Ash'ab, the king of parasites

Author's name: Tawfiq Al-Hakim

The Arabs saw the highest art in brevity, that is, concentration, while the West sees the richest art in prolixity, that is, analysis. If we could reconcile the two theories and combine the two arts, the result would be more complete and the benefit more general. This is what I took upon myself when I wrote this book in 1938 within that framework that presents us with an image of Arab society at that time, in which we can almost touch traces of affinity with what we see today in some neighborhoods of our cities and the customs of our society. The landlord and the tenant and the relationship between them... the bathhouse and its customers, the barber and his character... all those pictures of social life as they appeared in ancient Arabic literature appealed to me, from the characters and individuals that I decided to highlight alongside the character of “Ash’ab.” So I followed his footsteps and inhaled his news, and I began to collect his anecdotes from the books of the ancients, mixing, blending, and concocting them. I brought meat, vegetables, spices and peppers from the shops of four famous people: Al-Jahiz, Ibn Abd Rabbih, Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi and Badi' Al-Zaman. I was truly amazed and made salivate by the delicious and unique dishes I found there. So I filled my hands with the best I had selected and went with it to an artistic kitchen, where I mixed and blended it into a single dough, from which I created this connected story. - Tawfiq Al-Hakim