Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period

In this chapter on the evolution of Arab drama in the post-classical period, attention will be paid to imitation and to recitation: both forms had been widespread in the Arab world ever since the remotest of times and were still extremely active in the era in question. Particular attention will be paid to connections and mutual influence of a formal type which linked certain kinds of literature of popular origin, initially oral and only later in written form, to literary texts in lofty style intended for public recitation. At the same time an attempt will be made to highlight the common desire to imitate reality, present in many forms of Arab literature from the ninth century onwards, in both popular farces and literary works not necessarily destined for the stage. In addition to the analysis of these artistic aspects, which may be defined as collateral in comparison to true drama, texts which were created directly for the theatre between the thirteenth and the early nineteenth century will also be examined.

Despite the immense time-span covered by this historical period, we need to extend the chronological limits imposed by the term ‘post-classical’ even further, in order to be able to consider the dramatic spirit of the era in question in relation to both its antecedents in the classical period to whose literary forms it was strictly tied, and developments at the outset of the modern era. This latter period saw the awakening to new stimuli (coinciding with both the political and literary Nahḍa) and not only led to countless significant consequences in Arab production (which also brought about changes and innovations in the actual theatre), but also coincided with a renewed desire to recover the traditions and artistic forms of the past.

The statement that the Arab theatre came into being in the nineteenth century as a result of European influence¹ (the common view of many scholars until a few decades ago) appears risky when one considers the countless pre-modern forms of Arab dramatic art within the realms of both the popular tradition and belles-lettres. It is no mere chance that many modern Arab dramatists have used and even today still use themes, techniques and wit from the past, drawing their inspiration without discrimination from popular culture and elite literature. The process of recovering indigenous cultural roots proved to be a matter of basic importance: first, in order to assert Arab independence in the face of prevalent arguments concerning European influence;² second, to revive some examples of the earlier cultural heritage, thus preventing their total disappearance and showing, to the contrary, their continuing vivacity and relevance also to modern times;³ and lastly, to highlight dramatic or pseudo-dramatic elements contained in works belonging to literary genres that may have had no direct connection with true drama, but whose vigorous dramatic elements presupposed an Arab theatrical tradition of considerable antiquity.

The maqāma undoubtedly occupies an important place among those literary genres widely recognized in the classical era that continued to be cultivated in subsequent centuries (either in their original form or through gradual changes) and displayed, to greater or lesser degrees, signs of dramatic elements, without however being formally part of a literary genre intended for the stage.⁴ The maqāma grew in popularity during the tenth and eleventh centuries, but artists and poets have continued to devote their attentions to it without interruption almost until our times. (See Stewart’s contribution in this volume, Chapter 7.)

Equally important is the ḥikāya, a possible precedent to the emergence of the maqāma, which drew inspiration from the vivacity of the former’s dialogues and narrative structure, mostly aimed at arousing curiosity and tension in the public for whom it was intended. However, the maqāma gradually but inevitably broke away from the ḥikāya because of the basically didactic intent of adab literature to which the former belonged,⁵ something that, unlike the ḥikāya, demanded use of the fusḥā even in highly realistic works and required great attention to be paid to a stylistically perfect form. The maqāma came to acquire a dominant position in the literary world of that time as of later, in part due to its characteristic features: an intolerance of improvisation, a requirement that the literary language be used, and the elaborate and rhetorical style in which it was couched. This latter factor undoubtedly attracted the admiration of the intellectual and religious communities, which appreciated the beauty of the erudite language. This however did not prevent the maqāma from eventually becoming a kind of collective recitation at gatherings of cultured people.⁶

As far as the ḥikāya is concerned, the semantic origin of the word implies the idea of imitation, referring especially to the language, both written and oral.⁷ Only through subsequent change would this initial meaning come to coincide with that of ‘tale’, ‘narration’,⁸ which is also its current meaning. The term was still used in its original meaning in the ninth century, as can be seen in the Kitāb al-bayān by al-Jāḥiẓ, which talks of imitators capable of imitating not only the manners and gestures of people, but also different voices, foreigners’ ways of talking, and the cries or calls of the commonest animals.⁹ From the tenth century onwards its meaning gradually shifted from that of pure imitation to that of a tale based on the imitation of reality. Various texts carried the designation ḥikāyāt, but documentary materials related to such texts are somewhat limited. It may be presumed that by that time many ḥikāyāt, although initially linked to the world of orality, had been consigned to written form.¹⁰

The interesting example provided by the Ḥikāyat Abī’l-Qāsim al-Baghdādī by Abū’l-Muṭahhar al-Azdī (first half of the eleventh century) offers some possibilities of comparison with similar developments, having been created during a shift of the ḥikāya genre to a new phase, which brought it closer to the almost contemporary maqāma in that, like the latter, it was not only in written form but also included many parts in verse and rhyming prose. The Ḥikāyat Abī’l-Qāsim is a repertoire of almost theatrical, somewhat realistic scenes. It is no accident that the author refers to the Kitāb al-bayān of al-Jāḥiẓ as his primary source of inspiration. With regard to the capacity of mimes to create typical figures, each one representing an entire category of persons, the ḥikāya in question attempts to portray inhabitants of Baghdad, just as the ḥikāya by the same author, entitled Badawiyya, deals with those of the countryside.¹¹ It has been pointed out¹² that this reference by al-Azdī, via al-Jāḥiẓ, to the original Aristotelian concept of mimicry may appear as a curious paradox, when the work which he was presenting was an example of the most daring realism in Arab literature of that time. Many scholars,¹³ however, believe that the origin of the process which engendered the ḥikāya should rather be sought in the influence of the Aristotelian doctrine of mimesis in art,¹⁴ which led to the interpretation of literature as an ‘imitation of life’. Thus, al-Azdī’s reference to al-Jāḥiẓ seems completely natural, proof of his intention within the framework of a type of traditional, yet innovative composition to glean his ideas from reality.

Although this text was defined as an ‘original product of adab’,¹⁵ it was undoubtedly tied to the then flourishing genre of maqāmāt, which drew partial inspiration from the ḥikāyāt while being different in certain respects. As has already been mentioned, the contents of both the ḥikāya and maqāma were inspired by the real world of that time, representing it in a lively way: the principal character of the aforementioned ḥikāya by al-Azdī, the popular Abū’l-Qāsim, is extremely concrete; his mimicry – the goal and essence of the narration – is paralleled by the equally reliable portrayal of the well-to-do classes of Isfahan at that time, including their games, pastimes, food and furnishings.¹⁶ Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarī, the principal character of the maqāmāt by Badī ‘al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (968–1008), is equally vivid and lively in his jokes, his comic piety and his imaginative costumes. However, while the linkages between the work of al-Azdī and the maqāmāt of that time are clear, the extremely audacious and sometimes almost excessive licentiousness of his ḥikāya set it apart from the moderate, didactic tone of the maqāmāt by al-Hamadhānī and in general from all the works belonging to this literary genre. Instead it seems more similar to the later shadow plays by the Egyptian Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310) and to mujūn literature which made great use of the scurrilous element.¹⁷ Another aspect which differentiates the Hikāyat Abī’l-Qāsim from maqāmāt of this period was style. Its greater adherence to daily language involved an intense use of colloquial and slang expressions, alternating all the while with higher linguistic levels. It was therefore an extremely composite text, where Iraqi idioms were mingled with the poetic language of the pre-Islamic waṣf, technical lexicons such as that of gastronomy with the precious adab of the tenth century, and lewd double entendres with refined poetic citations.¹⁸

It has been suggested that the ḥikāya by al-Azdī was almost definitely destined for performance.¹⁹ As previously noted, it contained a strong imitative element: in the above-mentioned introduction to his work the author (although explaining with punctilious pride that the literary genres from which he had drawn inspiration belonged to the highest categories) also indicated clearly that what he was about to present was a mimesis of the people of Baghdad, as if all the inhabitants of the city had been assembled in a single type.²⁰ Furthermore, according to the author, the time-span of the tale was, ‘the action of one day or night, from beginning to end; in which time the deeds could be fully and entirely carried out’.²¹ The other ḥikāyāt of that time almost certainly had similar goals and modes.

