Introducing his translation of “The Book of Marvels” attributed to al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 345/956), Carra de Vaux remarks: “Among Muslims there is a folklorist in every theologian, geographer and historian.” Arabic fables and legends are inseparable from Arabian thought. They reveal every fashion, involve every social class and reflect every change in the evolution of Arabic literature.

Any attempt, however, to reconstruct the earliest Arabic fables is faced with formidable obstacles. Few texts survive. Are those we possess representative? Archaeological reconstruction may be misleading, since many pre-Islamic tales may have survived on bedouin lips, while others of lesser appeal have long been forgotten.

Arabic legends first appeared in a “Heroic Age”. The Jahiliyyah had its confederations of tribes, or city–states, ruled by chiefs or kings. Assemblies were convened at pleasure or in an emergency. They were mainly advisory. There was bitter rivalry or peaceful co-operation among an aristocracy of princes, kings and chiefs. Deities were astral, anthropomorphic, arboreal or lithic. They formed loose or local pantheons. Each god or goddess had a special abode. Although the heroes, whether kings, bards, vagabonds or soothsayers, were not the offspring of divinity, they at least possessed superhuman prowess, longevity or intimacy with the supernatural conceived as jinn or metamorphosed creatures – lions, foxes or vultures, for example.

Sagas or functional tales were recited by itinerant or resident bards. Attached to courts or camps, frequenters of festival fairs, such storytellers were occasionally seers. The ritual of a shrine, a hunt, a war or some prophylactic ceremony to avert natural disaster provided motivation.