Author's note: I acknowledge the assistance of the following people: Osama Abi-Mershed, Laurie Brand, David Brookshire, Laryssa Chomiak, Elliott Colla, Rodney Collins, Rita Costa-Gomes, Larry Michalak, James Miller, Kenneth W. Perkins, Devin Stewart, and the members of the Towson University History Department Faculty Seminar. Thanks are also due to the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Centre d’Études Maghrébines à Tunis, the Faculty Development and Research Committee at Towson University, and the Fulbright Scholar Program for making the research for this article possible. Finally, I acknowledge the valuable editorial support from the IJMES editors Beth Baron and Sara Pursley and guest editor Julia Clancy-Smith.

¹ The collection used in this study is Salih al-Qayrawani, Suwaysi, al-Hayfaʾ wa-Siraj al-Layl maʿa Maqamat wa-Qisas Ukhra (Tunis: al-Dar al-Tunisiyya li-l-Nashr, 1978)Google Scholar. This volume, whose editor is not named, is the most complete publication of his maqāmāt; it also includes his novel, al-Hayfaʾ wa-Siraj al-Layl, and short stories.

² Stewart, Devin, “The Maqāma,” in Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, ed. Allen, Roger and Richards, D. S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Egyptian Bayram al-Tunsi also wrote maqāmāt that criticized the modernizing Egyptian society under the British. His most significant contribution was in the style of zajal (colloquial Arabic poetry in strophic form), a genre that appeared in the 12th century but was popularized in the 20th century by the Egyptian press. See Booth, Marilyn, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies (Exeter: Ithaca Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Beinin, Joel, “Writing Class: Workers and Modern Egyptian Colloquial Poetry (Zajal),” in “Cultural Processes in Muslim and Arab Societies: Modern Period II,” Poetics Today 15 (1994): 191–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also al-Tunisi, Mahmud Bayram, Maqamat Bayram, ed. Fasha, Tahir Abu (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1985)Google Scholar.

⁴ From al-Muwaylihi's introduction to Hadith ʿIsa ibn Hisham, quoted in Allen, Roger, A Period of Time: A Study of Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥi's Ḥadith ʿIsa ibn Hisham, St. Antony's Middle East Monographs (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1992), 31Google Scholar, n. 41.

⁵ Historian Joel Beinin examines the sociopolitical context and content of zajal in Beinin, “Writing Class.”

⁶ Kassab, Elizabeth, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 27Google Scholar. For his major works, see ʿAbduh, Muhammad, al-Islam wa-l-Nasraniyya bayna al-‘Ilm wa-l-Madaniyya (Beirut: Dar al-Hadatha, 1983)Google Scholar and Risalat al-Tawhid (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Manal, 1908). See also Haj, Samira, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁷ Examples of other recent work exploring transregional dimensions of Arab and Islamic reform movements during this period are Ghazal, Amal N., “The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42 (2010): 105–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Reese, Scott S., “Salafi Transformations: Aden and the Changing Voices of Religious Reform in the Interwar Indian Ocean,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44 (2012): 71–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” in Suwaysi, al-Hayfaʾ wa-Siraj al-Layl.

⁹ Ghazal, “The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism,” 109, 116.

¹⁰ al-Qayrawani, Shaykh Muhammad al-Nakhli (hereafter al-Nakhli), “Tarjamat Muhammad al-Nakhli,” in Athar al-Shaykh Muhammad al-Nakhli, 1869–1924: Sira Dhatiyya wa-Afkar Islahiyya, collated and intro. ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Nakhli, ed. Hammadi al-Sahili (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1995), 20–27, quote on 26Google Scholar.

¹¹ Ibid., 59.

