Representing Events in Ancient Arabic Narrative The News of the Thieves as a Model

Abstract

The news of thieves has not received significant attention from contemporary researchers. Given the clear importance of news in general, and specifically the news of thieves, in ancient Arabic literature, these accounts garnered noticeable interest from historians, narrators, and classical authors. We find that there are books dedicated to thieves by renowned writers such as Al-Jahiz (d. 255 AH) and Al-Sukkari (d. 275 AH). Since news is a part of ancient Arabic literature, it has played a dominant role in transmitting literary and historical knowledge. As the news of thieves is considered a form of this genre and has been overlooked by contemporary scholars, it becomes necessary to study it scientifically, focusing on its artistic formulation and literary representation in ancient times. This research aims to uncover the artistic and narrative structure of events within these accounts..