This literary-historical book draws out and sheds light upon the mechanisms of 'the ideological work' that the ArabicMajnÅ«n LaylÄstory performed for 'AbbÄsid urbanite, imperial audiences in the wake of the disappearance of the 'bedouin cosmos.'The study focuses upon the processes of primitivizing MajnÅ«n in the romance ofMajnÅ«n LaylÄas part of the paradigm shift that occurred in the 'AbbÄsid empire after the Graeco-Arabian intellectual revolution. Moreover, this book demonstrates how gender and sexuality are employed in the processes of primitivizing MajnÅ«n. As markers of 'strangeness' and 'foreignness' in the 'AbbÄsid interrogations of the multiple categories of ethnicity, culture, identity, religion and language present in their cosmopolitan milieus. Such 'cultural work' is performed through the ideological uses of alterity given its mechanisms of distancing (e. g., temporal and spatial) and nearness (e. g. affective). Lastly, theMajnÅ«n LaylÄlove story demonstrates, in its text and reception, that a Greco-Arabian and Greco-Persian sub-culture thrived in the centers of 'AbbÄsid Baghdad that molded and shaped the ways in which this love story was compiled, received and performed. Offering a corrective to the prevailing views expressed in Western scholarly writings on the Greco-Arabian encounter, this book is a major contribution to scholars and students interested in Arabic and comparative literature, Middle East and Gender Studies. | Bedouin And 'abbasid Cultural Identities by Ruqayya Yasmine Khan, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters