Master's Thesis: Symbolism in Risālat al-Tawābi‘ wa‑l‑Zawābi‘ by Ibn Shuhayd: An Interpretive Study
This study deals with the subject of symbolism in the message of the minions and whirlwinds of the son of the Andalusian martyr, a prose message that is considered to be the symbolic texts in Andalusian literature, because of its intellectual depth, and a complex narrative structure that combines the strange and the strange, and between symbol and interpretation. This study was based on the basic premise that Ibn Shahid not only wrote his text as a miraculous tale, but also wanted to express through it the crisis of the Andalusian intellectual under turbulent political, social and religious conditions, through a tight symbolic speech that camouflages criticism in the folds of fiction.
The analysis shows that the message of the disciples and the whirlwinds is a symbolic text par excellence, which transcends the boundaries of the narrative phenomenon to express the crisis of contemporary Andalusian literature of Ibn Shahid, in light of the struggle between the values of the past and the crises of the present, between tradition and renewal, between freedom of thought and political and social censorship.
The study was aimed at revealing the dimensions of symbolism in the text, analyzing the manifestations of the miraculous and the strange as a critical and hermeneutical means, showing how miraculous characters and supernatural phenomena are used to embody ideas, intellectual and ideological positions, clarifying the relationship between religious and political symbolism in the formation of the deep meaning of the message.
The study was based on the analytical hermeneutical method, which is based on reading the text a multi-level reading, revealing the hidden connotations of symbols, and linking them to the historical and cultural context of Al-Andalus at the time of Ibn Shahid.
The Miraculous Journey appeared as a symbol of esoteric behavior in seeking the truth, and the political dimension emerged through the depiction of the torn world of Jinn and demons, which reflected the division of Andalusia during the reign of the Kings of sects.
