Article Type : Review Article
Authors : Cambra LMA
Keywords : Oriental short story; Arabic literature; Medieval tales; Arab tales
The Kitab al- Hikayat al- Ajiba wa-l-Akhbar al-Ghariba (Book of Amazing Stories
and Rare News) is an anonymous work written in Arabic that collects forty-two
stories which are similar to those found included in compendia of popular Arab
literature of the Middle Ages, such as The Thousand and One Nights. This
article is an introduction to its study, and it includes the editions and the
translations made on this interesting book as well as its narrative structure
and content, according to the manuscript Istanbul Ayasofya Müzesi no.3397,
edited by Hans Wehr and Alexander von Bulmerincq in 1956.
The Kitab al- Hikayat al- Ajiba wa-l-Akhbar al-Ghariba (Book of Amazing Stories and Rare News) is an Arabic anonymous work, as is
usual in this type of compilation books. It collects forty-two stories, which
are similar to those found included in compendia of popular Arab literature of
the Middle Ages such as The Thousand and One Nights. This collection of
forty-two stories remains in a single Arabic codex, the MS Istanbul Ayasofya
Müzesi no. 3397 (XIII-XIV century), discovered by Hellmut Ritter in 1933 [1],
and edited by Hans Wehr and Alexander von Bulmerincq in Damascus [2] and in
Wiesbaden [3], in 1956; and later it was re-edited, in Cologne [4], in 1997,
and in 2012 [5].
Only eighteen
of the forty-two stories are preserved, and they include a total of twenty-six
tales full of fantasy, adventure and imagination, which appear to constitute
the first volume of the book. As I have already mentioned, some of the stories
or legends enclosed in the pages of this work are an almost equal copy of The
Thousand and One Nights ´s stories or, at least, very similar to them, for
example: The barber's six brothers (story #3), Jullan?r the Sailor (story #6),
Ab? Mu?ammad the Lazy (story #11), Jubayr Ibn ‘Umayr and Bud?r (story #8), etc.
The handwriting
of the manuscript suggests that the copy was made around the 14th
century, but its content indicates that the stories were compiled and, in some
cases, composed around the 10th century in Syria or Egypt. The codex
dates from approximately the beginning of the 14th century, and is
therefore of the same date as the oldest known manuscript of The Thousand
and One Nights used by Adolf Galland for his work in the early 18th
century [6], and which was the basis for the critical edition of Muhsin Mahdi
[7].
The origin of
the tale as a genre is found in the Eastern peoples, mainly India and Persia.
The Arabs transmitted and enriched it with their contributions, and thus it was
known in Europe. This collection of stories is framed within this framework. The
ancient Oriental narrative of legends, tales, fables and apologues is very
present in almost all Medieval and Renaissance Christian works. Many their
books were versioned in European languages, and they left important traces in
later both writings and authors: Calila e Dimna, Sendebar, El
Conde Lucanor of Don Juan Manuel; and Decameron of Giovanni
Boccaccio, among others, are very illustrative examples.
The title and the subject of the
forty-two stories narrated in this interesting book are the following:
1. Story of King of Ba?rayn
2. Story of ?al?a and ?u?fa
3. Story of the six peoples
4. Story of the four searches
5. Story of the forty girls
6. Story of Jullan?r the Sailor
7. Story of ‘Ar?s al-‘Ar?’is
8. Story of Bud?r and ‘Umayr
9. Story of ‘U?f?r Ab? D?sa
10. Story of Al-S?l and Al-Shum?l
11. Story of the sloth and the
monkey
12. Story of Miqd?d and Al-Mayy?sa
13. Story of Sa‘?d Ibn H?tim
Al-B?hil?
14. Story of Al-?akhr and Al-Khans?’
15. Story of the eulogy of the
Prophet
16. Story of Mu?ammad Al-Mawj?d and
H?r?n Al-Rash?d
17. Story of Al-Ashraf and Al-Anjab
18. Story of the enchanted mountain
19. Story of Al-Mawh?b and Al-Ma?liyya
20. Story of Salm? and Al-Wal?d
21. Story of the Barmaki thief
22. Story of Jam?la Al-Badawiyya
23. Story of Sa‘d and ?ass?n
24. Story of Fawz and Al-‘Abb?s
25. Story of the singer ?a?wa
26. Story of A?mad Al-Sh?rib
27. Story of Ardash?r Ibn M?h?n
28. Story of the golden dove
29. Story of A?mad Al-‘Anbar?
30. Story of the ebony horse
31. Story of Al-‘Aq?l?
32. Story of Badr and the vizier
33. Story of Shams Al-Qu??r
34. Story of Salm?n
35. Story of the bamboo island
36. Story of the island of emeralds
37. Story of the stunned king
38. Story of King Shizar?n
39. Story of Bay?? and Riy??
40. Story of ??hir Ibn Kh?q?n
41. Story of Ab?-l-Faraj Al-I?fah?n?
42. Story of the girl who swallowed
the blade
In the first folio of the Istanbul
manuscript the forty-two stories are cited, although, as I have already said,
only eighteen have been preserved, and the story no.15 named the Tale of
Prophet´s eulogy is missing.
There are translations to German
(story #5) [8,9]; English (full) [10]; French (story #7) [11]; (stories #5, #9,
#14, and #18) [12]; and Spanish (story #3) [13].
The Kitab al- Hikayat al- Ajiba wa-l-Akhbar al-Ghariba (Book of Amazing Stories
and Rare News), an interesting
collection of tales copied about the 14th century, is framed into
the process of origin and transmission of Oriental short stories to Europe, and
so its study is very important for history of literature, since it helps to
increase knowledge of this genre.