The Tale of al-Barrāq Son of Rawḥān and Laylā the Chaste

A bilingual edition and study

This edition of an anonymous work of fiction reads as a transnational literary whodunnit. How did this hybrid text, blending the Arabic genres of the popular sīra and the Udhrī; love story with the western fairy tale, come to life? And why was it misconstrued as history in the 19th century? Hammond offers up an intriguing case file.

This book presents a bilingual edition and study of an anonymous work of early Arabic fiction set in pre-Islamic times: an Arab maiden called 'Laylā the Chaste' is kidnapped and threatened with forced marriage to a Persian king. Ultimately, she is saved by her handsome and beloved cousin al-Barrāq, and they marry and live happily ever after. This knight-in-shining-armour-rescues-damsel-in-distress narrative, which combines elements of the Arabic popular epic (sīra) with others from the Udhrī; love story and the western fairy tale, was misinterpreted as history by scholars in the 19th century. In the two substantive chapters that frame her translation of the tale, Hammond discusses the text's evolution in the Arab Renaissance and its metamorphoses in 20th-century popular culture. She also analyses the structure of the tale to look for clues as to its real origins, shedding new light on theories of the development of the Arabic novel.

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