Untitled Flashcards Set

THE FOLKLORIC

TRADITION

Sira

EntireTribe: Sirat Banu Hilal

Individual: Sirat ‘Antara

‘Antara FOLKLORIC TRADITION

Arabic folk epics are original and individual, with marked

variations in theme and resolutions, although keeping

the general epic features common to all. Adventure

and love are the main topics, but there are also wars and

great feats of courage and moral integrity,

These epics have preserved their attraction in the Arabic

world to the present time: they are still narrated in the

cafés of some old Arabian cities, such as Damascus, and

in villages and in the less-modernized habitats of the

Arabic world. They are also found in many of the libraries

housing Oriental manuscripts. Many printings of them are

available in various Arab cities

.FOLKLORIC TRADITION _ CONTINUED

The most famous of these folk epics ( or romances) are:

1. The Epic of ʿ Antara ibn Shaddad (around 4,000 pages)

2. The famous Hilali epic, Sirat Bani Hilal, which has two

major renditions: a prose rendition of about two thousand

pages, and a poetry rendition collected and recorded by

the poet ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Abnudi and constituting a

quarter of a million poetry quartets

3. The Epic of Princess Dhat al-Himma (offers a typology of

the warrior woman in the Arabic epic)

4. The Epic of al- Dhahir Baibars: long

Egyptian folkloric epic poem that narrates the life and heroic

achievements of the Mamluk Sultan al-Zahir Baibars .

‘ANTARA

An example is the story of ʿAntara, a black

poet of note in the pre-Islamic period who was

the son of a notable Arab from the southern

ʿAbs tribe and an Abyssinian slave mother and

who was himself regarded as a slave by his

father. The story is dramatic enough in its own

right, with ʿAntara’s desperate love for ʿAbla,

his white cousin, and his feats of courage in

defense of the tribe, which procured his

emancipation and marriage to his love.