![]() In Persia, on the other hand, narration has always been fully accepted as a form of polite literature. ![]() In classical Arabic literature this led to the virtual exclusion of the narrative, although the Arabs did produce a rich novelistic literature of a semi-popular kind. ![]() However, in the literatures of the Muslims in general, a tendency may be noticed to disapprove of fiction if it could not be linked to what was considered to be historical fact, which of course included sacred traditions like the stories told in the Koran, the lives of prophets and Sufi saints, and legendary accounts of ancient history. The concept of “fictionality,” in the sense of narrative not based on reality, was not much discussed in traditional criticism. Other terms, like afsāna (most often used in the sense of a fairy tale) and rewāyat, were also used in classical literature, but without much consistency. The Arabic words ḥekāyat and qeṣṣa are usually restricted to short anecdotes and tales which were used as illustrations in didactical works (on the original meanings of these Arabic terms see Pellat, p. In modern usage the word came to mean a novel or a short story ( dāstān-e kūtāh). In the Šāh-nāma the major stories are called dāstāns, and the same term serves in later narrative poetry to indicate the actual story as opposed to the introductory sections (usually designated as āḡāz-e dāstān). The general Persian word for a narrative is dāstān (q.v.). Excluded from this survey are folklore and fairy tales, unless they play a part in classical works. This article deals with all kinds of stories written for specifically literary purposes up to the time when narrative prose in the modern style, derived from the West, was introduced in Persia. ![]()
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