In certain ways, the placement of contemporary maqāmāt within their possible sphere of reception is yet more complex. Perhaps, like many other genres within Arabic literature, intended for collective reading, their already noted realistic vein places them in a position close to that of ḥikāyāt. Even so, their refined style and the greater uniformity of language – always literary and recherché, make it impossible to imagine them as works tied strictly to theatrical performance, since popular spectacles performed by live actors at that time were not characterized by such an elevated level of either language or the literary text.²²

However, the existence of a link between the different literary genres that flourished at this time is easily confirmed; there exist numerous illustrations of the ease with which characteristics of one could transfer to another. The fact that al-Azdī himself sometimes terms his work samar or risāla rather than ḥikāya,²³ is just a single example. It has also been noted that, from the eleventh century onwards, not only were the terms maqāma, risāla, ḥikāya poorly defined, but also muḥāwara, munāẓara or ḥadīth as well. The latter could all be applied to a single type of literature, one rich in dialogue. With no precise divisions between various genres, all became, according to the occasion, susceptible to being read in private or recited in public with dramatic overtones.²⁴

In an attempt to identify recurring principles for delineating various genres, a possible method for differentiating terms used in oral and in written literature and for genres which may share original elements has been suggested. It has been observed that, when the ḥikāya became part of written literature, it was replaced by the term khayāl as a means of defining an oral dramatic performance consisting of dialogue, mostly improvised, performed by actors in the flesh. This term, khayāl, later needed the addition of al-ẓill to designate shadow plays, spectacles based at least partially on written texts and belonging to a type of literary art of which the bābāt by Ibn Dāniyāl from the thirteenth century offer precise evidence.²⁵ It has also been suggested that another mode of definition existed, one that applied the principle of text length and level of style and language: for example, texts of khayāl and khayāl al-ẓill, regardless of length, were distinguished by their ungrammatical style, colloquial language and impudent content; the maqāma, a generally short composition, featured a highly rhetorical, eloquent style; the risāla, a somewhat long composition, was distinguished not only by lofty style, but also by a particular abundance of personages and a greater complexity in the plot.²⁶ As has already been pointed out, materials in dialogue form could still transfer from one type of work to another, even after many years, as, for example, with certain parts of the Hikāyat Abī’l-Qāsim which appear in the Maqāma maḍīriyya by al-Hamadhānī, in the Nathr al-durr by al-Abī (d. 1030) and in one of the shadow plays of Muḥammad ibn Dāniyāl, Bābat ṭayf al-khayāl.²⁷

We have noted above that in the tenth century, at approximately the period when the ḥikāya moved from oral to written form, the literary genre of the maqāma became increasingly important. The latter is a type of writing which can in some ways be considered part of an almost dramatic type of literary text, even though its original farcical quick-wittedness was in time overcome by a concern with elaborate stylistic conventions that were sometimes so exaggerated as to leave little room for appreciating the contents. Abū’l-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Hamadhānī, known as Badī‘al-Zamān (Wonder of the Age), adopted the term maqāma to refer to tales narrated by an imaginary rāwī, ‘Īsā ibn Hishām, concerning his journeys or adventures, mostly linked to the figure of a popular character, Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarī, whose orator’s art was so sublime as to counteract his various misdeeds and tricks.²⁸ One might suggest that al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmāt were initially linked to majālis literature and the narration of anecdotes, both in wide currency at that time.²⁹ From the outset, however, certain elements distinguished the two genres: for example, anecdotal literature was normally written in an elevated form of language, but not necessarily entirely in saj‘ (rhyming prose), especially in descriptive sections.³⁰ Instead al-Hamadhānī used this style for entire compositions.³¹ Furthermore, instead of prefacing the narration of an anecdote with an example of isnād (chain of authorities), he preferred to attribute the recounting of every tale to a single narrator, the rāwī ‘Īsā ibn Hishām.³² It has also been noted that al-Hamadhānī, by combining in his maqāmāt the use of the fuṣḥā in general and of saj‘ in particular with the topic of the eloquent, impudent vagabond, managed to link his works to descriptions of the world of the Banū Sāsān (crafty, wandering beggars, often rogues) and to literature about them, rather than to other schools of elite literature traditionally popular in medieval times.³³ From a literary standpoint the latter exerted a singular fascination on medieval poets and writers, perhaps due to their vaunted noble or even royal origins. From the tenth century onwards more than one work entitled Qaṣīda sāsāniyya was attributed to famous authors, such as al-Jāḥiẓ or al-Tha‘ālibī (d. 1038). Farces based on the Banū Sāsān were also performed; that there should be considerable affinity between them and the roguish hero of al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmāt is thus hardly surprising.³⁴

On the other hand, it has been noted³⁵ that, although each of the famous works by al-Hamadhānī was a complex entity that refers back to several genres, such as sermon, poetry, epithet, traveller’s tale, dialogue and discussion, imitation remains a unifying factor in all of them.³⁶ It was only with his successors and in particular with al-Ḥarīrī (1054–1122), that the formal stylistic aspect supplanted an interest in realistic content, leading refinement and rhetorical skill to an acme while at the same time marking the gradual separation of maqāmāt from that cluster of works that might be linked to an Arab dramatic experience in the pre-modern era.

The dramatic spirit in al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmāt is relatively flimsy and can at best be viewed as a possible prelude to any subsequent development of a literary genre. Two essential prerequisites were required to establish a link to the world of dramatic art: first, realism, whereby deeds and personages imitated the contemporary world; second, literary fiction, whereby works that were created would make no claim of historical authenticity. Within such a narrative pseudo-dramatic context, important elements included: abundance of dialogue; liveliness of situation involving the leading characters; dynamism of the narrated acts; concreteness of human actions as portrayed, and presence of two personages commonly associated with the popular narrative context – the narrator, who generally introduced the subject matter and narrated the facts but was sometimes also the protagonist in amazing escapades of his own, and the hero, who often revealed his true identity only at the end, emerging from one of the disguises in which he was a master. Regarding a possible linkage between these early maqāmāt and a kind of semi-dramatic activity that was widespread in cultured circles at that time, the comments of those scholars who have perceived a kind of running gag in the works of al-Hamadhānī are also worthy of note. Through sustained and accumulated pressure on the audience, the running gag managed to create a kind of collective dramatic tension. All this presupposes, of course, that the maqāmāt were ‘available to a public to read and listen to as a whole and more or less in the same order in which they have come down to us’.³⁷

