EWANA Center

Menu
Menu
H » Cultural and Literary Heritage » Folktales » Folktales

Folktales

By /

This section includes literature that refers to folk believe and popular superstitions, such as fables, fairy tales, stories of magic and djinns. In Arab and Muslim mythology, a djinn is an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels that can appear in different human an animal forms and can possess humans. This section has a separate category for contemporary Arabic literature referring to the famous “A Thousand and One Nights”.

  • Yaḥyā al-Ṭāhir ʿAbdallah’s (1938 – 1989, Egypt) collection of short stories Ḥikāyāt li-al-Amīr (‘Tales for the Prince’, 1977). Using folklore, this collection of 14 stories uses the pattern of enframed stories, the frame being the story of a prince and his fabulator, who is in charge of pacifying and rejoicing the prince with his stories so that this latter falls asleep (reference). The protagonists of these short stories which take place in Egypt, are mainly anti-heroes, often poor, illiterate, or suffering from sickness.
  • ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAlūllah (1939 – 1994, Algeria) employs many Algerian folklore tales in his plays, which are typically in the Algerian dialect, and uses traditional ways of performance such as the tradition of ‘al-Jawqah’ (that of a choir in the play) and ‘ḥalqa’ (in which the crowd sits around the maddaḥ, or, storyteller) (reference). This is for example done in his trilogy al-Aqwāl (‘The sayings’, 1980) al-Ajwād (‘The generous’, 1985), and al-Lithām (1989, English trans. The Veil, in Four plays from North Africa (2008)) (see for description: S: Social Issues and Societal Change: Class and Social Change).
  • Yūsuf al-ʿĀnī’s (1927 – 2016, Iraq / Jordan) play al-Miftaḥ (‘The key’, 1967-8) makes use of a popular fable about a magic chest, a fable that knows different variations in Arabic language countries (reference). In it, a newly married couple wants to secure a good living standard before the wife gives birth. They put a dress and a cake in a chest but need a key to safeguard the contents. The search for a key leads them on a seemingly never-ending mission until eventually the blacksmith gives them a key for free. However, when they open the chest again with this key, it is empty! The couple realizes that nothing given for free is worth having (reference).
  • ʿAlī Aḥmad Bākthīr’s (1910 – 1969, Egypt) play Mismār Juḥā (‘Juha’s nail’, 1951) using the traditional character of Juḥā, this play alludes to the British occupation of Egypt (reference). Juḥā works for the colonizer, who invades his house in Baghdad, as the play is set in the al-Kufa district in Iraq under occupation. Juḥā subsequently tries to get back his house, while also having to deal with his aggressive wife. The play imagines a ‘Delhi Conference’ that leads to the end of the British Empire (three years after the play a similar conference, the Bandung Conference (1955), actually took place) and uses the Suez Canal as a symbol for the nail that is used to take over Egypt (reference) (also in 1952: Revolution in Egypt: Before the Revolution).
  • Zaynab Balīl (1947-, Sudan) – Nabāt al-Ṣabbār (‘The cactus plant’, 2011). This novel depicts the troubles of a group of marginalized residents of a slum, who are removed from their homes after a failed uprising. What follows is a story combining the supernatural and the real, as the residents look to rebuild their lives with the help of demons and genies (reference) (also in S: Social Issues and Societal Change: The Marginalized: Homeless).
  • Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941 – 1995, Morocco) refers to Berber folklore in his literature. His book Légende et vie d’Agoun’chich (‘The legend and life of Agoun’chich’, 1984) is an example. The novel, set in the 1980s, depicts the story of Agoun’chiche, who returns to his hometown in Southern Morocco after 20 years of living in exile. Upon return, he is confronted with the tales and legends of his hometown, such as the legend of Agoun’chiche, which tells of Agoun’chiche revenging the death of his sister and haunting as a djinn. At the same time, the novel reflects on the position of the narrator as a Berber caught between his traditional world and that of Morocco changing by modernity (reference).
  • Ismāʾīl Ghazālī (1977-, Morocco) – Qiṭṭat Madīnah al-Arkhibīl (‘The cat of Archipel town’, 2020). Story of this novel takes place in the Moroccan city of Essaouira, albeit in a strange and imaginary form. Cats, in the novel, form the memory of the city, and show the reader the magical and at times dystopic underground world of the city with all its strangeness, wonders, and poverty (reference) (also in N: Nature: Animals).
  • Imīl Ḥabībī (1922 – 1996, Palestine / Israel) – Suraya Bint al-Ghūl (1991, English trans. Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter: A Palestinian Fairy Tale, 2006). While fishing, the hero of this novel sees the ghost of a girl he used to love as a boy and becomes obsessed with finding her. His quest leads him to different neighborhoods in and around Haifa, such as the al-Carmel, as well as a journey to his past life and the changes his city has gone through. This girl is a reference to the young and intelligent fairy-tale heroine Soraya, who is imprisoned by an ogre in a palace on the top of a mountain and escapes with the help of her cousin who climbs up her long braid (reference). The novel can be read as a reflection of its author on his life as a writer and political activist (also in I: Israel and Palestine: Palestinians in Israel).
  • Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm’s (1898 – 1987, Egypt) play Yā Ṭāliʿ al-Shajara (1962, English trans. The Tree Climber: A Play, 1985) and Maṣīr Sursār (1966, English trans. The Fate of the Cockroach, 1973).

