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The Arabic Shadow Play in Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Paul Kahle
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Extract

At the beginning of this century shadow plays were sometimes performed in Egypt, but not very often. They had latterly become chiefly an entertainment for the lower classes, and because of the drastic comedy of these plays the Government took steps to suppress them. But we know that these shadow plays had a long history in Egypt, and have been performed also for the higher and highest classes. It is reported,1 for instance, that the well-known Sultan Saladin (died 1193) with his Wazir al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, was present at the performance of those plays; that the Turkish Sultan Selīm I, who in 1517 conquered Egypt, amused himself by seeing a performance of the shadow play. In recent times, the Khedive Taufīq Pasha (1879–1892) liked to see such representations. I myself possess some shadow play figures especially made for performances before him.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , January 1940 , pp. 21 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1940

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References

page 21 note 1 , Ghuzūlī, Matāli' al-budūr, i, 78 f.Google Scholar, also quoted by Ibn Ḥijje, Thamarāt al-aurāq, cf. Jacob, G., Geschichte des Schattentheaters im Morgen-und Abendland, Hannover, 1925, p. 52Google Scholar.

page 21 note 2 Cf. Kahle, P., Zur Geschichte des arabischen Schattentheaters in Âgypten, Leipzig, 1909, p. 2, Anm. 1Google Scholar.

page 21 note 3 Cf. Jacob, Georg, Geschichte des Schattentheaters …, p. 102 fGoogle Scholar.

page 22 note 1 Cf. my publications, Zur Geschichte des Schattentheaters, Leipzig, 1909, p. 16 fGoogle Scholar. Der Leuchtturm von Alexandria. Ein arabisches Schattentheater aus dem mittelalterlichen Ägypten, Stuttgart, 1930, pp. 4*–8*Google Scholar. Cf. Das Krokodilspiel (Li'b et-timsāḥ) ein egyptisches Schattenspiel; Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Göttingen, 1915Google Scholar, Nachtrag, 1920.

page 23 note 2 Cf. my publication, “Islamische Schattenspielfiguren aus Ägypten,” Der Islam, vol. i (1910), pp. 264–299Google Scholar; ii (1911), pp. 143–195; cf. Orientalisches Archiv, iii (1912), pp. 103 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 22 note 22 The weapon is that of a jamdār, and as L. A. Mayer, of Jerusalem, told me, figures with this weapon cannot be older than 1290, and not later than 1370. Cf. Der Lenchiturm von Alexandria, p. 10*.

page 23 note 1 Muhammad ibn Dânijâl, Al-Mutaijam, ein altarabisches Schauspiel für die Schattenbühne bestimmt, Erste Mitteilung über das Werk, von Georg Jacob, Erlangen, 1901.

page 24 note 1 Mentioned in the “Bibliographie” in his Geschichte des Schattentheaters, p. 230 f.

page 25 note 1 “Ein ägyptischer Jahrmarkt im 13. Jahrhundert,” Sitzungsberichte der Milnchener Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1910, 10. Abhandlung.

page 26 note 1 Ibn Iyās, i, 107. Jacob has published the text with a German translation in my book Der Leuchtturm von Alexandria, pp. 00 – 0ℸ, 73–6.