Beyond these opinions (which are not universally shared³⁸), it may be suggested that the maqāma was created for the very purpose of performance in front of an audience; in which case its semantic origin in the verbal root, q w m (to stand up, to be standing, in an erect position), may be correlated to the stance of the mime or actor standing up in front of the public to represent the parts and reveal the story.³⁹ This view is propounded by a number of critics, who point out that the constant dialogue between Abū’l-Fatḥ and the merchant in the Maqāma maḍīriyya provides an obvious illustration of acting possibilities, as does the structure of the Maqāma baghdādiyya.⁴⁰

All this, however, inevitably leads to the question as to why the more or less evident dramatic qualities of the maqāmāt did not develop further into a genuine genre of theatrical literature. A plausible and commonly accepted explanation notes a certain attitude of superiority among Arabs towards the non-indigenous literary world, one based on the conviction that the highest degree of human eloquence could be achieved only in their language, perfect in itself because it is sacred.⁴¹ It should not be forgotten, however, that, despite the scant interest shown by Muslim Arab civilization during its Golden Age towards the literary products of Hellenism, the concepts of comedy and tragedy were known. Aristotle’s works, including his renowned treatise on Poetics, had been translated into Arabic in order to provide access to the writings of a thinker who had such an enormous influence on Arab intellectuals and philosophers both of that time and of later generations. However, the essential spirit of Aristotle’s writings had not been fully understood or well translated; faced, for example, with the problem of conveying the Greek original into Arabic in the light of their own literary awareness, translators chose to render the two terms ‘tragedy’ and ‘comedy’ as two familiar poetic genres, madḥ (praise) and hijā’ (lampoon) respectively.⁴²

As has already been noted, after the eleventh century and especially after the great renown achieved by the maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī, many sources conflated the designation of different literary genres, and particularly the maqāma and risāla.⁴³ Alongside maqāmāt and ḥikāyāt, rasā’il displayed an extensive resort to dialogue,⁴⁴ while still maintaining an elaborate, refined style. A certain dramatic spirit has been perceived in some of them, to the extent that some of Abū’l-‘Alā᾽al-Ma῾arrī’s (d. 1057) works, such as Risālat al-ghufrān and Lisān al-sāhil wa’l-shāhij, have been read as deliberately including aspects of a dramatic composition.⁴⁵ Making skilful use of monologues and dialogues (also between animals) in his works, the author offers clear proof of the close relations at that time between ḥikāyāt and rasā’il.⁴⁶ In his Lisān al-sāhil wa’l-shāhij, animals act as leading characters in a series of semi-dramatic scenes, holding conversations about events that actually occurred in Syria and Egypt at the time of composition.⁴⁷ Another work by the same author, al-Dir‘iyyāt, a collection of thirty poems on weapons, is considered by some scholars to be the only classical Arab text in which a deliberate attempt was made to replicate dramatic expression.⁴⁸ Al-Ma῾arrī’s Risālat al-ghufrān in particular shows clear dramatic tendencies, linked to the method adopted previously in the Lisān, although in this case there are no dialogues between animals.⁴⁹ The vigorous sarcasm and subtle irony pervading this risāla (especially concerning society of the time), and the psychological insight provided through an elevated language and elaborate style, make of this work one of the most interesting literary historical documents of classical Arabic literature. In the current context what is particularly significant is that it is also one of the most fascinating semi-dramatic texts in Arabic from the pre-modern era.

If we consider the various literary genres discussed thus far – products of the classical era which continued to develop throughout the post-classical and pre-modern period – from a strictly dramatic viewpoint, it is only the khayāl as live theatre and the khayāl al-ẓill as shadow plays that fall directly within the purview of theatre proper, in that only they were undoubtedly intended for performance.⁵⁰

Recent critical studies, however, have clearly underlined the constant existence of a tradition of profane theatre involving live actors, one that was well established throughout the Middle East.⁵¹ In addition to fertility rites that were widespread in ancient times, it would seem that theatre performances of Hellenistic origin in the pre-Islamic period were familiar to the Jewish communities, although a certain hostility towards these spectacles of pagan origin existed in religious circles. During the same period Christian communities, no doubt equally hostile to circus and theatre shows that were regarded as a means of corruption created by the devil, seem to have exploited them as a kind of religious play.⁵² From the sixth century onwards, evidence of live theatre in the Middle East exists within the sphere of popular entertainment (games of mimes, etc.) which were to be found everywhere and in all periods,⁵³ although there is no evidence of it as a manifestation of high art.⁵⁴ During the Abbasid period entertainers – ballad singers, musicians, dancers, actors and clowns were occasionally rewarded by the caliph; some even became renowned enough to be counted among the circle of his boon companions.⁵⁵ Apart from these subsidies from the caliph, most of these actors normally earned a living from the offerings of the public before whom they gave improvised performances in marketplaces and streets that were based on repertoires adapted to the circumstances of the time.

There seems to be no mention of shadow plays in Islamized lands until the twelfth century, either as a mode of caliphal entertainment or in descriptions of the court samar.⁵⁶ Prior to that date references to them can be found only in the works of Ibn al-Haytham (d. 965) and Ibn Shuhayd (d. 1035)⁵⁷ in eleventh-century Muslim Spain. However, a fully authentic reference to them does exist in Ibn Ḥazm’s (d. 1064) work, Kitāb al-akhlāq wa’l-siyar, where he describes images mounted on a wooden ‘grindstone’ which upon being turned rapidly makes them appear and disappear in succession.⁵⁸ Even though this passage specifically mentions khayāl al-ẓill, the description does not exactly correspond with the technique of this art in subsequent periods, but rather depicts a ‘magic lantern’ show, as is also suggested in a European translation from the early twentieth century.⁵⁹

A quotation from the mystical poem, al-Tā’iyya al-kubrā, by ‘Umar ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1235) provides a much clearer example. The poet illustrates his philosophical thought by pointing out the lesson to be learned from watching the apparently pointless play of Ṭayf khayāl al-ẓill, which he describes in a lively, if precious, way. In his verses he describes a screen, figurines, and even the reactions of the public to what was happening on stage. The purpose here is clearly not to display any particular predilection for this type of spectacle, but instead to provide an effective analogy to convey the idea of the poet’s soul during its mystical journey. The soul is compared to the puppeteer who, having removed the curtain consisting of physical ties, appears unveiled in all his splendour.⁶⁰ Indirect sources cited by the historian al-Ghuzūlī (d. 1412) also describe shadow plays in Egypt during the rule of the Ayyubid Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (1138–93). The latter was said to have attended shadow plays with his minister, al-Qāḍī᾽l-Fāḍil, who, despite an initial reluctance, had been won over by them.⁶¹ All of this suggests that the khayāl al-ẓill was not only already known in Egypt, but was also at a sufficient level of artistry to be presented even to the sultan and his minister without undermining their religiosity or status.

