Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period

In Qiṣṣat al-amīr Ḥamza, one of the heroes is said to perform ‘the feats of ῾Antar’ when he shows great bravery,¹ an expression that was already current in the tenth century. It well illustrates how already at an early date ῾Antar had become the hero par excellence of Arab imagination, a status that has not changed even to the present day. He is the Arab Hercules, whose strength and valour have become proverbial. He is the personification of Arab manly virtue, murūwa, stoically enduring hardship, generous, protector of the helpless and a paragon of knightly skill, furūsiyya.

Sīrat ῾Antar (or ῾Antara) ibn Shaddād, which recounts his heroic deeds, has long been popular with Arab audiences. As Hamilton, relying on Burkhardt, says, ‘To the Arabs, it is their standard work, which excites in them the wildest emotions.’² The many place names in Arabia, the Middle East and North Africa that refer to him are another indication of his widespread and continuous popularity.

The figure of ῾Antar, the legendary hero of the sīra, has its historic base in the figure of the pre-Islamic bedouin poet whose name, rightly or not, is connected with one of the Mu‘allaqāt.³ Little is known about this historical ῾Antar, who is also known as ῾Antar ibn Mu‘āwiya ibn Shaddād, but he, whoever he was, evolved into the legendary black warrior of popular story-telling, and the two became inextricably merged in popular imagination. His adventures, like those of Abū Zayd al-Hilālī, Baybars and ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, the son of Dhāt al-Himma, evoked a glorious Arab past that audiences could identify with and often preferred to the more fantastic stories of, for instance, the Arabian Nights or Sīrat Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan. This holds true even for the present. Asked about his preferences, a modern listener, who had daily attended sīra sessions for more than thirty years, strongly stated his preference for the above-mentioned sīras over that of Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan, ‘because they are history, ta᾽rīkh, and the other is nothing but lies and sorcery’.⁴

῾Antar has also enjoyed great popularity in Europe. The stories about him fit well with romantic notions about the Arab world. They evoked the mysterious and colourful world of A Thousand and One Nights, and also appealed to Western fascination with desert life. ῾Antar embodied the noble bedouin warrior, but also is an undaunted, and at times ruthless, lover, a veritable shaykh according to Western imagination.

Sīrat ῾Antar was introduced to Western scholarship early in the nineteenth century. One of its great advocates was von Hammer-Purgstall, one of whose first articles about it was a short note written in 1811. Many literary and artistic offshoots followed. The play ῾Antar by Shukrī Ghānim, staged in Paris in 1910, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s ῾Antar symphony are two examples.

Numerous Western retellings of the sīra have appeared, often focusing on the ῾Antar and ‘Abla romance. They were usually made on the basis of Terrick Hamilton’s translation (1819–20) of the first third of the sīra, made from an Aleppan manuscript. Many translations of individual episodes have appeared in various articles and a (partial) French translation by Devic appeared in 1864.

Part of the enthusiasm generated by the Western discovery of ῾Antar was due to the fact that it filled an important gap felt to exist in Arabic literature. Unlike other well-known literatures, Arabic literature seemed to have no epics. Caussin de Perceval’s remark that ῾Antarwas, in a manner of speaking, the Arab Iliad⁵ echoes this view. Another reason was that with Sīrat ῾Antar, scholars thought to have in hand a rich and authentic source of information about bedouin life, more specifically life in pre-Islamic Arabia, the cradle of Islam. Only gradually did it become clear that the Sīra as it now stands cannot have taken shape earlier than the twelfth century, and quite possibly even later. Authentic pre-Islamic lore may well have been preserved in it, but is not at all easy to sift out from other material.

Compared to most other Arabic epics, Sīrat ῾Antar has been reasonably well studied, although much remains to be done. Noteworthy studies that appeared in this century are that of Heller (1931), who wrote about it from a comparative and folkloristic point of view; Norris (1980), who focused especially on ῾Antar’s African exploits; Heath’s excellent monograph The Thirsty Sword (1996), which covers most of the basic information about the Sīra and its background, and deals with a number of narrative and compositional aspects, such as the sīra’s treatment of standard epic elements like the ‘heroic cycle’ and the ‘lion fight’; and Cherkaoui (Le Roman de ῾Antar and ‘Historical Elements’), whose comparison of some ῾Antar episodes with reports of medieval Arab historians is of particular interest.

