Modern scholars challenge long-held myths about Arabic literary decline

Arabic literature did not decline after the 11th century, despite long-standing claims by 19th-century European Orientalists, according to scholars speaking at the Sheikh Zayed Book Award panel during the Frankfurt International Book Fair.

The narrative of a “golden age” peaking in Abbasid Baghdad followed by centuries of silence is now being reassessed. Modern researchers argue that Arabic literature evolved continuously, even as political centers shifted and genres transformed, The Natuional writes.

“This idea of a ‘lost century’ is a myth,” said Beatrice Grundler, a scholar at Freie Universität Berlin and author of The Rise of the Arabic Book, which was recently shortlisted for the 2025 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Arab Culture in Other Languages. “You had professional copyists, bookshops and reading public… It was noisy, competitive and entirely familiar.”

Grundler and others trace the persistence of this outdated view to 19th-century figures like Ernest Renan and Reinhart Dozy, who framed Arab intellectual history as a rise and fall narrative similar to Europe’s.

“They wanted Arab history to look like theirs,” Grundler said. “But Arabic literature doesn’t fit that pattern. It never stopped moving.”

Arabic writing continued to be copied, performed, translated, and reinvented—even during periods considered dormant by older scholarship. The evolution of dialect poetry, such as zajal, further challenges the decline narrative.

Hakan Ozkan, professor of Arabic literature at Aix–Marseille University and author of The History of the Eastern Zajal, said, “These poets broke rules because they could… Some of it reads like early rap. It’s the sound of a culture that’s alive.”

At NYU Abu Dhabi, the Library of Arabic Literature series is working to restore visibility to lesser-known works from the post-Abbasid period. Since 2010, more than 60 volumes have been published in Arabic and English.

“Editing these books is like joining a conversation that never stopped,” said Maurice Pomerantz, one of the series editors. “You can see generations of writers answering one another… The manuscripts are alive with argument.”

Pomerantz emphasised the role of translation in shaping global understanding. “If a text isn’t translated, it doesn’t exist globally,” he said. “That’s why awards and institutions matter.”

He added, “We need to make them part of the public imagination again… Otherwise the myth will just grow back.”

By Sabina Mammadli