The three bābāt (plays) by the Egyptian doctor Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Dāniyāl (1248–1310), are the only written examples of shadow plays from the past, although the existence of a precise, developed literature within this particular genre is highly probable. The plays were apparently composed in response to a specific request from a well-known rayyīs of that time, ‘Alī ibn Mawlāhum al-Khayālī. Audiences were said to be bored with the same old shows and kept demanding new works.⁶² The three plays by Ibn Dāniyāl were thus not created by chance, but were planned and organized according to a precise creative method based on similar compositions of the period.⁶³

Their realism and the quick-wittedness of their dialogues link them closely with the maqāmāt genre of al-Hamadhānī, but they are also reminiscent of the style of al-Ḥarīrī, to whom Ibn Dāniyāl himself refers.⁶⁴ They include several verses taken from azjāl, mawāliyās and muwashshaḥāt of the time and even poems in dialect. (See Larkin’s contribution in this volume, Chapter 10.) These latter categories render the internal language of these plays extremely complex and often difficult to interpret, but at the same time make of them some of the most significant and oldest written evidence of pre-modern spoken Arabic.⁶⁵

From a compositional viewpoint these three bābāt by Ibn Dāniyāl are quite sophisticated, resulting perhaps from an evolution in dramatic sense from the maqāma.⁶⁶ This hypothesis is strengthened by a reference in the chronicles of the Egyptian historian Ibn Iyās (d. 1524), who terms one of Ibn Dāniyāl’s texts concerning taverns and their habitués a maqāma, and cites it as a description of social life during the rule of Sultan Baybars, after the latter’s order to close taverns and brothels.⁶⁷ As has already been noted, Ibn Dāniyāl later used this same composition, in a shortened version, in the introduction to one of his three famous bābāt, Ṭayf al-khayāl.⁶⁸ On the other hand we have already drawn attention to the significant exchangeability among literary genres in both the classical and post-classical periods. During the post-classical era it seems that types of maqāmāt that could be termed ‘vulgar’ existed alongside the more ‘serious’ categories of maqāmāt with their elaborate style. The former were widespread and were only intended for jests and entertainment. One example from the thirteenth century is al-Maqāma al-mukhtaṣara by Muḥammad ibn Mawlāhum al-Khayālī, brother or cousin of the same ‘Alī ibn Mawlāhum who had commissioned Ibn Dāniyāl’s bābāt. This particular text was clearly intended for presentation in the theatre, if only because its author, designated a khayālī, was a professional actor and producer.⁶⁹

If we acknowledge the possibility of a derivation of shadow plays from the maqāma, it would seem to involve a kind of bifurcation in the development of the latter: in one case, it would have become an expression of literary elaboration to be interpreted by an elect few as it continued on its path in quest of stylistic perfection; in the second, it would be a concrete representation of daily life directed towards dramatic literature. This hypothesis – one that involves a continuous and parallel path taken by texts destined for two different categories of public – seems plausible: some examples, created in the literary language, were destined for private or possibly collective reading by the cultured classes; others, more composite and enriched by sections in colloquial dialect and envisaged in both fully and partially written form, were destined for performance on stage using either live actors or shadows.⁷⁰ However, once again the similarity of tone, style and language used in certain parts of different works reveals the close affinity between different literary genres, the various language codes and the implied recipients of the actual works. The interaction between oral literature and belles-lettres, a feature of the Abbasid era that had given rise to new literary genres, was followed in subsequent centuries by a complex evolution of those same genres, some of which – such as the khayāl al-ẓill (even allowing for its probable Far-East or Indian provenance) – in transplanted form achieved their most effective expression during the Mamluk era.⁷¹

The three bābāt by Ibn Dāniyāl certainly show a greater sense of realism than the maqāmāt, despite the close relationship between the two literary genres that still existed at that time. However, like the latter, they too were intended for ahl al-adab (the cultured), as can be clearly seen from the muqaddima (introduction) to the first bāba, Ṭayf al-khayāl.⁷² Even so, the major inspiration for the theatrical texts of the Egyptian doctor seems to come directly from the street, from the lower classes of society, from which the worst aspects were taken in order to raise a laugh from the audience. The technique adopted seems to follow conventional canons, reverting to a practice, widespread in the Arab world, of looking at the comic side of human relations – intrigues, hoaxes and disguises – and dwelling on details of the worst aspects of human failings.⁷³ To achieve this comic quality, there is a certain adherence to the Aristotelian concept of comedy, as has been pointed out by critics discussing the period.⁷⁴ Indeed, although it may be true that the conflict in Greek tragedy was sufficiently far removed from the Islamic spirit for its acceptance and literary use to be prevented, a possible transfer of comedy from the Hellenistic to the Arab-Islamic world cannot be ruled out (whether mime or other literary modes were involved). The now totally absent man–God conflict is replaced in comedy by the theme of human weakness, which is presented in comic form via a medium that was widespread throughout the Middle East.⁷⁵ Ibn Dāniyāl’s interest in prominent figures earning a living by hoaxes and eloquence acquires a higher value and moral message when he chooses to conclude his work with a finale in which the leading character repents, demonstrating that not only is vulgar entertainment possible, but, when it comes to an end, one can also be concerned about the soul.⁷⁶ In this connection we need to recall that literary works written in the post-classical period continue to invoke the topics and techniques that were widely used in previous centuries: even in al-Ḥarīrī’s maqāmāt, a constant element is the final act of repentance by the leading figure.

Ibn Dāniyāl’s three plays, probably composed around 1267, have come down to us in the form of three manuscripts, two kept in the Escorial in Madrid (recorded some two hundred years after their author’s lifetime) and the third in Cairo (which may be dated to another one hundred years later). Scholars who have subjected these manuscripts to critical analysis have consistently pointed to the considerable difficulties involved in reading and interpreting them, to the point of suggesting that copyists had either not understood or else had misunderstood certain points and had thus not always transcribed them accurately.⁷⁷

The narrative segment is concentrated in the speech of a ‘presenter’ (muqaddim) who proceeds to explain the work’s genesis, to introduce the characters and comment on their actions. The rest is largely dramatic dialogue, embellished by passages of rhyming prose and the recital of verses and songs. The author’s numerous stage directions are not noted in the margins, but rather form an integral part of the text, being themselves written in rhyming prose.

The introduction to the first of the three bābāt, Ṭayf al-khayāl, explains the work’s artistic purpose. It is, we are informed, a contribution to literary art; it is not merely a diversion for the uncultured. Although peppered with frivolities, it is intended for an intelligent audience, people who can fully appreciate its value. The introduction to the second play, ‘Ajīb wa-gharīb, announces that the work’s basic goal is to portray various types of persons – some cultured, others ignorant – living in Cairo and frequenting its squares or marketplaces. In the introduction to the third play, entitled al-Mutayyam, the work is said to concern the circumstances of lovers, gambling and jesting.⁷⁸

Each of Ibn Dāniyāl’s three works has its own precise structure: the first, Ṭayf al-khayāl, is the longest and most elaborate with regard to plot and characterization.⁷⁹ It recounts the story of Wisāl, an old soldier who has led a dissolute life and finally convinces himself to abandon a life of vice and get married. After the ceremony is over, he discovers to his horror that the woman he has married is extremely ugly, and not the beautiful girl promised to him by Umm Rashīd, the marriage broker. Here both theme and situations are farcical; they closely resemble the ones encountered in later shadow plays and in the Turkish Karagöz theatre, albeit in a much simplified form.⁸⁰ For example, the very same theme occurs in one of the Karākūz theatrical texts best known in the Syrian context, that being a region in which the influence of the Turkish shadow plays was particularly marked: in ‘Urs Karākūz, the leading character is deceived in the same way and finds himself married to an ugly woman instead of the splendid girl he had imagined.⁸¹

Ibn Dāniyāl’s second play takes its name from the two main characters, ‘Ajīb (the Preacher) and Gharīb (the Stranger). Rather than a tale with a very thin plotline, the work seems better viewed as a montage of amusing and dishonest types who frequented the marketplaces at the time. Here too one automatically thinks of Turkish shadow plays where a pair of inseparable friends, Karagöz and Hacivad, are always prepared to make fun of each other and the world around them. In Ibn Dāniyāl’s text, however, there is a close connection with the literature of the Banū Sāsān, mentioned earlier as source of inspiration for medieval literature. Not for nothing is the figure of Gharīb portrayed as a crafty vagabond, clever talker and utter scoundrel, someone whose personal attributes – in terms of spirit, loquacity and astuteness – are not far removed from those of Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarī, the hero of al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmāt.⁸²