How and when the historical ῾Antar started to become the hero of popular legend and how the stories about him grew into the substantial narrative cycle known from the late Middle Ages can only be guessed. Al-Hamdānī (d. 945) already speaks about ῾Antar (riding his steed Abjar) and ‘Abla in battle with Yemenis.⁶ A problem with an early dating of some form of the cycle is that no evidence for its existence is found in Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist (tenth century).

Historical evidence for the existence of a body of ῾Antar stories dates from the twelfth century. First, there is the well-known reference to narrative fiction (including ῾Antar) in the autobiography of the Jewish convert Samaw’al ibn Yaḥyā,⁷ and there is Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a’s entry about a mid-twelfth-century physician by the name of Ibn al-Ṣā’igh, who was nicknamed al-῾Antarī because he copied out ‘῾Antar tales’.⁸ But the Crusader material in the Sīra as it now stands cannot be older than the twelfth century. Some, not always conclusive, references are found in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sources, and the oldest manuscripts of the Sīra as we know it date from the fifteenth century.⁹

The picture that arises is of a collection of ayyām al-‘Arab-type stories already extant at an early date, which was expanded by professional story-tellers over the centuries, and received its more or less definitive shape at a time when the Crusader exploits were still remembered, but had already obtained a legendary character. This could have been in the thirteenth century. There is no conclusive proof that the ῾Antar stories so much appreciated by Samaw’al already formed a cycle similar to the later lengthy epic. He speaks about ‘long stories’, and mentions some titles along with ῾Antar. These, however, are also inconclusive.

From early Mamluk times onwards, the cycle was then passed on via a mixed oral and written tradition (this accounts for the wide divergencies between texts) until the end of the nineteenth century. On Sīrat ῾Antar as an oral epic, see also Jason’s article in Oriente Moderno.

The text itself often speaks about its presumed author, the grammarian al-Asmā‘ī (d. c. 828). To quote Heller:¹⁰ ‘In fact we have within the sīra a regular romance regarding the origin of the romance.’ But the legendary al-Asmā‘ī of the cycle, who on the basis of what the text says must have lived for many centuries, can at best have had a very superficial connection with the historical al-Asmā‘ī. The latter’s activity as a collector of bedouin linguistic lore, possibly also including narrative material (but there is no evidence of this), may have been responsible for the connection.

In recent printed editions (which differ considerably among each other) the Sīra usually covers six to eight volumes, divided into a number of parts that differs according to recension.¹¹ The total number of pages is between three and four thousand.

A detailed idea of the contents can be obtained from the extensive summaries given by Lyons and Heath. Lyons’ summary is (for the first third) based on the English translation of Hamilton (see above), which does not include the long introduction of prophetic history (the Abraham story) found in other versions. Heath’s summary is based on this longer version.

The Sīra, often referred to as a ‘romance of chivalry’, tells of the adventures of the bedouin hero ῾Antar and his tribe, the Banū ‘Abs. The events described are supposed to take place largely in pre-Islamic days, but ample use is made of elements from later times. The actual events that provide a background for the epic known today cover the period between the sixth and the twelfth centuries.

Time is treated in the manner usual for these epics, meaning that larger-scale temporal consistence is of little importance. Lifespans and travel, also in relation to other events, may be dealt with as the narrator sees fit. It is the same with space: ῾Antar’s adventures take place in a largely fictional space, even though the regions through which he travels may be named Persia, Africa or Spain.

Unlike in other cycles, such as Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan and Baybars, the supernatural and the miraculous play a very minor part in the ῾Antar cycle. There are the collapsible soothsayer Satīḥ, who has neither limbs nor bones, and the magic castle in Yemen, inhabited by dog people. Occasionally elements from Arab geographical writers have found their way into the tales about exotic regions. These are usually motifs that circulated widely in tales of marvel, ‘ajā᾽ib. The description of silent barter, already described in the Sindbad tales, is an example.¹²

῾Antar, eponymous hero of the cycle, is the son of Shaddād, chief of the Banū ‘Abs. He is black, for his mother is the black slave Zabība, who was captured during a raid, together with her two sons. Both ῾Antar’s half-brothers support him during his heroic career. One of them, Shaybūb, plays a major role in the epic as ῾Antar’s faithful helper, the double that traditionally accompanies the main hero in Arabic sīra, the ‘ayyār. One of his epithets is ṣāḥib al-himma, ‘the man of noble purpose’ (e.g. Ⅴ, p. 357). He is clever, a good runner and an excellent archer. The bow is an appropriate weapon for the ‘ayyār, whose essential characteristics are versatility and the ability to surprise. Shaybūb does not show the outrageous behaviour that characterizes the more picaresque ‘ayyār figures in some of the other narrative cycles, such as al-Baṭṭāl in Sīrat Dhāt al-Himma, ‘Umar in Ḥamza and Shīḥa in Baybars.