The absurdist drama Yā Ṭāliʿ al-Shajara portrays a husband and wife who barely talk. The play is about Bahādir, who is married to a widow and who owns a small house with a garden in which stands a single orange tree with a lizard living at its foot. Bahādir builds his life around that tree while his wife, childless and sterile because of a self-preformed abortion, thinks she is still pregnant. The wife and the lizard suddenly disappear, and the husband is suspected of murder, especially when he reveals that his tree needs to be fertilized by a human body (reference) (also in P: Police Novels, Thrillers and Crimes: Murder).

 

The three-act play Maṣīr Sursār was published after the Free Officers Revolution of 1952 and portrays a general disillusionment with the way the revolution panned out (reference). The play portrays the world and social order of humans and cockroaches, and, as such, makes a comparison between their behaviours. The world of the cockroaches is like that of humans, with a king, a queen, and their own problems of ruling, including having to defend themselves from an ant-attack (also in 1952 Revolution in Egypt: Before and After the Revolution). 

  • Muḥammad Khuḍayyir (1942-, Iraq) often combines mythical or folktale motifs with realistic narratives to depict social reality in a symbolic way. Examples are his short stories in the collection al-Mamlaka al-Sawdā (‘The black kingdom’, 1972)(reference). The motive of this collection is waiting, as this is the main activity of the characters done in sad, isolated privacy, such as basements, darkened stairwells, and humid rooms (reference). Accompanying the waiting is the magical imaginary world of fantasies and mysteriously appearing creatures. The title story of the collection tells of a young boy who visits his sick aunt in their old family house to ask her for the inheritance left by his late father. The walls of the house are haunted by ghosts, who seem to be the only beings keeping his aunt company.
  • Najlā Jrayṣṣātī Khūrī’s (1949-, Lebanon) collections Ḥikāyāt wa Ḥikāyāt: Ḥikāyāt Shaʿabiyyah min Lubnān (Part 1 and 2) (2014, English trans. Pearls on a Branch: Arab Stories Told by Women on Lebanon Today, 2018) bring traditional Lebanese folktales that are retold by Lebanese woman (reference). The author travelled through Lebanon to collect folk tales from women to enact with her theatre and puppet troupe, with which she travelled through the country in the 1980s. The literary collection is the result of over 30 years of collecting these stories. The English translation includes thirty stories.
  • Jilali el-Koudia (1954-, Morocco) together with Roger Allen compiled, retold, and translated the collection Moroccan Folktales (2003). He draws on stories he heard in his childhood from female relatives, which vary from anecdotes to legends and animal tales. El-Koudia re-wrote and edited the stories, to finally includes 31 tales from all over Morocco, reflecting on the regional diversity of the country. The collection also includes an analysis of the tales by folklorist Hasan el-Shamy, including of the tales and methodology used to collect and reflect them.
  • Muḥammad al-Makhzajī’s (1950-, Egypt) short story collection Ḥaywānāt Ayāmnā (‘Animals of our Day’, 2007) uses animal voices to comment on political and social oppression. Each story tells of one animal. One story, ‘al-Khuyūl’, tells of horses living on an island full of landmines remaining from the war. The horses on the island know their way between the landmines, and their every movement is calculated as to not to explode. This restriction to their freedom makes them depressed, some so badly that they jump into the sea and drown (reference). Another story, ‘Al-Ghizlān’, is a reflection on the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and its goal of ‘bringing democracy’, through the story of a deer (also in N: Nature: Animals).
