The Motifs Of The Kinds Of The Magial Things An Applied Study On The Sira of Saif Ibn ZiYazan

Faraj Al Fakhrani (Egypt)

The researcher of the oral literature is directed towards approving the resemblance and blending the heritage of the different nations in different levels. This explains the thesis that the traditional expression could only be understood in its relation with another one.

Dof  Noi, Haiim Schwarzbom, Olrich Marzolf and Hida Jason all of them have built on this thesis their researches about the element of oral literature to reconstruct the broken mosaic which peaces have scattered between the nations. My major target in the classification of the Sira of Ibn Dhi Yazan is to arrange the elements of the Sira in a logical classification. Moreover, I have tried my best to locate the elements in the appropriate places after making the motif consistent with the index. The Sira narrates the life of the king Saif Ibn Dhi Yazan in more than 2000 pages. The Sira moreover, shows the mythological and historical life of the protagonist who is referred to in Islamic annals as a hero.  According to these annals Ibn Dhi Yazan is the Yamani Prince and the leader of the armies of the Arabs who dismissed, the Abyssinians from the Yemen with the help of the Persians in the second half of 5th A.C.  The Sira covers the history of the Arabs in Egypt, and it covers for generations the latest of which shows Ibn Dhi Yazan as a grandfather for more than thirty years.  The Sira starts from an unknown centre, possibly lies in the eastern south towards east Africa coast and ends in the river Nile in Egypt.  Ibn Dhi Yazan travels before Islam from Yemen to Syria accompanied by his brilliant and faithful minister Yathrib. During this trip Dhi Yazan defeat Baalaback, one of the Syrian kings, and then Ibn Dhi Yazan crosses the Dead Sea where he finds the city of al Hamra on the coast of Abyssinia and Sudan. This illustrates the relation between al Hamra and al Door, the capital of Abyssinia. The hero Saif Ibn Dhi Yazan starts a difficult mission, to find the book of the Nile which is available somewhere in Abyssinia. It is the secret book of the Nile which shows the real geography of the place. Most of the names of the book and the place names mentioned in the Sira are identical with the names of the towns which lie along the banks of the Nile. Ibn Dhi Yazan finds the book with which he could make the Nile flows through Egypt, otherwise it is blocked in Abyssinia. It is only after Dhi Yazan has found the book the Nile restarts flowing to the Mediterranean establishing a new country. This country Dhi Yazan gives it the name of Misr after his eldest son whom he nominated the king of the country.