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Mystery, Magic and Morals: Looking at Themes and Ideas in Select Indian and Arabic Literature Aflah Zahoor

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Mystery, Magic and Morals: Looking at Themes and Ideas in Select Indian and Arabic Literature Aflah Zahoor International Journal of English, Literature and Social Sciences, 5(2) Available online: https://ijels.com/ Mystery, Magic and Morals: Looking at themes and ideas in select Indian and Arabic Literature Aflah Zahoor Abstract— Arabic and Indian literature and culture are known for their richness and can be traced back to ancient times. Yet these texts written long back, from being passed down orally to becoming bestselling books hold relevance in our lives today. Fairy tales, fables, stories have a major impact on the cognitive development of children and form the major component of children’s literature. Even adults find these stories, now even presented to us as series or movies fascinating. Indian and Arabic literature are rich in lingual and intellectual aspects, this paper looks at certain texts and tries to determine how they represent culture and ideology, reminding of cultural commonalities. Keywords— Arabian nights, Fantasy, Islam, Literature, Panchatantra. I. INTRODUCTION culture began developing in India which lead to wide access A direct quotation, often attributed to Einstein, runs: “If you to Arabic language and literature. Madrassas started want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If operating somewhere around this point with the main you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy purpose of inculcating the knowledge of Arabic for religious tales.” Indian and Arabic folk literature has mostly been read reasons but later acquired an important status in the entire in isolation rather than as something where one influences system of education. These madrassas produced major the other. Folk tales, orally passed from one generation to scholars in the field of Islamic religion and experts of another convey a moral and intellectual effect to the readers language and literature. Also, Arabic as a language in india is and listeners alike. This paper aims to look at the similarities important for the strengthening of the relationship between and differences between the folk literature of India as well as the two countries. Teaching of Arabic is focused on in india the Arabic tales. Focusing on some selected texts we will try for this very reason. Students having attained proper to see how these are stories we have all grown up listening to knowledge of the language futher are allotted good jobs in but never tried to critically look at and understand what the middle east and other Arabic speaking places. commonalities they have. This paper will attempt to look at Knowledge of the language also strengthens the cultural the origin of these folk tales and the purpose they serve, bonds with certain communities, so to say. placing the Arab and Indian texts parallel to one another. It “The rapid spread of the Islamic faith brought the original will also throw light on the social and cultural background of literary tradition of the Arabian Peninsula into contact with the places in question. We will examine how successful these many other cultural traditions—Byzantine, Persian, Indian, texts have been in the representation of the culture and Amazigh (Berber), and Andalusian, to name just a few— society. transforming and being transformed by all of them. At the turn of the 21st century, the powerful influence of the West tended to give such contacts a more one-sided directionality, II. SPREAD OF ARABIC LITERATURE IN but Arab litterateurs were constantly striving to find ways of INDIA combining the generic models and critical approaches of the From the very beginning Islam created waves across the world, further India was also under the rule of muslims. However , India was not part of the caliphate here as such but Turks and Mughals established sovereign powers in very less time and Delhi became the centre of their power. Arabic ISSN: 2456-7620 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.52.12 409 International Journal of English, Literature and Social Sciences, 5(2) Available online: https://ijels.com/ West with more indigenous sources of inspiration drawn included in French translation of the Tales by Antoine from their own literary heritage.”1 Galland who heard them being told by a traditional Arab storyteller and only existed in incomplete Arabic manuscripts before that. The other great character from Arabic literature, III. WRITINGS IN INDIA Sinbad, is from the Tales.The Thousand and One Nights is Writings from South Asia, particularly the indian usually placed in the genre of Arabic epic literature along subcontinent is known for the rich and diverse languages, with several other works. They are usually, like the Tales, including Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Bengali, Bihari, Gujarati, collections of short stories or episodes strung together into a Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, long tale. The extant versions were mostly written down Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Sindhi, among others, relatively late on, after the 14th century, although many were as well as in English. The term Indian literature is used here undoubtedly collected earlier and many of the original stories to refer to literature produced across the Indian subcontinent are probably pre-Islamic. Types of stories in these collections prior to the creation of the Republic of India in 1947 and include animal fables, proverbs, stories of jihad or within the Republic of India after 1947. propagation of the faith, humorous tales, moral tales, tales Literaturein India which set a benchmark in Indian writings about the wily con-man Ali Zaybaq and tales about the mainly consisted of Hindu sacred writings, known as the prankster Juha.The epic took form in the 10th century and Vedas, which wereoriginallywritten in Sanskrit. To the reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and Vedas were added referential texts in the prose form such as type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another.All the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. The production of Arabian fantasy tales were often called "Arabian Nights" Sanskrit literature extended from about 1500 BCE to about when translated into English, regardless of whether they 1000 CE and reached its height of development in the 1st to appeared in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, in 7th centuries CE. In addition to sacred and philosophical any version, and a number of tales are known in Europe as 2 writings, such genres as erotic and devotional lyrics, court "Arabian Nights" despite existing in no Arabic manuscript.” poetry, plays, and narrative folktales emerged. The art of creativity which is dominant in the story telling of India’s multiple languages have enriched it in many ways the One Thousand and One Nights has time and again tickled and this gift has acted as a boon to the literary production in the thoughts of many. It is perhaps the greatest gift of Arabic the country, with varying cultures and ways of life ideas that literature to the whole world, in all its forms, genres and are totally unique emerging from different parts of the themes. It has influenced other forms of art, literature, music, country, making India a country rich and varied in literature. cinema etc and does so even now. The stories the Queen Fantasy literature has not been much of a focus in recent narrates to the king are full of twists and turns and have times but older fables and tales continue to have a major found place in various adaptations. Almost everyone is place in the genre. Children grow up reading Aesop’s fables, aware of the stories of Ali Baba, Alladin, Sindbad etc. These Harry Potter and the like while in India we keep going back stories become a beautiful part of almost everyone’s to Panchatantra and Vikramaditya’s tales of wisdom which childhood. These tales later fascinated the west have set a benchmark in the genre of fantasy in India. “The first complete translation was done by Antoine Galland into French in the early 18th century, later, many European translations would follow in various languages, including IV. THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS English, French, German, and practically every other “The One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) is language, the most well-known being Sir Richard Burton’s easily the best known of all Arabic literature and which still 16 volume, “The Thousand Nights and a Night” in 1885- shapes many of the ideas non-Arabs have about Arabic 1888. This epic has been influential in the West since culture. The stories of Aladdin and Ali Baba, usually Galland’s translations. Many imitations were written, regarded as part of the Tales from One Thousand and One especially in France. Various characters from this epic have Nights, were not actually part of the Tales. They were first themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sindbad and Ali Baba. Part of its popularity may 1 Roger Allen, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/31722/Arabic- literature 2Arabic epic literature,World Heritage Encyclopedia ISSN: 2456-7620 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.52.12 410 International Journal of English, Literature and Social Sciences, 5(2) Available online: https://ijels.com/ have sprung from the increasing historical and geographical prosperity. Art and music also flourished significantly during knowledge, so that places of which little was known and so his reign. It was even said that the dome of his palace in marvels were plausible had to be set further "long ago" or Baghdad was capped with a bronze horseman, whose lance farther "far away"; this is a process that continues, and pointed in the direction from which enemy invasion might be finally culminate in the fantasy world having little expected. From this period was the beginnings of what we connection, if any, to actual times and places.
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