Portrait of an Eighth-Century Gentleman

Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Ph.D. (1994), is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies (University of Edinburgh). His most recent monographs are Al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar, Vol. V, Section 4: Persia and Its Kings, Part I (Brill, 2018) and Khwadāynāmag. The Middle Persian Book of Kings (Brill, 2018).

• PrefacePART 1: Study1 Khālid ibn Ṣafwān as a Historical Character1.1 Historical Context1.2 Sources1.3 Life and Political Importance1.4 Genealogy and Family1.5 Khālid’s Later Fame2 Khālid ibn Ṣafwān and Early Arabic Prose2.1 Linguistic and Literary Context2.2 Khālid as a Literary Character2.3 Stories and their Rhetorical Features2.4 Khālid as Storyteller and Transmitter of Poetry2.5 Anecdotes as Early ʿAbbāsid Prose2.6 Mufākhara and maḥāsin wa-masāwī2.7 Speeches2.8 The Literary Khālid: ConclusionsPART 2: Translations3 Stories from al-Balādhurī, Ansāb VII/1: 55–88 (B1–B115)4 Stories from Other Sources (A1–A108)4.1 Storyteller and Transmitter of Poetry4.2 Encounters with Caliphs and Governors4.3 Mufākharas and maḥāsin wa-masāwī4.4 Laḥḥān and Linguistic Authority4.5 Orator and Wit4.6 Family4.7 Miser4.8 Sayings4.9 Various Stories5 Stories Excluded from the Corpus (C1–C3)BibliographySource References to B1–B115Index of Personal NamesIndex of Place NamesIndex of Topics