Ruse and Wit

This fascinating collection of articles...enriches our knowledge of classical and modern literature in the Near and Middle East, showing the importance of wit and entertainment in writing throughout history, and alerting us to the challenge of decoding the authors' play with bawdy satire and delicate humor. -- Christine von Ruymbeke, University of Cambridge These scholarly papers offer nuanced and comparative perspectives on interconnected literary and social histories. We learn to appreciate the place of humor-in its various manifestations in the form of jokes, witticisms, obscene and bawdy tales, and puns-both in religious and specific cultural settings. -- Sunil Sharma, Boston University

These essays examine a millennium of humorous and satirical writing in the Islamic world. Humor in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish narrative emerges here as a culturally modulated phenomenon that demands examination with reference to its historical framework and that, in turn, communicates as much about its producers as it does about its audience.The essays in Ruse and Wit examine in detail a wide range of texts (from nonsensical prose, to ribald poetry, titillating anecdotes, edifying plays, and journalistic satire) that span the best part of a millennium of humorous and satirical writing in the Islamic world, from classical Arabic to medieval and modern Persian, and Ottoman Turkish (and by extension Modern Greek). While acknowledging significant elements of continuity in the humorous across distinct languages, divergent time periods, and disparate geographical regions, the authors have not shied away from the particular and the specific. When viewed collectively, the findings presented in the essays collected here underscore the belief that humor as evidenced in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish narrative is a culturally modulated phenomenon, one that demands to be examined with reference to its historical framework and one that, in turn, communicates as much about those who produced humor as it does about those who enjoyed it.