The Narrative, Its Components and Its ‘Novelisation’

This chapter represents a narratological breakdown of the tale. Drawing on the theory of Seymour Chatman, Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Lukács, I discuss the tale and its relationship to the ʿUdhrī love tale, the popular epic and the novel in terms of its discourse, setting, characters and events. I argue that the tale has a plot with a ‘homophonic’ texture, whereby a ‘melody’ of singular events (such as the abduction, torture and rescue of Laylā) overlays a ‘drone’ of repeated events (namely battle scenes). I conclude with a comparison of the tale with its twentieth-century novelistic adaptation and a discussion of what the comparison reveals about the pre-history of the Arabic novel.

From Fiction to History and Back: The Tale, Its Versions and Its Afterlives

This chapter introduces the fictional tale by tracing its evolution from its unknown origins in what was probably the seventeenth century to its historicisation and Christianisation in the nineteenth century, to its infiltration of popular culture and the fine arts in the twentieth century. Its adaptations across various media, including literature, cinema and music, are explored. The chapter furthermore shows how the tale inscribes the endemic paradigms of the ʿUdhrī love narrative and the popular epic or sīra with the western model of the damsel-in-distress fairy tale. Finally, the chapter relates the process by which the tale becomes absorbed into Arabic culture to Yuri Lotman’s notion of the ‘boundary’ as the site of artistic innovation and the creation of new genres.

The Tale of al-Barrāq Son of Rawḥān and Laylā the Chaste: A Translation

The romance between al-Barrāq and his cousin Laylā unfolds against a backdrop of internecine Arab military skirmishes, where al-Barrāq proves his valour as a warrior. Laylā’s father reneges on a promise to allow the cousins to marry and accepts a proposal from an Arab king. Meanwhile, a Persian king, Shahrmayh, also desires to marry her. Laylā is abducted by a stooge of King Shahrmayh named Burd, who imprisons and tortures her. Laylā then recites a poem in which she describes her suffering and calls on her kinsmen to rescue her. Her poem is overheard by a sympathetic servant and conveyed to al-Barrāq through a series of messengers. Al-Barrāq then appeals to his fellow Arabs to rally to Laylā’s rescue. United, they nearly defeat the Persians, but they are vastly outnumbered. The Arab armies retreat, leaving al-Barrāq alone in enemy territory. Al-Barrāq, through a combination of ruse and might, succeeds in slaying both Burd and King Shahrmayh, frees his beloved from captivity and returns with her astride his horse to Arab lands. At the tale’s end, al-Barrāq and Laylā marry, and it is discovered that she is a virgin, despite all the threats to her chastity.