  • Muṣṭfā Naṭṭūr (1950-, Algeria) – ʿĀm al-Ḥabl (‘Year of the rope’, 2007). This novel uses motifs from traditional folklore (reference). It begins with Būqrah, a Darwish and a fighter against injustice, finding a manuscript about Algeria during the Ottoman period of Bey Saliḥ, which is then compared to Algeria after independence from France. Both storylines tell of displacement: in that of the manuscript, tribes from the northern Algerian region of Constantinople, which was hit by a pandemic and famine, go to the Bey to ask for help, who instead ties them together with a rope and puts them in a cave (reference). In the second timeline, tribes are forced to move for big factories (also in Ottoman Period).
  • ʿAbd al-Malik Nūrī’s (1921 – 1992, Iraq) short story ‘Rīḥ al-Janūb’ (‘The southern wind’), which tells of a journey by a mother and her blind daughter to the town of the holy man Muḥyī al-Dīn, who spits into the eyes of the blind after which his holy spirit cures them of their condition (reference). Blindness in the story is used symbolically to criticize the exploitation of the poor and those who blindly believe in others’ healing powers, in this case in the holy man’s saliva. The story can be found in the collection Nashīd al-Arḍ (‘The anthem of the earth’, 1954) (also in D: Disabilities, Illness and Psychological disorders: Physical Disabilities: Blindness).
  • Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Jalīl Qunaydī’s (?, Libya) play al-Aqniʿah (‘Masks’, 1986) is cast in the form of a fable and portrays the story of a Vizier and a Queen who plan to kill the Sultan to continue their illicit love (reference). They frame a simple citizen for the crime, who is put in prison. But during his time in the cell, he manages to point out that all three, the Sultan, the Vizier, and the Queen are wrong, at a time when the population is revolting against the Sultan, thus adding to their protests. The citizen is eventually made the new Sultan, and he promises the population he will do his best to be just.
  • Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr’s (1931 – 1981, Egypt) play al-Amīrah Tantaẓir (‘The princess is awaiting’, 1971). This play takes place on one day but uses flashbacks to set the start of the story on the night that the princess’ lover kills her father and seizes the throne. Feeling guilty, the princess leaves the palace with her bridesmaid to live in a remote cottage. After 15 years, the now king asks that she returns to him, but he is killed by a man who has taken shelter in her cottage, and the princess returns to her palace to stay there alone. The play can be read as a reflection on the role of (powerful) women in relation to men (reference).
  • Laylā al-Ṣaqr’s (?, Bahrain) short story collection ʿAindama Tazawwaj Qays Laylā (‘When Qays married Layla’, 2015) tells several stories about married couples. Its title story ‘ʿAindama Tazawwaj Qays Laylā’, refers to the traditional Arab Bedouin story of Qays and Laylā, and asks the question: would Qays’ love for Layla be as strong if the couple would have married? (reference) In it, their marriage ostracizes them from the tribe, and their hardship leaves Qays no time or inspiration for poetry, while it leaves Laylā feeling that she has lost her beauty (also in F: Children and Family Life: Marriage).
  • Ahmed Sefrioui’s (1915 – 2004, Morocco) collection of short stories Le Chapelet d’ambre (‘The amber rosary’, 1949) includes fairy tales. The 14 stories are narrated by a young man who has given himself the eternal age of 15, and who tells about the neighbourhood he lives in Fez, Morocco.
  • Zahūr Wanīsī (1936-, Algeria) – Lūnjah wa al-Ghūl (‘Lujnah and the ogre’, 1993). This novel refers to a folktale in which a ghūl (an ogre) kidnaps a beautiful woman called Lūnjah, to describe Algeria during the independence war. The ghūl of this novel can be interpreted as being colonialism, while the Lūnjah of the novel, Malīkah, represents Algeria in general. Malīkah’s character also sheds light on how women played an important role during the Algerian war, while after independence their freedom diminished (reference). The novel was ranked as on of the 100 best Arabic novels by the Arab Writers Union (also in 1954 – 1962 French Algerian War and Algerian Independence).

Refrences:

