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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The Sīrat YAntar conceals within its narrative identifiable literary sources.This is especially so in those sections which describe the adventures of the ՙAbsī hero in Byzantium, Italy, al-Andalus, ՙUmān, Egypt and Ethiopia. Its I use of such sources is without parallel in the sister siyar. Though the fact was not ignored by Bernhard Heller or by Rudi Paret, it is insufficiently appreciated elsewhere, especially in the Arab world itself. So pervasive is the literary treatment as it draws upon Arabic geographical works, and the exploring of ‘wonder books’ (kutub al-ՙajā՚ib) for source material so apparent, that it is doubtful, nay unacceptable, that this particular Sīra (others may bide our question) can be accurately described as Arabic oral and formulaic ‘coffeehouse entertainment’, or as being outside the corpus of classical Arabic literature. That part of the giant work, categorized by Maḥmūd Dhihnī as al-Marḥala al-malḥamiyya, which describes these adventures, is unquestionably post-twelfth century in date, marked as it is by Crusading proper names and by those of Mamlūk offices. That the text is not earlier than the late thirteenth century will here be shown.
1 The various editions of the Ḥijaziyya and Shāmiyya display little, if any, variation in the Sīra at this point. There are now several works in Arabic that attempt to come to grips with the chronology and the literary felicities of the ‘Antar Romance. One of these is Dr.Dhihnī, Maḥmūd, Sīrat ‘Antara (Cairo, 1984), in particular pp. 258–70Google Scholar. Abel's, Arnaud paper, ‘Formation et constitution du roman d'Antar’, published in La poesia epica et la sua formazione (Academia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, 1970), 722–6Google Scholar, has a full discussion of this particular section. A most interesting and more recent analysis of the Sīra is to be read in Fish, Brenda, ‘The death of Antar: an Arabic analogue for the Cid of Cardena’, in Hook, David and Taylor, Barry (ed.) Cultures in contact in medieval Spain: historical and literary essays presented to L. P. Harvey (King's College London Medieval Studies, 111, 1990), 87–101Google Scholar.
2 Dr. Maḥmūd Dhihni's book, op. cit., is arguably the best. It gives serious attention to authorship and historical evolution of the text on pp. 155–72; see in particular p. 168. See also Heller, Bernhard, Der arabische Antarroman: ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte (Hannover, 1927)Google Scholar, and Die Bedeutung des arabischen Antar-Romans für die vergleichende Literaturkunde (Leipzig, 1931)Google Scholar.
3 On Sharaf al-Zaman Ṭahir al-Marwazī (d. after 514/1120) see Minorsky, V., Marvazi in China, the Turks and India (Cambridge, 1942), 42, 53–6, 156–8Google Scholar. For an English translation of the reference to these giant trees, see Hopkins, J. F. P. and Levtzion, N., Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history (Cambridge, 1981), 92Google Scholar.
4 The Arabic text in question is printed in my The adventures of Antar (Warminster, 1980), 91–3. Hopkins, and Levtzion, , op. cit.Google Scholar, 33–34, have shown how doubtful is the attribution to al-Mas‘ūdī, and that this, and other passages like it are from a work written at the end of the fourth/tenth or the beginning of the fifth/eleventh century in Egypt.
5 Some examples of the lists of weaponry and make of mail are to be read in my article, ‘The hauberk, the Kazaghand and the Antar Romance’, in The Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, ix, 3, 1978, 93–101Google Scholar.
6 On the Christian Ḥarithīs of Najran, see Lyall, Charles James, Translations of ancient Arabian poetry (New York, Columbia University Press, 1930), 21–2Google Scholar.
7 On Christianity in Najarn see Hisham, Ibn, The Life of Muhammad, tr. Guillaume, A. (Oxford, 1955), 14–18Google Scholar. On Karib, ‘Amr b Ma'dī, see my Adventures of Antar, 32–3Google Scholar.
8 Life of Muhammad, 14–16.
9 See Annales quos scripsit Abu Djafar Mohammed Ibn Djarir al-Tabari, Prime Series, 11, ed. Barth, J. and Nöldeke, Th. (Leiden, 1881–1882), 851–3Google Scholar; Kitab al-Aghanī (Cairo edition, 1928), part II, 144–5; Nicholson, R., A literary history of the Arabs (Cambridge, 1969), 14–16Google Scholar. On Sinnimar, see Rothstein, Gustav, Die Dynastie der Lahmiden in al-Ḥīra (Halle, 1898), 14–16, 23Google Scholar.
