specific suggestions like noteable books?

Would Turkish lit go under this banner?

I'd recommend

The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton
More Far Eastern Tales by Maugham

>>2775059

Nope. Anything Turk goes into the shit pile, you genocidal filth.

Yeah, the fact that the recommended reading page had no Indian or Middle Eastern (outside of Persia) literature was a huge turnoff to me. It gave me the impression that even the /lit/ board is restricted to weaboos.

>>2775144
That's what I thought too, so we simply need to make a list for Indian, etc.

As is often the case with so many things, eh? Oh, no resource exists for me to learn about ____ ? Well, time to make a resource for it then.

Any works by merchants and the like detailing their stories?

>>2776020
Quite a few in the 1001 Arabian Nights, actually.

>>2774566
Guide by R.K Narayan
Umrao Jaan Ada by Mirza Ruswa
Adventures of Amir Hamza
Punjabi Poems of Amrita Pritam in Gurmukhi, Hindi, Roman and English
Selections from Diwan-e-Ghalib Urdu Text and Roman Transliteration and English Poetic Translation (English and Hindi Edition)
The Poetry of Allama Iqbal (English and Hindi Edition)
Poems from Iqbal: Renderings in English Verse with Comparative Urdu Text
Shikwa & Jawab-I-Shikwa Complaint and (Oxford India Paperbacks) (((Learn Urdu and read this please, translations won't do it proper justice)))

I'd also like to add rabindranath tagore to my clusterfuck of a list

How would you discover more works?

>>2777877
It's kind of hard for me to list a lot of the stuff I've read, because they were all in Urdu/Hindi or Punjabi language. Some translations simply don't exist (yet?)

I'd like to direct those interested in Urdu language to the Author Musharraf Ali Farooqi (a Pakistani writer) who translated Urdu literature into english, as well as writes in English language. He should have a website set up or something.

Seconding Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah

I love that /lit/ is perhaps the only forum in which threads like this don't degrade into 'hurrdurr shitskin, mudslimes rape babies, Commonwealth Games were shit.'

Seriously though, I'm an ignorant Britisher and you've given me an appreciation with these threads for books I'd never previously have touched.

you should probably change the "oriental" designation to asian because oriental is a pretty antiquated term

>>2778398
Yeah man, being a British, this shit is part of your history. Some of the lit that came out of British ruled India is just out of this world.

>>2778412
I'm not sure people will get that I mean to include the muslim world, if I say Asia? I tell people "Oh I'm Asian" and they say, no you're not, you're Indian.

>>2777867
Like to add Mulk Raj Anand to the list also.

See:
Untouchable
Coolie
The Private Life of an Indian Prince

How about ancient egyptian?

>>2778398
shut the fuck up you dumb cunt

Proposal for structure of Islamic Lit graphic with examples:

>Arabic
>>Classic: 1001 Arabian Nights
>>Later/Modern/Contemporary: The Prophet, Gibran

>Persian
>>Classic: Shahnama
>>Later/Modern/Contemporary: The Blind Owl, Hedayat

>Urdu/Hindustani
>>Classic: etc.
>>Later/Modern/Contemporary:

>Other Language and Assorted
>Alone with the Alone, Corbin
>Tablet & Pen, Aslan

Something like that?

>>2780284
That sounds good to me. Though, since both Indian AND Pakistan can lay claim to Urdu/Punjabi and to a lesser extent, Hindi, should we separate into Indo and Pak sections?

I'm against this as the two (should) be one nation, due to having the same culture and language. If anything Pakistani lit=Islamic, Indian=Non islamic.

I don't hear Omar Khayyam (spelled correctly?) mentioned. Isn't he relevant?

>>2780449
The writer of the Rubiyat? He should be relevant, yeah. He's persian I think?

>>2779342
Adding Sir Richard Burton's 'King Vikram and the Vampire'

I think this, like Arabian Nights, is something he translated? Also might as well add his translations of the Kama Sutra, since we're on the subject of his work.

>>2780582
Oh FUCK, I'm retarded, lol. Forget all about this little gem:

The Kingdom of Happiness by Jiddu Krishnamurti. He wrote a fuck more than that, but this is the only one I've read. He's right up /lit/'s alley, what with writing about Philosophy and all that.

>>2780661
What do you guys think about including books written by those involved in the 'Terrorist' activity in Punjab? We can also go into 1984's Operation Blue Star and the assisanation of then Indian Prime Minister, Indria Gandhi.

>>2780427

I agree, "Hindustani" covers both Urdu and Hindi. Maybe the section should be Hindustani/Indian to cover both both Hindi-Urdu and other Indian subcontinent languages like Punjabi, etc.

It's not my expertise but I'm sure there's Hindi Islamic lit? Obviously more Urdu, but, I mean, they're the same god damn language, really.

>>2783387
There's bound to be, yeah. The sub continent is a big diverse place, home to over 30 languages.

In fact, during the Mughal rule of india, there were more contributions to persian literature, than in persia proper.

The languages I'm thinking that we include are:

Sanskrit (This is where the Hindu stuff is gonna be)
Hindi (?)
Urdu (Lucknow especially is famous for it's Urdu)
Punjabi (A lot of sufi material, almost all the lit of the Sikhs)
Sindhi (Maybe, again a lot of Sufi stuff)
Tamil (Lot of hindu stuff)
Bengali (Tagore is the major one)

Thoughts?

