Description
Book SynopsisIn The Arab Thieves, Peter Webb critically explores the classic tales of pre-Islamic Arabian outlaws in Arabic Literature. A group of Arabian camel-rustlers became celebrated figures in Muslim memories of pre-Islam, and much poetry ascribed to them and stories about their escapades grew into an outlaw tradition cited across Arabic literature. The ninth/fifteenth-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrīzī arranged biographies of ten outlaws into a chapter on ‘Arab Thieves’ in his wide-ranging history of the world before Muhammad. This volume presents the first critical edition of al-Maqrīzī’s text with a fully annotated English translation, alongside a detailed study that interrogates the outlaw lore to uncover the ways in which Arabic writers constructed outlaw identities and how al-Maqrīzī used the tales to communicate his vision of pre-Islam. Via an exhaustive survey of early Arabic sources about the outlaws and comparative readings with outlaw traditions in other world literatures, The Arab Thieves reveals how Arabic literature crafted lurid narratives about criminality and employed them to tell ancient Arab history.
Table of ContentsList of Plates and Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1 Study of the Arab Thieves 1 Outlaw Literature 2 “Arab Thieves”: Establishing a Category 2.1 Ṣuʿlūk/Ṣaʿālīk 2.2 Fātik/Futtāk 2.3 Liṣṣ/Luṣūṣ 2.4 The Runners 2.5 The Arab Ravens 2.6 Lions and Wolves 2.7 Thievery Semantics: Conclusions 3 Thieves and Arab History 3.1 Outlaws and Arabness in the Third/Ninth Century 3.2 Outlaws and Arabness in the Fourth/Tenth Century 3.3 The Ayyubid- and Mamluk-Eras 3.4 al-Maqrīzī and His Luṣūṣ al-ʿArab 4 Contemporary Outlaws: Criminality in al-Maqrīzī’s Own World 5 Al-Maqrīzī’s Manuscript: Its Conceptual, Narrative and Physical Structure 5.1 The Thieves 5.2 Narrative Structure 5.3 The Book 6 The Sources 6.1 Dictionaries and the List of ‘Arab Thieves’ 6.2 Al-Maqrīzī’s Sources: Overview 6.3 Al-Maqrīzī’s Copying Style: Case Studies 6.4 Al-Maqrīzī and Outlaw Poetry: Specialised Collections 6.5 Sources: Conclusions 7 Concluding Remarks Plates Part 2 Critical Edition and Translation The Holograph The Translation Abbreviations and Symbols Text and Translation of al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-baṣar, vol. V, Sections 1–2: the Arab Thieves Section on the Arabs’ Religions before Islam Section on the Arab Hussies Section on the Arab Thieves ʿAmr of the Dog Taʾabbaṭa Šarran Al-Šanfará Al-Sulayk b. al-Sulakah al-Saʿdī Al-Muntašir Awfá b. Maṭar al-Māzinī ʿAmr b. Barrāqah Al-Uḥaymir Niẓām Yazīd Bibliography List of Quoted Manuscripts Index of Verses Index of Names (People and Places) Index of Quoted Titles in al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar Index of Sources in al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar Index of Glosses Index of Technical Terms Facsimile of MS Fatih 4340 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), fols. Ia–b, 1a–3b, 4*a–b, 4a–9b, 10*a–b, 10a–15b