In order of appearance

  1. Céza Kassem Draz. 1981. “In Quest of New Narrative Forms: Irony in the Works of Four Egyptian Writers: Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī, Yaḥyā al-Ṭāhir ʿAbdallah, Majīd Ṭūbyā, Ṣunʿallah Ibrāhīm (1967-1979)”, in Journal of Arabic Literature (12): 137-159, p. 145
  2. Idrīs Qarqawah. 2018. “Masraḥiyyah al-Ḥikāyah fī Masraḥ ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAlūllah, Qirāʾah fī al-Shakl wa al-Maḍmūn.” Publication by the Centre de Recherche en Anthopologie Sociale et Culturelle. Retrieved from https://ouvrages.crasc.dz/pdfs/2018_guergoua_driss.pdf , p. 39-50, p. 41(last accessed 6 July 2022)
  3. Ali al-Raʿi. 1992. “Arabic Drama since the thirties.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 358-404, p. 395
  4. EAL, p. 129
  5. Raad Kareem Abd-Aun. 2016. “Anti-Coloniality in Ahmad Bakatheer’s Mismar Juha and Imberatoriyya Fil Mazad.” Conference paper for the International Conference on Arts and Humanities 2016, Dubai, UAE (Retrieved from https://papers.iafor.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/iicahdubai2016/IICAHDubai2016_21507.pdf) (last accessed 13 July 2022) p. 1
  6. Sawwad Hussain. 2020. “Aperture: Sudanese Female Novelists Coming into Focus.” Words without Borders Special Issue, December 2020. https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/issue/december-2020-sudanese-women-writers (last accessed 5 March 2021)
  7. Khalid Lyamlahy. 2017. “Moving beyond mobility: the aesthetics of exile and becoming in Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Légende et vie d’Agoun’chich”, The Journal of North African Studies 22(2): 259-282, p. 260
  8. Ashraf al-Ḥasānī. 2022. “al-Riwāʾī al-Maghrebī Ismāʾīl Ghazālī: Naṣṣī Yurāhin ʿalā al-Makān li-Yuḥariruhu min Waṭʾah al-ʾĀdī wa al-Maʾlūf”, www.aljazeera.net, 4 April 2022 https://www.aljazeera.net/news/cultureandart/2022/4/10/الروائي-المغربي-إسماعيل-غزالي-نصي (last accessed 7 July 2022)
  9. Samar Attar. 2016. “Chapter 9: Grieving over Home. A Mother or a Grave? The Vision of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature” in Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Sebastian Günter and Stephan Milich. Georg Olms Verlag: Hildesheim, Zürich, New York. pp. 155-183, p. 161
  10. C. F. Audebert. 1978. “Yā Ṭāliʿ al-Shajara and Folk Art.” JAL 9: 138-149
  11. Ḥanān ʿAqīl. 2020. “‘Maṣīr Ṣurṣār’ … Masraḥiyah Tuṣawwir ʿAbth al-Ḥayah.” www.alarab.app, 5 September 2020, https://alarab.app/%D9%85%D8%B5%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%B5%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%B5%D9%88%D9%91%D8%B1-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AB-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%A9 (last accessed 1 November 2023)
  12. EAL, p. 443
  13. Aḥmad ʿAwwād al-Khazāʿī. 2017. “‘al-Mamlaka al-Sawdā’.. ʿAwālim Muḥammad Khuḍayyir al-Mutāriyyah.” www.kitabat.com January 8, 2017, https://kitabat.com/2017/01/08/المملكة-السوداء-عوالم-محمد-خضير-المت/ (last accessed 28 July 2022)
  14. Inea Bushnaq. 2018. “It Was or It Was Not: Femininity in Arabic Folktales.” www.theparisreview.org, 9 April 2018, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/04/09/it-was-or-it-was-not-femininity-in-arabic-folktales/ (last accessed 1 November 2023)
  15. Muḥammad Abū al-Saʿūd. 2022. Maʿayā Kutub – Ḥaywānāt Ayāmnā – Qiṣaṣ. YouTube, 27 July 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30LtjeRjlJA&t=826s (last accessed 7 August 2022)
  16. Walīd Buʿadīlah. 2017. “Abʿād al-Tawẓīf al-Tārīkhī fī al-Riwāyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah – Dirāsah fī Namāthij Mukhtār”, Majallah Muntadā al-Ustāth 19: 36-52, p. 38
  17. Al-Azhar ʿAṭiyyah. 2020. “ʿĀm al-Ḥabl… Riwāyah al-Nabūʾāt.” www.djazairess.com, 8 December 2020, www.djazairess.com/annasr/266188 (last accessed 22 September 2022)
  18. Hilla Peled- Shapira. 2013. “Religion and Politics: On the Motif of Blindness in ʿAbd al-MālikNūrī’s “Rīḥ al janūb” and Ghāʾib Tuʿmah Farmān’s “ʿAmmī ʿAbburnī’” JAL 44: 371-393. p 377
  19. Ali al-Raʿi. 1992. “Arabic Drama since the thirties.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 358-404, p. 399
  20. Shimaʿ al-ʿAysway. 2021. “Mathā Tantaẓir al-Amirah ʿaind Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabbūr fī Masraḥiyyatihi al-Shʿariyyah?” www.arageek.com, 30 March 2022 https://www.arageek.com/2021/03/30/the-princess-waits-by-salah-abdel-sabour#footnotes-524052 (last accessed 7 August 2022)
  21. Ḍiyāʾ ʿAbdallah Khamīs al-Kaʿabī. 2016. “Sardiyyāt: Sardiyyāt Laylā al-Ṣaqr fī ‘ʿAindama Tazawwaj Qays Laylā’.” www.akhbar-alkhaleej.com, March 26 2016 http://akhbar-alkhaleej.com/news/article/1012417 (last accessed 26 October 2021)
  22. ʿAbd al-Qādir Kʿabān. 2015. “Buniyyah al-Turāth al-Shʿabī fī Riwāyah ‘Lūnjah wa al-Ghūl’ lil-l-Adībah Zahhūr Wanīdsī.” www.alwatanvoice.com, 29 October, 2015 https://pulpit.alwatanvoice.com/articles/2015/10/29/382866.html (last accessed 18 August, 2022)
 

Leave a Recommendation

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top