"Call me Ismā'īl": The Arabic Moby-Dick of Iḥsān 'Abbās

“Call me Ismā‘ı̄l”: The Arabic Moby-Dick of Ih ˙ sān ‘Abbās JEFFREY EINBODEN Northern Illinois University R ecent decades have witnessed the steady rise of interest in Melville’s orientalism, and in particular, his treatment of Islam. Studies by Finkelstein (1961), Yohannan (1977), Bakhsh (1988), and, most recently , Marr (2006) have served to highlight the significant role played by Islamic language and reference in Melville’s narratives.1 Concurrent with this critical trend has been an increasing awareness of international receptions of American literature, with considerable attention devoted to global readings of classic U.S. works. Prominent Americanists such as Wai Chee Dimock have recently emphasized the flexible boundaries of the national canon, seeking to redefine American letters as a “crisscrossing set of pathways . . . weaving in and out of other geographies, other languages and cultures.”2 These scholarly parallels have outlined Melville’s reception of Muslim traditions, as well as several transatlantic receptions of Melville. They have not yet converged, however , yielding no consideration of Muslim readings of the American’s fiction. Even so, Middle Eastern translations of Melville’s writings have appeared since the 1950s: Typee in Farsi; Billy Budd in both Farsi and Arabic; and MobyDick in Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, and Urdu.3 Biographies of Melville published originally in the U.S. have also been translated into Arabic, with versions of Leon Howard’s Herman Melville (1951) and Jean Gould’s Young Mariner Melville (1956) appearing in Beirut and Cairo, respectively.4 C  2010 The Authors Journal compilation C  2010 The Melville Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1 See Dorothee Finkelstein, Melville’s Orienda (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 189260 ; John D. Yohannan, Persian Poetry in England and America: A 200-year History (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1977), 150-54; Jalaluddin Khuda Bakhsh, “Melville and Islam,” diss., The Florida State University, 1988; and Timothy Marr, The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 2 Wai Chee Dimock, Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 3. 3 For Urdu and Persian translations, see respectively Moby-Dick, trans. Chandra Mohan Lamba (New Delhi: Indian Academy, 1959); and Nahang-i Sifı̄d, trans. Muhammad Rizā Ja‘farı̄ (Tehran: Sāzmān-i Kitābhā-yi Talā-yi, 1973). 4 For these Arabic translations, see Leon Howard, Herman Melville (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Ahliyya, 1963); and Jean Gould, Young Mariner Melville (Cairo: Renaissance, 1962). L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S 3 J E F F R E Y E I N B O D E N As we might expect, Middle Eastern translations of Melville’s fiction reveal a diversity of approaches and audiences. Editions of Moby-Dick, for example, include stylish volumes aimed at the educated reader (e.g. Yapı Kredi Yayıncılık’s 1999 Turkish edition produced by leading academic translators) as well as instructional versions adapted for a juvenile audience (e.g. Dār alBih ˙ ār’s 2006 Arabic translation, which appends basic comprehension questions for each chapter).5 Most prominent among these editions, however, is the 1965 Arabic translation of Moby-Dick issued by the Beirut publisher Dār al-Kitāb al- ‘Arabı̄.6 Noteworthy not only as the first unabridged version of Melville’s novel to appear in Arabic, this translation also merited republication more than three decades later, in a second edition released by the Damascene press, Dār alMada ̄, in 1998. More remarkable, however, is the person responsible for this rendition, the celebrated Palestinian scholar, historian, and literary critic, Ih ˙ sān ‘Abbās. Author of over one hundred books concerning Islamic studies, Arabic literature, and Middle Eastern history, ‘Abbās is recognized as one of the Arab world’s most influential scholars, eulogized in 2003 as the twentieth century’s “custodian of Arabic culture and heritage.”7 Although chiefly known as his generation’s “premier figure . . . in the field of Arabic and Islamic studies,” ‘Abbās was also an avid reader and translator of American literature and literary criticism...