Al-ʼawāʼil in Arabic Literature

Literary-Historical and Genre Determinants

Abstract

As beings seeking knowledge, from time immemorial people have asked many questions about beginnings and origins, and over time this resulted in literary/ prose forms that sometimes entirely and sometimes partly dealt with origins and beginnings. The desire to discover the beginnings and original roots of things and events is considered to be deeply embedded in the historical and cultural memory of Semitic peoples, including Arabs. This paper aims to present and analyse this type of prose form in classical Arabic literature and indicate its main literary-historical and genre determinants.