The Trial of Heritage and the Legacy of Abraham

Abstract

This article, which broadly explores the impact of myth on literature and history, locates contemporary articulations of masculine identity with the founding myths, particularly that of Abraham. The story of Abraham, as it has been rendered in the Old Testament and in the Qur’an and as it has been read in modern times, brings together religious and nationalist formulations of identity. The article examines the limitations of nationalist and fundamentalist readings of this myth which have not only foreclosed the narrative possibilities of this story but have also led to the enactment of violence and exclusion in history through such readings. The latter part of the article looks to recent literature and poetry that respond to this delimited old myth and that interrogate the closure that it presumably has. Through the writing of Mahmoud Darwish and Assia Djebar, the article attempts to show a complex interrogation of the figure of Abraham, one that would reveal how readings of Abraham are open to contestation, that would allow for new outcomes of this story, and that would make possible new imaginings of identity