As is customary, the hero’s childhood and youth are marked by extraordinary circumstances and events: he is much bigger, stronger and fiercer than the other boys of his age, who are greatly in awe of him. Already as a boy ῾Antar falls irrevocably in love with ‘Abla, the daughter of his uncle Mālik. The vicissitudes of their courtship and married relationship form one of the main narrative lines of the cycle. They marry after approximately one-third of the cycle.

Partly connected to the love story are ῾Antar’s efforts to overcome the disadvantages of his birth by heroic deeds, which form another major strand of the story. Among them are his struggle to be acknowledged by his father Shaddād, and his subsequent efforts to be accepted as son-in-law by the father of his beloved ‘Abla. In the course of his early adventures he acquires his legendary sword Ẓāmī (the Thirsty) and his steed Abjar, whose qualities mirror those of his master.

Conflicts, raids, ambushes and treacherous deeds inform the narrative. ῾Antar’s conflicts with his tribe, the Banū ‘Abs, and their rivalry with their sister tribe, the Fazāra, play major roles. Conflict with members of other tribes, reflecting the tension between northern and southern Arabian tribes, is also a leading motif, as are military conflicts beyond the Arabian peninsula. ῾Antar becomes involved (as enemy and as ally) with both the Byzantines and the Persians. The Byzantines have as their allies the Franks and the Ghassanid kings of Syria, while the Persians have the Lakhmid kings of Ḥīra on their side.

These conflicts provide the texture into which a colourful sequence of narrative events is woven: raids, military exploits, love affairs and strange adventures in foreign parts. In the later parts of the cycle, ῾Antar’s peregrinations carry him as far as al-Andalus and Rome in the west, to India (Sind and Hind) in the east, and deep into Africa, where he discovers the Negus to be his grandfather. Defending Rome, he kills Buhinma (Bohemond?), and in one episode he becomes such a valuable ally to the ‘Franks’ and Byzantines that they erect a statue of him in Constantinople (Ⅺ, p. 388). Crusader elements are prominent and relations with the ‘Franks’, as said above, are by no means always hostile.¹³

The cycle does not end with ῾Antar’s death. It is followed by a series of events in which three of ῾Antar’s children seek revenge for their father’s death. Two sons are Christians, the result of ῾Antar’s relationships with Christian princesses (both called Maryam) in Constantinople and Rome, who only make their appearance after ῾Antar’s death. The third child is purely Arab, a huge, black, posthumously born daughter called ‘Unaytira, ‘little girl ῾Antar’, who plays a leading role in the final part of the cycle.

The last part of the cycle serves to give the cycle an Islamic legitimization: the Prophet himself utters his admiration for ῾Antar’s deeds and encourages the people to keep his memory alive. The ‘Abs convert to Islam, and ‘Unaytira, accompanied by her warrior mother and her five sons, becomes a staunch fighter for Islam.

This is not the only attempt to make the tales about these pre-Islamic pagan heroes acceptable in Islamic eyes. When ῾Antar and his companions get drunk and ravish the women they have captured, this is excused with a reference to usual jāhilī (pre-Islamic) practice (Ⅴ, p. 419). ῾Antar has qualms when he sees the huge, very lifelike statue (made of a number of different metals, and then painted) of himself mounted on his horse with his brother Shaybūb and his nephew Khudhruf beside him that the Byzantines have erected. Is this perhaps ‘infringing upon the power of the Lord’? The emperor gives him the assurance that this is acceptable in Christianity (Ⅺ, pp. 388–9).

The arrival of the Prophet Muḥammad is announced several times throughout the epic, once by the pagan idol al-Hubal, which announces the appearance of a man who will throw out the idols from the Ka‘ba (Ⅴ, pp. 350–1). Narrators have also inserted occasional ‘Islamic’ phrases such as where the poet al-Hāni’, competing with ῾Antar, starts his reciting with: ‘Pray for our Lord Muḥammad the Messenger’ (Ⅶ, p. 422). Even ῾Antar himself invokes the name of Muḥammad and owes his victory to it (Ⅺ, p. 339).

