Animal fables in the Sulwan al-Muta‘ by Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli

The present article offers and in-depth analysis of one of the masterpieces of Arabic literature, the Sulwān al-muṭāʿ fī ʿUdwān al-Atbāʿ (Waters of Comfort or Consolation for the Ruler during the Hostility of Subjects), by the twelfth-century adab writer Ibn Ẓafar al-Ṣiqillī (1104-1170 or 1172). The Sulwān al-muṭāʿ contains a significant number of “original” animal fables written by Ibn Ẓafar himself “in the style of the Kalīla wa-Dimna” adapting the historical narratives he quoted and paraphrased to the framework of the animal world. In order to switch from the historical to the fictional plan, Ibn Ẓafar depicted a sophisticated arrangement of the narrative and the non-narrative material within his work. The Sulwān al-muṭāʿ is only divided into five chapters (each of which offers remedial guidelines for the ruler), but which has many more inner layers of framing and cross-references forming a sort of telescopic structure. Placed in its center, the animal fables are pivotal both on the structural and on the theoretical level. They gave Ibn Ẓafar the possibility of adopting a new model of fictionality, which differed from that used by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and from the Maqāmāt. The article discusses various examples of pieces of fiction in which animals are protagonists taken from the Sulwān al-muṭāʿ.