SUBVERSION VERSUS AFFIRMATION
The tendency of the techniques described above to make textual commentary itself appear comic raises the possibility that al-Shirbīnī actually intended to subvert the genre and the literary culture from which it grew. Other elements in the work also point in that direction.
On occasion, for instance, al-Shirbīnī seems nonchalant toward the very process of commentary. Thus, baṭṭāṭ (“to pat out”) is derived “from baṭbaṭa … or from biṭaṭ … or, quite possibly, from sheer stuff and nonsense” (vol. 2, §11.21.5). It may also be significant that three of the “miscellaneous anecdotes” that make up the penultimate section of the book concern the absurdities into which pedantry can lead grammarians (vol. 2, §§12.7, 12.8, 12.12).
At the same time, however, al-Shirbīnī appears to disclaim any subversive intent by applying to his commentary descriptors such as “silly” (habālī) (as noted above), “facetious” (fashrawī) (§5.8.20, vol. 2, §11.4.8, etc.), or “lame” (fushkulī) (§5.3.10).
Al-Shirbīnī’s attitude to the implications of his parody of textual commentary thus appears ambiguous, though affirmation of its validity as a genre, and of the validity of the assumptions that underpin it, predominate.
It remains for me to acknowledge the help that I have received in preparing this revised translation of al-Shirbīnī’s Brains Confounded, and the translation of al-Sanhūrī’s Muḍḥik dhawī l-dhawq, which will be published separately. Without the goodwill of the executive editors of the Library of Arabic Literature, headed by General Editor Philip F. Kennedy, the enterprise would never have gotten off the ground. It was kept in that position by the generous help and input of, first and foremost, Geert Jan van Gelder, who read the work in both languages and made numerous corrections, suggestions, and improvements; further invaluable assistance was provided by James Montgomery. I was also fortunate to have the input of my Cairo colleague Ahmed Seddik, who helped me to unravel many of the complexities of Risible Rhymes, of Noah Gardiner, who made an assessment of the manuscript of the latter, and of Adam Talib. Last, but by no means least, I benefited from the unfailing support of Stuart Brown, Gemma Juan-Simó, and, above all, Chip Rossetti, all of the New York office of the Library of Arabic Literature.
NOTE ON THE TEXT
The present translation is a revised version of that published in 2007.71 In revising the translation, I have sought to correct errors in its predecessor. I have also shortened the notes in keeping with the guidelines of the Library of Arabic Literature; areas that have been systematically cut in the interests of reducing the academic apparatus are the two particularly complex areas of the sourcing of prophetic Traditions and the tracing of sources for prose stories and topoi. I have, however, been able to increase the number of identifications of poets cited anonymously or erroneously by al-Shirbīnī (though, again in the interest of reducing the academic apparatus, ambiguous and disputed attributions have largely been omitted); this has been possible due only to the efforts of Geert Jan van Gelder, to whom I am greatly indebted, for this as for much else.
In addition, I have removed from the endnotes most references related to the lexicology of Egyptian words. Interested readers are referred to a lexicon that I have compiled dealing with words not found in Martin Hinds and El-Said Badawi’s A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic.72 Those who wish to study in greater depth what Brains Confounded can tell us about Egyptian Arabic in al-Shirbīnī’s day are referred to my dissertation on the topic.73
The difficulties of rendering poetry into another language are well known; I have tried, at least, to use rhyme and rhythm in these passages, though without seeking to produce anything that imitates, for example, Arabic meter, but because Arabic hemistichs often appear as a single line in the translation, verse consisting of a single line in Arabic (two in English) is not usually rhymed. The reader should also bear in mind that much of the poetry, whether a quotation or made up by the author, was deliberately chosen or written to be bad. If such verse reads as doggerel, the translation has achieved its purpose.
Rhymed prose—phrases, usually short, that rhyme but are not metered—poses a special problem, as English has no equivalent category. Its role in the structure of the work is, however, important, because it is used at moments of heightened emotional or rhetorical tension or to lend authority to and drive home an argument elaborated in immediately preceding unrhymed prose. I have used rhyme, indeed, but also assonance, alliteration, and rhythm, to distinguish many of these passages. I have also been influenced, however, by Newmark’s theories of “importance,” according to which “the more important the language of the text, the more closely it should be translated” (Newmark, Translation, 1)—“important” language being defined, in this context, as “language that denotes what is exceptionally valuable, significant, necessary, or permanent” (idem, 2). I have therefore sacrificed, on occasion, the aesthetic demands of the text to the need for literalism. This is the case with passages that convey facts or opinions whose significance I believe to be too great, from the author’s standpoint, to permit the massaging that inevitably occurs in the search for aesthetic equivalence. An example of such a passage is that beginning “Indeed, they never escape their condition of uncouthness because …,” in which the author provides an initial description, in rhymed prose, of the countryman that is critical for an understanding of his attitude towards him (§2.3); this and equivalent passages I have rendered in unrhymed prose. I have made no attempt to rhyme the “Ode of Abū Shādūf” itself for the same reasons.
English is the metalanguage of this series. In the translation, technical terms, such as those referring to rural officials and rhetorical devices, have been rendered by English equivalents (and their meanings explained in greater detail in the Glossary). Similarly, the titles of books are given in English first, and the use of transliterated Arabic has been reduced to a minimum. Nevertheless, Brains Confounded contains passages of textual commentary (sharḥ) that are central to its purpose. In our translation we have borne in mind that these commentaries on specific verses are commentaries on Arabic and not on English texts and that it is Arabic words and not English words that are at issue. When the commentator discusses ʿadīm (colloquial for ʿaẓīm), he is not discussing the English word “mighty”; in such cases, the English translation is an approximation whose lexical boundaries differ, in all likelihood, from those of its Arabic “equivalent.” In these passages, therefore, Arabic has been privileged, in the sense that the verses in question are reproduced in transcription in the English text and precede their English translations, both when they first occur and in the commentary. The reader who does not know Arabic may well allow his eye to skip these transcriptions; they are, however, essential to the logic of the text.
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
1 According to Awliyāʾ Shalabī (Evliya Çelebi), who visited Egypt during al-Shirbīnī’s lifetime, Shirbīn boasted 1,700 houses, a Friday mosque, fifty other mosques, and one madrasah (Baer, “Significance,” 38 n. 8; Baer does, however, point out that Shalabī was given to exaggeration). Shirbīn now falls within the more recently created governorate of al-Daqahliyyah.
2 Al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 1:175. Though al-Muḥibbī does not say so explicitly, it is highly likely that a scholar as prominent as al-Qalyūbī (whom al-Muḥibbī describes as “one of the leading ʿulamāʾ”) was an Azhari; this is supported by the fact that he was also a teacher of Aḥmad al-Sandūbī, whom al-Muḥibbī describes as such.
3 Al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 1:175.
4 See, e.g., M. A. J. Beg, “Ḥāʾik,” in EI2.
5 “It is said, ‘stupidity is of ten parts, nine of which are to be found in weavers’” (al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Muḥāḍarāt, 1:284).
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