The narrative structure of the cycle follows the patterns familiar to the genre. Events unroll as expected: a challenge arises, often with a love interest, involving either ῾Antar himself (an outrage involving ‘Abla) or someone whose interests he has taken to heart. He then sets out to confront the enemy, obstacles are surmounted, a confrontation takes place, the affair is wrapped up and a new challenge arises. Numerous subplots develop in the course of these events and it is not easy to keep track of what happens. The modern non-Arab reader’s lack of ingrained awareness of tribal and family affiliations makes it even more difficult. Tracing what happens to a particular group or individual not belonging to the ‘core cast’ can be difficult: a person may disappear from sight and not turn up until much later. Jaydā’, the proud warrior princess whom ῾Antar sets out to capture in order to have her lead ‘Abla’s bridal camel but who escapes after ῾Antar has killed her husband Khālid, is almost forgotten when she suddenly turns up again to support the Lakhmid king Nu‘mān against ῾Antar and his clan.

Ghamra, another warrior princess, whom ῾Antar fights and rapes, has long disappeared from sight when she suddenly reappears and explains that the warrior whom ῾Antar has just captured is their son. She then resumes a central stage part, accompanying ῾Antar as his consort on an expedition to Ethiopia.

Sometimes, but not always, explanations are given in the text about what happened to these people during their long absences and how they came to reappear at this particular moment (‘This came about because . . .’). In the course of his performance, a narrator reading from a text may insert a few brief remarks putting his audience in the know if they cannot place a character. The Moroccan narrator Sī Milūd (see below) occasionally asked his audience whether they still knew who so-and-so was.

Modern readers often comment on the tediousness of the repeated accounts of forays and battles and wonder how these could have had an appeal to audiences. That this was the case is obvious, and can still be observed. There is of course no basic difference with modern television soaps, which have motifs and narrative patterns very similar to traditional sīra. There the repetitive battle scenes have been replaced by the equally repetitive patterns of the battle between the sexes, and audiences never seem to tire of them.

The personality of ῾Antar is depicted in detail in the cycle, and some aspects may be noted. He is the epitome of knightly virtue, Abū᾽l-Fawāris, ‘Father of Knights’. Yet his image is not defined exclusively by his martial skills and knightly behaviour: he also has a very human side, including some very recognizable human weaknesses. These come out, for instance, in his relationship with his beloved ‘Abla. He loves her deeply, but this does not make him immune to the attractions of other women. Time and again he becomes sexually involved with girls and women who cross his path, and it is not beyond him to obtain his wish by force (Ⅴ, p. 423). He takes great pains to hide his affairs and marriages from ‘Abla, anxious to spare her feelings as well as to avoid her nagging. But if the worst comes to the worst, he does not shirk his responsibilities even if he must brave her displeasure by making provisions for unexpectedly discovered illegitimate offspring: as he says to her, it is a man’s duty to cover up his faults (Ⅶ, pp. 34–5).

He has a soft and human side, but does not let it get in the way when the situation calls for courage, ṣabr and, if need be, ruthlessness. This is brought out in an episode in which ῾Antar meets his double, a youth by the name of ῾Antar who is helplessly in love with his cousin, a damsel called ‘Abla (Ⅱ, pp. 319–30). Her treacherous father has attempted to obstruct their love by taking her away, and now she has fallen into the hands of a fearsome brute who is likely to rape and kill her. All this is explained to ῾Antar by the youth’s mother (Shaybūb comments on her resemblance to their mother Zabība), who sits there with the unconscious lad, pining away in misery, on her lap. ῾Antar is deeply moved, and unlike the prostrate youth, he does not weep, but acts. He fights and kills the villain, thus saving the girl and reuniting her with her beloved. The youth, out of gratitude, offers to come and accompany ῾Antar on his quests, but ῾Antar declines the offer with advice to the boy to go home, marry his bride and change his name. ῾Antar firmly distances himself from his weaker self, as seems clear, but it is done with strength as well as kindness.

The role of the female protagonists in the epic, even that of ‘Abla, has remained undervalued. One of the merits of Lyons’ synopsis is that it brings out a number of striking passages featuring the female protagonists. The voices of ‘Abla and some other women are so explicit throughout the narrative that surely an attempt will be made one day to retell the story from the female angle, as has been done for the Arthurian legends.¹⁴ The same, by the way, is true for Sīrat Banī Hilāl.

