In this talk, Enass Khansa (Research Fellow, Library of Arabic Literature) will look at a premodern anonymous collection of fourteen tales on kingship, magic and love, believed to be from al-Andalus. It survived in a single manuscript under the title Kitāb fīhi ḥadīth Ziyād ibn Āmir al-Kinānī (A Book with the tale of Ziyād Son of ‘Āmir al-Kinānī). A series of independent tales, the collection sustains a dense network of shared motifs, images and attitudes, anchored in an exploration of interstitial states — different modes of transportation and transformation.

The collection received limited attention, and was initially framed within the Iberian Chivalric Romances (12th-13th c.), within the sīra and ayyām al-‘Arab narratives, and briefly, within the literary court of the Umayyad Chancellor Almanzor in Córdoba (late 10th c.). The talk explores how the collection shares elements with A Hundred and One Nights, The Thousand and One Nights, and a particular popular tale that circulated in Egypt in the late 14th century.

In Person (NYUAD Campus) and on Zoom

The seminar is open to the NYUAD community and by invitation. Registration has closed.