Epic
The Epic of the Bani Hilal
سيرة بني هلال
Anonymous · 1400
Synopsis
The epic follows the great migration of the Bedouin tribe of the Banu Hilal, setting out from the Arabian Peninsula, then its stay in Egypt and its march towards North Africa, where it is sent to punish a rebel governor. Around the heroes Abu Zayd and Diyab and the heroine al-Jaziya, warriors and women of the desert face the kings and princes of the cities, and the fate of each remains tied to that of the tribe.
Context
Ibn Khaldun already noted fragments of it in the fourteenth century, and the epic has since been collected from Morocco to Oman and as far as Chad and Sudan, in prose, in verse and in song; in Egypt, poets sing it for whole nights to the rabab. The academic Abderrahman Ayoub has studied its Jordanian versions. Lucienne Saada published with Gallimard, in 1985, the complete version of a Tunisian shepherd storyteller.
Who it is for
A long and sprawling narrative, best approached through a translated version; it reads as a series of episodes.
Prizes and reception
Dwight Reynolds sees in it perhaps the most widespread and best documented narrative of Arabic oral literature.
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