‘Abla is a noble and proud bedouin girl who staunchly adheres to the code of honour of the desert. She is very beautiful and men fall madly in love with her again and again. As one of her suitors says (Ⅵ, p. 40): ‘Even if this girl marries twenty men and becomes a hundred years old, she will still be the most beautiful girl on earth.’ ‘Abla is a very outspoken personality. She is certainly not the meek and compliant, passive beloved that often figures in tales of this kind. This she has in common with other wives of ῾Antar, such as Ghamra and Ḥaifā’, both redoubtable warriors. Unlike them, ‘Abla has not been trained in the martial arts, but she is a very outspoken (and not always sympathetic) personality, who often takes matters into her own hands. It is noteworthy that she already appears in that role in the brief episode described in al-Hamdānī (d. 945).¹⁵ A remarkable fact is that so far this is the only reference to ‘Abla in material that is not connected to the Sīra. None of the early literary historians, such as al-Iṣfahānī in his Aghānī, mentions the name of a beloved ‘Abla in connection with the poet ῾Antar.

῾Antar always fears her sharp tongue. When he and his companions have become drunk and he rapes Muhriyya, whom they have captured, he quickly marries her off to somebody else ‘for fear of his cousin’, that is, ‘Abla (Ⅴ, p. 424). As a result of the affair, Muhriyya bears him a son, Maysara, and when this is discovered ῾Antar still has to face ‘Abla’s wrath (Ⅶ, pp. 34–5). When it looks as if ‘Abla’s brother ‘Amr has been killed, ῾Antar mostly worries about the fact that he will never hear the last of it once ‘Abla hears the news (Ⅵ, p. 41).

‘Abla expresses herself in the strongest terms when ῾Antar seems to shirk from his vow to hang his poem on the Ka‘ba, and swears not to sleep with him until this is accomplished (Ⅶ, p. 312). It frequently becomes clear that she is not just the helpless lady in the palanquin, looking on aghast while ῾Antar splits the head of an enemy, that we know from popular pictures and posters. She is abducted by enemies time and again, but she does not hesitate to take up the knife when the need arises. She prevents ῾Antar’s execution by pretending to consent to marry King Ardashīr and then stabbing him (Ⅶ, p. 283) and she personally strangles a woman who tries to lead her into an ambush (Ⅵ, p. 24).

Marrying foreign princesses is, of course, a well-known motif in sīra literature. Marriage, or at least sexual union, with the foreign princess/woman symbolizes and seals the conquest of enemy territory, and many such events occur in ῾Antar’s career. Common motifs are adapted into particular contexts. Here this implies fitting them into the relationship of ῾Antar and ‘Abla. She is shown to be less than enthusiastic and sometimes quite bitter. She does not shun a quarrel with ῾Antar (Ⅷ, pp. 443–4): ‘You have afflicted me with a large number of fellow wives . . . When the women of the tribe see me, they laugh at me and say, “῾Antar has forgotten you!” I might as well go back to my father’s house.’ Haughtily she tells other women that she may well send ῾Antar to herd camels, should the fancy take her. In order to make up for her loss of face she urges ῾Antar to kiss her feet in the presence of the other women, which causes him to walk off (Ⅷ, pp. 443–4).

‘Abla, like Guinevere, remains childless (in this she is unusual among the wives of Arab popular heroes), and this makes ῾Antar’s womanizing, usually resulting in the birth of sons, even more difficult for her to bear. In one episode (X, pp. 62–3) she vilifies him for having married three daughters of important men and says that he has forgotten how he used to herd camels, clad in simple wool. He counters by saying that she is the only one he really wanted, but that he cannot send away these women, who all have borne him brave sons.

When ῾Antar is mortally wounded, he has ‘Abla don his attire and armour and take his place on Abjar, while he rides in her palanquin. For some time the enemy is deceived, but the trick is discovered. How this came about, Caussin, in the nineteenth century, only dared to describe in Latin:¹⁶ the traces of a woman urinating in the sand are quite different from a man’s, especially if this man is ῾Antar.

‘Abla deeply mourns ῾Antar, and it is her new husband who has to bear the brunt of her bitterness. He is constantly unfavourably compared to ῾Antar, both in and out of bed. One cannot remain wholly without sympathy for the unhappy man, who is finally driven to kill her. Maybe this was her intention all along?

It is quite intriguing that a female character takes over the narrative literally with a vengeance, in the last part of the epic. Of the three children of ῾Antar who seek to revenge their father’s death, the only pure Arab is his posthumously born daughter ‘Unaytira who plays a leading role. She is a hero in her own right with all the trimmings: unusual birth and youth, a lion fight as a test of bravery and a famous sword. She equals her father on the battlefield, and perhaps surpasses him in virtuous behaviour. She becomes a devout Muslim and a paragon of family virtue, mother of five brave Muslim sons, joins the Prophet on military expeditions and her death is lamented by Muḥammad himself (Ⅻ, p. 322).