In the third play, al-Mutayyam, the plot is equally thin, focusing on the contention between the chief character, who is enduring all the pangs of love for a young man, and the previous object of his passion, now abandoned. There are fights between cocks, bulls and other animals. Here too there is a strange assemblage of characters, who discuss their sexual activities in detail. The lack of precise documentation regarding the personae commonly involved in performances of this text precludes any specific analysis. Even so, it is hard to avoid drawing some parallels with characters who make an appearance in the texts of some Egyptian shadow plays popular in the eighteenth century that were discovered in the district of Manzala in Egypt in the following century, characters who have been more fully studied by critics at the beginning of the twentieth century. The richness of realistic detail, the abundant representation of objects, merchandise and dwellings found in Cairene markets – all of which have been analysed in detail with regard to the Egyptian shadow plays described in the Manzala manuscript⁸³ – may serve as a more concrete, albeit later, example of what was customary in the time of Ibn Dāniyāl, whose performances may have been equally embellished by such figurative elements.

These plays of Ibn Dāniyāl, and in particular the second and the third, have been of great interest to scholars who have found within them many direct or indirect descriptions of Egyptian society and customs in the thirteenth century and perhaps even before. The liveliness of the principal characters seems to confirm that the plays furnish a vivid reflection of the life and tastes of the period.

In the context of a discussion concerning the continuity of the tradition of shadow plays through the centuries, it is important to observe that some of the principal characters – the Presenter (Master of Ceremonies), Abū’l-Qiṭaṭ, Umm Rashīd and others are also to be found in the Manzala manuscript mentioned above.⁸⁴ The manuscript in question (probably written between 1705 and 1707) was carefully studied by one of its later discoverers, Ḥasan al-Qashshās, a real-estate agent who died in Cairo in 1909,⁸⁵ along with another enthusiast for the art, Mūsā al-Darā’. It formed the basis upon which texts and techniques culled from Arab shadow plays of the past were reintroduced into nineteenth-century Egypt. The manuscript is invaluable for the detailed information it contains. It provides names of famous puppeteers of the time. They include Dāwūd al-Manāwī (or al-Manātī), the ‘spice vendor’, who was equally renowned in Cairo for his music, his performances and his tragic death,⁸⁶ and who seems to have possessed a vast repertoire of texts and songs, some his own and others inherited from predecessors.⁸⁷ The personages and plots to be found within the texts included in the manuscript display countless similarities to the three bābāt by Ibn Dāniyāl and strongly suggest a continuous performance tradition of khayāl al-ẓill at least from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, even though not attested through the existence of original texts. It thus seems reasonable to posit an uninterrupted tradition of this category of art, one placed midway between the popular and literary traditions, widely appreciated by audiences of all cultural levels, accessible to the majority, and closely related to surrounding reality; a tradition that was at one and the same time steeped in the contemporary spirit while still preserving and incorporating materials inherited from the past.

The only information on this subject, gleaned indirectly from historical sources, tends to suggest that such performances were widespread in Mamluk Egypt. Since there is a report of a sudden ban on the presentation of shadow plays by Sultan al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq (1438–53), along with a command that all the puppeteers’ figurines were to be burned, there is a clear indication of the perceived need to suppress a performance ritual that had perhaps become too lively and even dangerous for public order, given the constant satirical vein of these performances.⁸⁸ However, a mere ten years later, this same art seems to have emerged yet again: the satirical and comic poems of the poet ‘Alī ibn Sūdūn al-Bashbaghāwī (d. 1464) were widely adapted as shadow plays.⁸⁹ Yet again, the custom of mounting this type of performance in Mamluk Egypt is attested via information in the chronicles of Ibn Iyās, who records that in 1498 Sultan Abū Sādāt Muḥammad thoroughly enjoyed this entertainment.⁹⁰ With regard to the period immediately afterwards, the same Ibn Iyās reports that when the Turkish sultan Salīm I conquered Egypt in 1517, a shadow play was performed that he found so enjoyable that he was eager to take the puppeteers back with him to Istanbul.⁹¹ This account can be seen as a reflection of the skill displayed by Egyptian artists at this time and also the high level that this category of artistic expression had achieved in Cairo, and, on the other hand, the scarcity or even lack of similar types of artistic expression in Istanbul and the Turkish-speaking world of the period.

Accounts of performances of popular plays using shadows and puppets are also provided by European travellers to the East during the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They all reveal their surprise and curiosity regarding an art that certainly existed to a certain extent in their own homelands, but was almost always totally different in both technique and spirit. One of the earliest of these travellers is the Roman Della Valle, who visited the Near East in the seventeenth century and wrote a highly detailed account of what he witnessed, including numerous popular performances and other types of entertainment either in the open air or in coffeeshops.⁹² Niebuhr and Russel’s summaries of their travels in the Near East in the eighteenth century, with their descriptions of different towns and cities, squares and people, are equally invaluable,⁹³ as is Lane’s nineteenth-century survey of the manners and customs of Egyptians, including precise descriptions of their favourite pastimes, popular entertainments, music and dancing.⁹⁴ G. de Nerval’s account of his travels in the same century provides precise details of performances using both shadows and live actors that he attended during his journey in the Near East, and also descriptions of the topics of some comedies.⁹⁵ These and many other travellers often focused their attentions on the more immoral aspects of some of these theatrical pieces or on their obscene language rather than describing the artistic techniques of the performance or the literary value of the actual texts. Their accounts, however, confirm the presence and wide popularity of the khayāl al-ẓill and other forms of theatre, performances that provided widespread forms of entertainment almost until modern times, in both the Arabic- and Turkish-speaking regions.

During the period of Ottoman suzerainty over the Arab world, cultural phenomena moved from one environment to the other; sometimes they merged, at others they were completely transplanted. Among them were characters and themes from shadow plays, which in some Arab countries even became standardized according to the model of their conquerors. This was particularly the case in Syria, Lebanon and North Africa, to such an extent that both Syrian and North African shadow plays adopted almost all the characteristics of Turkish ones regarding personae, situations presented on stage, costumes and fixed formulas in dialogue.⁹⁶ The two popular heroes, Karagöz and Hacivad – introduced into the shadow plays of these Arab regions under the names Karākūz and ‘Aywāz – now became exclusively their principal characters.⁹⁷ Other important personae also transferred naturally via the shadow play from the Turkish to the Arab environment. The figure of the drunkard, Bekrī Muṣṭafā, is emblematic of this trend: he appears for the first time in Turkish texts of the mid-seventeenth century, in the repertoire of a famous puppeteer, Ḥasanzāde, who, it would seem, was regularly called on to entertain Sultan Murād Ⅳ (reigned 1623–40).⁹⁸ Since that time, the figure of a drunken braggart has continued to occupy an important place in this type of performance in both the Turkish world and those Arab countries that were most strongly influenced by the dominion of the Ottoman empire. The character may have taken on some slightly different local nuances, but the basic framework remains that of the original type, the seventeenth-century Bekrī Muṣṭafā.⁹⁹

