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Isnam#dsand models of heroes: AbZubayd alTa'i,

Tankh's sundered lovers and Abl'Anbas alSaymarJulia Ashtiany Bray

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aDepartment of Arabic Studies, School of History, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fi

KY16 9AJ, UK Phone: 01334 463083 Fax: 01334 463083

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To cite this article:Julia Ashtiany Bray (1998): Isnam#dsand models of heroes: AbZubayd alTa'i, Tankh's sundered lover

and Abl'Anbas alSaymar, Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature, 1:1, 7-30

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Arabicand MiddleEasternL iteratures,Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998

Isnds and Models of Heroes: Ab Zubayda l T ',Tankh's sunderedlovers and Ab 'l 'Anbasal Saymar

JULIA ASHTIANY BRAY

Source studies based on isndds have greatly increased our understanding of thediffusion and elaborat ion of narrative akhbar,particularly in the 4th/ 10th century. T oth e 'collector' sources identified by Zolondek, and more fully investigated since byscholars such as Fleischhammer, and to the lines of transmission and networks of retransmission identified by Sultan and others,

1 we can now, thanks to Stefan Leder'srecent work, add a growing appreciation of theways in which certainrdwisre shapedakhbar in the course of transmission.2

As ourviewof how 'Abbasid narrative texts circulated, evolved, were amalgamatedandpublished comes into sharper focus, so new questions arise as to how we should goabout analysing them as literature. These questions have hardly yet been formulated,and the path s to be pursued are not selfevident, but, where present,isnddsmay haveasubstantial part t o play in shaping literary understand ing. In this paper, I consider theisnadsof three sets ofakhbar, in conjunction with the main narrative characteristics ofth e matns and in relation to the models of hero presented in them. My first set,consisting of the two earliest known versions of a single khabar, both of which showcertainparallels with Hamadhanl'smaqdmdt,poses problems of diffusion and influence,which isnddshelp to define, if not to resolve. Th e last set, which consists of only onekhabar,theMaqdma Saymariyya of H a m a d h a n i , poses the same problem in reverse, asaproblem of sources; here again theisnddsuggestshow the field of investigation mightbe narrowed or redefined. The central set of akhbar contains one sequence of storiestakenfrom Abu 'All alMuhassin al Tanukhl'salFarajba'dal shidda,whoseisnddsan dmatns both reflect a series of revisions, and a pair of stories which occur, withsubstantial variants, both in Tanukhi's Nishwdr almuhddaraand in Faraj.The comparison of these synchronic variants shows a variety ofwaysin which models of heroesmay be transformed, and suggests some hypotheses as to where Hamadhani may havefound his models and how he may have used them.

I Abu Zubaydand the CowardlyLiarofPseudoJahizAkhabarquoted inKitdbal Aghdmmust have struck more t h a n one reader as being alineal forebear of the H amadhan ianmaqdma.3 It concerns a Christian poet active underth efirstcaliphs, Abu Z ubayd H armala b. alM undhir al Tal. Th e caliph U t h m a n , bywhom he is said to be always favourably received, one day invites him ( Come, youfollower of Christ ) to recite some poetry before a company ofMuhdjirun andAnsdr.Dr J. Ashtiany Bray, Department ofArabic Studies, School ofHistory, Universityof StAndrews, St Andrews,FifeKY16 9AJ, UK Tel: 01334 463083; Fax: 01334 463632.1366 6169/98/01000724 1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd


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8 Julia Ashtiany BrayWhen he has finished, the caliph teases him for including a description of a lion: "Nevermention lions again as long as you live, for I 'm sure you're an utter coward." " Tha t I 'mnot," the poet rejoins, "but I once had such a terrifying encounter with a lion that ithaunts me still; your reproaches are unmerited ." H e proceeds to narrate the incident atlength, in elaboratesaf, telling how he and his travelling companions, in the heat of theday, gratefully alighted in a shady and well watered wddv,how the ho rses, tak ing frightone after another, first alerted them to impending danger; how a lion sprang into theirmidst an d began to pick off the com pany one by one, crunching them up and wallowingin their gore; bu t before Abu Z ubayd can enlarge on his own role, the caliph cuts himshort: "Silence, damn your chatter You 're scaring us poor Muslims stiff. 4This version derives from the Tabaqat al-shu'ara' of Ibn Sallam al-Jumahl ( 139 -231 /755-845), where it constitutes an anomalous and prominent element, being by far thelongestkhabar,and the only piece of sustainedsaj',in the work as it survives at pre sent.5Ibn Sallam gives its sole source as Abu '1-Gharraf [al-Dabbl]. 6 It is a matter forconjecture whether it should be dated, in the form in which it appears in Tabaqat,t oIbn Sallam's own lifetime, or to that of his nephew and transmitter, Abu Khalifa al-Fadlb . al-Hubab al-Jumahl (c. 205-305/820-917)7 (it was Abu Khalifa's riwayaofTabaqatthat Abu '1-Faraj al-Isfahanl used in Kitab al-Aghdm).%If diekhabar was elaborated byIbn Sallam, or by Abu '1-Gharrafhimself, it pre-dates Hamadhanl's maqamatby morethan a hundred years; if it is the work of Abu Khalifa, it still pre-dates by over half acentury the emergence, with HamadhanI (358-39 8/968-1008 ), of the maqdmaproper .The key elements of this earliest version, which I will call version A, can beschematized as follows:(I) Preface, consisting of: (a) isndd (Abu '1-Gharraf) + (b) biographical information;(II) khabar prop er, telling us: .(1) the poe t is Christian ; (2) his au dience consists ofprominent Muslims; (3) his poem happens to mention lions; (4) caliph calls poetliar and coward; poet justifies himself; (5) poet expands his justification in sa fnarrative; (6) caliph interrupts in m ock terror: "You have frightened us M uslims ".

Items (l)-(4) and (6) constitute a frame to (5), the central narrative. (The version inAghdni, which I will call version A(i), reverses (a) and (b), augments (b), lacks (2), andadds an appendix which underlines the poet's cowardice.)Version A anticipates the Hamadhanian maqdma in more than one respect. Firstly,the central narrative placess af in the mout h of a comic figure; secondly, the surrou nd-ing frame portrays this narrative as a recital, performed in a court setting, much asHamadhan l ' s maqamat were to be. It is tempting to see the frame, although set in earlyIslamic times, as reflecting real performance practice at the time of the khabar'scomposition; but the information that Abu Zubayd was a courtier, min zuivwdri'l-muluki wa-li-muluki 'l-'ajami khdssatan (I, (b)), and that his alleged audience con-sisted of the Muslim elite, evokes only a generalized tradition of aristocratic entertain-ment, and is of meagre evidential value. However, the textual history of Tabaqatitself,muddled though it is, may provide better evidence. Abu '1-Faraj al-Isfahanl apparentlyused a written text of Tabaqat,sent to him by Abu K halifa;9 but there is some evidence,of varying quality, of the extent to which Abu Khalifa's text may also have been taughtorally. Four distinct isndds are attached to his riwaya in surviving sources. Thenumerous citations in Marzubanl's (d.383/994) Muwashshah go back to Abu Khalifavia one intermediary.10 The abridged Medina manuscript of Tabaqat, which Shakiridentifies as Egyptian and places around the beginning of the 5th/llth century,


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Isnads and Models ofHeroes 9represents another path of transmission two steps removed from Abu Khalifa, and theIsfahani (Chester Beatty) manuscript appears to be an amalgamation of two more,separate, oral transmissions, each one step removed from Abu Khalifa and dating,according to Shakir, to around the first decades of the 4th/10th century. 11 This wouldimply a wide geographical diffusion of Tabaqat during the course of a century, thoughit does not help us to estimate the importance of oral transmission in its diffusion, stillless to assess the possible size of audiences (one anecdote shows Abu Khalifa givingprivate lessons, including readings of Tabaqat, to a single pupil).12The oral recitation of scholarly material may not amount to performance in thefullest sense; but it can be argued that a spoken text has a different effect on itsaudience from a written one, even when the constraints of dictation are taken intoaccount. On the above evidence, it is possible that the comic possibilities of spoke'hsapthe idea that it lends itself to clowning as well as to oratory and repartee, itstraditional usesmay have impressed itself on Iraqi au diences, and may also have beentransmitted, with the text of Tabaqat, to audiences elsewhere, some time beforeHamadhanl's listeners were introduced to it.13

There is another version of the khabar, which is first attested probably slightly laterthan the latest dating that I have proposed for version A. I will call this version, versionB. It appears in pseudo-Jahiz, al-Mahdsin wa l-adddd,an d it differs from version A onthe following main points:(I) (a) and (b) lacking;(II) (2): internal audience of Muslims lacking;(3) is replaced by (3'): caliph invites poet to describe lion;(5 ) sap is followed by (5'), a four-line poem intawil;(6) is replaced by (6'): caliph interrupts, "You have thrown terror into Muslimhearts; from your description, I can almost see the lion about to spring atme." 14

In Mahasin, this version (like most of the material in the book) lacks any form of isnad.This could mean either that the author drew on an unacknowledged source, probablya written one, or tha t a later scribe omitted theisnads.W e may nevertheless guess at theprovenance of version B, a variant of which, quoted in the Lqtd'if al-akhbar of 'All b .al-Muhassin al-Tanukhl (d.447/1055), has an abridged isnad claiming al-Kalbl (d.146/763) as its source.15 T h eKitab al-Mu'ammarin of Abu Hatim al-Sijistanl (d. c. 250/864)quotes neither version A n or version B of thekhabar,but cites al-Kalbl as a biographicalsource for Abu Zubayd.16As can be seen from the above schema, version B erodes the comic contrast betw eenChristian and Mus lims, present in version A, and removes the element of surprise fromthe introduc tion of the lion them e. To explain this by positing that version B is simplya defective rendering of version A would not account for the inclusion of the poem, or,incidentally, for the fact that version B seems well adapted to its context, as we shall seepresently. It seems more reasonable to suppose that the Abu Zubayd khabar had twodistinct lines of elaboration and transmission, and that its diffusion, therefore, was notlimited to the ambit of version A. In addition, we may no te th at the version inLatd if,which I will call version A/B, preserves the audience of Muslim notables (thoughomitting to mention that Abu Zubayd was a Christian), together with the element ofsurprise, and retains in the frame elements of the phrasing of version A. Version A/Bmay thus represent an earlier text than version B, or a separate tradition, againindicating a fairly wide diffusion of the khabar..