The sīra is written in rhymed prose, saj‘, interspersed with poetry. The number of poems differs from recension to recension. As in the other epics, the language of ῾Antar as transmitted by the existing manuscripts and printed editions is post-classical literary Arabic, showing many colloquial elements.

How this took shape in actual performance is described in several notices by European travellers. As we know from Lane’s observations made in Cairo in the first half of the nineteenth century,¹⁷ Sīrat ῾Antar was always read from books by professional story-tellers specialized in this cycle, the ‘Anātira (of whom there were six in the Cairo of Lane’s day). This is confirmed by Burkhardt’s report to Hamilton,¹⁸ although he adds that some of the narrators only occasionally had recourse to the written text. Reading, or reciting, went on ‘with breakneck speed’.¹⁹ Lane says that the cycles were told ‘in the popular manner’, which has sometimes been interpreted as ‘in colloquial Arabic’. This may have been true for the Sīrat Banī Hilāl, but not for ῾Antar, as Paret’s observations show.²⁰ Attending an ῾Antar session in a Cairo coffeehouse with a largely illiterate audience, Paret noted that the story-teller, with whom he had previously conversed in colloquial Arabic, interrupted his reciting in literary Arabic from time to time in order to summarize the text in Egyptian colloquial for Paret’s benefit. The same practice was noted in Morocco.²¹

Nowadays actual sīra performances are very rare. Sīrat Banī Hilāl is still occasionally recited live in Egypt, possibly also Tunisia, and officially sponsored recitations of Baybars still go on in a Damascus café. A place where sīra, including ῾Antar, was read until recently in its traditional context without any interference from ‘cultural heritage’ bodies was at the Dār al-Barūd, a somewhat run-down orchard near the Kutubiyya in Marrakesh. There the story-teller Sī Milūd (1936–2000) daily read the popular siyar, ῾Antar among them, for over thirty years to a partly illiterate audience ever since he took over from his predecessor.²²

Every afternoon some fifty to eighty men gathered in the same corner of the park. The majority of the crowd consisted of people running small businesses, street sellers, porters, shoeshiners, people working in restaurants and unemployed people. They sat around on cartons, rented for a trifle, while Sī Milūd, sitting on a small stool, read for about an hour. Before he started to read he recited a prayer. The call to sunset prayer abruptly ended the session and the audience left, putting some coins into the narrator’s hand. When Sī Milūd was younger, the sessions used to last from afternoon to sunset prayer, but latterly this was too strenuous for him.

The ῾Antariyya, as it is called, was not the only sīra that was read there. Other favourites with the audience were al-Ismā‘īliyya (i.e. Baybars) and al-Wahhābiyya (i.e. Dhāt al-Himma). Other titles, such as al-Malik Sayf, the Ḥamzawiyya and Fīrūz Shāh, were known but not popular. Reading a long sīra like al-Wahhābiyya at Sī Milūd’s speed took a year and three months, so ῾Antar would take about a year. There were people among the audience who had attended Sī Milūd’s sessions from the very beginning, and had heard the ῾Antariyya at least ten times.

The literary Arabic of the ῾Antar text was recited by Sī Milūd with Moroccan pronunciation and this suggests how Lane’s remark ‘in the popular manner’ ought to be interpreted. The saj‘ of the text was recited fast and in a fairly monotonous way, with a perfect grasp of rhythm and rhyme. Apart from occasional gestures, there were no histrionic aspects involved in the recitation, as is sometimes reported of sīra performances. Occasionally, short explanations were inserted, and there were also reactions from the audience, showing their involvement with the events. Sī Milūd often skipped all, or part, of the poems included in his text. Clearly he found them difficult to recite. This is not without significance in relation to the fact that differences between recensions²³ often regard the inclusion or absence of poems.

Little study has been made so far of the poetry included in these epics, and ῾Antar is no exception, in spite of the translation of some of its poetry by Rückert.²⁴ There is much of interest to discover here, such as occasional occurrences of strophic poetry (see Ⅷ, pp. 188–9, a musammaṭ in mutaqārib metre).²⁵

Of the historical ῾Antar, author of the mu‘allaqa, not many poems are known. The many poems recited by ῾Antar in the Sīra have sometimes been used to bolster the corpus. An episode about the hanging of ῾Antar’s mu῾allaqa on the door of the Ka‘ba is interesting in this regard (Ⅶ, pp. 328–441). It is presented in the form of a conflict between ῾Antar and the other Arabian poets, who at first refuse to consider his qaṣīda worthy of hanging on the Ka‘ba door. Each poet in turn recites his own mu‘allaqa in order to put ῾Antar in his place, until he finally manages to convince them of his poetic abilities. This long episode is briefly replayed at a second hanging of the mu‘allaqa, which has been torn down by a rival.