Egypt, being virtually free of the influence of the Turkish Karagöz, provides a counter example, keeping its local tradition relatively intact. Artists continued to perform autochthonous texts until the gradual extinction of this art in the early twentieth century. It is interesting to note that performances based on older texts were undoubtedly still in vogue in the nineteenth century, as is attested in several sources, not least the work of Aḥmad Taymūr Bāsha on Arab dramatic art.¹⁰⁰ This study contains an interesting list of the most popular texts in the repertoires of the period, plot summaries and references to principal characteristics (length, moral element, richness of figurative elements and abundance of songs). The puppeteer Ḥasan al-Qashshāsh and his son Darwīsh are also mentioned, along with their enduring ability to continue practising the art in the old way.¹⁰¹ Taymūr mentions renowned texts, such as Lu‘bat al-dayr, Lu‘bat al-timsāḥ and Lu‘bat al-markab, as being very old and abounding in details; it seems clear that in his time performances were still being given regularly in private houses or coffeeshops.¹⁰²

The widespread popularity in Egypt and most of the Arab world of many other popular dramatic plays that had been in great favour since the ninth century¹⁰³ and performed by live actors rather than using shadows or puppets, certainly fulfilled a crucial role in keeping alive the taste for mime and acting before an impromptu audience. Such performances would show a pronounced tendency towards the comic. They involved lewd gestures and dialogues solely intended to raise a laugh,¹⁰⁴ very like pantomime and the Italian commedia dell’arte, and consisted of simple, satirical stories that were highly interesting from a socio-anthropological point of view but often extremely vulgar. Among the artists who took part in these performances an important role was played by muqallidūn (mimes, imitators), whose entire purpose was to entertain, often using uncouth, vulgar techniques through gesture or word.¹⁰⁵ However, alongside these types of performance there were also other more serious pastimes tied to the functions of narrators/impersonators who took on the task of dealing with themes that were more morally uplifting, and told tales inspired by the lives of legendary heroes or famous poets whose verses were freely quoted; these artists, itinerant story-tellers and players, would narrate their tales to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. They might specialize in the epic deeds of a particular hero, from whom they took their name: the ‘Antariyya, for example, sang the life of ‘Antar, the renowned pre-Islamic cavalier-poet; the Abū Zaydiyya narrated the deeds of Abū Zayd, hero of the Banī Hilāl epic. In 1834 in Cairo, the former category were said to number as many as fifty, while the latter numbered about thirty.¹⁰⁶ On the other hand, there were also other story-tellers with more general and varied repertoires; in which case the artist was defined by one of a variety of names – from shā‘ir (poet) to muḥaddith (narrator), munshid (reciter) to maddāḥ (eulogizer) and ḥakawātī (story-teller).¹⁰⁷

Whether they were narrator-poets of epic tales with moralizing, didactic, as well as entertaining, import, or mimes and animators of more or less licentious comic scenes, the art of these performers – although far from being true dramatic theatre – was based on the combination of the word with gesture and provides an example of a very rich and variable semi-dramatic art. Furthermore, the feature common to all of them was recitation from memory of personal repertoires handed down by oral transmission and adapted to the particular audience through reference to contemporary issues of relevance to the time or the local society.

The fact that these performances did not normally engender a written literature is seen by some critics as the consequence of a persistent division between an elite, somewhat formal, level of literature, one that was linked to a strongly conservative instinct regarding language, and a more popular literature, one that was expressed either wholly or partially in dialect, a language level that is, by its very nature, variable, dynamic and linked to the continuous process of social change.¹⁰⁸ Although interaction between these two levels existed, the evolution of vernacular texts from being a purely popular oral tradition to a new category of written literature was not accomplished – and especially in the dramatic realm – with the ease of texts in full fuṣḥā language or in composite texts. In reality the gap between belles-lettres and popular literature was probably accentuated by the controversial themes that characterized performances improvised by wandering actors and by the often coarse and risqué comic aspect of their gestures and words. As a result, the cultured Arab milieu chose for a long time to maintain an attitude of marked, disdainful superiority towards an art that was not seen as deserving a place within the sphere of high literature, but that might well have merited study as a popular phenomenon.

It was the nineteenth century that was to witness a revival of interest in the traditionally based theatre, involving everything created in the past to entertain the public through drama and acting, from the ḥikāya to the maqāma, from khayāl to khayāl al-ẓill, from texts in elevated language to improvised farce, from zajal to classical verse, from music to dancing. All this was not in vain, since the forms and spirit were transferred to the new model of modern theatre which may have taken its initial momentum from the West but brought to its elaboration all the past experience from the Middle East.

¹ Moreh dwells on this in Live Theatre, pp. ⅶ, ⅸ, quoting the various positions of some modern scholars.

² With regard to the theatre, the following are particularly interesting: Ahmad Shams al-Din al-Hajjaji, The Origins of Arabic Theatre, ch. ⅱ: The Student Educational Missions to Europe, 1834–1944, pp. 61–80; Atia Abul Naga, Les Sources françaises. On the East/West relationship in Arab literature, cf., among others, L’Occidente e l’Islām nell’Alto Medioevo, introd. by F. Gabrieli, pp. 15–33.

³ The examples provided by Yūsuf Idrīs in Egypt, al-Ṭayyib al-Ṣiddīqī in Morocco and Sa‘d Allāh Wannūs in Syria are particularly significant, but are not isolated cases.

⁴ In discussing many of these genres attention has been paid only to aspects that link them with drama.

⁵ For evolution of the term adab, see Nallino, ‘La letteratura araba’. See also Bonebakker, ‘Adab’.

⁶ Moreh, Live Theatre, pp. 104–10.

⁷ Lane, Lexicon, vol. Ⅱ, pp. 618–19. The verb ḥakā, closely tied to the activity of imitation and copying, has normally been used to define the activity of mimes, for which reliable attestations are to be found throughout the entire Middle Ages in the Middle East. According to Horovitz, Spuren griechischer Mimen, pp. 16–17, there is a close relationship between the play of imitation in the East and in Greece by persons whose job was that of entertaining both the populace and the rulers.

⁸ According to Pellat, ‘Ḥikāya’, this change of meaning is recorded only from the fourteenth century onwards.

⁹ al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-bayān, vol. Ⅰ, pp. 69–70: ‘We also find the imitator of the people, the person who imitates the sounds of the inhabitants of the Yemen, pronouncing words as they do, without overlooking anything; and in the same way, his imitation may be of a Khorasanī or Ahwāzī, a Zanjī or Sindī or other races and so on, to such an extent as to be the most natural of them.’

¹⁰ See also MacDonald, ‘Ḥikāya’.

¹¹ Gabrieli, ‘Sulla Hikāyat Abī al-Qāsim’.

¹² Ibid., 39.

¹³ Cf. MacDonald, ‘Hikāya’, p. 323.

¹⁴ Aristotle, Poetica, vols. Ⅰ and Ⅳ, pp. 117–21, 125–31. Mattā ibn Yūnis, in his translation of the Poetica, uses the Greek term.

¹⁵ Gabrieli, ‘Sulla Hikāyat Abī al-Qāsim’, 1.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ This would not be so bad, according to Gabrieli, ibid., 36, ‘if al-Azdī had known how to exploit to the full his vein of dramatic and descriptive realism’. In that case ‘he could be forgiven much of the sukhf and the mujūn for which he himself apologised at the beginning of the work’. See EI2, s.v. ‘Mudjūn’.

