In has long been known that the chronological scheme commonly transmitted by the early Arabic sources for events of the latter half of the sixth century A.D. poses a number of major problems. These are sufficiently important to raise serious doubts about the reliability of the traditional chronological framework for the last years of the Jāhilīya in general. A key problem is that of the date for 'Ām al-fīl, the ‘Year of the Elephant’, so called after the expedition of Abraha into the Hijāz in that year. The early Arabic literary tradition does not specifically date this event: it simply maintains, first, that Muammad was born in the Year of the Elephant, and second, that he was summoned to act as God's Prophet at the age of forty. Considered together, the many reports to this effect imply―based on the prevailing view that the mab'ath is to be dated to approximately A.D. 610―that both the expedition of Abraha and the birth of Muhammad occurred in about A.D. 570.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0041977X00049016

Abraha and Muhammad: some observations apropos of chronology and literary topoi in the early Arabic historical tradition

There is an unbroken continuity in African verbal art forms, from interacting oral genres to such literary productions as the novel and poetry. The strength of the oral tradition seems not to have abated; through three literary periods, a reciprocal linkage has worked these media into a unique art form against which potent influences from East and West have proved unequal. Vital to African literature is the relationship between the oral and written word; in seemingly insignificant interstices have flourished such shadowy literary figures as Egyptian scribes, Hausa and Swahili copyists and memorizers, and contemporary writers of popular novellas, all playing crucial transitional roles in their respective literatures. The oral tale is not “the childhood of fiction” (Macculloch, 1905), but the early literary traditions were beneficiaries of the oral genres, and there is no doubt that the epic and its hero are the predecessors of the African novel and its central characters. The African oral tradition distills the essences of human experiences, shaping them into rememberable, readily retrievable images of broad applicability with an extraordinary potential for eliciting emotional responses. These are removed from their historical contexts so that performers may recontextualize them in artistic forms. The oral arts, containing this sensory residue of past cultural life and the wisdom so engendered, constitute a medium for organizing, examining, and interpreting an audience's experiences of the images of the present. The tradition is a venerable one.

A Review of African Oral Traditions and Literature

Specialized production and exchange

Land, labour and settlement

Régis Blachère

Papers

Regards Sur L'«Acculturation» Des Arabo-Musulmans Jusque Vers 40/661

Grammaire de l'arabe classique

Grammaire de l'arabe classique : morphologie et syntaxe

Introduction au Coran

Histoire de la littérature arabe : des origines à la fin du XVe siècle de J.-C.