The episode reflects not only the pleasure that Arab audiences took in listening to these poems, but also offers a traditional demonstration of the richness of the Arabic language. The episode includes a session in which the established poets, led by Imru’ al-Qays, challenge ῾Antar to come up with as many synonyms as possible for sword, spear, coat of mail, horse, camel, wine and snake (Ⅶ, pp. 430ff.).

The episode also illustrates various philological problems of the Mu‘allaqāt tradition, such as who is to be included in the collection and the textual divergencies in the transmission of the poems. Some of the printed versions of Sīrat ῾Antar, speaking about ‘seven Mu‘allaqāt’, mention only five poets besides ῾Antar: Ṭarafa, Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā, Labīd, ‘Amr ibn Kulthūm and Imru’ al-Qays, who are the poets included in all Mu‘allaqāt collections. Other editions not only mention the poets in a different order, but add al-A‘shā, and the quoted texts, notably that of Zuhayr’s Mu‘allaqa, differ considerably from the ‘accepted’ texts, as found for instance in Tibrīzī’s commentary.²⁶

The divergencies between various recensions of Sīrat ῾Antar have yet to be studied in detail. The idea introduced by Hamilton, on the basis of Burkhardt’s information, that there are two versions – an abridged Syrian and a long Ḥijāzī – was already rejected by Heller.²⁷ A thorough study of the existing manuscripts as well as of the printed versions (which may go back to manuscripts no longer extant) is needed to obtain an insight into the textual tradition of the sīra. This is not an easy task, since many of the existing manuscripts are composites, containing parts of different origin and date. Such work would not be aimed at establishing the ‘original’ text of the epic. That sort of question is totally beside the point regarding this type of text. Such work would be important for research in which dating of the material is relevant, that is, studies of popular culture, social history and historical linguistics. At present only some general observations about the text and its various versions can be made.

The idea has been that recensions of the text can be divided into two groups, differing from each other in minor matters of wording and by inclusion or exclusion of the ‘Abraham story’ which precedes the appearance of ῾Antar and his direct forebears. The printed Arabic version on which the summaries of Lyons (partly) and Heath are based is the Cairo edition of 1961–2, supposed to contain the ‘long’ recension, that is, including ‘Abraham’. Its use in these basic studies gives it the status of a canonical text, but this is merely accidental, and one ought to be aware of this.

The relationship of different recensions is complicated and future research (facilitated by computer-assisted collation) will tell us more about this. A spot check on four modern editions, the Bābī, the Ḥusaynī, the Sha‘bī and the ‘Ilmiyya, may serve as illustration.

Of these four editions, only one is ‘long’ in the sense that it includes the ‘Abraham story’. This edition has a short version of the Mu‘allaqāt episode mentioned above, but a long version of another episode, featuring the bedouin warrior princess Jaydā’, which includes the story of the love affair of the young Jaydā’ and Khālid. One of the three editions which lack the ‘Abraham story’ has a long version of both the Mu‘allaqāt and the Jaydā’ episodes; the second has just the long Jaydā and the third has short versions of both. The recensions also differ considerably as to wording and emphasis. A sample, taken from the ‘double’ episode mentioned earlier, may serve to illustrate the nature of the differences:

He said to him: ‘Lord, I eagerly want you to take me as one of your servants, so that I may serve you in length of years, because I cannot bear ever to part from you after you have shown me so much love and have saved my cousin from that devil.’ ῾Antar said to him: ‘Friend, go home and marry your cousin among your family and clan. You can have whatever support and protection you want from me for as long as you live, but my friend, do not call yourself by this name among the tribes of the Arabs, for I fear for your life. For this is my name, and I have many enemies among the Arabs. They may mistake you for me, and you are not, like me, able to hold your own against warriors.’ He said: ‘My lord, will you look for a name for me so that I will be safe and without fear?’ ‘I’ll call you ‘Aṭṭāf (Tenderheart),’ said ῾Antar. ‘At your orders,’ said the boy, ‘from now on, this will be my name.’