¹⁸ Gabrieli, ‘Sulla Hikāyat Abī al-Qāsim’, 37. It should be noted that, although a possible derivation of the maqāma from the ḥikāya has previously been hinted at, in the work in question it is the second which proves to be full of continuous borrowing from the first, with whole passages of works by various authors often freely linked together and adapted, almost as if memorized.

¹⁹ Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 97.

²⁰ Gabrieli, ‘Sulla Hikāyat Abī al-Qāsim’, 34.

²¹ Ibid. Such a unit of time inevitably brings to mind one of the well-known Aristotelian canons.

²² Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 97. For a recent study on the maqāma see also Hämeen-Anttila, Maqāma.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Moreh, Live Theatre, pp. 114–18.

²⁵ It is improbable that the term khayāl was used to define only something totally oral; besides, this term also occurs in the high cultural environment of the Abbasid period, in poetry, to represent the quest for equilibrium between soul and body, with the result that the symbol of the khayāl, together with that of ṭayf, as ‘fantasy’, ‘spirit’, ‘vision’, was sometimes used for the purpose of elevating the physical element, on which the body drew far too often, to something more evanescent and spiritual. Cf. Jacobi, ‘al-Khayālāni’.

²⁶ Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 118.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 98.

²⁸ Even though this type of writing became renowned with al-Hamadhānī, who showed that he could combine interest in an elaborate discourse with a realistic representation of episodes from contemporary life and create through his hero, Abū’l-Fatḥ, a first flowering of the picaresque genre, it seems unwise to suggest that he ‘invented’ the Maqāma, in that the genesis of such genres can never be determined in such precise terms. D. S. Richards takes a particularly sceptical stand with regard to this idea, see his ‘The Maqāmāt of al-Hamadhāni’.

²⁹ al-Tanūkhī (d. 995), almost his contemporary, had probably already had his collection of anecdotes, al-Faraj ba‘d al-shidda (AH 382–4), published. Cf. also Margoliouth, ‘Hamadhānī’. With regard to connections of the maqāmāt by al-Hamadhāni to the anecdotal literature of that time, see also Malti-Douglas, ‘“Maqāmāt” and “Adab”’.

³⁰ Saj‘, de rigueur, in the khuṭba (Friday sermon), was also used very often in the risāla, which in Abbasid society was frequently destined to be read by more than one person. Cf. Arazi and Shammay, ‘Risāla’. His choice of the term maqāmāt for these works may well be connected to the use of this style, with reference to the normal standing position of people who recited in saj‘, as opposed to those who recited anecdotes or read rasā’il in majālis (meetings, sessions), a term derived from a semantic root tied to the idea of ‘sitting’. Lane, Lexicon, vol. Ⅱ, pp. 443–4.

³¹ Beeston, ‘The Genesis of the Maqāmāt Genre’. See also Hämeen-Anttila, Maqāma.

³² Mattock, ‘The Early History of the Maqāma’.

³³ See Bosworth, The Medieval Islamic Underworld.

³⁴ S. Moreh, s.v. Banū Sāsān, in Meisami and Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia, vol. I, p. 134. See also Shoshan, Popular Culture.

³⁵ Cf. Kilito, Les Séances.

³⁶ It has been noted in particular (ibid., pp. 28–32) that each maqāma was the representation of a metamorphosis, the systematic countering of a situation and its opposite, following the example of a literary trend that was also discernible in various other Arab works, constructed on opposition and complementarity, respect and non-respect, acquiescence and negation.

³⁷ Mattock, ‘The Early History of the Maqāma’, 15.

³⁸ With regard to this, see Richards, ‘The Maqāmāt of al-Hamadhāni’, 99.

³⁹ ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd Yūnis, Khayāl al-ẓill, p. 60.

⁴⁰ al-Rā‘ī, Funūn al-kumīdiyā.

⁴¹ Badawi, Early Arabic Drama, pp. 1–6. For others, such as Cachia, ‘The Theatrical Movement of the Arabs’, one of the reasons why a movement of literary Arab theatre had difficulty in developing was the coexistence of a ‘high literature’, which was conservative, formal and tied to pre-Islamic poetry, and a ‘popular’ literature expressed in dialect, which varied over the years.

⁴² Badawi, Early Arabic Drama, pp. 1–6.

⁴³ Brockelmann (Pellat), ‘Maqāma’. For the risāla, see Hämeen-Anttila’s contribution in this volume, Chapter 6.

⁴⁴ Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 110.

⁴⁵ Cf. ‘Āyisha ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (ed.), al-Sāhil wa’l-shāhij.

⁴⁶ In al-Jāḥiẓ, Risāla fī Banī Umayya, a work which probably came into being with the first steps in a process of ḥikāya/risāla passage, various similarities to subsequent rasā’il can already be noted. See Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 110.

⁴⁷ Cf. Smoor, ‘Enigmatic Allusion’.

⁴⁸ Cachia, ‘The Dramatic Monologues’.

⁴⁹ The epistle in question has offered a vast range of points for critical analysis, from those of D. S. Margoliouth and R. A. Nicholson in the early twentieth century to the study of Ṭaḥā Ḥusayn in the first decades of the century and so on, up to the essays of ‘Ā’isha ‘Abd al-Raḥmān in more recent times among Arab critics.

⁵⁰ Moreh and Sadgrove, Jewish Contributions, p. 13; S. Moreh, s.v. Shadow Play, in Meisami and Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia, pp. 701–2; Moreh, Live Theatre, pp. 123–45, where two different variants of the khayāl are mentioned, one understood as live theatre and one as shadow-play theatre, in this case khayāl al-ẓill.

⁵¹ Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 3.

⁵² Ibid., pp. 3–14.

⁵³ For the ancient guilds in Cairo, including the groups of mimes, jugglers, story-tellers, shadow-play puppeteers, cf. Raymond, ‘Une Liste des corporations’. For the relationship between popular and lofty-style culture in medieval Cairo, cf. Shoshan, Popular Culture, pp. 67–8. For the popular festivals and the festival of Nawrūz in particular: ibid., pp. 40–51; al-Mas’ūdī, Murūj al-dhahab (Paris, 1861–77), vol. Ⅲ, pp. 413ff.; al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawā’iẓ wa’l-i‘tibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa’l-āthār (Bulaq, 1854; repr. Baghdad, n.d.), pp. 468, 493ff.; and G. Wiet (ed.) (Cairo, 1922–4), vol. Ⅳ, pp. 224ff. See also Levy, ‘Nawrūz’.

⁵⁴ Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 9.

⁵⁵ Moreh, ‘Acting and Actors’, p. 53.

⁵⁶ Landau, ‘Shadow Plays’.

⁵⁷ Badawi, ‘Medieval Arabic Drama’, 83; Jacob, Geschichte, pp. 21–33; and his, Das Schattentheater, pp. 3–14.

⁵⁸ Ibn Ḥazm, Epitre Morale, p. 30. See also Nallino, ‘Il poema’; Wiedemann, ‘Über eine optische Vorrichtung’.

⁵⁹ Tr. M. Asim, published in Madrid in 1910, cited by Nallino, ‘Il poema’, 94.

⁶⁰ Nallino, ‘Il poema’, 94.

⁶¹ al-Ghuzūlī, Maṭāli ‘al-budūr, pp. 78–9; ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd Yūnus, Khayāl al-ẓill, p. 18; Aziza, L’Image et l’Islam, p. 107.