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10 Julia Ashtiany BrayVersion B contains features which, though distinct from those found in version A,also seem to point forward to the maqama. The verses with which Abu Zubaydinterrupts and rounds off his own performanceonly then being cut short by thecaliphare one such formal feature. More significant, perhaps, are those features which

arise from the piece's context. Version B is not an isolated piece, but one of a pair, thestory immediately preceding it being the last of a sequence illustrating mahasin al-shajd'a, 'the virtues of valour', while the Abu Zubayd story is the first in a sequenceillustrating ' the opposite' , didduh. It displays obvious formal and thematic parallels, aswell as more subtle conc eptual ones, with the com panion piece which precedes it, andwhich I will summarize:[Noisnadl[Opening of frame:]During his wars with Ibn al-Ash cath, al-Hajjaj sends for a rebel prisoner,Shihab b. Haraqa al-Sa'dl, who pleads for his life by enumerating his ownvirtues in saj'. Al-Hajjaj demands that he relate some incident that will bearout his boasts.[Central narrative:]Still in saj', the prisoner tells how, with a band of his clansmen, he journeyedday and night, captured a loaded caravan and drove it off into the desert,where he encountered a she-ass, and, leaving his companions in order topursue it, found himself led at eventide to a well of sweet water, beside whichwas pitched a tent containing a woman of surpassing beauty, Naima. Sheoffers him hospitality, and a certain 'Amir appears on horseback, bearing adead lion. (At this point, al-Hajjaj interrupts: 'That's enough saj' an d rajaz;just tell the story.' Th e narrato r proceeds in prose.)17 'Amir cooks die lion, andall three eat. The narrator hears his companions approaching on horseback,rejoins them and, spear in hand, demands that 'Amir surrender N aim a. 'Amirissues a knightly challenge to single combat, and kills two opponents insuccession after taunting them in verse. The narrato r and his me n then attacktogether; Naima joins the fray, and she and 'Amir kill 20 men. The narratorsues for peace; 'Amir reveals his identity and relationship to Naima andscornfully rejects the narrator's offer of a gift of laden camels: he and NaTmaare content to dwell in solitude and dine on lions and other such creatures.The narrator and his companions depart.[Closing of frame:]Al-Hajjaj exclaims that this betrayal of hospitality is itself enough to meritdeath; the narrator argues that if al-Hajjaj can forgive him his rebellion, heshould not punish him for a lesser crime. Al-Hajjaj releases and rewards him. 18

Th e above piece and version B bodi consist of a frame, which presents the narrator a ndhis internal audience, surrounding a central narrative which combines saj' and verse,contains the them es of a journey and a lion, and is interrupted by the internal audience.The two pieces share the further characteristic of being only oblique illustrations oftheir rubric: in the first story, it is 'Amir and Naima, not the narrator, who displayvalour,shaja'a, while in the second, Abu Zubayd's cowardice is not apparent from hisnarrative, but only from the caliph's ironic reception of it. The lion theme is broughtto the fore in the frame of version B, giving retrospective prominence to the incidentallion dieme in the com panion piece, while the Christian/Muslim contrast, which has n o


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Isnads and Models ofHeroes 11counterpart in the companion piece, is underplayed. These last correspondences mayeither be, as I have suggested, signs of the deliberate adaptation of the khabar to itscontext, or fortuitous parallels exploited by the simple device of juxtaposition. A moreimportant parallel, however, between versions and its companion piece (and a featurealso found in version A) is the way in which the frame plays upon the relationshipbetween the narrator's real and alleged persona on the one hand, and on that betweenthe narrator and the person to whom he tells his story on the other. Both narrators,given the chance to prove their claims to virtue, spin rigmaroles which impudentlychallenge their listener's indulgence.19From the stringing together of two saj' tales with unheroic heroes/narrators inal-Mahdsin wa l-adddd,to th e idea of a serial saj' narrator and an intermittentlyrecurring anti-hero in Hamadhanl's maqamat, seems no great step. Indeed, the rela-tionship between the heroes of these two tales and their audiences seems not so muchto prefigure as to pre-empt themaqamat. There is, however, no proof that HamadhanIknew this pair of Stories. The chain of evidence for the transmission of version B isdefective and problematic. The textual matrix in which it has been preserved in itsearliest form dates, possibly, from not long before Hamadhanl's birth; the earliestversion of A/B dates from some time after his death. Thereafter, version B is attestedin only one later source, and then, like version A/B, as a singleton, not as part of asequence.20There is a greater likelihood that HamadhanI may have known version A alone,whose circulation is more fully and more continuously attested. 21 Version A, likeversion B, inevitably calls to mind theMaqdma Asadiyya. However, despite similaritiesof situation and sequence between the maqdma and the khabar, close textual parallelsare lacking, and it could well be argued that any likenesses may derive independentlyfrom reference to the numerous unsophisticated yarns about escapes from lions andother wild beasts which seem to have formed part of the staple of 'Abbasid story-telling, and at whose predictability, we may assume, both the maqdma and thekhabarpoke fun.

22To sum up so far: that HamadhanI had precursors, i.e. that earlier writers puttogether some of the elements with which H am adh anI is now usually credited as havingbeen the first to combine, seems to me to be proved in the case of versions A and B ofthe Abu Zubayd khabar. It is difficult, however, to take the argument a step further,and prove that these examples were known to Ham adhan I and influenced him directly.The necessary internal evidence is lacking: HamadhanI does not acknowledge hissources; the textual parallels are not specific enough 23 and we cannot point to anintermediate source which would make such parallels convincing. The same situationapplies for most of the maqamat. We can show parallels with earlier material, butusually only in the form of isolated motifs and discrete formulae belonging to thecommon stock of 'Abbasid narrative,24 for the process of assimilation has generallybeen too thorough to enable us to identify more complex or specific models or

processes of derivation. Lacking any detailed knowledge of Hamadhanl's relationshipto his sources, we also lack the means to show, in any but the most general way, howth e maqamatwere perceived, or were intended by Ham adhan I to be perceived, by theiroriginal audience.25However, in two exceptional instances, HamadhanI does name his sources, to theextent of including the names of real persons in his isndds. One of these exceptions isth e Maqdma Saymariyya, whose isndd we shall consider at the end of this paper.Meanwhile, let us turn to some other models of 'Abbasid hero.


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12 Julia Ashtiany BrayII Tanukhl s Lovers of Sold Slave-girlsW h o , in version A of the Abu Zubayd khabar, has the last word, Abu Zubayd or thecaliph? How are we to imagine the reactions of the internal audience of Ansar an dMuhajirun, whose 'fright' is invoked to stem Abu Zubayd's flow, but who are neverdrawn into the action? Are they, or indeed we, the real, external audience, dupes oraccomplices of one or the other protagonist, Abu Zubayd or the caliph? Thesequestions arise because their two characters are portrayed entirely through dialogue,and this dialogue reduces Abu Zubayd to a logical conundrum. He swears he is nocoward, and at the end of the khabar the caliph seems ironically to agree. The onlyunambiguous clue to Abu Zubayd's character is the typical liar's formula he employsbefore launching into his recital, kalla . . . wa-lakinni (Tin not, . . . but . . . ' ) , simul-taneously denying and conceding the charge against him. But not all 'Abbasid proseheroes are drawn in such abstract terms. In particular, the heroes of Abu 'All al-Muhassin al-Tanukhl's (327-384/939-994) eclectic compilations al-Faraj ba'd al-shiddaa nd Nishwar al-muhadara are often presented as 'slice of life' characters. Theygenerally tell their tale directly, sometimes through some unobtrusive 'witness' oranother third party, without apparent narrative artifice, and in simple prose. Anextreme example of the contrast between heroes like Abu Zubay d and such Tanu khianheroes is to be found in one particular story in al-Faraj ba'd al-shidda,F469 .26In this context the following points about the story should be noted particularly:

(1) The story has an 'informal', i.e. non-scholarly isndd:'I [Tanukh t] was told b y'Ubayd Allah b. Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-SarawI: 27 "My father told me"... ' . Afooting of intimacy subsequently seems to be implied, but is not shown, betweenthe source, Sarawl's father, and the hero, or between the hero and an unnamedconfidant (see (3) below). (Version A of the Abu Zubayd story has a 'scholarly'isndd,and claims no connection between the source, Abu '1-Gharraf, and AbuZubayd.)

(2) Des pite this implied intimacy, we never learn the hero's nam e or when the story'happe ned'. W e are given only enough detail to understand the mechanism of theplot: 'There was once a wealthy young man of Baghdad whose father died andleft him a fortune. He was deeply in love with a slave-girl ... bought her, andspent every penny he had on her until he was ruined.' (Abu Zubayd is a historicalpersonagethough as a mu'ammar he is supposed to have lived to be 150;version A outlines his genealogy and career as well as supplying the detailsnecessary to an appreciation of thekhabar.)(3) Sarawl's father begins telling the story, but the n arrative is soon taken over by thehero (qala 'l-rajul,with no specification of who m he is speaking to) , and Sarawl'sfather never reappears. (Version A: Abu '1-Gharraf is the narrator of the frame,which is clearly demarcated from Abu Zubayd's boxed-in narrative.)(4) The distinction between external audience (Tanukhi's readers) and internalaudience (the hero's confidant) is blurred. Towards the end, the hero himselfbecomes an internal audience when, before being reunited with her, he is toldhow his slave-girl fared after the two of them parted for the second time. Theresponse of all three audiences are assumed to be identical. (Version A: there isan external audience, the listener/reader, and two internal audiences, the caliph,and theAnsarandMuhajirun.Th e caliph's reactions are shown, but his com pan-ions ' are only referred to. It is not certain that the three audiences' responses are


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Isnadsand Models ofHeroes 13in step: the caliph is probably quicker-witted than either his companions or thelistener/reader.)(5) The picture of the hero's character given by the first narrator is consistent withthat given later by the herohimself.T he reader accepts this version. (Version A:we are given contradictory accounts of the hero's character by the hero and bythe caliph. We may initially be in doubt which to accept.)(6) T he h ero's c haracter is developed, an d his feelings are described. (Version A: thehero's character is static. His feelings are left to our imagination.) Finally,(7) Version A depicts an episode; the T anu khl story shows a career, and does so atlength and in unusual detail. Clearly its format, technique and assumptionsabout the relation of audience to narrative are quite different from those whichgovern version A. Many of these will hold good for the other Tanukhian materialI shall discuss subsequently.