10 Amari, Michel, ‘Description de Palerme’, Journal Asiatique, v, 1854, 84–5 (Arabic text)Google Scholar; 92 (French translation); and 102–3 (notes); idem, Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula (Turin and Rome, 1880), 60Google Scholar.
11 See the comments of Hasluck, F. W., Letters on religion and folklore (London, Luzac, 1926), 91, 96Google Scholar. A possible alternative Arabic source is that of the Cosmographie (Nukhbat al-dahr fī ‘aja'ib al-barr wa'l-baḥr), by al-Dimashqī, Shams al-Dīn Abū ‘Abdallah Muḥammad b. Abī Ṭalib al-Anṣarī (654–727/1256–1327); see ed. Mehren, A., Leipzig, 1923, 142Google Scholar, where Cyprus (Stavrovouni monastery) is described. The Arabic passage in question reads:
12 Ernest Barker remarks: ‘Early in the history of the Crusades—perhaps during the First Crusade itself—the same play of imagination began to create a legend which ran by the side of the history but departed widely from it. The legend already appears in the Chanson des Chétifs (1130) and the Chanson d'Antioche (1180): it glorified Peter the Hermit or Godfrey of Bouillon, as the Song of Roland had glorified Roland and Oliver: it played at will over the Crusades, throwing its limelight now here, now there, and creating a saga which for centuries usurped the place of reality. It is this saga which came to Tasso, and which in his Gerusalemme Liberata he dressed in the conventional heroic dress of the sixteenth century. Nothing shows better how far the Crusades had passed from the heart of Europe. Tasso had wished, says de Sanctis, to write a poem which was seriously heroic, animated by the religious spirit, possibilmente storico e prossimo al vero o verisimile. What had he achieved? Un mondo cavaleresco, fantastico, romanzesco e voluttuoso, che seme le messa e si fa la croce’: ‘The Crusades’, in SirArnold, Thomas and Guillaume, Alfred (ed.), The legacy of Islam (Oxford, 1931), 66Google Scholar. The same passing of the age of the Crusades into the fantasy world of futuwwa, with its religious fervour diluted, is to be observed in the Siyar of the Mamlūk era, in parts of Sīrat ‘Antar and almost throughout Sīrat Sayfb. Dhī Yazan.
13 The text is taken from a copy of the Sīra in Cambridge University Library. The text in no way differs from the copies consulted in the British Library or in the Cairo printed editions. The passage is translated in my Adventures of Antar, 224.
14 ibid., 233–43. The various references to rituals celebrated around sacred trees have a vaguely Caucasian feel about them, or even of the customs of the Khazars and Huns. See ‘Ibn Rusta Daghestan’, in Annex IV of V. Minorsky, A history of Sharvan and Darband in the lOth-llth centuries (Cambridge, 1958), 166–7Google Scholar.
15 See ‘Did ‘Antarah Ibn Shaddad conquer Zimbabwe?’, Irvine, A. K. et al. (ed.), A miscellany of Middle Eastern articles: in memoriam Thomas Muir Johnstone 1924–83 (Harlow, 1988), 83–93Google Scholar.
16 An edited text of this passage from the Tuḥfa is to be found in Ferrand, G., Journal Asialique, 207, 1925, 82–6Google Scholar. For a recent Spanish translation of the whole passage, see Ramos, Ana, Abū Ḥamid al-Garnaṭī (m. 565/1169), Tuḥfat al-albab (El regalo de los espiritus), Fuentes Arabico-Hispanas, 10 (Madrid 1990), 56–8Google Scholar. On the armourers, the Zirīhgaran (Kubbači Köbeci, ‘mail’) of Dagestan, see the article ‘Dāghistan’ in EI (2nd ed.), by Barthold, W. and Bennigsen, A., and d'Encausse, H. Carrere, ‘Une république soviétique musulmane: le Daghistan, apercu demographique’, Revue des Etudes Islamiques (Paris, 1956), 24–5Google Scholar; Minorsky, , History of Sharvan and Darband, 155Google Scholar. The Zirīhgaran are mentioned by early Arabic writers. Examples of Caucasian armour may be seen in Allen, W. E. D., A history of the Georgian people (London, 1932), pl. facing p. 203Google Scholar, and in Lang, D., ‘Armenia, Georgia and the Caucasus’, in Cavendish, R. (ed.), Mythology: an illustrated encyclopedia (London, 1980), 204Google Scholar. The name of the Zirīhgaran was not taken into account in my article on the origin of the term Jazerant/kazāghand, loc. cit, and it cannot be excluded from consideration. Avar helms (the work of the Zirīhgārān), and their skill in making the chain armour attached to the typically oriental pointed helm that protected the neck, the ears and even much of the face, receives mention in the Slovo o polku Igoreve. The nape's protection by mail is termed šišak.
