It is very clear when the holy book of a certain area is alternatively known as "The Untranslatable" that we _ are entering a region with some interesting cultures and specific ways of saying things. The classical form of the Arabic language is the language of the Koran. Problems of translatability emerge right from the start where Islam is concerned. Islamic belief is founded on the principle of iman. This word is usually translated as "faith," but in fact it is nothing like faith as conceived in a Western sense. A Muslim's belief is founded on a deeply rational persuasion of its Tightness, and therefore to a believer in Islam the Western existentialist idea of a "leap of faith" would make no sense at all.
Local oral narrating and performing traditions have long been part of the Middle Eastern culture. Many Muslim Arabs memorize portions of the Koran, and it is not uncommon for devout believers to commit the entire scripture to memory.
Arab oral traditions can perhaps be summed up by the following untranslatable word. Halca is an artistic genre so famed - and threatened - that it is now under UNESCO cultural protection. To describe halca simply as "storytelling" would do an injustice to this ancient Arab street tradition of improvised song, dance, and story where the audience gathers in a circle around the performers. A renowned halca venue is in Jemaa-el Fna Square in Marrakech, Morocco. The Spanish author Juan Goytisolo, a regular resident of the city, describes it eloquently:
The halca, the circle of listeners and spectators . . . forms around the storyteller . . . The storyteller addresses these people directly; they are his accomplices. The text he recites or improvises functions like a score, leaving the performer a wide margin of freedom. In the oral tradition, changes in voice and oratorical rhythm, expressions and gestures, play a fundamental role: even a seemingly sacred text can be parodied and lowered to a scatological level. In children's stories and chansons de geste, the frequent use of para-linguistic devices and cynegetic sketches (which evoke hunting), stresses the magic, power or dramatic aspects of the episodes being told.
The hero story cycles of the Middle Eastern culture belong in the same tradition as alf layla wa layla, more commonly known to Westerners as The Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights. These stories owe their origins largely to the storytelling traditions of the Persian and Arab worlds. Derived from a tenth-century Persian book of folktales called Hazarafsaneh, some of the best-known stories, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves were translated by Englishman Sir Richard Burton in the nineteenth century. They are a valuable source of Middle Eastern social history across the medieval Islamic period. Of course the subtleties of the language are lost in the translation but the exotic and romantic imagery is universal and inspirational.