So remarkable is the story as a chronicle of moral and emotional growthone mightalmost call it aBildungsroman that it deserves a fuller su mm ary tha n I have given it sofar: A rich young Baghdadi and his singing slave-girl love each other. He ruinshimself for her; she bears their poverty cheerfully, but suggests that he mightgo out to work to support them. False shame makes him reject a friend'sadvice that the pair of them hire themselves out as musicians (anifa mindhalika). Instead he lets the slave-girl persuade him to take the easy way outand sell her. Once the sale is concluded, both of them repent; worse still, themoney is stolen. The young man tries to drown himself, but is rescued, andlectured on the wickedness of suicide and despair by a simple old man. Thisbrings about a gradual change of heart and behaviour. The young man nowaccepts a friend's advice that he find work as a katib.H e takes passage out ofBaghdad on a boat which he rightly guesses belongs to his slave-girl's newowner (he knows him to be a prince, but h as never learned his name). D espitereverses, he perseveres in finding a way to advertise his presence to theslave-girl, who is also on board, and h e wins the friendship of the prince , whopromises to free the girl and marry her to her lover. Celebrations take place,and all seems set for the hero to return to his former life, when anotherdisaster occurs. He leaves the ship in a drunken stupor, and it sails on withouthim. Still in ignorance of the prince's name, he finds himself penniless inBasra, where he has only one acquaintance. A newly acquired self-respectmakes him ashamed to importune him (aniftu min dhalika);he decides insteadto write to him, and buys a sheet of paper from a shopkeeper. The shopkeeperadmires his hand and offers h im w ork as his bookkeeper. H e proves so honestand diligent that he is given a partnership and married to his employer'sdaughter. Some years pass, but he never ceases to love the slave-girl, and, itis later hinted, the marriage is never consummated. At last he is reunited withhis beloved, who has also, he learns, remained faithful to him, thoughbelieving him drowned. Married to her, and rich once more, thanks to theprince, he readily agrees to the latter's request that the pair entertain him withmusic from time to time. Last but not least, he confesses all to the shopkeeper,divorces his daughter, and returns her marriage portion to her intact.

Despite the tale's being an autobiography, its hero is not given to analysing his own


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14 Julia Ashtiany Braycharacter, or reflecting on his own behaviour or development. The latter is shownlargely through the sequence of events. The bulk of the story, nevertheless, deals withthe hero's feelings; but the vocabulary of the emotions is, on the whole, cliched andunparticularized ("I wept and slapped my face"; "I burst into violent tears, and theslave-girl was in an even worse state than I"), feelings being described chiefly in termsof their outward manifestations (notably the mutual sobs and swoons of heroine andhero).28 These devices do not seem to be intended to convey fine nuances or toindividualize the emotions. Those ends are achieved by altogether different means, suchas the use of anifa in contrasting contexts which enable us to gloss it as, respectively,foolish and honourable disdain, or such as the techniques used in the central passage,in which the hero discovers that the girl still loves him through the clues given by thedirect speech of a third party, which mirrors her behaviour since the pair parted. Heand the reader are then show n the exquisiteness of her sensibility (in her choice of songsonce her new owner has persuaded her to sing), and finally, when her lover has revealedhis presence and the prince has promised to marry them, we see how her spirits leapfrom despair to elation (non-cliched use of external description to convey specificemotions: the girl begins to sing with a will, and "called for wine and drank").

Tanukhl revised al-Farqj ba'd al-shiddaseveral time s, altering the text an d sequenceof material in a variety of ways, and Chapter XHI, the chapter on lovers, to which thestory just discussed belongs, is one of the most heavily revised sections. 29 N evertheless,in all the versions I have been able to consult, those stories in the chapter which dealwith the love of a man for a slave-girl who is bought by another man, but with whomhe is finally reunited, are always grouped together in a sequence, whereas the order ofthe remaining stories in the chapter differs considerably from source to source. 30Clearly, Tanu khl wished the stories in this sequence to be appreciated not simply underthe general rubric oifaraj orfaraj applied to lovers' predicaments, but as a family ofvariations on a specific sub-theme. It is easy to see why. The opportunities for exploringcharacter and behaviour afforded by the grouping are almost unrivalled in the whole ofthe book. The fact that the basic situation is given, and can be recognized from theopening words of each story, makes for clarity while allowing a multiplication of dieangles of approach.31In the first story in the sequence (F468) a deposed vizier, Ibn Maymun al-Aftas,whiles away his exile by telling his host a bou t on e of his earliest loves, in die days w henhe was a callow kdtib. Self-knowledge is not lacking, nor is the ability to see his ownyouthful behaviour in a comic as well as a pathetic light; this hero, unlike die hero ofour first story, which follows it in the sequence, is well able to distinguish theturning-points in his career. The two heroes resemble each other, however, on onepoint: they both undergo a change, in part through their own efforts; the resolution ofdieir predicament is thus no t entirely depen dent on die intervention of providence, bu thas been earned through moral effort. Most of the remaining heroes of the sequencearguably belong to a different tale-type,32 in which the hero is rescued gratuitously andwithout transforming himself. This common factor notwidistanding, diese heroes aredifferentiated, in terms of age, social standing, intelligence and charm (one elderlylover, in F472, displaying a repulsive combination of cunning, greed and self-pity). Theheroines too are differentiated to some degree: some are self-denying (F469, 470, 471);one is nagging and rapacious (F475); one, asked if she prefers her old master to her newone, shows wonderful diplomacy (F474), while anodier tacdessly blurts out her longingfor her lover.33 The focus of die stories is not exclusively on die hero and heroine; diepurchaser, whedier his generosity in response to die lover's pleas is spontaneous or die


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Isnadsand Models ofHeroes 15result of a struggle, is a secondary, or som etimes equa l, focus of psychological interest.34With this redistribution of focus comes what could be seen as a further change oftale-type, in which the self-transformation of the benefactorrather than that of theherobrings about the hero's salvation.

Broadly speaking, much the same techniques are used throughou t the sequence to fixor unfold character, but, just as the psychological focus of the basic theme may bemultiplied or transferred, so techniques of characterization which are subsidiary in oneversion may become primary in another. An example is that of mode of speech as ameans of defining a character. In the first story we considered (F469), two humblecharacters, with appropriately simple diction, the old man and the shopkeeper, playcrucial roles in the hero's self-transformation. Both are vividly depicted, and theshopkeeper's personality is developed beyond what is strictly necessary to a supportingrole. Nevertheless, his function, like that of the old man, is essentially subsidiary, hissteadfast generosity of spirit serving above all to provide a foil to the hero's moralgrowth.In F 475 it is the hero who is a man of mode st standing, a money-changer with a smallworking capital. A stock character, his speech is restricted to figures and calculations;but he transcends the stereotype in his willingness to lose everything for his slave-girl,thus acting, as it were, as his own moral foil. In the same story, the technique ofmirroring one person's behaviour and character in the speech of others is carried to itsextreme. The heroine never speaks and is not described, but is portrayed entirelythrough the few w ords the money-changer says about her part in his plight and throughthe lecture her purchaser gives her on living within the income he proposes to settle onher.35Each of the above storiesa very small fraction, of course, of the total contained inTanukhi's two great collections, and not to be taken as representing every aspect ofthempresents its main actors consistently, whatever the combination of techniquesand viewpoints employed. These are characters, unlike Abu Zubayd, that do not teasetheir audiences, internal or external. They are unambiguous except, fortuitously, insome instances where the 'Abbasid tone of voice, or vocabulary of gestures andmanners, eludes the modern reader.36I l l T a n u k h i ' s IsnadsDespite their univocal approach to t he hero, these stories, taken as a sequence, displaya pluralism which recognizes, indeed emphasizes, that themes, situations and charactersrequire only slight changes of treatment for their potential for different development tomanifest itself. We have seen how this operates at the level of the central narrative; itis also found at the level of the isndd and of any other material serving to frame thecentral narrative; moreover, it is built into the successive versions of the text, and tendsto increase with each stage of revision.In all the versions of the text other than those that have been scribally mutilated,there is a notable difference in the types ofisnddprefixed to the juxtaposed stories, oneeffect of which is to un derline the diversity of milieux from w hich they derive.37 Of theisnadswhich I earlier loosely dubb ed 'informal', three could be called 'professional'(F474: all lawyers/religious scholars; F468: akdtiband a vizier; F476: all senior kdtibs,and all, incidentally, stated to be written sources; to which we might add F472: a qadiand two slave-dealers). A minority of isnads might be regarded as 'scholarly'; they goback to Abu '1-Faraj al-Isfahani and/or to frequently cited members of his circle of


