Watan Ke

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Gigí Ruais

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:47:25 PM8/3/24

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The modern Arabic term for national homeland, watan, derives its sense from the related yet semantically different usage of this term in classical Arabic, particularly in classical Arabic poetry. In modern usage, watan refers to a politically defined, visually memorialized territory whose expanse is cognized abstractly rather than through personal experience. The modern watan is the geopolitical locus of national identity. The classical notion of watan, however, is rarely given much geographical content, although it usually designates a relatively localized area on the scale of a neighborhood, town, or village. More important than geographical content is the subjective meaning of the watan, in the sense of its essential place in the psyche of an individual. The watan (also mawtin, awtan), both in poetry and other types of classical writing, is strongly associated with the childhood/youth and primary love attachments of the speaker. This sense of watan is thus temporally defined as much as spatially, and as such can be seen as an archetypal instance of the Bakhtinian chronotope, one intrinsically associated with nostalgia and estrangement. The watan, as the site of the classical self's former plenitude, is by definition lost or transfigured and unrecoverable, becoming an attachment that must be relinquished for the sake of virtue and glory. This paper argues that the bivalency of the classical watan chronotope, recoverable through analysis of poetic and literary texts, allows us to understand the space and time of the self in classical Arabic literature and how this self differs from that presupposed by modern ideals of patriotism.

N2 - The modern Arabic term for national homeland, watan, derives its sense from the related yet semantically different usage of this term in classical Arabic, particularly in classical Arabic poetry. In modern usage, watan refers to a politically defined, visually memorialized territory whose expanse is cognized abstractly rather than through personal experience. The modern watan is the geopolitical locus of national identity. The classical notion of watan, however, is rarely given much geographical content, although it usually designates a relatively localized area on the scale of a neighborhood, town, or village. More important than geographical content is the subjective meaning of the watan, in the sense of its essential place in the psyche of an individual. The watan (also mawtin, awtan), both in poetry and other types of classical writing, is strongly associated with the childhood/youth and primary love attachments of the speaker. This sense of watan is thus temporally defined as much as spatially, and as such can be seen as an archetypal instance of the Bakhtinian chronotope, one intrinsically associated with nostalgia and estrangement. The watan, as the site of the classical self's former plenitude, is by definition lost or transfigured and unrecoverable, becoming an attachment that must be relinquished for the sake of virtue and glory. This paper argues that the bivalency of the classical watan chronotope, recoverable through analysis of poetic and literary texts, allows us to understand the space and time of the self in classical Arabic literature and how this self differs from that presupposed by modern ideals of patriotism.

AB - The modern Arabic term for national homeland, watan, derives its sense from the related yet semantically different usage of this term in classical Arabic, particularly in classical Arabic poetry. In modern usage, watan refers to a politically defined, visually memorialized territory whose expanse is cognized abstractly rather than through personal experience. The modern watan is the geopolitical locus of national identity. The classical notion of watan, however, is rarely given much geographical content, although it usually designates a relatively localized area on the scale of a neighborhood, town, or village. More important than geographical content is the subjective meaning of the watan, in the sense of its essential place in the psyche of an individual. The watan (also mawtin, awtan), both in poetry and other types of classical writing, is strongly associated with the childhood/youth and primary love attachments of the speaker. This sense of watan is thus temporally defined as much as spatially, and as such can be seen as an archetypal instance of the Bakhtinian chronotope, one intrinsically associated with nostalgia and estrangement. The watan, as the site of the classical self's former plenitude, is by definition lost or transfigured and unrecoverable, becoming an attachment that must be relinquished for the sake of virtue and glory. This paper argues that the bivalency of the classical watan chronotope, recoverable through analysis of poetic and literary texts, allows us to understand the space and time of the self in classical Arabic literature and how this self differs from that presupposed by modern ideals of patriotism.

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My niyyah: my darul watan is still roshnee, i make niyyah for safr when i leave roshnee intending to continue my journey more than musafir distance, and stay in Azdvlle for less than 15 days (by our flat)

You refer to Roshnee, Azaadville and Rustenburg and your intentions during the travels. You enquire what is our opinion. Our advise to you and your wife is to establish Azaadville as your Watan-e-Iqamah by taking a longer route to Azaadville making it 78km (Safar-e-Sharee) and make the intention of staying in Azaadville for 15 nights or more. This must only be done once, so that Watan-e-Iqamah can be established in Azaadville.[1] Roshnee will remain your Watan-e-Asli.

In Roshnee, you and your wife will be Muqeems and make Itmaan there when travelling from Azaadville taking the normal route. This is due to Roshnee being Watan-e-Asli for you and also it is not a Safar-e-Sharee from Azaadville for you and your wife.

In Rustenburg you will be a Musafir and you must perform Qasr if you intend staying lesser than 15 nights. This will apply irrespective of travelling from Roshnee or Azaadville, as Rustenburg will be a Safar-e-Sharee.[4]