¹² Ahmad bin ʿAbdallah, Salih Suwaysi al-Qayrawani: Hayatuhu wa-Mukhtarat min Kitabatihi, Silsilat Dhakira wa-Ibda (Tunis: Tunisian Ministry of Culture, 2000), 25. Studies that focus on the novel include al-Hulayli, Muhammad, Fi al-Adab al-Tunisi (Tunis: al-Dar al-Tunisiyya li-l-Nashr, 1969)Google Scholar; and Muhammad, al-ShaykhʿAshur, Fadil ibn, Arkan al-Nahda al-Adabiyya bi-Tunis (Tunis: Maktabat al-Najah, 1961)Google Scholar. Mustafa al-Habib Bahri, whose study was published within a year of Suwaysi's maqāmāt collection, does not mention them. Bahri, Mustafa al-Habib, “Salih Suwaysi al-Qayrawani,” al-Fikr 25 (1979): 72–85Google Scholar. I have not come across any studies by non-Tunisian scholars that examine Suwaysi's writings.

¹³ Al-Nakhli, “Tarjamat Muhammad al-Nakhli,” 53.

¹⁴ Ibid., 53, n. 2. This dates back to 1890, when Suwaysi was not quite twenty years old. The annotation notes that the information was found in a secret file in a folder titled “al-Shaykh Muhammad al-Nakhli,” kept in a khazīnat al-hukūma, a government archive. Based on the context, I believe that this reference is to a French colonial document stored in the Tunisian government archive after independence.

¹⁵ Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” in al-Hayfaʾ, 7–8.

¹⁶ Ibid. For more on the legal system see Richard A. Macken, “The Indigenous Reaction to the French Protectorate in Tunisia, 1881–1900” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1972), 196ff; and Perkins, Kenneth J., A History of Modern Tunisia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 45–47Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 8; Ahmad Twili, Salih Suwaysi al-Qayrawani: Raʾid al- Islah al-Qayrawani (Tunis: al-Sharika al-Tunisiyya li-l-Nashr wa-Tanmiyyat Funun al-Rasm, 2005), 8.

¹⁸ Bakkush, Samir, al-Qayrawan, 1881–1939 (Tunis: Dar Sahar li-l-Nashr, 2006), 111–14Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Macken, “The Indigenous Reaction to the French Protectorate.”

²⁰ References to Qayrawan appear throughout all of the maqāmāt discussed here, but see especially “al-Maqama al-Qayrawaniyya” and “al-Maqama al-Badawiyya,” in al-Hayfaʾ, 101–109. All maqāmāt come from this volume. Remaining citations will refer to a specific maqāma only by its title.

²¹ In his maqāmāt Egyptian Muhammad al-Muwaylihi mocks tourists in Egypt and Egyptians who seek them out.

²² al-Qayrawani, Salih Suwaysi, Dalil Qayrawan, intro. Majid, Jaʿfar (Tunis: Rihab al-Maʿrif, 2006)Google Scholar. For an analysis of the 2006 reprint of the dalīl, see Katz, Kimberly, “The City of Qayrawan in the Works of Salih Suwaysi: A Place of Memory,” Journal of North African Studies 17 (2011): 257–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Sebag, Paul, The Great Mosque of Kairouan, trans. Howard, Richard (New York: Macmillan Company, 1965), 16Google Scholar.

²⁴ Suwaysi refers to Qayrawan as al-madīna al-muqaddasa (the holy city) in “al-Maqama al-Tunisiyya,” 99.

²⁵ “Al-Maqama al-Tunisiyya,” 98.

²⁶ “Al-Maqama al-Badawiyya,” 107.

²⁷ Lauzière, Henri, “The Construction of Salafiyya: Reconsidering Salafism from the Perspective of Conceptual History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42 (2010): 369–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ “Al-Maqama al-Tuzuriyya,” 123–24.

²⁹ Stewart, “The Maqāma,” 145–46.

³⁰ al-Hamadhani, Badiʿ al-Zaman, Maqamat, ed. ʿAbduh, Muhammad, 6th ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Mashriq, 1986)Google Scholar.