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16 Julia Ashtiany Brayinformants (F470: al-Hazzanl al-Riyashl; F471: al-Isfahanl, going back to Ibrahimal-Mawsill, 'dictated from memory', but not included in Aghdni; F 473 : central linkscUmar b. Shabba and Abu Ghassan, last and first links 'a book' and 'a friend', bothunspecified). This last group of isnads, as well as reflecting a distinct milieu, signals adifference in the format and treatment of the ensuing material. On the one hand, thefirst two stories introduced by them have scholarly postscripts, listing variants on theauthority of further, n am ed s ources, while the third story consists of two variants placedin scholarly parallel. On the other hand, two of the 'informally' prefaced stories (F469,F472) bear traces of the 'scholarly' manner in the technical specifications of the songsthey contain. There is thus an interplay between the non-scholarly and the scholarlypresentation of one and the same theme.If we compare successive versions of the text, we find that, at various stages ofrevision, three of the stories receive additions. In one case, these consist merely offurther scholarly postscripts introduced by new isnads(F470),38 but in two others, thechanges take the form of, respectively, added and inserted narrative passages whichsubstantially change the presentation of character and motive (F475, F476). 3 9Unfortunately, comparisons betweenFarajandNishwdrcan be undertake n only withcaution in respect of the stories we are considering, since the three stories in thesequence that are also attributed toNishwdr belong to the lost section(s) of that work,and have survived, in that attribution, only in later sources.40 But if, moving nowoutside the scope of the sequence, we compare other stories which appear in bothcollections, we find in a certain number of cases that one telling of a story not onlydiffers in style and density of detail from another, but also alters its import. A case inpoint is the tale of the wastrel's revenge (F248, N I 93), which will be discussed in thenext section of this paper.Fro m the purely textual po int of view, the successive revisions ofFaraj,and com pari-son of Faraj and Nishwdr where it can safely be undertaken, enable us to make asynchronic study of different versions of the same material (whereas in the case of theAbu Zubayd khabar, only diach roni c' comparisons were possible). Fu rthermo re,Tanukhl 's isnads attach his material to specific milieux, and so carry what we couldtentatively call broad indications of type (the 'scholarly' anecdote; the 'professional'anecdote). Though much of this material can no longer be checked against its sources,so that Tan ukhl's part in shaping a particular version cannot be pinpo inted, a com pari-son of these variants enables us to witness at least the. final stages of a process ofsynthesis. Sometimes this consists of no more than juxtaposition (e.g. scholarlypostscripts); sometimes insertions are fully assimilated into the narrative; and, at times,when a story is recast, the process is one of actual transformation. It is precisely ofprocesses such as these, with similar indications of the milieux if not the actual sourcesfrom which the material derives, that we would like to have evidence for Hamadhanl'smaqdmdt.

IV Tanukhl s Versions of the Wastrel s RevengeThe processes of insertion or, conversely, pruning, of rearrangement, conflation orrecasting, seem to have been handled with especial ease by one particular source ofTanukhl's, who figures both in Faraj and in Nishwdr, and whom we have alreadyencountered: Sarawi, who usually gives his father or some anonymous neighbour as hisown source. We first met him in connexion with F469, the 'Bildungsroman', anexpanded and complex version of the sold slave-girl theme. He is the source of other


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Isnadsand Models ofHeroes 17stories of wealth lost and regained (F245, F246), of which stories of reformed wastrelswho rebuild their fortunes form a special category (F271, F469). One of these, the taleof a wastrel's revenge, occurs both in Faraj, under Sarawl's name (F248), and inNishwar, anonymously (NI 93) .Faraj is demonstrably, for the greater part, if not in itsentirety, a later work than Nishwar,41 and, from what we know of Tanukhl's techniqueof compilation, the fact that the Farajversion of this particular story has a fullerisnddshows it to be later than the Nishwar version. Nevertheless, we will consider theFarajversion first.42It falls into three parts, of which the second and third are roughly symmetrical:

(I) Preface, narrate d by Saraw l's father, introducin g (a) the hero, "a young neigh-bour of ours in Baghdad from a family of kdtibs , who falls into abject povertyafter wasting his inherited fortune, and (b) the internal narrator, 'one of hisformer companions who all abandoned him when he grew poor' .(II) First encounter of ruined wastrel and erstwhile companion: the latter feeds him ,lends him clothes and takes him to see the singing-girl with whom he used tobe in love; on discovering that he is no longer rich, she throws him out andpours a pot of stew on him from an upp er window. T he hero vainly repents hispast folly; the narrator mocks his discomfiture and abandons him again.(Ill) Second enc ounter between hero and internal narrator: they meet by chance inthe street, where the narrator is amazed at the hero's elegant and prosperousappearance. He fawns on him, and the hero invites him home, plies him withrefreshments and entertainment, reminds him of the episode of the slave-girl,and makes a grateful eulogy of his new wealth, which he owes to unexpectedlegacies. He has turned his back on his former ways and embraced prudenceand moderation; but the chief of all his new-found blessings is "never againhaving to see you or any of the friends who used to egg me on to waste mymoney", with which words the hero has the narrator smartly thrown out. Trueto his promise, he cuts the narrator dead whenever they meet again.

In Faraj, this story, unlike most, does not form part of a sequence, with all that thiswould entail in the way of making visible the diversity of sources and variability ofcertain components; nor does it bear any specific thematic affinity to other stories in thecollection, except in its opening sentence. It thus shows no obvious signs of derivation,so that it might easily be taken, within the context of Faraj, for a unique composition,with no evident direct precursors.In contrast, the salient feature of the Nishwar version, N I 93, is that, unusually forNishwar, it forms part of a sequence,43 albeit a somewhat fluid one (N I 90-98 or102),44 and its first episode is a variant of the preceding story, N I 92. This isunderlined by its frame, which twice refers back to N I 92. If we except the frame, NI 93, like the Faraj version, falls into three sections:[Opening of frame:]Quasi-rubric links the story thematically with N I 92 and introduces thenarrator;(I) Variant of N I 92 : long description of the hero 's final act of folly, instigatedby the narrator;(II) Episode of the narrator, the hero, the singing girl and the stew (as Faraj,with minor differences of wording; the initial description of the hero's povertyis expanded);


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18 Julia Ashtiany Bray(III) The hero's revenge: in outline as Faraj, but much fuller (see below);[closing of frame:]Editorial comment by Tanflkhl: N I 92 and section I of N I 93 "strike me asextremely improbable".

The greater length of this version, with its extended pictures of the hero's behaviourbefore and after his reform, might be expected to exploit more fully the plot's affinityto the Bildungsromanmodel as seen in F4 69 ; but w hereas F469 combined variety ofsetting and incident with a hero who learns from experience, the hero of the earlier,longer and more varied Nishwdr version of the wastrel's tale is markedly less edifyingthan the hero of the shorter, laterFaraj version. Though I stress the respective datingof the two stories, the decisive factor in the recasting of the hero is not chronology assuch, but a difference in attitude on the part of the compiler. Whereas Faraj has asimple programm e to show the pattern of a benevolent Providence in hum an affairsin Nishwdr, the approach to human behaviour, and to the status of stories illustratingit, is less clear-cut.45 Tanukhl's comment on credibility, at the end of N I 93, is typicalof this difference; it simultaneously puts in question both the structural integrity of thestory and the sum total of its truth contenta form of ambivalence not encountered inFaraj (either in the examples we have seen or in the work generally). Similarly, thehero's character, barely explored inFaraj, is developed inNishwdr in a manner whichsuggests that the change that events have wrought in him is not from excess tomoderation, but from one sort of excess to another. The passive, ductile wastrel hasbecome a manipulator, able to bide his time and set a trap for his unsuspecting victim,and capable of both the brutalities and the subtleties of obsession. Before ejecting him,he informs his friend that he has been waiting a whole year for his revenge, and callshim by an obscene nam e; but first, he tortures him with a pretence of being a harmlessbore:

"Do you remember the old days?" he asked. "Yes," I answered. "Nowadays,"he said, "I am only moderately rich; but the wisdom and experience that Ihave gained are dearer to me than my past wealth. Do you see these rugs andhangings of mine?" "Indeed I do," said I. "Well," said he, "they may not beas grand as the old ones, but people of a middling sort would think them fineenou gh." "Quite so," I replied. "T he same goes for my tableware, clothes andhorses ," he pursued, "and for my food, my fruit an d my wine s." W ith this, hebegan to enum erate these items, adding, as he ticked each one off, "It may notbe particularly costly, bu t it 's handso me , appropriate and perfectly adeq uate."This went on until he had run through the entire list of his possessions,comparing every single one of them with those he used to own, and comm ent-ing each time, "This is just as good as what I had then."With both stories available for comparison, it is easy to follow the process of radicalabridgment by which theFaraj version has been derived fromNishwdr. suppression ofthe frame and of the opening episode, to stabilize the story's structure and increase itscredibility; suppression of the above dialogue and of the concluding obscenity, toremove the hero's moral ambivalence. Supposing, however, that we lacked the meansto situate the two versions in relation to each other, through the available evidence asto sequence of composition, would w e, knowing both versions, be able to conclude thatthe simpler version was in fact the derivate, and the more complex and sophisticatedone the original? Or if, on the other hand, only the Faraj version had survived, would


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Isnadsand M odels ofHeroes 19it be possible to postulate from it the existence of an original of so much greater vigourand complexity of characterization, and, in its first and last parts, of such differentnarrative structure and texture? The question is not merely speculative; it applieswhenever, there being no clear chain of evidence in the form of acknowledged sources(as with most of Hamadharu's maqdmdt),we wish to go beyond identifying parallels todemonstrating actual influence.V Hamadhanl s Rem odelling of M onologueIn the above example, the transition from original to derivate involved only anoperation of abridgment; but it is possible to imagine equally radical transformationsbeing effected by other means. The similarity of situation between the last section of NI 93 and Hamadhanl 'sMaqama Madiriyya may be used as a hypothetical illustration.As with the Abu Zubayd khabar and theMaqama Asadiyya, we have no proof of anydirect link; but given that HamadhanI and Tanukhl were contemporaries (HamadhanIwould have been in his mid-20s when the older man died in 384/994), it seemslegitimate to compare the way in which their two narratives treat a comm on them e. T hesituation of the guest at the mercy of a house-proud host m ay, in both cases, be a pieceof direct social observation; it may be a literary topos available independently to bothauthors; or it may in fact have been borrowed by HamadhanI from Nishwdr. Whateverthe case, the central narrative of the maqama is greatly simplified in comparison withthe treatment the same situation receives in N I 93. It lacks the irony that characterizesthe episode in N I 93 , where the narrator is unaware that he is being manipulated andwe are not forewarned by the frame that the scene will end in his discomfiture. Themaqama is also a great deal simpler in terms of components and structure. Shorn of itsframe, it consists merely of the host's eulogy of his possessions and of his guest'sriposte, to which a minimum of external description provides the cues, whereas thecorresponding episode of N I 93 contains a succession of small incidents and alternatesdescription and dialogue. TheMaqama MadTriyya's frame, as I have shown elsewhere,is of a particular type, associated, in Farajand Nishwdr with stories of picaresque orromantic adventure, usually in numerous episodes;46 in other words, it is a narrativedevice, which can only derive from a narrative tradition, and not (as the centralsituation itself may do) from social observation. The joining of this frame to a storyconsisting of a single episode therefore also represents a simplification, this timedemonstrably a simplification of literary precedent.

