- Taghribat Bani Hilal
Taghribat Bani Hilal (تغريبة بني هلال, also known as Sirat Abu Zeid Al Hilali سيرة ابي زيد الهلالي) is an Arabic epic recounting the
Banu Hilal 's journey fromEgypt toTunisia and conquest of the latter.It was declared one of Mankind'sMasterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO in 2003.Historical background
The event of "Taghribat Bani Hilal" has a basis in history, when
Tunisia broke away from theFatimid empire in the 10th century.A
famine that hit Egypt for seven years. A similar famine has hitArabia and entire tribes moved with their families and animals from there toEgypt in search for food and pasture. SinceAl-Mustansir of Cairo , theFatimid Caliph inEgypt did not have enough resources to re-takeTunisia , he directed the tribes fromArabia to takeTunisia on his behalf.This way, no financial or human resources need to be put in by
Egypt directly, nor would they support theBanu Hilal . If inhabitants of oases betweenEgypt andTunisia got angered, their anger would not be directed to al-Mustansir.Effects
This crude political act had two major effects, one cultural, and the other literary.
As a result of Arabic-speaking tribes settling
Tunisia , this region became mainly Arabic speaking, and not Berber.Epic
The epic was inspired by these historic events.
In it, the Hilali leader
Abu Zayd al-Hilali 's rival isKhalifa al-Zanati , the hero of the tribe ofZenata . The war between theArab Banu Hilal and the BerberZenata is the main theme for the "Sirat" named after Abu Zeid. Another character featured in the epic isShehta (شحتة).The Sirat was initially carried orally and handed down from generation to generation often in
poem form viabard s, and then recorded later in many variants.The
Egypt ian poet and writerAbdel Rahman el-Abnoudi has done an exhaustive collection of the "Sirat" travelling fromEgypt toLibya toTunisia to document the variants of the epic.The epic used to be narrated by story tellers in cafes well into the 20th century, much like the
Baibars biography.ee also
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Arabic Epic Literature
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