The Arabic Novel: An Overview of the History and Evolution of the Genre

Abstract

When we talk about the novel in Arabic literature, we can certainly find it in classical Arabic literature along with various other forms of literature. The Arabic novel passed through different periods such as the Pre-Islamic period, the Umayyad era, the Abbasid era, and the Modern era, but in the Pre-Islamic era, it was not known as the novel because it was not an art form. But as time passed, the concept of the novel gradually came to people's minds. Many things have been written in this form of literature, for example, the (إخوان الصفاء), Kalila and Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffa, the Maqamat of Hamzani and Hariri, the Hadith Issa ibn Hisham by Muhammad al-Mawili etc. But it wasn't an art form. Its real development began when Rifa'a Al-Tahtawi translated the French novel "The Adventures of Telemac" by the artist Fenlon. Then a lot of Arab writers went to Europe and translated European literature into Arabic literature, for example. Mustafa Lutfi Al-Manfaluti. Then in 1913 when "Zeinab"(زينب) came to Hussein Haykal, almost all critics of Arabic literature agreed that this novel was in real form. Then, after a lot of novels, came many great novelists in Arabic literature who contributed to this form of literature (the novel), for example, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Naguib Mahfouz, Najib al-Kilani, Ali Ahmed Bakathir, etc.