Year: 2020
Type: book-review
Abstract: T his volume is the first installment of a complete edition and translation of al-Tanūkhī's al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda by Julia Bray, the Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, and contains the first three of the fourteen chapters of the work.The edition, Bray notes (p.xxiii), adopts "the substance of al-Shāljī's text." 1 She has examined several manuscripts that were not consulted by al-Shāljī, but as she points out, for this volume they yielded only a small number of variants or additions."In subsequent volumes, the proportion will be higher" (p.xxiv).This, I think, will come from the increasing complexity of the stories in the later chapters.Published by the Library of Arabic Literature, with the Arabic and the English printed in clear type on facing 1. Al-Muḥassin b. ʿAlī al-Tanūkhī, al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda, ed.ʿAbbūd al-Shāljī, 5 vols.(Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1978).pages, the book is a pleasure to hold in one's hands.The translation is dazzling.Brimming with life, the Faraj is by far the most enjoyable Abbasid collection of anecdotes.It is also a rich source for the history of Abbasid society and administration, and for the study of Arabic narratology.Because of al-Tanūkhī's ground plan for the book, the first two chapters are devoted largely, although not exclusively, to brief or elaborate recommendations of trust in God's mercy, Qurʾanic verses and prayers guaranteed to rescue believers from a tight spot, and exemplary stories of the religious worthies of the past.The third chapter contains anecdotes of menace and deliverance experienced by characters entangled in the social and political realities of Abbasid society, offering the reader a narrative thrill and a taste of the volumes to come.
Source: Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta
Author: András Hámori
Institution: Princeton University
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3172129599