The Aesthetics of Narrative in Sukardān al-Sulṭān

Abstract

This study seeks to highlight the aesthetics of narrative in Sukardān al-Sulṭān by Ibn Abī Ḥajala al-Tilimsānī a book innovative in its subject and unique in its conception. Its central theme is the number seven, its distinctiveness, and its association with the region of Egypt. Through this work, its author succeeded in firmly establishing in readers’ minds the meaning he intended, by gathering under the sign of the number seven a wide array of information, reports, and stories that might otherwise have seemed disparate. He harmonized and unified them around this number.
The study aims to uncover the aesthetic dimensions of al-Sukardān by tracing certain narrative mechanisms: the threshold of the title, space, time, and characters. It also examines aesthetic features found in classical Arabic narrative, including the marvelous (ʿajāʾibī) and the technique of narrative embedding.