Bücher von Muhsin al-Musawi

In its first edition, this book was a new opening in the study of the Arabian Nights as an index of literary taste, a case study for the engagements of poets and writers, along with the common reading public, with an art that took Europe by surprise, and forced new patterns of response and writing. Borges thought of its advent as a dynamic that helped generate the romantic mode and sensibility. It certainly disturbed old habits of thought and made significant cultural inroads throughout European cultures. Almost no one in 18th-19th century literatures remained oblivious to that sweeping phenomenal appearance. The book analyzes and studies modes and patterns of reading, response, engagement, commentary, translations, claims to authentication, abridgements, and illustrations. It focuses on debates and controversies around the Arabian Nights, and shows how these happened to be at the center of a growing colonial culture. This book can never lose its significance for students, scholars, and general readership, not only in the field of comparative and cultural studies, English and French departments, but also in postcolonial studies and the basics of narrative and narratology.

Islam on the Street deals with the popular side of Islam, from among the more militant groups in Islam, and by other, more secular thinkers who have also influenced public opinion. Muhsin al-Musawi explains the growing rift that has occurred between the secular intellectual and the upsurge of Islamic fervor in the street and what these secular intellectuals can do to reconnect with the masses.