Arabic-Islamic written tradition is filled with narratives of pre-Islamic characters and events. These narratives are often preserved through the oral tradition prior to being retold and renarrated by Muslim writers. This talk will present a number of early narratives involving figures identified as “khunthā” [intersex]. A number of those narratives retell a counter-intuitive resolution to an inheritance dispute by a legendary judge from ancient Arabia. These narratives have found afterlives in literary and religious discourses many generations after the judge and disputants. What do the retold narratives tell us about the authors who documented them? And what do the contexts of these retellings by different writers indicate about the purposes and questions these narratives were addressing?

Speaker
Saqer Almarri, Humanities Research Fellow, NYUAD

Moderated by
Maurice Pomerantz, Program Head, Arab Crossroads Studies; Associate Professor of Literature, NYUAD