Annon: Sirat Bani Hilal; Depic of the Hilal Tribe (14th)
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Taken from: Sirat Bani Hilal; From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Al-Sirah al-Hilaliyyah, or Sirat Bani Hilal or the al-Hilali epic, is an Arabic epic oral poem that recounts the tale of the journey of the Bedouin tribe of the Banu Hilal from Najd (1) in Arabia to Tunisia and Algeria via Egypt. It is built around historical events that took place in the 11th century. Zirid (2) Tunisia broke away from the Fatimid (3) empire in the 11th century. Early sources describe how the Fatimid Caliph sent the Banu Hilal to central North Africa lands to punish the Zirids for rebelling. The Banu Hilal were dominant in central North Africa for over a century before their annihilation by the Almohads (4). The epic is performed since the 14th century, not having been committed to writing until relatively recent times.
Taken from: Sirat Bani Hilal: Introduction and Notes to an Arab Oral Epic Tradition by Dwight F. Reynolds
Abu Zayd, is the primary hero of the Bani Hilal. Crafty and cunning, he often prefers to avoid battle through ruses and trickery. His deceptions frequently skirt the borderline between honorable and dishonorable behavior. Furthermore, he is black and is often mistaken by outsiders for a mere slave, which allows him at many points to travel disguised as an epic poet (5) into enemy territory.
Dhiyab (12), leader of the Zughba clan, is the most powerful warrior of the Bani Hilal confederation, and it is by his hand that the tribe’s ultimate foe, al-Zanati Khalifa (10), is fated to die. However, he is hot-blooded, easily slighted, and very touchy on points of honor. Though he is rash and often a source of conflict, the tribe must endure his behavior for only he can slay al-Zanati.
Sulṭan Hasan (11) is the dignified arbitrator, the mediator of tribal tensions among the Bani Hilal. More devout than the younger heroes, Abu Zayd and Dhiyab, he is also the statesman of the tribe in dealings with outsiders.
Al-Zanati Khalifa (10), leader of the Berbers of North Africa, is the foe the Bani Hilal must defeat in order to rule Ifriqiya (6). In Egypt, in the sira (=epic) al-Zanati murders seventy descendants of the Prophet in a mosque in Mecca while they are at prayer. Other poets make him into a tragic figure struggling against Dhiyab.
One idealized woman, al-Jazya, the most beautiful and wisest woman in the world. And not a few times carries the fate of the entire tribe in her hands when she is married off to an opponent to gain pasturage and safe passage for the tribe, then escaping so that she may rejoin the tribe on their westward journey.
Taken from: AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A HERO IN THE "SIRAT BANI HILAL": ABU ZAYD AS A SCHOOLBOY by ARIE SCHIPPERS.
Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 22 (83), Nr. 2, Studies on Arabic Epics (2003).
The tribal element is very strong. Therefore the contrast between unofficial and institutional Islam, between slave and free man, between black-skinned and white-skinned people, is emphasised notwithstanding the officially egalitarian Islam. The blackness of the reciters and audiences in Upper Egypt as well as the blackness of their heroes is not to be considered inferior — as it is in normal Arab life — but as superior. In Arabic epics there are a number of black heroes who convert the ‘natural’ inferiority of blackness and slavery into superiority and whiteness. So there is a polarity in some of these Sirah (=epic) tales which underlines that black heroes such as Abu Zayd, Antarah (7) and Sayf ibn Di Yazan (8), although they are black-skinned, are capable of noble and courageous exploits and are ‘white’ in as far as their noble heart is concerned. Thus in one of the recitals, Abu Zayd says to his stallion: You are black and I am black, but our honour is whiter than a turban, thus confirming that white is the superior colour.
On the other hand, we may find a similar polarity in epic tales such as the Sirat Dat al-Himmah (9); Abu Zayd, unlike the rest of his people (the Bedouins or Arabs of Banu Hilal), was born black and as a consequence he suffered, just as his mother suffered because she was accused of adultery. He was forced to grow up away from his father and the land of his paternal ancestors, and yet he came to be more valiant and worthy than others who did not have his blackness and did not suffer because of their colour.
Taken from: Abu Zayd al-Hilali: Trickster, Womanizer, Warrior, Shaykh by Dwight Reynolds 2018, Journal of Arabic Literature 49 (2018): 78-103.
Abu Zayd al-Hilali, the black hero of the Bani Hilal tribe. Abu Zayd, it is argued here, combines many of the features of the classic hero, as well as characteristics of the Trickster figures. He is at times the chivalrous hero, a model of manly virtues, but also capable of cunning and deceptive behavior that borders on the dishonorable, and in a few infamous scenes he kills innocent people and tells outright lies to cover his tracks, leaving modern audiences baffled and conflicted. At the same time, however, Abu Zayd is the character with whom modern Egyptian audiences most clearly identify: a black hero denigrated for his skin color, capable of great deeds of heroism, chivalry, and religious devotion, as well as acts of an intensely transgressive nature.
