Le salaud maleureux: Rire et dérision dans un texte oriental du moyen âge

Ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310), a poet from Mosul who emigrated to Cairo after the Mongol conquest, practiced his profession as an oculist in the city market, but his fortune began to turn when his verses gained the sympathy of certain Mamluk princes who appreciated, and tolerated, his sharp satirical wit. The text that made him famous is a work for shadow theatre, of which the protagonist of the first bāba, the prince of the union (Amīr Wiṣāl), is presented here, likely a parody of an emir known to the author.