Prophecy and Power

Adonis was born in 1930 in Qassabine, Syria, and has been writing poetry for over seventy years. Frequently tipped for the Nobel Prize for Literature, his achievements have been recognized with numerous international accolades, including the Goethe Prize in 2011.Houria Abdelouahed is a psychoanalyst, lecturer and translator.

• Epigraph 1 God, ‘The Messenger of Muhammad’?Notes2 The Ghazawāt: The Violence Involved in the Foundation of IslamNotes3 Putting the Text to WorkNotes4 Saqīfa: Power in a TizzyNotes5 The City of God and EntitlementNotes6 Tillage? Woman, the Most Noble of WordsNotes7 ‘Love’s Capital Is Not to Have Any’Notes8 The West of the Enlightenment: What Does It Have to Do with the Orient?NotesEpilogue: Leaving the Cave!NotesGlossary

“Nobody can hold a mirror up to the Arabs, Arab culture, and the Arab malaise with Adonis’s conscientious erudition and affection. An irreverent fearless iconoclast from his early years, Adonis the nonagenarian remains an unflinching visionary and reformer, and a passionate advocate for the Arabs. Prophecy and Power is in line with this Adonisian tradition of franc-parler. Powerful, deeply searching, premonitory, and devastatingly veridical, this latest of Adonis’s gems is a must-read for anyone concerned for the Arabs, their predicament, their twilight.”Franck Salameh, Boston College“Adonis is indefatigable in his deconstruction of religious orthodoxy. These uninhibited conversations with Houria Abdelouahed, expertly translated by Julie Rose, dramatize the disquietudes between faith and reason, all the while championing the spiritual vitality of Sufism.”Nouri Gana, University of California, Los Angeles