³¹ The best source for ʿAbduh's journeys is the history written by his disciple Rashid Rida, Tarikh al-Ustadh al-Imam al-Shaykh Muhammad ʿAbduh (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Manar, 1906). See also al-Shanufi, al-Munsif, “Masadir Rihlatay al-Ustadh al-Imam al-Shaykh Muhammad ʿAbduh ila Tunis,” Dawliyat al-Jamiʿa al-Tunisiyya 3 (1966): 71–102Google Scholar.

³² Al-Nakhli honored Muhammad ʿAbduh during his visit to Tunisia with a speech praising the latter's Risalat al-Tawhid. “Muntakhabat min Atharihi,” in Athar al-Shaykh Muhammad al-Nakhli,” 117ff.

³³ Al-Kafi refers to him by this description in her introduction to his collection of poetry. There is no indication that she is the editor of the collection. al-Kafi, Najwa, “Salih Suwaysi: Adib wa-Muslih ʿIjtimaʿi,” in Diwan Salih Suwaysi al-Qayrawani (Tunis: al-Dar al-Tunisiyya li-l-Nashr, 1977)Google Scholar, 5–9.

³⁴ Moosa, Matti, The Origins of Arabic Fiction (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 1997)Google Scholar; esp. chap. 6, “The Revival of the Maqama.” A list of those who participated in the revival of the genre can be found on p. 95.

³⁵ Allen, A Period of Time, 19–20.

³⁶ Moosa, The Origins of Arabic Fiction, 98ff.

³⁷ Choueiri notes that nearly all of the books printed in Egypt from 1840 onward circulated in Tunisia. Reformers Ahmad Bey (1837–55) and Khayr al-Din encouraged the importation of books as part of the general reformist tendency of the period. Choueiri, Youssef M., Modern Arab Historiography: Historical Discourse and the Nation-State, rev. ed. (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 18–19Google Scholar.

³⁸ Moosa, The Origins of Arabic Fiction, 97.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 10.

⁴¹ “Al-Maqama al-Tunisiyya,” 96–97.

⁴² This appeared in issue 19, but the year is unknown; it was likely not long after its publication in Sawab.

⁴³ Suwaysi, Salih, Kitab Manjam al-Tibr fi al-Nathr wa-Shiʿr (Tunis: al-Maktaba al-ʿIlmiyya, 1906), 8–11Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Allen, Roger, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction, 2nd ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 28–32Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Bin ʿAbdallah names several influences on Suwaysi, including the Lebanese writers Salim al-Bustani, Jurji Zaydan, Farah Antun, and Niqula Haddad; undoubtedly, there are others. Bin ʿAbdallah, Salih Suwaysi al-Qayrawani, 59.

⁴⁶ Both quotes are found in Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 11.

⁴⁷ Katz, “The City of Qayrawan,” 258–59.

⁴⁸ The desert may also represent the harshness of life, as, for example, in Kanafani, Ghassan, Ma Tabbaqa li-Kum, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Abhat al-ʿArabiyya, 1983)Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ No evidence exists for the date of the addition of a successive location. There are two other maqāmāt published with this collection, but they are not set in or focused on cities.

⁵⁰ The last three charges come from “al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 129, and the first two from “al-Maqama al-Susiyya,” 111.

⁵¹ J. E. Bencheikh, “Abu ’l-‘Ibar,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v., http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/abu-l-ibar-SIM_8255 (accessed 18 June 2012).

⁵² Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 6.

⁵³ Suwaysi also visited and wrote about the cities Nabeul, Baja, and Zaghwan, but these works seem to be lost. Suwaysi mentions them in “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 9. The works are titled al-Surur al-Qabil fi Ziyarat Tunis wa-Nabul (1893), which addresses two cities in the north/northeast of Tunisia, and Qiraʾat al-Zaman fi Ziyarat Baja wa-Zaghwan (1899), focusing on cities in the central and central west parts of the country. No place of publication or publisher appears with Suwaysi's mention of these books.

