Classical Arabic Stories: An Anthology

Classical Arabic Stories: An Anthology

Language: English

Pages: 400

ISBN: 0231149239

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Short fiction was an immensely innovative art in the medieval Arab world, providing the perfect vehicle for transmitting dazzling images of life and experiences as early as pre-Islamic times. These works also speak to the urbanization of the Arab domain after Islam, mirroring the bustling life of the Muslim Arabs and Islamized Persians and reflecting the sure stamp of an urbanity that had settled very staunchly after big conquests. All the noises and voices of the Umayyads and Abbasids are here. One can taste the flavor of Abbasid food, witness the rise of slave girls and singers, and experience the pride of state. Reading these texts today illuminates the wide spectrum of early Arab life and suggests the influences and innovations that flourished so vibrantly in medieval Arab society. The only resource of its kind, Salma Khadra Jayyusi's Classical Arabic Stories selects from an impressive corpus, including excerpts from seven seminal works: Ibn Tufail's novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan; Kalila wa Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffa; The Misers by al-Jahiz; The Brethren of Purity's The Protest of Animals Against Man; Al-Maqamat (The Assemblies) by al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri; Epistle of Forgiveness by al-Ma'arri; and the epic romance, Sayf Bin Dhi Yazan. Jayyusi organizes her anthology thematically, beginning with a presentation of pre-Islamic tales, stories of rulers and other notables, and thrilling narratives of danger and warfare. She follows with tales of love, religion, comedy, and the strange and the supernatural. Long assumed to be the lesser achievement when compared to Arabic literature's most celebrated genre-poetry-classical Arabic fiction, under Jayyusi's careful eye, finally receives a proper debut in English, demonstrating its unparalleled contribution to the evolution of medieval literature and its sophisticated representation of Arabic culture and life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

classes, arriving at the delineation of the antihero so many centuries before this kind of protagonist had become central to fiction in Europe. Of course, al-Jahiz, that great genius of the second to third century A.H. (eighth to ninth century C.E.), had already given the type his creative attention. The early entry of this type of protagonist—ruffians, thieves, tricksters, outcasts, vagrants, naive dupes, party crashers, nouveaux riches—into Arabic fiction can only denote a fast-growing urbanism

discrepancy in the original, where it is al-ʿAbsi who flees. 11 Luqman Wahb said: The ʿAad al-Asghar ben Qahtan were a devious and treacherous tribe. No wayfarer could feel secure with them, no neighbor would trust them; no stranger would ever visit them, no one would venture to make a covenant with them. A branch of this tribe, the Banu Karkar Ben ʿAad ben Qahtan, lived in the far reaches of Yemen and was at war with all the tribes of ʿAad. These last had as allies the Banu Ghanem and

monotheistic beliefs of Islam) or unintentionally, as happens always with oral works. Many of the stories in this anthology come from The Book of Crowns on the Kings of Himyar, perhaps the richest source of purportedly pre-Islamic tales. Its stories, legends, and mythological adventures would fit an ancient, multicultural selectivity well known in other cultures and assume a scope far beyond normal possibilities—men living hundreds of years, corpses of dead kings that do not decay, fantastic,

Baghdad, and for several years all news of him ceased. Then I met him once more and found him in a very bad way, with almost no money, but I shied away from asking about his evident hardship. Then I noticed that, if ever he saw a woman, his face would change color, and he’d sigh and look away; then, his eyes still averted, he’d grow dejected and go on cursing her till she was out of sight. I asked him the reason for this. “I was,” he said, “on the point of telling you about the penury I’m in

was used to buy a slave girl to nurse the infant and to pay her wages. This went on for some time. Then, when the infant was weaned, the slave girl was sold and I had the money from this for a while. The baby died in its third year, but I was kept in prison for four years, because the judge who knew about my case had been dismissed, and there was no one to speak for me. For the rest of the time I lived on the charity of other prisoners, and so things went on till the old caliph died and

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