Romance of ʿAntar

Arabic literature

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Romance of ʿAntar, tales of chivalry centred on the Arab desert poet and warrior ʿAntarah ibn Shaddād, one of the poets of the celebrated pre-Islamic collection Al-Muʿallaqāt.

(Read Sir Walter Scott’s 1824 Britannica essay on chivalry.)

Though the Romance of ʿAntar itself credits the 9th-century philologist al-Aṣmaʿī with its authorship, it was composed anonymously between the 11th and the 12th century. Written in rhymed prose (sajʿ) interspersed with 10,000 poetic verses, it is commonly divided into 32 books, each leaving the conclusion of a tale in suspense. The Romance relates the fabulous childhood of ʿAntar, son of an Arab king by a black slave girl, and the adventures he undertakes to attain the hand of his cousin ʿAblah in marriage. These take him beyond Arabia and his own time period to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Constantinople, Rome, and the Sudan; they bring him in contact with a Byzantine emperor and with Frankish, Spanish, and Roman kings. Though childless by ʿAblah, ʿAntar fathers several children, including two Crusaders, Ghadanfar (by the sister of the king of Rome) and Jufrān (by a Frankish princess).

The Romance of ʿAntar evolved out of a Bedouin tradition that stressed nobility of character and desert chivalry and of which ʿAntar was made the epitome. With the advent of Islam, it assumed a new outlook that reinterpreted ʿAntar as a precursor of the new religion. A strong Persian hand in the later authorship of the Romance—demonstrated by the detailed knowledge of Persian history and court life—then shows ʿAntar in Iran. The Romance finally incorporated European elements encountered among the Crusaders.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Richard Pallardy.