5 minutes

Representations of the faithful dog in Arab and American literature

Dr..

Kamal Abdul Malik

25 March 2022

I walk every day from my residence on Irving Street in the American city of Cambridge to the Department of Near Eastern Languages ​​and Civilizations at Harvard University, where I am a visiting scholar.

During this short walk, I often see Americans with their dogs of different breeds, shapes, and colors.

These dogs are really spoiled, and some of them wore warm jackets to protect him from the harsh Cambridge cold.

I came across an American man with his poodle, and this reminded me of Charlie, the loyal dog of John Steinbeck, the famous American novelist, about whom he wrote a book called Travels with Charlie (1962), which made me think about how the dog is represented in literature.

We see in our Arab societies those who are alienated from dogs and do not approach them, which is why some may be surprised by the existence of this heritage book that bears a remarkable title, for preferring dogs over human beings: “The Preference of Dogs over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes.” It is a book written by Abu Bakr bin Al Marzban ( He died in 921 AD.

The book mentions the hadiths and sayings of poets, sages and narrators that were said about the dog, and also reflects views criticizing the few in terms of human loyalty, appreciating the value of loyalty to the dog that accompanies people to be their guard and companion.

The book consists of two parts, the first part condemning humans for their cowardice, greed, and disloyalty, and the second praising dogs, for their courage, selflessness, and loyalty.

The author quotes stories from poetry to support these claims, but, as Dr. Adel Al-Osta says, compared to dogs in Western societies, our dogs are stray, fierce, ferocious, homeless, barking and annoy people, but their dogs are good-natured, polite, clean, good at listening, and pedigree.

In Arabic literature, dogs appear in the titles of novels, as we find in “The Thief and the Dogs” by Naguib Mahfouz, and the irony here is that the dogs of the novel are the people who are supposed to be honorable: Raouf Alwan, the revolutionary apostate, Alish, the unfaithful student, and the prophetic of the traitorous, but honorable wife. Compared to them all, she is the light of the Ghanaian woman of notoriety.

This is with regard to stray dogs, street dogs. As for house dogs, dogs that are supposed to be “native, polite, clean, good at listening and with pedigree.” We find them in a piece of poetry in Egyptian colloquialism, written with bitter irony by Ahmed Fouad Negm, entitled “The Dog of the Six.” And the six here is Umm Kulthum, the lady of Arabic singing.

Ismail, the poor student, passes by the villa owned by the six, and the fierce dog of the six attacks and bites him, and when he goes to the police station, he is humiliated, and the police wins for the woman and her dog.

I loved Charlie, the French poodle, Steinbeck's dog, I even began to imagine traveling around Egypt with a pet like him, but I felt that the cat had a special place in the heritage of ancient Egypt, and in our home as well, so I imagined a book called "My Travels with the Cat (Kitty) in Search of Egypt".

But there's one problem: Kitty is my daughter's pet, a princess, and she's a very independent aristocratic cat, who is superior to other cats, and I'm not sure we'll get along for months on end, because we each have our own way and our daily routine.

Moreover, she does not enjoy the qualities of loyalty in a dog: she eats and does not give thanks, sleeps all day, you talk to her and she ignores you, she returns home and is not afraid to receive you.

As for Charlie, Steinbeck describes him as very wise and mature, who uses him as a tool to make contact with the many people he encounters on his journey.

In Steinbeck's eyes the dog, especially a stranger like Charlie, is a mediator between strangers, allowing him to get to know more Americans who will be drawn to him by a loyal dog, friendly, polite, polite, pedigree, peace-loving, rational, and even more rational and peaceful than some of his sons. Humans.

• We see in our Arab societies those who are alienated from dogs and do not approach them, which is why some may be surprised by the existence of this heritage book, which bears a remarkable title for its preference for dogs.

Researcher at Harvard University, USA

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