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Storytelling in the Muslim World
01:013:345
Instructor: Samah Selim
AMESALL
Course description: Storytelling is a timeless human activity that is older even than writing and
the Muslim world is home to one of the oldest, richest and most culturally diverse storytelling
traditions in existence. This course will explore a selection of central texts from this tradition,
from medieval times to the present. We will read classic popular narratives that have circulated
across the Muslim world and interpret them in relation to enduring questions about power,
justice, identity, knowledge and love (both human and divine). We will also explore some of the
ways in which the Islamic story has passed into European literature in the modern period.
Why are stories so central to the human imagination? Is there something specifically ‘Islamic’
about narratives from these regions, or are there universal, timeless ways of telling stories? How
have traditional, pre-modern forms of storytelling been appropriated and used in the modern era
of nation-states and the novel? We will discuss questions of narrative genre – epic, romance, and
tale - as a way of thinking about the circulation of literary forms across languages, cultures and
national spaces in the past and the present.
Learning Objectives: The class will challenge students to question conventional definitions of
Islam and the Muslim world through lectures on the political and cultural histories of Central
Asia, the Middle East and the United Kingdom. Students will explore the differences and
continuities between popular oral literature and the authored text, and they will be introduced to
concepts about the important way in which stories travel across time and space through
translation. The class will also provide students with a basic narrative grammar through which
they can learn to decipher a whole range of stories that we tell about ourselves and the world in
which we live.
Course requirements: This is a reading and discussion intensive course, which means that
attendance is crucial. Regular student presentations will be an important component of class time
and student grades. There will be no exams. The written requirements for the course are two 3-5
page essays and one final 10-15 page paper. Topics for final papers must be submitted to the
instructor two weeks in advance of the hand-in date.
Grading:
Attendance and class participation: 20%
Student presentations: 20%
Essays: 20%
Final paper: 40%
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Books :
The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan by Anonymous (Arabic, 14th century, Egypt)
The Arabian Nights by Anonymous (Arabic, 14th century, Syria)
The Story of Layla and Majnun by Nezami (Persian, 13th century, Azerbaijan)
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (English, 1990, India/UK)
Weeks 1-2:
I. Introduction: The cultural world of classical and medieval
Islam and a discussion of ‘stories’.
Readings:
1. From Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples: “The Arab Muslim World” pp.83-97.
2. From Frances W. Pritchett, The Romance Tradition in Urdu, pp. 1-14.
3. From Barbara Fuchs, Romance, pp.1-11
4. From Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism pp.33-35.
5. From Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot, pp.327-334.
Optional reading: [From Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a
World Civilization, vol. 2: “The Expansion of Islam, c. 1258-1503”, pp. 532-574.]
Weeks 3-4:
II. From fairy tale to khabar: The landscapes of the Islamic
narrative tradition.
Readings:
“Bahram and the Snake Prince” by Anne Sinclair Mehdevi and Anonymous – An Iranian
fairy-tale (New York, 1965).
“A Love Story” by Al-Tanukhi, from the anthology Table-talk of a Mesopotamian Judge
(Basra, Iraq, 10th century).
1. Jack Zipes, “The Changing Function of the Fairytale,” pp.7-29.
Optional reading: [From Roger Allan, An Introduction to Arabic Literature: “Belletristic prose
and narrative”, pp.133-177].
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III. Epic and Romance in Medieval Egypt and Syria
Weeks 5-7:
Readings:
*The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan* Anonymous
1. From Peter Heath, The Thirsty Sword: Sirat Antar and the Arab Popular Epic, pp.xii-xx.
2. Boaz Shoshan, “Popular Literature in Islamic Cairo,” pp.349-361.
Weeks 8-10:
Readings:
*The Arabian Nights* Anonymous
“Foreword”
“Prologue”
“The Story of the Merchant and the Demon”
“The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon”
pp.3-66.
“The Story of the Hunchback”
pp.203-260.
Selections from *Vathek: An Arabian Tale* by William Beckford, England/France 1764
1. Abdelfattah Kilito, “The Eye and the Needle,” pp.500-504.
2. Robert Irwin, “Introduction” to Volume 2 of The Arabian Nights (Penguin), pp.ix-xvii.
Weeks 11-12:
IV. The Persian Sufi Romance
Readings:
*The Story of Layla and Majnun* Nezami
1. From Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, pp.3-9; 130-142; 287-294.
Weeks 13-15:
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V. The Contemporary British Novel
Readings:
*Haroun and the Sea of Stories* Salman Rushdie
1. Aron R. Aji, “All Names Mean Something: Salman Rushdie’s ‘Haroun’ and the Legacy of
Islam,” pp.103-129.
2. Andrew S. Teverson, “Fairy-tale Politics: Free Speech and Multiculturalism in ‘Haroun and
the Sea of Stories,’” pp.444-466.
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