⁶² Ḥamāda, Khayāl al-ẓill, p. 144; E. K. Rowson, s.v. Ibn Dāniyāl, in Meisami and Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia, vol. I, p. 349.

⁶³ Jacob, Geschichte, pp. 35–75; Badawi, ‘Medieval Arabic Drama’; Hopwood and Badawi, Ibn Dāniyāl.

⁶⁴ Kahle, ‘The Arabic Shadow Play’.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 26–7.

⁶⁶ Badawi, ‘Medieval Arabic Drama’, 92–3, 106.

⁶⁷ Ibn Iyās, Kitāb badā’i ‘al-zuhūr; Mostafa, Die Chronik des Ibn Ijas, vol. Ⅰ, pp. 326ff.

⁶⁸ Badawi, ‘Medieval Arabic Drama’, 107; Kahle, Der Leuchtturm von Alexandria, pp. 73–6.

⁶⁹ S. Moreh, s.v. Muhammad ibn Mawlāhum al-Khayāli, in Meisami and Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia, vol. Ⅰ, pp. 349–50.

⁷⁰ Moreh, Live Theatre, pp. 104–51.

⁷¹ Norris, ‘Fables and Legends’.

⁷² Ḥamāda, Khayāl al-ẓill, p. 144.

⁷³ Marzolph, Arabia ridens; Weber, Imaginaire arabe. For more modern aspects tied to sexuality, see Allen et al. (eds.), Love and Sexuality.

⁷⁴ Badawi, Early Arabic Drama, pp. 14–15.

⁷⁵ Ibid., pp. 4–5. Cf. Aristotle, Poetica, pp. 123, 131.

⁷⁶ Badawi, Early Arabic Drama, p. 24.

⁷⁷ The texts were initially studied by G. Jacob, and later by A. Müller, who concentrated on them for thirty-five years, highlighting not only their value but also the complexity of translation and interpretation. His studies were picked up and continued by P. Kahle, who commenced work on them in 1937. There has been more detailed research on these texts since the 1960s, including studies by Arab scholars such as Fu’ād Ḥasanayn, Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī, Ibrāhīm Ḥamāda and ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd Yūnus. Recent European analyses include the one by Hopwood and Badawi, Ibn Dāniyāl.

⁷⁸ Badawi, Early Arabic Drama, pp. 14–15.

⁷⁹ Badawi, ‘Medieval Arabic Drama’, 93; for plot details and comments, 93–101. See also Ḥamāda, Khayāl al-ẓill, pp. 188–231.

⁸⁰ Among principal works on the Turkish shadow theatre: Jacob, Geschichte, pp. 83–108; Martinovich, The Turkish Theatre; Ritter, Karagös; And, Karagöz; ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Arnā’ut, ‘Khayāl al-ẓill’.

⁸¹ Ḥusayn Salīm Ḥijāzī, Khayāl al-ẓill.

⁸² S. Moreh, s.v. Banū Sāsān, in Meisami and Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia, vol. Ⅰ, p. 134.

⁸³ Kahle, ‘Islamische Schattenspielfiguren aus Ägypten’.

⁸⁴ Landau, Shadow Plays, ⅹⅹⅺⅹ–ⅹⅼⅲ; and his, Studies in the Arab Theatre.

⁸⁵ Cf. Kahle, Zur Geschichte des Arabischen Schattenspielen, pp. 1–15.

⁸⁶ Ibid., pp. 21–36.

⁸⁷ He is cited as the performer of shadow plays before the Turkish sultan Ahmad Ⅰ, in Adrianopolis. Cf. Kahle, ‘The Arabic Shadow Play’.

⁸⁸ Ibid., 21; Wiet, Journal d’un bourgeois, p. 187.

⁸⁹ Moreh, Live Theatre, p. 73.

⁹⁰ Kahle, ‘The Arabic Shadow Play’, 21.

⁹¹ Ibn Iyās, Badā’i ‘al-zuhūr, vol. Ⅴ, p. 192.

⁹² Della Valle, Dei viaggi, p. 632. For his biography, see Rossi, ‘Pietro della Valle’.

⁹³ Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia; Russel, The Natural History of Aleppo.

⁹⁴ Lane, Manners and Customs, p. 397.

⁹⁵ De Nerval, Le Voyage en Orient, vol. Ⅱ, pp. 202–15.

⁹⁶ With regard to North African shadow theatre, see also Hönerbach, Das nordafrikanische Schattentheater; Aziza, Les Formes traditionnelles. Regarding Syrian theatre, the studies of the following are significant: ‘A. Abū Shānab, Masraḥ ‘arabī qadīm: Karākūz (Damascus, 1964); M. Kayyāl, Ramaḍān wa-taqālīd dimashqiyya (Damascus, 1973); S. Qatāya, Nuṣūṣ min khayāl al-ẓill fī Ḥalab (Damascus, 1977). See also Dorigo Ceccato, ‘Il teatro d’ombre’.

⁹⁷ With regard to the presumed common origin of Arab and Turkish mime, both derived from the Greek tradition, it has been pointed out that the Turks were already in contact with the Byzantines long before the capture of Constantinople and that mime almost certainly entered their environment together with the other things inherited from Byzantine culture. See Landau, Shadow Plays, pp. ⅹⅻⅰ–ⅹⅹⅴ.

⁹⁸ The Turkish traveller Evliyā Celebi mentions this in his travel book, Seyāhatnāme, in relation to the years 1630–76. For the author see Mordtmann, ‘Ewliyā Čelebi’; Lybyer, ‘The Travels of Evliya Effendi’.

⁹⁹ For this colourful type of drunkard, see Jacob, ‘Bekri Mustafa’, 621ff.; and his, Das Schattentheater, p. 12; and his, ‘Traditionen’. Descriptions of this character are also to be found in And, Karagöz, pp. 1, 72; Landau, ‘Shadow Plays’, p. ⅼⅱ/147, and many others. Among Arab scholars the peculiarities of this character are cited in many works, e.g. Nizār al-Aswad, ‘Khayāl al-ẓill’; Kayyāl, Yā Shām!, p. 72; and his, Mu‘jam bābāt masraḥ al-ẓill, pp. 9, 27–8. On the reconstruction of the historical identity of Bekrī Muṣṭafā, presumed drinking companion of Murād Ⅳ and therefore one who actually lived in the latter’s court, see Dorigo Ceccato, ‘Su Bekrī Muṣṭafā’.

¹⁰⁰ Taymūr, Khayāl al-ẓill wa’l-lu‘ab.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., p. 20.

¹⁰² See also Dorigo Ceccato, ‘Un diverso approccio al “Khayāl al-ẓill”’.

¹⁰³ Sadgrove, The Egyptian Theatre, pp. 17–24.

¹⁰⁴ Moreh and Sadgrove, Jewish Contributions, p. 15.

¹⁰⁵ For the muqallidūn, see also al-Ra‘ī, ‘Some Aspects of Modern Arabic Drama’.

¹⁰⁶ Tadié, ‘Naissance du théâtre’; Lane, Manners and Customs, chs. ⅹⅺ–ⅹⅻⅰ. The work by G. Canova is also significant for certain aspects, ‘La tradizione nell’Alto Egitto’, QSA, Documents, 1 (Rome, 1998): film and text in three languages (Italian, English, Arabic).

¹⁰⁷ With regard to the various names used to define actors, see also Moreh, ‘Acting and Actors’, p. 54.

¹⁰⁸ Cachia, ‘The Theatrical Movement of the Arabs’.