Examining the sources of the story "Slave eats fruit with her king" and the analysis of its narrative elements in Arabic and Persian literature

Subject Areas : شعر

Seyyed Mohammad Reza Ibnorrasool ¹ , maryam kalantari ² , somaye Hassanalian ³

1 - Department of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Isfahan
2 - university of esfahan
3 - university of esfahan

Received: 2023-09-20 Accepted : 2024-06-18 Published : 2024-04-27

Keywords: Finding the Sources, Educational Literature, King, Slave, Elements of the Story,

Abstract :

The story of "Slave eats fruit with her king" is among the educational stories that examples of its prose and verse can be found in Arabic and Persian literature .The oldest source of this narration is related to Arabic literature in the book "Al-imtāʿ wa al-muʾānasaẗ"of Abu Hayyan Al-Tawhidi (4th century). After that, examples of Arabic and Persian prose and verse have mentioned it until the end of the ninth century. Rumi and Attar have also recreated the verse of this narrative in Persian literature in a creative way.This story which has mentioned in two different narratives leads to the same moral conclusion which is "loyalty and commitment". Therefore, examining the sources of this story not only acquaints posterity with the experiences of different ethnic groups, but also preserves and records the culture and history of the predecessors .This study not only finds the sources and compares the Arabic and Persian sources of the narrative, but also examines its narrative elements such as theme, plot, character, dialogue, perspective and scene, and identifies how Persian verse sources are similar to the old Arabic sources. The most important results of this study which is based on comparative analogy is that, the theme of the story is the same in all the Arabic and Persian sources, and Persian verse anecdotes have arranged the same theme with a different structure with the inspiration of ancient sources.