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To eat or not to eat elephant: a travelling story in Arabic and Persian literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2003

GEERT JAN VAN GELDER
GEERT JAN VAN GELDER
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Abstract

A traveller in distress vows to God, piously but apparently pointlessly, that he will never eat elephant flesh. Subsequently, the oath would seem to be his perdition, yet in the end he is saved because of it, unlike his fellow travellers. This entertaining story is told by al-Tanūkhī (d. 384/994) in two almost identical versions. It is also found in other sources, both Arabic and Persian, among them translations or adaptations of al-Tanūkh¯ (by ‘Awfī and Dihistānī), works on lives of the Sufis (Abū Nu‘aym, Jāmī), a travelogue (Ibn Baūa), anthologies (al-Damīrī, al-‘Āmilī), and a collection of mystical and moral tales in verse (Rūmī). These versions, spanning at least six centuries, differ in the name of the protagonist, plot, language, style, length, ‘outlook’, and quality. In general, it will be argued, travelling has done the story little good: unlike al-Tanūkhī's tale, its beginning is happier than its ending.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , October 2003 , pp. 419 - 430
Copyright
© School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2003

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Footnotes

I am grateful for the remarks of the participants of the workshop on ‘Genre ideologies and narrative transformation: travelling stories’ (London, SOAS, 8–10 April 2002); and I am much indebted to Ulrich Marzolph (Göttingen) for correcting several mistakes and providing useful additions.