⁵⁴ “Al-Maqama al-Qayrawaniyya,” 104.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 6.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ The Arabic is balad bi-hi khalaf al-ṣalāḥ qad fasad. “Al-Maqama al-Tunisiyya,” 97–100. The line of poetry appears on 97–98.

⁵⁹ Bakkush, al-Qayrawan, 13–31.

⁶⁰ “Al-Maqama al-Qayrawaniyya,” 101–104.

⁶¹ “Al-Maqama al-Badawiyya,” 105–109.

⁶² Ibid., 105–106. By “civilization” or ḥaḍāra, Suwaysi is referring to the city.

⁶³ Ibid., 106.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 106–107.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 109.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 108.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 108.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 109.

⁶⁹ Lauzière, “The Construction of Salafiyya.”

⁷⁰ Ibid., 374.

⁷¹ Ibid.

⁷² Haj, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition, 4ff.

⁷³ Ibid.

⁷⁴ “Al-Maqama al-Susiyya,” 114.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 115–16.

⁷⁶ See Haj, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition and Lauzière, “The Construction of Salafiyya.”

⁷⁷ “Al-Maqama al-Susiyya,” 115.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 118. Sharaf al-Din Abu ʿAbdallah Muhammad ibn Saʿid al-Busiri, Diwan al- Busiri, ed. Muhammad Sayyid Kilani, 2nd ed. (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi), 1972. See also Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney, The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2010)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 2.

⁷⁹ “Al-Maqama al-Susiyya,” 118.

⁸⁰ “Al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 128–29.

⁸¹ For a view on development in Tunisia from the middle of the French Protectorate period, see W. Worsforld, Basil, France in Tunis and Algeria: Studies of Colonial Administration (New York: Brentano's, 1930)Google Scholar.

⁸² Perkins, A History of Modern Tunisia, 57–60.

⁸³ “Al-Maqama al-Tuzuriyya,” 119.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 120. In her recent work on migrations between Europe and Tunisia, Julia A. Clancy-Smith notes that hotels in the interior had little of which to boast. See her Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800–1900 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2011), 152.

⁸⁵ “Al-Maqama al-Tuzuriyya,” 119–21.

⁸⁶ Suwaysi, “Tarjamat al-Muʾallif bi-Qalamihi,” 10; Twili, Salih Suwaysi al-Qayrawani, 82.

⁸⁷ “Al-Maqama al-Tuzuriyya,” 123–25.

⁸⁸ Ibid., 123.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 123–24.

⁹⁰ In the 20th century, waṭaniyya would become the Arabic term for nationalism. Dawisha, Adeed, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), 85Google Scholar.

⁹¹ “Al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 130.

⁹² Ibid., 126.

⁹³ Ibid., 128–29.

⁹⁴ Hafiz Ibrahim's Layali Satih includes a character who also criticizes the lack of a market for poetry in Egypt. See Moosa, The Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction, 111.

⁹⁵ “Al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 129.

⁹⁶ Ibid., 130.

⁹⁷ Ibid.

⁹⁸ “Al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 129–30. Jabra, Jabra I. addresses the issue of translating foreign literature, which brought new ideas, and recognizes that Arabic poetry did not bring the Arabs the technological sophistication to compete with the West. See his “Modern Arabic Literature and the West,” Journal of Arabic Literature 2 (1971): 76–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hourani, Albert provides a historical overview of the introduction of foreign languages and translated works, particularly in Egypt and Lebanon, in Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 4.

⁹⁹ “Al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 131.

¹⁰⁰ Why Suwaysi refers in one case to an automobile car (ʿarabat al-atmūbīl) and in another to a gas car (ʿarabat al-ghāz) is unclear, just as it is unclear if there was a difference in these two types of cars, though that seems unlikely.

¹⁰¹ “Al-Maqama al-Safaqasiyya,” 132.

¹⁰² Ibid., 135.