“In the most general sense,
literature is a discipline that studies elegant, measured, and harmonious words uttered or written in verse or prose in a form that is congruent with the conditions of time and usually in compliance with the rules of the language. The Arabic word for
literature is
adab, which has a wider frame of connotation associated with
good manners, gentleness, elegance, refinement, and perfection. It has often been interpreted in relation to a person’s lifestyle, conduct, and integrity and as a means to the flourishing of that person in spirituality and purification of the heart. In this sense, adab falls in the domain of books on ethics or of treatises on Sufism, and therefore it is not usually covered within the discipline of
literature. Even so, drawing upon its semantic roots, it is possible to refer to an indirect connection between the two.”
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