So far, simplification, the rejection of non-essential incident, is what marksHamadhanl's treatment of the situationa procedure comparable to that used in theFaraj version of the wastrel's tale, but farther reaching, and with an additionalapplication in respect of the frame. The maqama, however, combines simplificationwith another procedure, that of amplification. The characterization of the host, tele-scoped in N I 93 ("This went on until he had run through the entire list") is expandedin the maqama to the furthest possible degree, his monologue occupying more spacethan does a whole succession of minor incidents and exchanges between host a nd guestin N I 93. Though this amplification shows us the 'hero' in greater cumulative detail,it does not make for greater depth or subtlety of characterization, being in essence asrepetitive in content as it is in technique. Repetition is, of course, an established literarymethod of displaying obsession; but characters locked into a single outlook or mode ofspeech are not always monoliths: for many of Jahiz's bukhald',m eanness partakes of avariety of intellectual passions, while on a level devoid of metaphor or irony, the


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20 Julia Ashtiany Braymoney-changer hero of F475 hides a romantic heart beneath his talk of cash andcapital. By contrast, expansion gives Hamadhanl's host detail without variety; he issimply a bore. This is, of course, because he is not a hero at all; he has undergone achange of role. Nothing happens to him; his fate is irrelevant; his only function in theplot is to trigger his guest's misfortunes.47

VI TheMaqdma SaymariyyaIn two maqdmas, Hamadham gives, if not a complete isndd, at least the name of asource; these are the Maqdma Bishriyya (in the text of the Constantinople 1298 edition,where it is classed with the mulah and not with the maqamdt), and the MaqdmaSaymariyya (in both the Constantinople and the Muhammad 'Abduh editions).48 Onlyth eMaqdma Saymariyya concerns us here. Its plot bears several affinities to the tale ofthe wastrel's revenge (F248/N I 93). I summarize:

The hero, source and narrator, "Muhammad b. Ishaq, known as Abu'l-'Anbas al-Sayman", has a tale to tell "with a moral and a lesson to it" ( ibrawa-Hza wa-adab) for those with ears to hear. He comes, with a fortune, fromSaymara to Baghdad, where he consorts with people of wealth to whom heoffers lavish hospitality. They make much of him, but abandon him when hismoney is exhausted. He repents his foolishness, and flees to distant partsKhurasan and Sijistan; Sind and India; Nubia , Yemen, etc. There he earns hisliving as a storyteller, beggar and litterateur, until he has collected togetherenough money and exotic merchandise to return to Baghdad in style. Hisformer associates flock to him with hypocritical expressions of regret at hisabsence. (At this point, the medium switches from sa f to simple prose withonly intermittent rhyme.) He pretends forgiveness, and invites his friends to abanquet, meanwhile preparing his revenge. When all his guests are deaddrunk, he summons a barber to shave off their beards, and has them loadedinto baskets and carried to their homes, each with his shaven beard and amessage reading , "S uch is the reward of faithless friends". All are too asha medof their bare chins to go to their places of work; their angry relatives besiegeAbu 'l-'Anbas, and they themselves swear to shun him; but the vizier, who hasheard who is responsible for the absence of one of hiskdtibs,heartily approves ,and Abu 'l-'Anbas himself cares not a whit for their enmity. The moral is,never trust time-serving friends.

If we recast the above summary as a schema, it becomes evident that the structureof the Maqdma Saymariyya is considerably more complicated than that of mostHamadhanian maqdmdr.the time-scale is unusually extended, with the central narrativespreading over a number of episodes, and it has a moralizing frame of a type not foundamong the othermaqdmdt. In the following plan, italics designate passages in saf, an dunderlining signals parallels with the tale of the wastrel's revenge (F248/N I 93):(a) Chain of 'transmission' from alleged source: 'Isa b. Hisham, from Saymari, thehero and narrator;(b) [Opening of moralizing frame:] the following is a warning to the wise;[events leading up to central narrative:] (I) days ofprodigalityand friendship;(II) poverty andsolitude;hero's vain remorse; (III) travel andrestoration offortune;


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I s n a d s and Models of Heroes 21[central narrative-] (TV) return to Baghdad; feast and revenge; [extensions of centralnarrative:] (V) visits of angry relatives; (VI) vizier's approval and reward;(VII) hero's continuing indifference to former friends;(c) [Closing of moralizing frame:] d o no t trust time-se rvers.

In the Constantinople edition, the ratio of saj' to prose is 61 lines to 41,4 9althoughthe open ing episodes of themaqamaactually contain fewer incidents than do the centraland closing ones. It is the amplification of these episodes, through the accumulation ofshort clauses consisting of enumerations, iterations and amthdl, that leads to theimbalance. If the whole narrative had been written in saj'using the same technique, itwould have been one of the longest, perhaps the longest, of Hamadhanl's maqamat.Formally, this technique is reminiscent of the Maqama Madmyya; but there is adifference of effect. In the Madiriyya, repetition served to fix the speaker's character,which, we noted, is all of a piece. In the Maqama Saymariyya, however, it is debatablewhether Abu 'l- 'Anbas al-Saymari has even one dim ension to his character, in that partof the maqama which is written in 5a/. What is depicted in the opening episodes is nota personality, bu t a predicament; the lexical flowan impersonal outpou ring such as isfound, for example, in the Maqama Qarldiyya, which is a string of received criticalopinions50has no basis in the type of speaker from which it emanates, and diffusesitself over externals and generalizations. This process of amplification, then, representsa still more radical underlying simplification than that found in the Maqama Madmyya:here, in the 5a/ section of the Saymariyya, the character of the hero is not merelyreduced to a single dimension; it is indeterminatein contrast to the shrewd andtrenchant characterization of the hero of the prose section of the maqama (whoconcludes: "I cared not a bit [for his friends' ill-will]; it was no skin off my nose; mywithers were unwrung. It didn't hurt me;quite th e o pposite, indeed: Jacob 'felt a needin his soul which he had to satisfy', and so did I. Let this be a warning . . . ") . In episodeIII (still within thesaj'section), the hero's indeterm inacy takes on the familiar, P roteanquality which we associate with Abu '1-Fath al-Iskandarl, when Saymari, adept inseveral distinct forms of begging, and armed with the lore of various categories ofscholars, professionals and deviants, scrounges, eulogizes and lampoons his way towealth.

What does this juxtaposition of styles and types of hero tell us about Hamadhanl'stechniques of composition; and what value are we to place on the fact that Ham adha nlnames the maqdma's 'source'? The lapse from saj' into prose strongly suggests that themaqama is unfinished, and that the technique employed by Hamadhanl, in thisinstance, was that of working up a prose sketch into saj'. This may have required himto go over the whole sketch several times, filling out a passage provisionally and thenreturning to it and working it up further, which would explain the presence of a few,relatively simple 5a/ clauses in the prose section of the piece. Whatever the actualprocess employed, its results are not merely stylistic; as we have seen, it also bringsabout, in the course of thesaj'episodes, a progressive redevelopment of the persona ofthe hero, from little more than a lexical nexus to a polymorphic rogue on the lines ofAbu '1-Fath al-Iskandari.If this hypothesis is convincing, we might ask why the hero of the prose section isboth so firmly delineated and so different from the hero of the saj'section. A possibleanswer is to be found in the isnad.Th e narrator of the maqama, Abu 'l- 'Anbasal-Saymari (213-275/828-888), was not only a real person, a nadim of al-Mutawakkiland subsequent caliphs, famous as a prankster and buffoon, but also an occasional poet


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22 Julia Ashtiany Brayand prose author with a substantial output. 51 Surviving examples of his prose arelimited to works on astrology; but of the titles attributed to him by the bibliographical/biographical sources, Kitdb al-Ikhwdn toa-'l-asdiqd'is one of several whose conte ntsprobably consisted of anecdotes, and whose rubric could have accommodated theabove story. Stories about Saymari also developed independently of attested incide nts,and seem at an early stage to have acquired proverbial status; 52 In the light of this, thereare two possibilities: either the prose section of theMaqama Saymariyya, so distinct instyle and conception from the opening sa p section, is by Hamadhani, but conforms tothe persona of its alleged source; or, more plausibly, it is not by Hamadhani, but is by,or anecdotally attributed to, SaymarT himself.If we accept the latter hypothesis, then the relationship between the two parts of themaqama may allow us some speculation as to Hamadhani's methods of using a model.Let us return to our earlier schema, and to the combined features, other than stylisticdisjunction, th at appear to be uniqu e to this piece: the isnddnamin g a real person; themoralizing frame; the extended time-scheme of the central narrative and its pendantepisodes. If episodes V to V IIhad been worked up into full-blown saj',the piece would,as remarked earlier, have outstripped even the Maqama Madmyya (which is 134 lineslong in the 'Abduh edition). But the plot of the Madmyya contains very little incident,and most of that is retrospective (the host gives the history of his chattels). Episodes Ito III of the Maqama Saymariyya are, somewhat similarly, self-descriptive retrospectsleading up to the action proper. Given the technical parallels with the MaqamaMadmyya up to this point, we might expect that, had th e rest of the piece been put intosaj', its plot would have been similarly simplified. As we have seen, the transformationof prose into saj' is accompanied by the transformation of the hero. This processcomp lete, we might expect either the discarding, or a corresponding transformation, ofthe incompatible moralizing frame. Finally, we would expect Saymari to be eliminatedfrom the isndd,leaving the audience to work o ut th e maqdma's literary ancestry forthemselves.VII Isnads Families ofAkhbar and ModelsLet us now lastly consider the parallels between the Maqama Saymariyya and theNishwdr version of the wastrel's revenge in the light of the whole body of materialdiscussed in this paper, and attempt some general conclusions. The thematic parallelsbetween the two pieces suggest, not that they are directly related, but th at they belongto the same narrative family, a family of the kind to which the variants of the soldslave-girl motif in Chapter XIII ofFaraj belonged. These stories bore witness, in theirdiversity, to the wide diffusion of the theme on which they were based; they wereprefixed by isnads which (though they probably do not lead back to the origins of thetheme itself) relate each variant to a distinct milieu, or signal the kind of treatment(scholarly, etc.) that the theme will receive. The Maqama Saymariyya shares some ofthese general features: Saymari is a personage to whom a distinctive body of anecdoteattaches, and the plot of the maqama appears to have been widely diffused, as witnessthe parallels with other reformed wastrel stories, and the fact that the prose sectioncontains an anachronism of a type often associated with num erous re-tellings.53 Aboveall, th e Maqama Saymariyya and its prose canvas (like all the maqdmdt except theMaqama Bishriyya) are first-person narratives, and thus belong to a second, wider'family' within the mid-'Abbasid narrative tradition.In the T anukh ian m aterial that we have seen, and in mid-'Abbasid w riting generally,


