Posted on 05/06/2010 8:57:01 PM PDT by Saije
The epic tale of One Thousand and One Nights may soon be banned in Egypt if a group of concerned citizens gets its way. A little-known organisation calling itself Lawyers without Restrictions recently filed a lawsuit calling for the iconic story collection to be confiscated and its publishers imprisoned.
The publishers, in this case, would be the Egyptian Government’s own General Authority of Culture. Efforts to contact Lawyers without Restrictions for comment were unsuccessful.
According to local press reports, the group’s lawsuit cites Article 178 of the Egyptian criminal code, which bans publication of material deemed “offensive to public decency”. Violations of that code bring a jail sentence of up to two years.
If successful, the action will deprive Egyptian readers of one of the most enduring cornerstones of ancient Middle Eastern literature. A hodge-podge collection of stories dating back as far as the 10th century and drawn from Arab, Persian and even Indian folktales, One Thousand and One Nights has no single author and no one definitive version. The tales are framed as a series of bedtime stories told to the King Shahrayar by his new wife Scheherazade. The bloodthirsty king was in the habit of marrying a new woman every night, then executing her in the morning.
But the crafty Scheherazade avoids this fate by telling her husband a series of stories. The nights usually end with a cliffhanger, leaving Shahrayar unable to carry out the death sentence if he wants to hear the ending.***
The suit is the latest example of the hesba phenomenon at work in modern Egypt. A long-established aspect of Islamic jurisprudence that allows private citizens to police societal values, hesba claims have had a resurgence in recent years with critics saying it has become a convenient tactic for publicity seekers and fanatics.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
That has a very ominous sound to it.
oh, i just taught a lit class last year... we covered 1001 Arabian Nights... my students loved it...
To me anything said in a mosque is “offensive to public decency”.
That has a very ominous sound to it.
Probably a couple of guys with a fax machine and a publicist.
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Ohhhh-kay.The epic tale of One Thousand and One Nights may soon be banned in Egypt if a group of concerned citizens gets its way. A little-known organisation calling itself Lawyers without Restrictions recently filed a lawsuit calling for the iconic story collection to be confiscated and its publishers imprisoned.Thanks Saije. |
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