SOURCE: Beeston, A. F. L. “Al-Hamadhānī, Al-Harīrī and the Maqāmāt Genre.” In ‘Abbasid Belles-Lettres, edited by Julia Ashtiany, T. M. Johnstone, J. D. Latham, R. B. Serjeant, and G. Rex Smith, pp. 125-35. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Beeston examines the Maqāmāt genre and al-Harīrī's contribution to it.

The telling and hearing of anecdotes has been a favourite pastime in all ages and places: round the bedouin camp-fire, in the literary salons of ‘Abbasid Baghdad, in the English public house and over the after-dinner port. The nature of an anecdote varies enormously. In length it may range from the retailing of the briefest piece of repartee, to what is virtually a short story; in content it may deal with a humorous or pithy saying, a remarkable event, a piece of literary criticism, a riddle, or even...