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Isnadj and Models ofHeroes 23stories told in the first person by a 'witness', and autobiographical stories narrated bythe hero, each have special features, which have not yet been sufficiently investigated.A hero who is described or introduced by an intimate witness bears a different relationto the external audience from the hero of a story whose source claims no personalconnection with it. A hero who is also his own narrator may have a different relation-ship again to the reader, and, in telling us about himself, may tell us different things,and in a different way, from a hero who is described by others. 'Autobiographical' andwitnessisnddsare found in a variety of forms (alone, or as part of an extended chain oftransmitters), with various functions (as proems, as one of a series of boxed frames, orextending into the narrative), and are prefixed to a variety of material, both scholarlyand informal. Such isndds are not an inert pedigree which could be removed withoutchanging the story's import, its relation to the reader, or, indeed, in many cases, itsoverall narrative structure.54 Hamadhani's reduction of the 'autobiographical' or wit-ness isnad to an invariable form should be considered against this background.

Farajan dNishwdr bear witness to a sophisticated understanding of the intertextualityof stories. The textual history of the material considered in sections II-TV above showsthat this sensitivity to variation and cross-reference is, in addition, linked to a view ofstories not as invariable once fixed in writing, but as open to continuing change, bothwith regard to the sum total of their components (elaboration of isndds, addition ofpostscripts), and in their relation to other stories (as part of a sequence or collection).(This is in no way contradicted by the scrupulousness with which, inFaraj,variants arecredited to their sources, and 'published' versions reproduced with the greatest possibleaccuracy.) In other words,Farajan dNishwdr represent open, not closed series. This isthe dom inant tradition with regard to 'Abbasid akhbdr,and any attempt to describe themaqdmdt as a series must also consider their relation to this tradition.55 In its turn,however, the concept of the open series or open work as one 'which allows the authorto lengthen or shorten the whole without substantial alterations in the content... or inthe aesthetic impression that it creates', 56 and of the khabar as a mobile unit which 'isnot a constituent part of an integrated overall compilation [and whose] absence wouldnot necessarily change the character of the compilation'5 7 must be modified whereappropriate to take account of our findings regarding Faraj, where the addition orre-positioning of akhbdr in successive authorial revisions changes at least the localcharacter of a given section or sequence.

Th e evidence of the Tanukhian material also requires us to keep an open mind aboutthe possible relationships between parallels and available models, and between genuinesources and derivates. As examples from Faraj and Nishwdr show, a source may bemore complex than its derivate; as we have seen, HamadhanI may simplify an availabletype or model as well as amplifying it, and, as a literary pioneer, may not necessarilylook to the most recent of available models to carry forward his experiments. Topresent-day prejudices, Hamadhani's inconsistent and ambiguous hero seems, almostby definition, more sophisticated, more intriguing, more likely to reward criticalanalysis, and above all more modern, than the heroes of Faraj and Nishwdr, bu ttypologically, if not by birth, he harks back to an older model, to Abu Zubayd, the herocast as a logical puzzlea fascinating but limited device compared to the variety oftechniques of presenting and exploring character seen in Faraja nd Nishwdr.A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t sI should like to record my thanks to the staff of the Bibliotheque Nationale for their


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24 JuliaAshtiany Braykindness in giving me permission to consult MSS Paris ar.3483 and 3484 at shortnotice, and for theirspeed insupplyingmicrofilms, and to Dr Hars Kurio,Bibliotheksdirektor, Orient abteilung, Staat sbibliothek, Berlin, for supplyingme witha microfilm ofAhlwardt 8737, 8738.

Notes and References1. For bibliographical references to these authors and to works in thisfieldup until the 1990s,seeWerkmeister, W. (1983) Quellenuntersuchungen zum Kitbal'Iqd alFarddesAndalusiers Ibn'Abdrabbih (246/860 328/940) (Berlin: Schwartz); G n t he r, S. (1991)Quellenuntersuchungen zu denMaqtilat Tlibiyyn des Ab lFara alIsfahn (gest. 356/967) (Hildesheim: O1ms) and n.10below.2. See for example Leder, S. (1988) Authorship and transmission in unauthored literature: theAkhbrattributed to al Haytham ibn Ad, Oriens,31, pp. 67 81.3. It is discussed as such by J. N . Mattock, (1984) The early history of theMaqma,JournalofArabicLiterature, XV, pp. 118. I was unaware, until after I had completed a firstdraft of this paper, thatMattockhad already analysed in detail both thiskhabarand the other main item in th is section ofmy paper. Like Mattock (The early history, p . 2), I came upon th is material more orlessby chance;

an d like him, my concern is as much to catch a glimpse of [Hamadhn s] technique in operation(idem, p. 11) as to establish a chronology. Though our methods differ, our conclusions tend tosupport each other.4. Vol. XII (Cairo, 1329/ 1950), pp. 127 31 = Vol. XI (Bulaq, 1285), pp. 24 5. See Mattock stranslation of the introductory passage, The early history, n . 12, pp. 10 11.5. Tabaqt,ed. M. M. Shkir, I I (Jidda: Dr alM adan, n .d . ) , pp. 5939.Blachre callsit unrcitapocryphe, mais d'une magnifique forme littraire, fix par IBN S A L L M ' : Blachre (1964)Histoirede lalittraturearabe II (Paris: Maisonneuve), pp. 326-7.Ab Zubayd s reputation among'Abbasid scholars rested mainly on his poems about lions and other animals. Material relating tohim is quoted by many contemporaries of Ibn Sallm and Ab lFaraj al Isfahn, including Jhiz(d . 255/ 868 9),Baynand Hayawn, Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), Shi'r,Mubarrad (d.c.285/898),Kama,Ibn Abd Rabbih (d. 328/940), 'Iqd,and Ql (d. 356/967), Aml;none of these authorsrefers to thekhabarin question.6. Ibn Sallm cites him frequently as sole source for material on Jarr, alFarazdaq and alAkhtal; hetotals more than 30 citations in Tabaqt.His role as a transmitter, if not an elaborator, ofakhbr(cf. Blachre, loc. cit., who callshim un informateur bdouin suspect') therefore seemstohavebeen of some importance.7. TwoanecdotesinTankh sNishwrrefer to Ab Khalfa s ability to improvise in saj',seeNishwralmuhdara,ed. A. alShlj (13913/19713), II (Beirut: n .p . ) , pp. 27 8: n.p. quoted in Yqt(1931) Irshdalarb,ed. D . S. Margoliouth, VI(6) (London: Gibb Memorial Series), p . 137.Mattock (1984) prefers to take Ibn Sallm s date of death as the terminusantequern for the piece( T h e early history, pp. 2, 10).8. Shakir (n.d.), In troductionTabaqt,pp. 38 41.9. Shakir, IntroductionTabaqt,p. 41.10. See Munr Sultn (1978) alMarzubn wa 'l Muwashshah(Alexandria), pp. 132 7, 338, andespecially p. 136 for indirect, biographical evidence that al Marzubn s source may have read thebook to/with him. The isndsin Muwashshah are otherwise uninformative; they are of theakhbaran/haddathan type, which should correspond, respectively, to a processofqir a and ofsam'(see Gregor Schoeler (1985) Weiteres zur Frage der schriftlichen oder mndlichen berlieferungder Wissenschaften im frhen Islam,DerIslam,62, pp. 38 67, especially pp . 612), but often reflectdirect consultation of a written source; for striking examples ofth e latter, see alSarrj, (n.d.)Masari'al 'ushshq,ed. Karam alBustn, I (Beirut: Dr Sdir), p. 227 (... ql haddathan Ab 'lFaraj.. . alIsfahn f Kitbal Aghn...), Masri',I, p. 236 (haddatha [Fuln] wanaqaltuh min khattih. . . ) , and Tankh, alFaraj ba'dalS hidda, ed. A. alShlj, V (Beirut: Dr Sdir, 1398/1978),p .97 (waanshadan [for verse, the coun terpart ofhaddathan]alQdAb'lHusayn [ Umar b. AbU m a r alAzd,d. 328; Tankh was born 327] f kitbih. . . ) .

11 . Shkir, IntroductionTabaqt,pp .2730, 312. Th e Medina nonscript has anisndof theakhbarantype, with no indications ofqir'a/sam'; the Isfahani manuscript has anisndof thequri'a'altype.12. Tankhl,NishwrIII, pp. 289 91, quoted in Yqt, IrshdVI(6), pp. 138 40.


