الفضيلة

Al-Fadila ("Virtue") is Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti's celebrated Arabic reworking of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's French classic Paul et Virginie. Set on the lush island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, then a French colony, it tells the story of Paul and Virginie, two children raised side by side in near-paradise by their devoted mothers, whose innocent childhood affection deepens into a pure and abiding love.

Their idyll is broken by the pressures of the wider world: differences of fortune, the expectations of society, and Virginie's departure to France. When she at last sails home, a storm wrecks her ship within sight of the shore, and the tragedy that follows destroys the small, loving world the story so tenderly built.

Rather than translating literally, al-Manfaluti recast the tale in his own ornate, emotive Arabic prose, and Al-Fadila became one of the most widely read works of early modern Arabic literature. It is a tender, mournful romance about innocence, virtue, and the fragility of happiness.