The popularity of the ῾Antar cycle is also illustrated by the wide occurrence of usually rather crude pictorial ῾Antar representations throughout the Arab world. These are found in reversed glass paintings, cheap poster prints and textiles, just like representations of Sīrat Banī Hilāl and, in North Africa, of the maghāzī hero ‘Abdallah ibn Ja’far and his beloved. Representations of other sīra heroes are nowadays rare, although one may occasionally come across one of Baybars and his companions.

Popular imagination is fed by pictorial representations that are current, thus the relation between the pictures and the narrative situations being depicted is a matter of interest. So is the connection with other forms of popular pictorial art. A crude illustration for a travel scene in one of the printed editions (‘Ilmiyya, Ⅰ, p. 165) shows a train of the type that may be encountered in Egyptian hajj wall paintings.

The number of narrative scenes that are illustrated in pictures circulating for home decoration is exceedingly small. In the case of ῾Antar, a very popular picture is that of ῾Antar splitting an enemy’s head with his sword, with an abundant display of blood and gore, while ‘Abla, seated in a howdah, watches in the background. Such a scene is at least fairly representative for the cycle as a whole; but this cannot be said of another popular ῾Antar representation, namely that of ῾Antar seated on a horse killing a fire-breathing dragon with his lance. Such an episode does indeed occur in the cycle (Ⅸ, pp. 348–51), but it is a very marginal event. Moreover, the details of story and picture do not agree: ῾Antar kills the dragon with his sword, not with his lance, and there is no indication that he fights on horseback. The representation is very likely based on icons of Saint George and other knightly saints, which were very popular in certain parts of the Arab world.

This example shows how pictorial representation may give a very specific twist to the image of the hero and serve to indicate that the pictorial tradition of the Arabic popular epics is one of many aspects worthy of further attention.

¹ Qiṣṣat al-amīr Ḥamza al-Bahlawān, vol. Ⅱ, p. 219.

² Hamilton, Antar, vol. Ⅰ, p. ⅹⅷ.

³ The so-called ‘suspended odes’, a famous collection of seven pre-Islamic poems.

⁴ See below about the sessions during which this information was gathered.

⁵ Caussin de Perceval, ‘Notice et extrait’, 99.

⁶ al-Hamdānī, al-Iklīl, pp. 168–70.

⁷ Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography, pp. 46–7.

⁸ Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a, ‘Uyūn al-anba’, vol. Ⅰ, p. 290.

⁹ Heath, The Thirsty Sword, pp. 233–8. The oldest known fragment of the Sīrat ῾Antar is dated 1437; the MS obtained by von Hammer-Purgstall is dated 1466.

¹⁰ Heller, ‘Sīrat ῾Antar’, p. 520b.

¹¹ For example: the edition Cairo 1381/1961–2, here referred to as the Bābī recension, is divided into fifty-nine ajzā’; the edition Cairo n.d. (Maktabat wa-maṭba‘at al-mashhad al-Ḥusaynī), 8 vols., here referred to as the Ḥusaynī, into ninety-seven; others may have as many as 154.

¹² Qiṣṣat ῾Antara ibn Shaddād al-‘Absī, pt. 9, pp. 152–3. All citations are to the Cairo 1381 edition.

¹³ See Lyons, ‘The Crusading Stratum’.

¹⁴ See Bradley, The Mists of Avalon.

¹⁵ al-Hamdānī, al-Iklīl, pp. 168–70.

¹⁶ Caussin de Perceval, ‘Notice et extrait’, pp. 119–20.

¹⁷ Lane, Manners and Customs, pp. 419–20.

¹⁸ Quoted in Hamilton, Antar, vol. Ⅰ, p. ⅹⅷ.

¹⁹ Gibb, Arabic Literature, p. 149.

²⁰ See Abel, ‘Formation et constitution’, p. 731.

²¹ During performances of Sī Milūd in Marrakesh between 1974 and 1977. See Zeggaf, ‘Le Conte oral marocain’, p. 64.

²² See Kruk and Ott, ‘In the Popular Manner’; Ott, Metamorphosen des Epos.

²³ Cf. Hamilton, Antar, vol. Ⅰ, Preface, pp. ⅹⅻⅰ–ⅹⅹⅳ.

²⁴ Rückert, ‘Auswahl von Gedichten und Gesängen’.

²⁵ See Norris, The Adventures of ῾Antar, pp. 137–8.

²⁶ Lyall, A Commentary.

²⁷ Heller, ‘Sīrat ῾Antar’, p. 520.