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Isndsand ModelsofHeroes 2513 . See Mattock (1984) The early history, pp. 2, 4, 6 for closer analysis of the use ofsaj'in versionA and in two pieces (including the 'companion piece to version B', discussed below) frompseudoJhiz,alM hasinwa'laddd.14. PseudoJhiz,Mahsin,ed. G . van Vloten (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1898), pp . 112 15. The dating of

th epiece is uncertain. It belongs to the first section of the book, which Ibrahim Geries argues mustbe modelled on, and postdate, Ibrhm b. Muhd. alBayhaq, alM ahsinwa'lmasw;the latteris dated by Geries, with some reservations, to the period of alMuqtadir (295320/ 908932); seeGeries (1977) Ungenre linrairearabe:alM ahsinwal masw(Paris: Maisonneuve), pp. 714.F orMattock's dating, see Mattock (1984) The early history, p. 2; for his translation of the piece,see ibid., pp. 11 13.15. 'Al b. al Muhassin alTankh,Lat'ifalakhbrwa tadhkirat l'labsr, ed. 'A. H . alBawwb(1413/1993) (Riyadh: Dr 'Alam al Kutub), p. 60. (This is not a critical edition, and theattributionof the work is not certain.) 'Al b. al Muhassin was the only son of the author ofFarajandNishwr,on hislifeand importance as a source for Ta'rkhBaghdd,seeAlfredWiener (1913)D ie Far ba da iddaLiteratur, DerIslam, IV pp. 27098 387420 especially pp. 391 3. 'Alal Muhassin is also a major source for Sarrj,Masri',where he is cited 57 times; only three of theitems go back to his father.16. Mu'ammarn, ed. I. Goldziher (1899) Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philogie, II (Leiden: E. J.Brill) p. 98.17. See Mattock's remarks on the use ofsaj'in this piece and on its possible relation torajaz:The earlyhistory, p . 6; I suspect that the coupling of the terms has no significance other than as an idiommeaning 'come to the point'. For another example of the topos of the plain speaker bidding aningratiating inferior 'spare me your saj'',see al Husr (1925) Zahral db, ed. Z. Mubarak IV,(Cairo), p. 1115 where the interlocutors are Ziyd b. Abh and Ab 'l Aswadal Du'al.18. Mahsin,pp. 107 112. See Mattock's translation and summary: The early history, pp. 6 8. Theepisode seems to be unique toMahsin;it is not to be found, for example, in the alHajjj/Ibnal Ash'ath sequence in pseudo Ibn Qutayba, al Imamawa'lsiysa.19. Although he cites both pieces, Mattock does not establish a link between version B and itscompanion piece. He links the latter directly to Hamadhn'smagmtthrough the way in whichsaj'is employed, and through the remark that The story itself is inconsequential, and somewhatimmoral, and, by virtue of these characteristics alone, it would not be out of place among[Hamadhn's] Maqmt'' (The early history, p. 6).20. Ibn al'Arab (560 638/1165 1240), Muhdartal abrr, (Cairo, 1305), pp. 56 7.2 1 . Versions postdatingAghnare given below in chronological order:

A(ii) = Ibn 'Askir (499571/ 110576), Ta'rkh Dimashq,abridged 'A. Q. Badrn and A.'Ubayd (1332) Ta'hdhb Ta'rkh Dimashq,IV, (Damascus: alMajma' al 'ilm al'arab biDimashq)pp. 108111 consists of (b); (a) as version A(i), with further augmentations; (1) (5) asversion A;A(iii) = Ab '1Hajjj Ysufb. Muhd. alBalaw (526 604/1132 1207), Alifb',I (Cairo, 1287),p p .385 6: lacks (a), (b), (1) and (2) (N B this is a children's book, and the piece is cited for itsvocabulary);A(iv) = Yqt (c. 574626/1179 1229), Irshd,ed. Margoliouth, VI(4), pp. 107, 109 111: lacks(a)and augments (b) with material different from that in versions A(i), A(ii);A(v) = Sadr al Dn 'Al b. Ab '1Faraj ... alBasr (1964) alHamsaalbasriyya (dedicated647/1249, see Brockelmann, GAL SI, p. 41), ed. M. Ahmad II (Hyderabad: D'irat alMa'rifal'U thmniyya),pp. 3317: (a)givessource as Ab 'Amr b. al 'Al' al Basr; lacks (b) and (1);A(vi) = 'Abd alQdir b. 'U mar alBaghdd (103093/ 1621 82), Khiznatal adab,II (Bulaq,1299), p. 1555: preserves only the frame of version A, omitting thesaj'recital; (a), (b) and textgive sources as Ab Htim f Kitb alMu'ammarn, waIbn Qutaybaf Kitb al Shu'ar', waghayruhum, ... alJumah... shibalAghn;(b) abbreviated from version A(iv); (2), (3) and (5)omitted.22. Chapter DC of Tankh's Farajis devoted to such stories. For lion stories, see Faraj,IV,p p .410412, 414, 416, 417, 423, 425, 427 431.23. Mattock believes that close textual parallels can be demonstrated between version B and theMaqmaAsadiyya(The early history, pp. 1516), and that version B is the actual prototype of themaqma(idem, pp. 10, 11); he concludes, I t may be that we can here actually catch a glimpseof [Hamadhn 's] technique in operation, if, that is, we are right in supposing him to have adaptedandembellished current anecdotes in order to publish them in a distinctive literary form.24. See e.g. Ashtiany, J. (1991) al Tankh'sal Farajba'dal shiddaas a literary source, in: A. Jones


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26 Julia Ashtiany Bray( ed . ) Ambicus Felix: Luminosus Britannicus. Essays in Honour of A. F. L . Beeston on his EightiethBirthday(Reading: Ithaca) (pp. 108 28), p p. 108 15and note 50 below.

25. M o r e h , S. (1992) Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature in theMedieval Arab World ( E d i n b u r g h :Edinburgh University Press) ought to be mentioned here. Unfortunately, his characterization ofthe Hamadhanianmaqma(pp . 17, 105) is too sweepingto be linkedusefully to his evidence forthe existence of various kinds of dramatic performance during this period.

26. InShlj's five volumeedition ofFaraj,the stories are num bered consecutively through volumesI to IV. References willbe given in the form F (=Faraj,ed. Shlj) + story num ber. T he poemsin volume V are not num bered; references to that volume willbe givenin the form F V + pagenumber. InShlj'seight volume editionofNishwr( =N ) , the stories are numbered consecutivelyby volume; references will be given in the form N + volume n umber + story number. F 469 isind ude d by Shl in Nishwr (N V 139) in a text recuperated from Sarrj (417500/ 1026 1105),Masri', with Tankh's son as informant (see n. 15 above).

27. His full name, cUbayd Allh b. Muh d. b. alH asan b. (al )Haff al 'Abqas al Saraw 'the poet ',which is nowhere given in its complete form, can be pieced together and confirmed fromisndssuch as the following: F V, p. 23; F342; F364; Faraj (Cairo, 1955), p . 216 ( = F248);Faraj,Oxford, Bodleian M s. Pocock 64 fo. 55b ( = F420) and Paris,Bibliothque Nationale, Ms. ar.3483, fo. 101b ( = F248). InNishwr,Sarawfigures chiefly as a poet an d a source forverse,butinFarajhe is a source specializing in stories about u nfortunate young men (see section IV below).

28. On external description in mid 'Abbasid prose, see Stefan Leder (1987) P rosaD ichtung in derahbr berlieferung. Narrative Analyse einer Satire, Der Islam, LXIV p. 23, and, especially,Kathrin Mller (1993) Und derKalif lachte, bis er auf den Rckenfiel ,EinBeitragzurPhraseologieund Stilkunde desk lassischenArabisch(M un ich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften).

29. See Appendix A, (i).30. See Appendix A, (ii).3 1 . The vogue of the sold slavegirl theme may be guessed from the fact that it also appears in the

poetry of the period, see e.g. Ab Bakr al Khwrazm in al Tha'lib, Yatmataldahr,ed. M. M .Qumayha (1403/1983), IV (Beirut: D r alKutub al 'Ilmiyya), Ch . 4, p. 271.

32. I use the termlooselyto refer to the general configuration of the plot, an d without any suggestionthat the stories inFarajshould be trea ted as folk literature.

33. F476, in Escorial manuscript fos 304 5 (according to Shlj's apparatus), Paris ar. 3484, fos241ab and Berlin Ahlwardt 8738, fo. 142a only. Characterization of slavegirl and purchaser isomitted in Paris ar. 3483, fo. 259a and P ocock 64, fo. 132a.

34. F472 ; F 475; F476 (as in n. 33 above).35. The purchaser's speech is greatly expanded in Pocock 64, fo. 131a, and Paris ar. 3483, fos258b 9a.36. N ot all readers of subtexts are as expert as Mich ael Lecker; see his (1995) Biographical n otes on

Ab 'Ubayda M a'mar b. alM uthann',StudiaIslamica,81, p. 75.37. It is the great merit ofShlj's superbly indexed and annotated edition to have reinstated the isnds

and identified the transmitters named in them . In texts such as the Cairo editions and the JohnRylands manuscript, the abridgement of a high proportion of isndsgives the stories the air oftimeless archetypes. Some important ideas on the isndsofFaraj (and on related thematic andstructural aspects of the work) are to be found in Muhammad Hasan 'Abd Allh (1983) KitbalF araj ba'd al shidda li '1Qd '1 Tankh. Dirsa fanniyya tahlliyya, 'lam al fikr,(Kuwait),XIV pp. 359416. On the role of the isndsin Nishwr in situating Tankh's sources in thehierarchy of their profession, see H artm ut Fhndrich ( 1988) Die Tischgesprche des mesopotamischen Richters Un tersuchungen zu al Muhassin at Tanhs Niwr alM uhdara, DerIslam,LXV pp . 912.

38. Thefirst postscript is present in the Rabat manuscript and in Pocock 64, but absent from bothParis manuscripts; the second postscript is present in the Cairo and Rabat manuscripts, in Pocock64 and in both Paris manuscripts. Both postcripts aremissingfrom Ahlwardt 8738.

39. See notes 35 and 33 above. F475 also has an expanded isndin th e Escorial m anuscript, Pocock64, Paris ar. 3483 and Ahlwardt 8738.

40. Th ese are F 46 9= N V 139 (Sarrj, Masri', see n. 26 above); F470 = N V 72 (Ibnal Jawz,Dhamm alhaw);F474 = N VII 154 (Ibnal Jawz,alM untazam).The attributions toNishwrarecircumstantial and stylistic.

4 1 . Badr Muhammad Fahd (1966) al Qdal Tankh waKitb al Nishwr(Baghdad: Ma tba'atalIrshd); Shlj, Introduction,Faraj,pp . 14, 39, 44, 48.


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Isndsand Models ofHeroes 274 2 . Shlj's text of F248 appears to be based on the Zhiriyya and John Rylands manuscripts, but

variants in the latter are not indicated infull.There are a largenumberof minor variants betweenhis text and Paris ar.3 4 8 3 ,fos 101b 2a, but these do not affect the plot of the story, or the pointsunder discussion below. Apart from a few careless scribal omissions, MSAhlwardt 8738agreesentirely with Shlj's text. This part ofFarajis one of those missing from Pocock 64.

