“THE LIFE OF MUḤAMMAD” BY IBN ISḤĀQ — IBN HISHĀM: BETWEEN HISTORIOGRAPHY AND LITERATURE
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
The article examines correlations of historiographical and literary aspects within the seminal text of Arabic classics “The Life of the Prophet” (Al-sīra al-Nabawiyya ) by Ibn Isḥāq – Ibn Hishām. We build our analysis around Al-sīra by placing it against two essential elements of pre-Islamic and early Islamic lore of the Arabs; namely, the accounts of tribal battle clashes knows as ayyām al-ʻarab (the days of the Arabs) and khabars (i.e. “tidings,” “news,” “reports”), which contain information of historical, biographical, or amusing nature. Our analysis shows that the content and some operative specifcs of the ayyām al-ʻarab and khabars were brought to bear upon the narrative of Al-sīra and helped to establish its intermediate position between a work of literature and a historiography. Thus, “The Life of the Prophet” employs different modes of viewing reality — from historiographical methods of chronicling events (which look back to khabars) to literary techniques of coloring these events and putting them into a coherent narrative form (which are genetically similar to ayyām al-ʻarab). By retrospectively observing the Ibn Isḥāq – Ibn Hishām writing against the ayyām al-ʻarab and khabars in the light of the achievements of modern historiography, we may venture certain conclusions. The work of Ibn Isḥāq — Ibn Hishām, as well as the works of Arabic historians written over a century later, extensively drew upon the days of the Arabs and khabars. It is to these mainstays of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic lore that “The Life of the Prophet” is indebted in manner and form: it looms large between historiography and literature; it brings together two different tendencies — a search after documentary precision and after artistic and coherent depiction of the narrated events.
Authors and Affiliations
Alexander B. Kudelin
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26080
- DOI 10.22455/ 2500-4247-2016-1-1-2-91-107
- Views 670
- Downloads 41
TOWARDS THE DESCRIPTION OF “PHILOLOGICAL TRANSLATION” IN THE 1930s: ADRIAN A. FRANKOVSKY AS TRANSLATOR OF THE 18th CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL
The first part of the article describes the phenomenon of “philological translation” in the Soviet culture of the 1930s and, in particular, translations of the 18 th century English novels by Adrian A. Frankovsky. Within...
AUTOBIOGRAPHY VS PHOTOGRAPHY AND MEMOIR VS CARICATURE AS FORMS OF PRESERVING THE AUTHOR’S MEMORY (DMITRY S. MEREZHKOVSKY)
The essay focuses on visual images as one of the means of the writer’s reception on the example of such forms of preserving memory about Dmitry S. Merezhkovsky as autobiography and photography, on the one hand, and mem...
Gorky’s Editorial Project The History of the Civil War: On the Materials of the A.M. Gorky (IWL RAS) and RGASPI Archives
The article focuses on the history of Maksim Gorky’s design — the publication of the History of the Civil War volumes. The analysis of Gorky’s correspondence (1929–1930) from the A.M. Gorky archives (IWL RAS) reveals t...
Poetics of Octavio Paz’s The Violent Season
The poetics of Octavio Paz’s book The Violent Season (1958) is in great part defined by its autobiographical canvas: the sequence of the 9 poems that compose the lyrical series corresponds chronologically and geographi...
THE MOTIF OF THE STAGE PLAY IN THE 19th CENTURY AUSTRIAN FICTION
The article discusses the evolution of the stage play motif in the Austrian fction during the 19th Century. Occupying a special place in the Austrian culture, theater becomes a peculiar form of conceptualizing the most...