Demythologizing the Myth of Ibn Arabi in Saudi Novelist Mohammad Hassan Olwans Small Death A Postmodern Rereading

Abstract

This paper presents an attempt to demythologize the myth of Ibn Arabi and contributes to the process of fully understanding him in the context of Islamic Sufism by debunking his biased stereotypical representations found in biographies, as a mystic and a metaphysical person rather than an ordinary person. In this regard, I have highlighted some demythologizing techniques used by Olwan to portray Ibn Arabi to counter mainstream biases of conventional representations. The process of humanizing Ibn Arabi became the cornerstone of the demythologizing project of Olwan where he chose techniques that rendered the portrayal of Ibn Arabi a breathtaking and challenging process. Olwan focused on the accounts that best represent Ibn Arabi as a normal human being than a saint. These demythologizing techniques included the unreliability of history, the deconstructive approach, the metafictive and matahistorical approach and the use of first narrative technique as well as the use of simple language.

Keywords

act of writing, authority, biography, Demytholozing, Ibn Arabi, metafiction, metahistory, postmodern, rereading, rewriting, Small Death, Sufism

  • License

    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

  • Language & Pages

    English, 19-26

  • Classification

    For code:199999