Some Notes on Women in Classical Arabic Literary Tradition

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role and image of women in an adab-monograph, viz. the Kitāb Aḫbār an-nisāʾ of Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya, leaving aside the problem whether the work is rightly attributed to him or not. The book is by no means ingenious – it is mainly compiled from highly popular sources such as ʿUyūn al-aḫbār of Ibn Qutayba and Kitāb al-Aġānī of Abū l-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī – but its size is convenient for this analysis and the book may well be looked upon as a typical representative of this genre.