The Qussas of Early Islam

Assistant Professor of History at the American University of Beirut Lyall R. Armstrong’s The Qussas of Early Islam is his first book and is based on his same-titled PhD thesis at the University of Chicago under Wadad Kadi. It is a heavily-documented defence of the early popular admonishers of Islam and revisionist typology of the genre of qasas (moral pep talks) building on his other mentor Merlin Swartz’s 1967 edition and translation of the genial Hanbali preacher Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jazwi’s al-Qussas wal-mudhakkirin. The latter was also written as an apology of the art of didactic storytelling through the practice of which, Ibn al-Jawzi boasted, ‘more than 100,000 men repented at my hands to date, and I cut off more than 10,000 long manes of idle boys, and more than 100,000 unbelievers became Muslim at my hands.’ Lyall’s book is divided into five highly detailed sections on textual evidence, the occupational types with whom didactic story-tellers relatedly associated, ‘Skills and Conduct’ of the qussas, a discussion whether they are conformists or innovators, and their activities during the Umayyad period, followed by a conclusion.