4 3 . Clear sequences of thematic/ structural variants are a recurrent feature ofFaraj,which seems to beaccentuated in what I take to be its later stages of revision; see, for the present, my unpublishedpaper, The motif index and medieval Arabicprose. A critique of Ulrich Marzolph'sArabia Ridens( 1 9 9 2 ) ,given at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, February 1994. For a moregeneral view, based on Shlj's edition without reference to other sources, see Antonella Ghersetti( 1 9 9 1 )Ilqd alTanh e ilKitbfara ba dal sidda,Istituto Orientale di Napoli,Annali,LI, pp.4 2 5 , 50 1 (this article also gives the fullest overview of approaches to, and the most completecurrent bibliography of, Faraj;see now also Ghersetti s translation ofFaraj,Ghersetti 1995) ,IlSollievo dopo la distretta(Milan: Edizioni Ariele, which I have not been able to consult). Suchsequences are rarer inNishwr,whose title does not announce a theme, and which has no chapterheadings marking off sub themes; nevertheless, groups and sequences do occur, see Fahd,alQdlTankh,pp. 84 9 and Fhndrich, Tischgesprche, pp. 94 5.

4 4 . The theme of the sequence emerges as that of heroic extravagance, but the links between the firstthree stories are tangential.

4 5 . Tankh's prefaces toFarajandNishwroutline a loose programme for each book: that ofFarajisto give heart to those in distress (Faraj,I, p. 52), that stated in the first preface ofNishwristoindict the paltriness of the present age and exalt the heroic stature of the past generation througha medley ofakhbrembracing every sphere of human activity (NishwrI,pp. 17, 8 11;cf.Fahd,alQd l Tankh,pp. 18, 65). ( For a different interpretation, see Tarif Khalidi (1994 ) ArabicHistorical Thought in the Classical Period(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 113 14).

4 6 . See n. 24 above, first reference.4 7 . Fedwa Malti Douglas analyses Ab '1Fath's role and that of his host in terms of social functions,

rather than of social functions mediated through narrative conventions and serving narrative ends( 1 9 8 5 ) Maqmt andAdab: al-Maqma al-Madriyya ofal-Hamadhn,Journal of the AmericanOriental Society,105, pp. 254 7.

4 8 . D. S. Richards ( 1 9 9 1 )TheMaqmt of al Hamadhn: general remarks and a consideration of themanuscripts, JAL, XXII , p. 98, points out that in the two earliest dated manuscripts ofHamadhn's Maqmt Ftih 4097 dated 520/ 1126, and Aya Sofya 4 2 8 3 , dated 6 2 2 / 1 2 2 5 , theBishriyyais classed as amaqma(Ftih4097 fo. 26a; Aya Sofya4 2 8 3 ,fo. 14a). In both manuscripts,asin the printed editions, theBishriyyaand theSaymariyyaare alone in having convennonalisnds.(I am grateful to Mr Richards for letting me consult his microfilms of the two manuscripts).

4 9 . Sixtyone lines to 44 in the'Abduhedition, where a reference to a cheating bookseller is added atthe end. This passage is alsofoundin M S Ftih 4097 fo. 3 4b. In MS Aya Sofya 4 2 8 3 ,the endof themaqmais missing, and the remaining text (fos 19a b, 21a b) is intersected by fragmentsof othermaqmt.

5 0 . The ancestry of these opinions is discussed by Muhammad Qsim Mustaf(1984 ) alNaqd aladabf Maqmt Bad' al Zamn alHamadhn, al Mawrid,(Baghdad), XIII (iii), pp. 6 3 7 2 .

5 1 . Yqt,Irshd,VI( 6), pp. 4 0 1 6 ,reproduces earlier sources including Ibn alNadm,Fihrist, Ta rkhBaghdd,and some of the materialinAghn.Charles Pellat( 1 9 6 8 )U n curieux amuseur Bagdadien:Ab l 'AnbasasSaymar,Studia Orientalia in Memoriam C.Brockelmann,pp. 133 7(Halle), addsfurther sources from Brockelmann, GAL SI, p. 396, but is largely based onYqt and does notmention theMaqma Saymariyya.Thisbibliographyis superseded by Pellat's article Ab 'l 'AnbasalSaymar, EI2, Supplement, fasc. 1 2, pp. 1 6 1 7 . S ee also F. Sezgin,GAS, VII, pp. 1 5 2 3 .

5 2 . See Pellat ( 1 9 6 8 ) U n curieux amuseur . .. , for reference to a story usually told about Juh, butattachedto Saymar in Ibn 'Abd Rabbih, Iqd;see further anecdotes in Ab Hayyn al Tawhd (d.414/1023), (1408/ 1988) alBas ir wa l dhakh ir,ed. W. al Qdi, IV (Beirut: Dr Sdir), pp. 45 ,108;VI, pp. 42, 60.

5 3 . The vizier is named as alQsim b. 'Ubayd Allh, who served al Mu'tadid and alMuktaf, and sopostdates the historical Saymar. A comparable anachronism occurs in the famous story of theWeaver of Words (h ik alkalm),of which some five versions seem to have been current by thefirst half of the 4th/ 10th century. The central dialogue of all the versions I have examined showsa marked similarity to a passage in a mid3rd/ 9th century ktib smanual, in which the five typesof secretary are described (Dominique S ourdel ( 1 9 5 2 4 ) Le 'Livre des Secrtaires' de 'Abdallh


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28 Julia Ashtiany BrayalBagdd [fl. c. 255/869], Bu lletin d Etud es Orientales, XIV pp. 123, 149 50) . As Sourdelobserves, in the twoearly 4thcentury versions ofthe stoiy(Ibn 'AbdRabbih, Iqd, andBayhaq,Mahsin) ,'Amr b.Mas ada isstyled vizier instead of k tib, an d hismaster isnamed asal Mu tasiminsteadofa l Ma mn (195960) (LeVizirat abbside de749 936,I(Damascus: Institut Franaisde Damas) p. 237). (The same anachronisms are found in alQ alqashand (d. 821/1418),(1331/ 1913) S ubh al a sh, I(C airo: al M atba a al Amiriyya, p. 142).Already in a version whichis probably roughly co ntem porary with Baghdd s Livre des ecrtaires, 'Amr isreferred to asvizier,but th e anachronism isprojected backward instead offorward, with th e caliph nam ed asalR ashd(pseudoIbn Qutayba, a l Im m a wa l siysa, ed. M. M. alM arfa II(C airo: M atba at al N l,1322/1904),pp .301 7). T hese anachronismsareabsent from Tan kh s version, F 341, althoughhis sourcewas acontemporary ofBayhaq and Ibn 'AbdRabbih, theqd Ab 1Husayn U m a rb. Abi U m a r al Azd (d.328/940); theyarealso absen t from acomplex variant retailed bySaraw,F342.

54. No t e tha t theJohn Rylands m anuscript ofFaraj,as a result ofpruning theisnds, often putsfirst person narrative intothethird p erson.55. SeeAppendix B.56. Serafin Fanjul, review of Fedwa Malti D ouglas (1985) StructuresofAva rice:T heBukhal inMedievalArabicLiterature (Leiden:E. J.Brill), (1987) JAL,XVII I , p. 131.57. Leder, AuthorshipandT ransmission, p. 67.

Appendix A(i) The Textof FarajT h e textual history ofFarajhas not yet beenfullyinvestigated. Wiener drew attentionto discrepancies betvveen the con ten ts of the Cairo edit ion of 19034 an d themanuscriptsexamined by him ((1913) DieFaraba'd aidda Literatai,Derlslam, IV,p p . 398400). Dominique Sourdel studied these discrepancies more closely, withparticular reference to isnds and narrative passages absent from th e Cairo edition of1955 (which is a reset print ing of Cairo 1903 4) and present in one or the other of Par isM S S ar.3483 and 3484, Damascus M S Zhiriyya adab34, and Berlin MSS Ahhvardt8737 and 8738 (see (1956) Une lettre inedite de Alb. 's (317/929),Arabica,Tu,pp.80 90; (1955 7) F ragments d'al $ul sur l'histoire desvizirs'Absides, BuUetin d'EtudesOrientales(D amascus), XV, pp . 98 108; (1957) Nouvelles recherches sur la devudmepart ie du 'L ivre des Vizirs' d'al Gahiyr,MelangesLouisMassignoniii, (D amascus),p p . 271 99);Le Vizirat 'abbsidede 749 j' 936,passim;and review of Rouchdi Fakkar,At Tanhi et son livre: la delivrance apres l'angoisse (Cairo: Institut Francaisd'Archologie Orientale), in (1957)Arabica,V, p p. 88 90. N either Wiener no r Sourdelexamined th e differences in the sequence of the stories and the ir distribution betweenchapters in different man uscripts and in the edition(s) available to them .

Shljl's edition contains 492 stories, as against 360 in th e Cairo edition s, and restoresth e isnds,which are garbled, pruned or omitted in the Cairo editions. His text is basedon the Cairo 1955 edition and onfivemanuscript s (seeFaraj,Introduction, pp. 218);for Tart I' (extent unspecified), these are (a/the) Damascus Zhiriyya manuscript(s)(undated,but Shlj identifies its owner as having died 1262 AH ; no catalogue nu mbergiven; Shlj's readings do notalways seem to coincide with Sourdel's); for 'Part II'(extent unspecified), on a Rabat MS (dated 849 AH; no catalogue number given); forth e whole text, on Escorial MS 714 (dated 975 AH ), Manch ester John Rylands MSArabic 667(306) (dated 1050 AH), and Cairo Da r al Kutub M S b' 22959 (1945/2170, 13225 Add.) (dated 1212 AH). The different man uscript readings are clearlyindicated by square brackets in the text and by footnotes, but the sequence/ numbering


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Isnad*and Models ofHeroes 29of the stories, and their distribution between chapters, are not explained, though folioreferences are provided which show that ShaljT has on occasion departed from thesequence(s) followed by his sources.I myself have been able to consult the following texts: editions: Cairo, 1

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