Abu Zayd al-Hilali has killed al-Zanati Khalifah (10) and conquered Tunis: Hasan (11) has died and Dhiyab (12) is accused of murdering him; Abu Zayd has gone blind from weeping over the death of his friend; and the tribe has split into two warring camps. In the final scenes al-Jazyah leads the blind Abu Zayd at the head of an army of orphans whose fathers have been killed in the earlier fighting into battle against the opposing army led by Dhiyab. The fighting is so fierce that at the end of the day, no male “old enough to herd sheep” is left alive, and the tribe ceases to exist.
Sirat Bani Hilal is remarkably frank about issues of skin-color and prejudice. Wherever Abu Zayd travels, he is often mistaken for a slave and treated disparagingly and even with contempt. His skin color is the subject of insults and jeers. Eventually, of course, the lowly black ‘slave’ is revealed to be in fact the famous hero, Abu Zayd, to cheers and laughter from audience members. Indeed, part of the strong identification of rural audiences with the hero Abu Zayd seems to be linked specifically to this dynamic of reversal. Abu Zayd is at first judged by his skin color, assumed to be a lowly slave, and is treated disparagingly by figures in authority and those who think themselves his betters. But the hero’s cleverness and/or prowess later causes those around him to reverse their initial prejudices and view him as a hero, often offering him their abject apologies at the moment of transformation. Egyptian rural people know what it is like to be judged by their appearances by people who deem them to be inferior, for their clothing and often their skin color set them apart from the western-garbed, lighter-skinned, urban upper classes, the affandiyah or effendis (13). When it comes to physical strength, endurance, forbearance of pain, and cleverness, however, the “peasants” (fellaḥin) construe themselves.
Taken from: ON BLACKNESS IN ARABIC POPULAR LITERATURE: THE BLACK HEROES OF THE SIYAR SHABIYYA, THEIR CONCEPTIONS, CONTESTS, AND CONTEXTS by RACHEL NICOLE SCHINE.
The most common explanation given for the blackness of Abu Zayd is that when his mother saw a black bird chasing away all other birds she prayed that her child would be like this bird.
At least one printed version of the sira (epic) foregrounds this event with a warning dispensed from Khadra’s (=mother of Abu Zayd) father to her future husband, Rizq, about the prospect that Khadra’ might bear black offspring. Qirda cautions that Khadra’s grandparents were “black like slaves,” adding that Rizq should not interpret the dark skin of his future children as a sign of anything untoward, but rather as a reemergence of her grandparents’ traits. Rizq—having been shamed and worked up into a lather over his child’s possible illegitimacy by his fellow tribal chief, Sarḥan—does not heed this warning.
Perhaps the most remarkable of them lies at the interstice between two facts that the story provides, namely that Khadra’ is a sharifa, a term that simply
means “honorable,” but here also connotes a descendant of the Prophet Muḥammad, and that she had black grandparents. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the prophet Muḥammad has at least
one line of descent in which the people are of mixed, part-black heritage. Such a conclusion not only bolsters Abu Zayd’s legitimacy as a black sharif, but also historicizes black membership in
the Muslim world by placing black people at the very core of its earliest ancestral community of believers.
(1) Najd in Arabia: Najd is the central region of Saudi Arabia.
(2) Zirid Tunisia: The Zirid dynasty was a Berber dynasty from what is now Algeria which ruled the central Maghreb from 972 to 1014 and Ifriqiya (eastern Maghreb) from 972 to 1148.
(3) Fatimid: Fatimid dynasty was an Ismaili Shia caliphate of the 10th to the 12th centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa.
(4) Almohad: Abd al-Mu'min: (c. 1094–1163) was the founder of the Almohad dynasty and creator of the Empire (North Africa + Andalus).
(5) an epic poet: The black raven poets (=Black poets) were famous in the early centuries of Islam.
(6) Ifriqiya: was the area of eastern Algeria, present-day Tunisia and Tripolitania (today's western Libya).
(7) Antarah: Antarah ibn Shaddad al-Absi; (525-608) a pre-Islamic Arab knight and poet. Born in Najd in Arabia. He grew up a slave and is described as an Arab crow owing to his dark complexion. See my webpage on Asmaee: Sirat Antar ibn Shaddad; (The Romance of Antar) (around 800).
(8) Sayf ibn Di Yazan: see my webpage on Ann: Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan (15th).
(9) Sirat Dat al-Himmah: see my webpage on Sirat Delhemma (Story of Lady Delhemma) (about 1100 and later additions).
(10) Al- Zanati Khalifa, leader of the Berbers of North Africa, is the foe the Bani Hilal must defeat in order to rule Ifriqiya.
(11) Sulṭan Hasan is the dignified arbitrator, the mediator of tribal tensions among the Bani Hilal.
(12) Dhiyab, leader of the Zughba clan, is the most powerful warrior of the Bani Hilal.
(13) affandiyah or effendis: a man of property, authority, or education in an eastern Mediterranean country.