Apocalyptic Aftershocks in al-Ṭāhir Waṭṭār’s Al-zilzāl

Abstract

Chapter 3 explores the use of Qurʾanic imagery and intertextuality in al-Ṭāhir Waṭṭār’s (1936–2010) apocalyptic 1974 novel al-Zilzāl [the Earthquake]. The novel follows the misanthropic Shaykh ʿAbd al-Majīd Bū al-Arwāḥ as his capitalist aspirations are thwarted by Algerian socialist reforms and increasingly prescient images of the earthquake of the Day of Resurrection. Its satirical portrayal of Bū al-Arwāḥ calls attention to the complicity of the religious elite with French colonialism. By reworking the symbols and mythology of Islamic eschatology, al-Zilzāl challenges hegemonic discourses of Arabism and Islamism in Algerian nationalist discourse. The chapter reads the novel against the grain of Waṭṭār’s own false binary of Arabic (national) and Francophone (non-national) literature. It does so by examining the work’s generic hybridity, conscious manipulation of narrative time and space, as well as its incorporation of the Qurʾan alongside various registers of the Arabic language.