OP, make up a list/graphic please. Make it as patrician level as you can.

Signed,
a very interested anon

>>2780129
Ancient Egyptian (like pyramids and shit?) I personally feel should not be included. If you wanted to include stuff from Arabic Speaking Muslim controlled Egypt, then sure.

>>2772457
That's one way we could do it. But I'm no expert on organizing shit, so I'll leave that to people like you and others who are into it.

>>2783423
I'll give it a shot sometime soon. If anyone is willing to help let me know. Maybe we can set up a little chat or something somewhere?

>>2783467
I don't know if anyone here has any interest in LEARNING ant of these languages, but that's also a little hobby of mine, languages. I have about 12 Punjabi books in my collection, some for urdu, hindi, persian. I can post recommendations for those as well.

In addition to that, I'm working on some projects for making Punjabi a more main stream language. This includes script tutorials, colloquial text books, cuss word primers, lists of resources for the best ways to learn punjabi.

So again, if anyone's interested, resources can be provided.

>>2785442
Anything on sanskrit?

>>2785446
Could probably find you some stuff, sure

>>2785442
>I can post recommendations for those as well.

please do so

>>2785442

>>2785442
Alright. I'll post some of the language books which I myself have used and which come highly recommended. Keep in mind that with active non super classical languages (Sanskrit and Latin types) you need to actively use the language. Every day, study vocab, try to chat with friends, do some reading. Need to use the skills you pick up in some way every day.

For Hindi:

Teach Yourself Hindi (By: Rupert Snell)
Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script (By: Rupert Snell, do yourself and get this alongside the above book, makes things so much easier)
The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary (When it comes to Hindi-English Dictionaries, there is no better one available, especially in this price range)

For Urdu:

Teach Yourself Urdu (By: David Matthews and Kasim Dalvi )
Read and Write Urdu Script: A Teach Yourself Guide (By: Richard Delacy, again like the Hindi books, get this to go along with the above book)
Urdu: An Essential Grammar (Essential Grammars) (By: Ruth Laila Schmidt, as far as western urdu books go, this is one of the best resources available, period.)
(I'll have to do some asking around for an Urdu dictionary, all the ones I have aren't in English)


If there's any interest in Punjabi, I can post resources for that also. I'm also interested in Sindhi, Tamil and Kashmiri, so I can post a few resources for those as well. As far as Sanskrit goes, I'm going to have to do a bit of asking around to see what I can come up with, never looked into learning it.

For those of you who are serious about this stuff, download Anki from the web and as you go through the books and audio, make flash cards. And actively review them. I have a friend who learned Punjabi in India a few years back, now he's teaching Punjabi online, and he has a deck of flash cards for Punjabi with near 20k entries.

>>2786674
Some notes:

Learning to read and write hindi, for anyone with a brain, should only take a week. It's baby tier difficulty. Totally phonetic. Made even easier due to just how good of a book Snell put out. The man knows his shit.

Learning to read and write urdu on the other hand, will be a fucking nightmare. It took 4 friends, over 10 books and countless notebooks for me to get the hang of it. The script is written from right to left, it's cursive, depending on where the letter is written in a word, it has a different form, letters look alike, in printed material, they very rarely mark short vowels.
And on top of that, the written and printed form often differ in font. The printed form is very linear, like arabic, where as the written form is like calligraphy.

In terms of language, Hindi and Urdu, on the every day level are almost the same language. Only when it comes to higher forms of speech (News, Poetry, etc) do you find big differences.

Proper high Hindi sounds more like Sanskrit, where as Proper High Urdu sounds like Persian/Arabic.

Now the cool thing about learning Urdu, is that you'll be learning what's called the Perso-Arabic script alongside the language. This is good because most if not all the languages in Pakistan use this very script (with a few modifications here and there)
For example, in Pakistani Punjab, Punjabi is written in the same script as Urdu, with a few extra letters.

Still working on some other list of resources (sanskrit mostly)

bump

banp

Bump

Not sure if any of these have been mentioned already, but it's the classics list from an Indian lit thread we've had before:

The Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata
The Ramayana
The Upanishads
The Dammapada
The Pancatantra
The Kama Sutra
The Kural by Tiruvalluvar
The Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie by Sivadasa
Speaking of Siva
The Hitopades by Narayana (9th-10th)
The Hermit and the Love-Thief: Sanskrit Poems of Bhartrihari and Bilhana (5th and 11th)
Tales from the Kathasaritsagara by Somadeva (11th)
The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kalidasa
the Loom of Time: A Selection by Kalidasa
A Tale of Four Dervishes by Mir Amman (14th/19th)
Says Tuka: Selected Poetry of Tukaram (17th)

bump

The problem with this area of literature would seem to be that very little of it ever gets translated, and more of it is just foreign to Western sensibilities.

I can only think of The Hadith and the works of Avincenna.

I also think that we should separate Indian/Oriental and Islamic.

I'd like to see some sort of list developed, i'm intrested since I haven't really read anything from these regions. The best I can do is Rushdie and Kipling. I think most anons would be keen for a good list of works

sayyid qutb's a child from the village is pretty cool, kinda like an egyptian portrait of the artist as a young man