17 The Arabic text is that which is to be found in Sīrat ‘Antara b. Shaddād (Cairo, Būlāq edition), xix, BM Catalogue 14570, d.3. It is identical with the text that is found on pages 376 and 377 of the Sīra, published by Muṣṭafa Muḥammad Press (Cairo, n.d.).
18 The Arabic text is that printed in Ferrand, G., ‘Abū Ḥamid Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Raḥīm al-Andalusī al-Gharnaṭī, Tuḥfat al-albab’, Journal Asiatique, 207, 1925, 82–3Google Scholar. This passage is commented upon by W. Barthold and A. Bennigsen in their article on ‘Daghistan ‘, (2nd ed.), 85.
19 These peoples and localities in the Caucasus are identified by V. Minorsky, History of Sharvan and Darband. On Maslama b. ‘Abd al-Malik (confused with Abū Muslim), see, in particular, pp. 90f. where al-Gharnaṭī is specifically mentioned. On Ṭabarsaran, see pp. 92f. and passim; on Fīlān, pp. 100f. and passim; on Khaydāq, pp. 92–5 and passim; and on Qumīq (Ghumīq), pp. 96f. and passim.
20 No reference to the sword, or the ziyāra, of Maslama b. ‘Abd al-Malik is to be found in Bennigsen, Alexandre and Wimbush, S. Enders, Mystics and commissars: Sufism in the Soviet Union (London, 1985), 123–5Google Scholar, where the ziyārāt in Dagestan are discussed. The function of the sword of Maslama brings to mind the planting of the spear of ‘Uqba b. Nāfi’ on the site of the future holy city of al-Qayrawān in Tunisia. The relationship between Excalibur, the unity of the Round Table and the manufacture of weapons in the Arthurian cycle offers some similarities.
21 On the Zirīhgārān (Kubachi) in al-Mas‘ūdī, see Minorsky, , History of Sharvan and Darband, p. 155 in particularGoogle Scholar.
22 See al-Qazwīnī, Zakariyya’ b. Muhammad, Āthar al-bilad wa-akhbar al-‘ibad (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1960), 508Google Scholar, where the sword of Maslama is described, and 595–6, where the manufacture of weapons by the Zirīhgaran, and their disposal of the deceased, are recounted. In places, the text of al-Qazwīnī adds extra details which are not to be found in Abū Ḥamid's work.
On the text of Abū Ḥamid, and al-Qazwīnīi, in relation to Derbent and to the Zirīhgārān, see B. Von dorn, ‘Auszuge aus vierzehn morgenländischen Schriftstellern betreffend des Kapische Meer und angrendzende Länder’, and ‘Die Jetzigen Kubatschi: eine Erlauterung zu Abu Hamid al-Andalusys Nachrichten über diesen Volksstam’, Mélanges Asiatiques, Bulletin de I’ Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Petersburg, 1869–73, vi, 3/15, 1872, 685–716.
23 See above, n. 10.
24 Kazem-Beg, Mirza A., Derbend Nâmeh or the History of Derbend translated from a select Turkish version and published with the texts and with notes illustrative of the history, geography, antiquities, etc. occurring throughout the work (St. Petersburg, 1851), 111Google Scholar.
25 Kowalska, M., ‘The sources of al-Qazwīnī's Āthar al-bilad’, Folia Orientalia, viii, 1967, 41–88Google Scholar.
26 ibid., 75.
27 ibid., 86.
28 Further evidence for the latish date of Sīrat ‘Antar has recently been advanced by Khairallah, As'ad E. in ‘“The wine-cup of death”: war as a mystical way’, Quaderni di Studi Arabi, 8, 1990, 171–90Google Scholar. A reference to ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlanī (1077–1166) in a poem in the Sīra prompted him to remark (p. 181, n. 20) that the language of the poem points to a late composition and it is not impossible that the poet did not live before the Ottoman period.
29 Wansbrough, John, ‘Africa and the Arab geographers’, in Dalby, D. (ed.), Language and history in Africa (London, 1970), 89Google Scholar.