The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan: An Arab Folk Epic

by Lena Jayyusi (Editor), Harry Norris (Introduction)

Overview

"A charming and agreeable surprise . . . A welcome gift to Western readers." —Kirkus Reviews

"Editor Jayyusi offers a major example of the Arabic folk epics or romances called siras . . . The siras are full of heroic adventures, exotic landscapes, love affairs, friendships, supernatural dangers, magical spells, and great Arab heroes. . . . " —Library Journal

"This text should find its place alongside the translations of other epic traditions of the world as a text well suited for use in university courses on the Middle East, world literature, epic, and folklore." —Journal of Arabic Literature

This colorful panorama recounts the fantastic tales of a sixth-century Arab king and offers unusual perspectives on gender, religion, race, and ethnicity. Composed between the 13th and 16th centuries and presented here in English for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253213426
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	09/22/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

LENA JAYYUSI is Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Cedar Crest College. In 1994–95 she was an Annenberg Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author of Categorization and the Moral Order.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments by Salma Khadra Jayyusi
Introduction by Harry Norris
Translator's Introduction by Lena Jayyusi

1. King Dhi Yazan
2. Wahsh Al-Fala
3. The Quest for the Book of the Nile
4. Schemes & Revelations
5. The Sword
6. Weddings
7. Ghouls & Giants
8. Kings & Magicians
9. Ailments & Remedies
10. The Garden of Delights
11. The Great Battle
12. Retribution
13. The City of Maidens

Glossary of Names and Places
Appendix: References to Arabic Text
Contributors
Motif Index

Editorial Reviews

The first (partial) translation into English of an indigenous chivalric romance set in the Nile Valley and originally composed sometime during the 13th through 16th centuries. Jayyusi's lively English version—a prose tale studded with frequent verse interpolations—reproduces approximately one-quarter of the 2,000- page Arabic original: the story of the eponymous Sayf, a Muslim ruler of Yemen before the formal establishment of Islam, in his battles against (mainly Ethiopian) "infidels"; encounters with various jinns, monsters, and other supernatural beings and forces; and, most interestingly, quest for a wife and for an accommodation with women (who are here something more than the pallid virgins of conventional romance)—especially in his adventures in the City of Maidens and in his conflict with his scheming mother Qamariyya, a startlingly avaricious and lustful creature who is the tale's most vivid and memorable character. A charming and agreeable surprise, similar (as noted in an introduction by Harry Norris) to such corollary works as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and, of course, The Arabian Nights. A welcome gift to Western readers.

Kirkus Reviews