ABSTRACT
This article revisits and revises my earlier study, “Trespassing the Male Domain: the qasidah of Layla al-Akhyaliyyah.” 1 I first thought about Layla’s transgres-sivepoetry while a graduate student in an Arabic literature class taught by Magda Al-Nowaihi at Columbia University. Magda encouraged me not only to publish the paper I wrote for her class, but also to write my PhD dissertation on Layla alAkhyaliya. I followed the first part of Magda’s advice (but not the second: I ended up writing my dissertation on eighteenth-century commoner histories from the Ottoman Levant), and the article on Layla came out in 2000 with a dedication to both Magda and my own sister, Luma, for these two young women’s courageous battles against cancer. Magda, though, was not as fortunate as Luma. And now, five years on, I find myself revisiting Layla’s exceptional literary corpus with a view to carrying out the second part of Magda’s advice; to write a book-length study of Layla. The present article is the first fruit of my re-engagement with Layla, and it is only appropriate to re-dedicate it to Magda’s memory.
